TIIH NUUTIIWKSTKUN IJOUNDAUY - LINK. '20o 



^\']\o\]y iiia])])lioHblo to iiution.s, wliicli, if thoy oan not 

 agree mid ^vill not arbitrate, have no re.sourco left 

 save wai*. 



But this was not the only consideration -wliich in- 

 duced tlic Senate to refuse its assent to tliat treaty. 

 TLero were objections to tlie/cr//i of submission. 



IHSTOliY or TllF. CiUKSTlON. 



The controversy to uliicli tliesc treaties refer is one 

 of tlie leavings of the last war between the UniU'il 

 States and Great i^ritain, and l»as its roots far back in 

 the circumstances of the i)rimitive colonization of 

 North America by Europeans. 



When the K' igs of tlic little island of Britain, in 

 virtue of some of their sul)jects having coasted along 

 a part of the Atlantic shores of America, assumed to 

 concede to the Colonies of Massachusetts and Virginia 

 grants of tei-ritory extending by parallels of latitude 

 westwai'd to the Pacific Ocean, and covering the un- 

 explored inunensity of the Continent, and on tlie prem- 

 ises of sovereignty and jurisdiction as good as their 

 title to the manor of East Greenwich in Kent, — it 

 was only men's universal ignorance of geography 

 which saved the act from the imputation of wikl ex- 

 travagance. 



But such grants, and the pretensions on wliich they 

 were founded, were the logical consequence of the 

 theories of colonization and conquest' pursued in the 

 New World by S])ain, Portugal, and France, as Avell 

 as England, and formed the basis of the power of; 

 Great Britain in North America, and eventually of 



