But responsibility for the supreme act, the addition of
foreign territory to the national domain, must be assumed solely by
the Administration. Perhaps no action, until the decision to prevent
certain States from leaving the Union, contributed so much to the
central authority as the purchase of the Louisiana country by the
Jeffersonians. If the decision had been negative, if conscientious
scruples had been allowed to prevail, one hesitates to predict what
would have been the fate of this "pent-up Utica." For forty years the
ownership of Louisiana had been shifting and uncertain. For twenty
years its possession had been a matter of scheming and intrigue by
both Great Britain and France. Permanently in the hand of any foreign
power, it would have completely blocked the path of progress. To possess
one-half the drainage basin of the valley would have led to constant
conflict with the owners of the other half. The insularity upon which
the United States has depended so largely, the freedom from annoying
neighbours, room for the westward expansion of the people, the
unification of the Mississippi valley--all would have been lost if the
original strict-construction theory had prevailed.
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