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114. Petition for Representative Government (1804)

BY INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA

This petition was the work of Edward Livingston, who had removed to New Orleans in 1804. It secured a change in the government of the territory, which was the first step toward the incorporation of Louisiana into the Union and the first announcement of the extension of the Constitution over acquired territory. — Bibliography as in No. 113 above.

WE

7E, the subscribers, planters, merchants, and other inhabitants of Louisiana, respectfully approach the Legislature of the United States with a memorial of our rights, a remonstrance against certain laws which contravene them, and a petition for that redress to which the laws of nature, sanctioned by positive stipulation, have entitled us.

...

Disavowing any language but that of respectful remonstrance, disdaining any other but that which befits a manly assertion of our rights, we pray leave to examine the law for erecting Louisiana into two Territories and providing for the temporary government thereof, to compare its provisions with our rights, and its whole scope with the letter and spirit of the treaty which binds us to the United States.

The first section erects the country south of the thirty-third degree into a Territory of the United States, by the name of the Territory of Orleans.

The second gives us a Governor appointed for three years by the President of the United States.

The fourth vests in him and in a council, also chosen by the President, all Legislative power, subject to the revision of Congress, especially guarding against any interference with public property either by taxation or sale.

And the fifth establishes a Judiciary, to consist of a Supreme Court, having exclusive criminal and original jurisdiction without appeal for all causes above the value of one hundred dollars, and such inferior courts as the Legislature of the Territory may establish. The judges of the superior court are appointed by the President, to continue in office four years.

This is the summary of our constitution; this is so far the accomplishment of a treaty engagement to "incorporate us into the Union, and admit us to all the rights, advantages, and immunities of American citizens." And this is the promise performed, which was made by our first magistrate in your name, that you would receive us as brothers,

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and hasten to extend to us a participation in those invaluable rights which had formed the basis of your unexampled prosperity."

Taxation without representation, an obligation to obey laws without any voice in their formation, the undue influence of the executive upon legislative proceedings, and a dependent judiciary, formed, we believe, very prominent articles in the list of grievances complained of by the United States, at the commencement of their glorious contest for freedom . .

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Are truths, then, so well founded, so universally acknowledged, inapplicable only to us? Do political axioms on the Atlantic become problems when transferred to the shores of the Mississippi?... Where, we ask respectfully, where is the circumstance that is to exclude us from a participation in these rights? . . .

To deprive us of our right of election, we have been represented as too ignorant to exercise it with wisdom, and too turbulent to enjoy it with safety. Sunk in ignorance, effeminated by luxury, debased by oppression, we were, it was said, incapable of appreciating a free constitution, if it were given, or feeling the deprivation, if it were denied.

The sentiments which were excited by this humiliating picture may be imagined, but cannot be expressed, consistent with the respect we owe to your honorable body. .

As to the degree of information diffused through the country, we humbly request that some more correct evidence may be produced than the superficial remarks that have been made by travellers or residents, who neither associate with us nor speak our language. Many of us are native citizens of the United States, who have participated in that kind of knowledge which is there spread among the people; the others generally are men who will not suffer by a comparison with the population of any other colony. . . .

For our love of order and submission to the laws we can confidently appeal to the whole history of our settlement, and particularly to what has lately passed in those dangerous moments when it was uncertain at what point our political vibrations would stop; when national prejudice, personal interest, factious views, and ambitious designs, might be supposed to combine for the interruption of our repose; when, in the frequent changes to which we have been subject, the authority of one nation was weakened before the other had established its power. . . . But let us admit . . . that there is no clause for us in the great charter

of nature, and that we must look for our freedom to another source; yet we are not without a claim; one arising from solemn stipulation, and, according to our ideas, full, obligatory, and unequivocal.

The third article of the treaty lately concluded at Paris, declares that "the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated into the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities, of citizens of the United States, and in the mean time they shall be protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the exercise of the religion they profess.". . .

The inhabitants of the ceded territory are to be "incorporated into the Union of the United States;" these words can in no sense be satisfied by the act in question. A Territory governed in the manner it directs may be a province of the United States, but can by no construction be said to be incorporated into the Union. To be incorporated into the Union must mean to form a part of it; but to every component part of the United States the Constitution has guarantied a republican form of Government, and this, as we have already shown, has no one principle of republicanism in its composition; it is, therefore, not a compliance with the letter of the treaty, and is totally inconsistent with its spirit, which certainly intends some stipulations in our favor. . . . If any doubt, however, could possibly arise on the first member of the sentence, it must vanish by a consideration of the second, which provides for their admission to the rights, privileges, and immunities, of citizens of the United States. But this Government, as we have shown, is totally incompatible with those rights. Without any vote in the election of our Legislature, without any check upon our Executive, without any one incident of self-government, what valuable "privilege" of citizenship is allowed us, what "right" do we enjoy, of what "immunity" can we boast, except, indeed, the degrading exemption from the cares of legislation, and the burden of public affairs? ...

We know not with what view the territory north of the thirty-third degree has been severed from us, and carried with it the distinguishing name which belonged to us, and to which we are attached; the convenience of the inhabitants we humbly apprehend would have been better consulted by preserving the connexion of the whole province until a greater degree of population made a division necessary. If this division should operate so as to prolong our state of political tutelage, on account of any supposed deficiency of numbers, we cannot but consider it as

injurious to our rights, and therefore enumerate it among those points of which we have reason to complain. . . .

There is one subject, however, extremely interesting to us, in which great care has been taken to prevent any interference even by the Governor and Council, selected by the President himself. The African trade is absolutely prohibited, and severe penalties imposed on a traffic free to all the Atlantic States who choose to engage in it, and as far as relates to procuring the subjects of it from other States, permitted even in the Territory of the Mississippi.

It is not our intention to enter into arguments that have become familiar to every reasoner on this question. We only ask the right of deciding it for ourselves, and of being placed in this respect on an equal footing with other States. To the necessity of employing African laborers, which arises from climate, and the species of cultivation pursued in warm latitudes, is added a reason in this country peculiar to itself. The banks raised to restrain the waters of the Mississippi can only be kept in repair by those whose natural constitution and habits of labor enable them to resist the combined effects of a deleterious moisture, and a degree of heat intolerable to whites; this labor is great, it requires many hands, and it is all important to the very existence of our country. If, therefore, this traffic is justifiable anywhere, it is surely in this province, where, unless it is permitted, cultivation must cease, the improvements of a century be destroyed, and the great river resume its empire over our ruined fields and demolished habitations.

Deeply impressed, therefore, with a persuasion that our rights need only be stated to be recognized and allowed; that the highest glory of a free nation is a communication of the blessings of freedom; and that its best reputation is derived from a sacred regard to treaties

...

We, therefore, respectfully pray that so much of the law abovementioned, as provides for the temporary government of this country, as divides it into two Territories, and prohibits the importation of slaves, be repealed.

And that prompt and efficacious measures may be taken to incorporate the inhabitants of Louisiana into the Union of the United States, and admit them to all the rights, privileges, and immunities, of the citizens thereof.

Annals of Congress, 8 Cong., 2 sess. (Gales and Seaton, Washington, 1852), Appendix, 1597-1608 passim.

115. On the Road to Oregon (1805)

BY CAPTAINS MERIWETHER LEWIS AND WILLIAM CLARK

Lewis entered the regular army in 1795. He was in command of this expedition to Oregon, which was not, however, of a strictly military character. Later he was governor of the Missouri territory. Clark was a younger brother of George Rogers Clark, who conquered the West during the Revolutionary War. He resigned from the army in 1807 and devoted his later life chiefly to the Indians, of whom he had an exceptional knowledge. Jefferson's instructions to the party were very comprehensive and they were faithfully carried out. The exploration forged a strong link in our claim to Oregon. The account of the expedition is a compilation from the records kept by the explorers. For memoirs of Lewis and Clark, see Elliott Coues, Lewis and Clark Expedition, I, xv-xcvii. - Bibliography: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, XXII, xvii-xxxiii; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VII, 555-558; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 168.

SAT

ATURDAY 27 [July, 1805]. We proceeded on but slowly, the current being still so rapid as to require the utmost exertions of us all to advance, and the men are losing their strength fast in consequence of their constant efforts. . . . At two and a half miles we reached the centre of a bend towards the south passing a small island, and at one mile and a quarter beyond this reached about nine in the morning the mouth of a river seventy yards wide, which falls in from the southeast. Here the country suddenly opens into extensive and beautiful meadows and plains, surrounded on every side with distant and lofty mountains. Captain Lewis went up this stream for about half a mile, and from the height of a limestone cliff could observe its course about seven miles, and the three forks of the Missouri, of which this river is one. . . . We then left the mouth of the southeast fork, to which in honour of the secretary of the treasury we called Gallatin's river, and at the distance of half a mile reached the confluence of the southwest and middle branch of the Missouris. . . . as we agreed. . . that the direction of the southwest fork gave it a decided preference over the others, we ascended that branch of the river for a mile, and encamped in a level handsome plain on the left: having advanced only seven miles. Sunday, July 28. . . . On examining the two streams it became difficult to decide which was the larger or the real Missouri; they are each ninety yards wide and so perfectly similar in character and appearance that they seem to have been formed in the same mould. We were therefore induced to discontinue the name of Missouri, and gave to the southwest branch the name of Jefferson in honour of the president of

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