mous vote of the States then present-five Southern, three Northern-with the provision forever prohibiting slavery north of the Ohio. Congress passed this ordinance, knowing the importance of the colony. They accepted without hesitation the well-matured plan presented by Manasseh Cutler, the able and accomplished agent of the colonists. The legislation was primarily for this colony, though fitted to be a model for subsequent enactments.

Thus the ordinance of 1787 and the settlement in 1788 are parts of one whole. This connection, and the fact that this was the first permanent occupation of territory owned by the United States, should make the centennial celebration of the settlement of the Northwest Territory, to be held at Marietta, April 7, 1888, an event of national importance.

Abstract of Dr. Mowry's Paper.

William A. Mowry, Ph.D., editor of Education, Boston, Massachusetts, then presented a paper upon the question, "Did the Louisiana Purchase Include Oregon ?" The paper was published in the Magazine of American History, Oct., 1886. The following is an abstract:

The question of the extent of the great province of Louisiana, conveyed to this government by Napoleon in 1803, has been of late much discussed. The most important point in this discussion is whether Oregon was included in that province. Let us briefly examine this question.

I. In the charter of Louisiana, granted by Louis the XIV. to Antoine Crozat, in 1712, the territory was "bounded by New Mexico, and by those of the English in Carolina, the river St. Louis, formerly called the Mississippi, from the seashore to the Illinois, together with the rivers, St. Philip, formerly called the Missouri River, and the St. Jerome, formerly called the Wabash (Ohio), with all the countries, territories, lakes in the land, and the rivers emptying directly or indirectly into that part of the river St. Louis." This description, certainly, by no possible construction of language, could include any thing beyond the headwaters of the Missouri.

France never afterwards claimed for herself beyond the Rocky Mountains.'

2. Spain always claimed that Louisiana was limited by the Rocky Mountains. During all our negotiations with Spain in relation to Florida, and which included a full discussion of our western boundaries, she never admitted for a moment that Louisiana extended west of the mountains.

3. Neither Great Britain nor any of her writers upon the subject ever allowed the claim that Louisiana extended west of the Rocky Mountains.

4. Until after the treaty of Florida, in 1819, our government never held that our title was perfect. Messrs. Gallatin and Rush, 1818, in reporting to their government, stated: "We did not assert that the United States had a perfect right to that country, but insisted that their claim was at least good against Great Britain."" After our purchase of Florida, and settlement of the boundary between our territory and the Spanish provinces as latitude 42°-that is, when we had purchased Florida, given up Texas to Spain, and she had ceded her rights of Oregon to us, then we set up a complete claim to that country. In 1845 Mr. Buchanan asserted that our own American title to the extent of the valley of the Columbia, resting as it does on discovery, exploration, and possession-a possession acknowledged by a most solemn act by Great Britain herself-is a sufficient assurance against all mankind; whilst our superadded title, derived from Spain, extends our exclusive rights over the whole territory in dispute against Great Britain.' This position, expressed by Mr. Secretary Buchanan in his negotiations with the British government in 1845, had been uniformly held by our government from the time of the treaty of Florida. In 1824, Mr. Rush began his negotiations with Great Britain upon this subject, by claiming for his govern

'See State Papers 1817-1818, p. 437. Our Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, says: "The only boundaries ever acknowledged by France before the cession to Spain, in 1762, were those marked out in the grant from Louis XIV. to Crozat."

ment, "in their own right, and as their absolute and exclusive sovereignty and dominion, the whole of the country west of the Rocky Mountains from the 42d to at least as far up as the 51st degree of north longitude." He further said that, "in the opinion of my government, the title of the United States to the whole of that coast, from latitude 42° to as far north as 60°, was superior to that of Britain or any other power: first, through the proper claim of the United States by discovery and settlement; and, secondly, as now standing in the place of Spain, and holding in their hands her title."

5. The opinion that Louisiana did not extend beyond the Rocky Mountains has been almost uniformly held by the leading men of our government. We have already mentioned Mr. Rush, Mr. Gallatin, Mr. John Quincy Adams, and Mr. Buchanan, all of whom conducted at different times negotiations with Great Britain upon the subject. Mr. Jefferson, in a letter written in August, 1803, immediately after the ratification of the treaty of purchase of Louisiana, says: "The boundaries [of Louisiana] which I deem not admitting question are the high lands on the western side of the Mississippi, inclosing all its waters (the Missouri, of course), and terminating in a line drawn from the northwest point of the Lake of the Woods to the nearest source of the Mississippi." Dr. John J. Anderson, the author of a popular series of histories in extensive use among the best schools in this country, in reviewing this subject says: "In March, 1844, Mr. A. V. Brown, from the Committee on Territories, made a report to Congress, covering twenty-four closely printed pages, in which this whole question is thoroughly discussed. In all this long report there is not the first attempt to prove that our right to Oregon came to us through the Louisiana purchase." He further quotes upon this side of the question (1) Henry Clay, (2) Caleb Cushing, and the English authors-(3) Thomas Falconer, (4) Travers Twiss, and (5) John Dunn, as well as presidents' messages, reports of debates in Congress, etc., etc., all of which had been read by him with care. Caleb Cushing made an

' Travers Twiss, p. 206.

elaborate report to Congress from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, upon this subject, in 1839, and wrote several articles for the North American Review, in which he expressly declares the views above given, and enforces them with remarkably cogent reasoning. In his report he says: "And though much controversy sprang up in regard to the southwestern or southeastern limits of Louisiana, yet all this resolved itself at length into a question with Spain, as also did the doubts as to the western limits of Louisiana.” ' About a year ago, in an article in The Nation, of New York, M. Barbé Marbois, the distinguished French writer, and the very man who, as Secretary of the Treasury under Napoleon, negotiated with Livingston and Monroe the Louisiana. treaty, is quoted as sustaining the opposite view. Let us see. Marbois, in his excellent and elaborate history of Louisiana, says (p. 286): “The shores of the western ocean were certainly not included in the cession, but the United States are already established there." This book was first published in 1829. The reader at all curious upon the question is also respectfully referred to articles in The Nation, for March 15, March 22, March 29, and April 12, 1883.

It would, therefore, seem tolerably clear that the western boundary of the Louisiana Purchase was the dividing line of the Rocky Mountains.

Abstract of Mr. Eben Greenough Scott's Paper.

"The Settlement of the Lower St. Lawrence" was the subject of an interesting historical paper read by Eben Greenough Scott, Esq., of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Mr. Scott said that the Supreme Court of the United States has judicially ascertained and asserted the fact, that the seven years' war" terminated in the conquest by Great Britain of the whole country east of the Mississippi." But of the moral forces that brought about such a result and transferred resistance to the cabinet, the court, of course, could 1 Document No. 101, House of Representatives, 25th Congress, 3d session,

take no cognizance; and, indeed, they did not come into play until after the conquest. Down to that event the French-Canadians could hardly be said to exist; but from it they ceased being the French in Canada, and took upon themselves the character of American French-Canadians. Drawing the distinction between the Anglican and Gallican natives of a colony, the social shortcomings of the French were pointed out by the speaker. The structure of society was represented as one-sided; it had but two classes, and the other constituents necessary to social and political development were wanting. The impulses of French colonial life were not multiform, and their action was marked by irregularity. There were few in the field, and many in the woods; this brought about the division of habitats and voyageurs. The few were stable and productive; the many non-productive, consuming, and wandering. Such a community might harbor institutions, but it planted few, and developed none. If such were the constitution of society outside the walls, the character of that within them was even less institutional; it was military and clerical, and, in fact, for a century and a quarter the history of Canada was written in the Orders of the Day, and the Relations des Jésuites. The rigor of the climate, the interrupted communication with the mother country, the uninviting character of the soil, the great disparity between the sexes and the military constitution of the population were all adverse to rapid increase. But, besides these, it was not the interest of the government to have a population greater than the needs of military occupation required. The lower St. Lawrence valley was of chief value to France as a highway to the valley of the Mississippi, and the fear of numbers that might create a spirit of independence deterred the mother country from fostering a great population. Colonial development, moreover, was repressed by the kindred burdens of monopolies and seignorial tenures. The former restrict commercial expansion, and the latter agriculture. Thus the French settler had nothing to tempt him to leave home. He found the same burdens awaiting him in Canada that he