ORIGINAL TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES 89 



tion gave rise to one of the most thrilling controversies in the 

 history of our country, now almost forgotten, but fraught with 

 momentous consequences to the future of the American people. 

 Franklin had foreseen the issue when he said to Jay, " Poor as 

 we are, yet, as I know we shall be rich, I would rather buy at 

 a great price their right on the Mississippi than sell a drop of 

 its waters. A neighbor might as well ask me to sell my street 

 door." 



Soon after his retirement from the army, Washington made 

 a tour into the western country, which he had known so well in 

 his early days and whose wealth and value he justly appreciated. 

 His purpose was to ascertain by what means it could be most 

 effectually bound to the Union. The population of that rich 

 and fertile region, a bold and adventurous class, separated by 

 the remoteness of their position from connection with the east- 

 ern states, with little respect for the feeble rule of Congress, in 

 which they had no representation, already showed signs of es- 

 trangement and independence. So rich a soil, such luxuriant 

 vegetation, had never belonged hitherto to any branch of the 

 English-speaking race. Plains capable without cultivation of 

 supporting millions of cattle, fields golden with heavy harvests 

 in response to the minimum expenditure of toil, rivers affording 

 great natural highways for the movement of their agricultural 

 productions needed only an adequate market to render the great 

 Northwest the richest portion of the globe. The Atlantic states 

 knew little of this vast region or its untold resources. They 

 looked upon it chiefly as a means for paying the federal debts 

 by the sale of public lands, and did not realize its political sig- 

 nificance until their indifference and the inefficiency of the gov- 

 ernment had almost lost it to the Union. 



Washington, whose large practical intelligence was so quick 

 to discern great issues, saw the impending danger. Returning 

 from his western journey, he recommended the appointment of 

 a commission to make a survey ascertaining the means of nat- 

 ural water communication between Lake Erie and the tidewaters 

 of Virginia. His project was to open all the possible avenues 

 between the western territory and the Atlantic, thinking thus to 

 identify the interests of the two sections, to offer to the West 

 participation in the advantages of the sea and to enrich the East 

 by making it the emporium of the western productions. But 

 the shrewd frontiersmen who had taken up the western lands saw 

 another avenue to the sea and another way to market. It was 



