5298. MISSISSIPPI RIVER NAVIGATION, Western people and.—[further continued].
I never had any interest
westward of the Alleghany; and I never will
have any. But I have had great opportunities
of knowing the character of the people who inhabit
that country; and I will venture to say,
that the act which abandons the navigation of
the Mississippi is an act of separation between
the eastern and western country. It is a relinquishment
of five parts out of eight of the
territory of the United States; an abandonment
of the fairest subject for the payment of our
public debts, and the chaining those debts on
our necks, in perpetuum.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. ii, 105.
Ford ed., iv, 363.
(P.
1787)
