37S THE GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES 



After eighteen years of internal development, with a single 

 international episode, Florida was acquired (in 1821), adding 

 59,268 square miles of territory and nearly 1,500 miles of coast 

 line; and such further impetus was given to enterprise that the 

 more southerly Americans soon found their territory too narrow 

 and pushed beyond the border. A consequence of this over- 

 flow was the separation of Texas from Mexico, followed in 1845 

 by the annexation of this empire of 376,163 square miles, with 

 500 miles of coast line; another consequence was the treaty of 

 Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, bringing in California and adja- 

 cent territoiy amounting to 545,753 square miles and adding 

 another 1,000 miles to the coast; and a less direct consequence 

 was the Gadsden purchase in 1853 of 44,641 square miles, round- 

 ing out the home territory to its present area of 3,025,600 square 

 miles, with some 5,500 miles of open coast. 



This career of territorial expansion in the half century from 

 Louisiana purchase to Gadsden purchase forms the most strik- 

 ing chapter in national development afforded by the history of 

 the world. In the first place, the actual expansion in territory 

 and coast line was almost unparalleled ; the area was nearly 

 quadrupled and the coast line more than tripled. In the second 

 place, the greater part of the acquisition was amicable, coming- 

 in part as a voluntary offering, while in no case did armed force 

 play more than an incidental role ; there was no conquest in the 

 sense in which the term is used in other countries. In the third 

 place, the expansion was beyond precedent in the completeness 

 and promptness with which the new territory was utilized and 

 the new conditions assimilated ; with each areal addition na- 

 tional enterprise merely found a curb removed and sprang spon- 

 taneously to meet the new tasks and new problems presented 

 by the new territory ; and the energies of the people, withheld 

 from martial conquest by moral sense, turned with unprece- 

 dented vigor to the conquest of nature, to the conversion of 

 natural forces for human weal. Finally, the effect of the ex- 

 pansion on national character — foreshadowed by the advance of 

 1803 — was beyond all parallel ; for enterprise interacted with 

 enterprise, and brought forth an individual and collective activ- 

 ity among the mass of citizens such as the world had not seen 

 before. 



After 1853 the nation rested from expansion for fourteen years, 

 of which four were devoted to the solution of grave internal prob- 

 lems ; then (in 1867) a bargain-counter acquisition, giving little 



