And State Papers 343 



Nation instead of relatively a small and station 

 ary one. 



Of course it was not with the Louisiana Pur 

 chase that our career of expansion began. In the 

 middle of the Revolutionary War the Illinois region, 

 including the present States of Illinois and Indiana, 

 was added to our domain by force of arms, as a 

 sequel to the adventurous expedition of George 

 Rogers Clark and his frontier riflemen. Later the 

 treaties of Jay and Pinckney materially extended 

 our real boundaries to the West. But none of these 

 events was of so striking a character as to fix the 

 popular imagination. The old thirteen colonies had 

 always claimed that their rights stretched westward 

 to the Mississippi, and vague and unreal though 

 these claims were until made good by conquest, set 

 tlement, and diplomacy, they still served to give 

 the impression that the earliest westward move 

 ments of our people were little more than the filling 

 in of already existing national boundaries. 



But there could be no illusion about the acquisi 

 tion of the vast territory beyond the Mississippi, 

 stretching westward to the Pacific, which in that 

 day was known as Louisiana. This immense region 

 was admittedly the territory of a foreign power, 

 of a European kingdom. None of our people had 

 ever laid claim to a foot of it. Its acquisition 

 could in no sense be treated as rounding out any 

 existing claims. When we acquired it we made 

 evident once for all that consciously and of set pur- 



I6-VOL. XIII. 



