5301. MISSISSIPPI RIVER NAVIGATION, Western people and.—[further continued] .
The navigation of the
Mississippi is necessary to us. More than half
the territory of the United States is on the
waters of that river. Two hundred thousand
of our citizens are settled on them, of whom
forty thousand bear arms. These have no other
outlet for their tobacco, rice, corn, hemp, lumber,
house timber, ship timber. We have hitherto
respected the indecision of Spain, because
we wish peace;—because our western citizens
have had vent at home for their productions.
A surplus of production begins now to demand
foreign markets. Whenever they shall say,
“We cannot, we will not, be longer shut up”,
the United States will be reduced to the following
dilemma: 1. To force them to acquiescence.
2. To separate from them, rather than take part
in a war against Spain. 3. Or to preserve them
in our Union, by joining them in the war. The
1st is neither in our principles, nor in our
power. 2. A multitude of reasons decide
against the second. It may suffice to speak
but one: were we to give up half our territory
rather than engage in a just war to preserve
it, we should not keep the other half long.
The third is the alternative we must adopt.—
Instructions to William Carmichael. Washington ed. ix, 412.
Ford ed., v, 225.
(1790)
See Louisiana and New Orleans.
