LIBERTY
It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can
never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that,
too, of the people with a certain degree of instruction. That is the
business of the state to effect, and on a general plan. |
George
Washington
4 Jan 1786 |
LIBERTY
Liberty... is the great parent of science and
of virtue; and... a nation will be great in both always in
proportion as it is free. |
Joseph
Willard
1789 |
LIBRARY
/ DONATED TO CONGRESS
…I presume it will be among the early
objects of Congress to re-commence their collection. This will be
difficult while the war continues, and intercourse with Europe is
attended with so much risk. You know my collection, its condition
and extent. I have been fifty years making it, and have spared no
pains, opportunity or expense, to make it what it is. While residing
in Paris, I devoted every afternoon I was disengaged, for a summer
or two, in examining all the principal bookstores, turning over
every book with my own hand, and putting by everything which related
to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every
science. Besides this, I had standing orders during the whole time I
was in Europe, on its principal book-marts, particularly Amsterdam,
Frankfort, Madrid and London, for such works relating to America as
could not be found in Paris. So that in that department
particularly, such a collection was made as probably can never again
be effected, because it is hardly probable that the same
opportunities, the same time, industry, perseverance and expense,
with some knowledge of the bibliography of the subject, would again
happen to be in concurrence. During the same period, and after my
return to America, I was led to procure, also, whatever related to
the duties of those in the high concerns of the nation. So that the
collection, which I suppose is of between nine and ten thousand
volumes, while it includes what is chiefly valuable in science and
literature generally, extends more particularly to whatever belongs
to the American statesman. In the diplomatic and parliamentary
branches, it is particularly full. It is long since I have been
sensible it ought not to continue private property, and had provided
that at my death, Congress should have the refusal of it at their
own price. But the loss they have now incurred, makes the present
the proper moment for their accommodation, without regard to the
small remnant of time and the barren use of my enjoying it. I ask of
your friendship, therefore, to make for me the tender of it to the
library committee of Congress, not knowing myself of whom the
committee consists. I enclose you the catalogue, which will enable
them to judge of its contents. Nearly the whole are well bound,
abundance of them elegantly, and of the choicest editions existing.
They may be valued by persons named by themselves, and the payment
made convenient to the public. It may be, for instance, in such
annual installments as the law of Congress has left at their
disposal, or in stock of any of their late loans, or of any loan
they may institute at this session, so as to spare the present calls
of our country, and await its days of peace and prosperity. They may
enter, nevertheless, into immediate use of it, as eighteen or twenty
wagons would place it in Washington in a single trip of a fortnight.
I should be willing, indeed, to retain a few of the books, to amuse
the time I have yet to pass, which might be valued with the rest,
but not included in the sum of valuation until they should be
restored at my death, which I would carefully provide for, so that
the whole library as it stands in the catalogue at this moment
should be theirs without any garbling. Those I should like to retain
would be chiefly classical and mathematical. Some few in other
branches, and particularly one of the five encyclopedias in the
catalogue. But this, if not acceptable, would not be urged. I must
add that I have not revised the library since I came home to live,
so that it is probable some of the books may be missing, except in
the chapters of Law and Divinity, which have been revised and stand
exactly as in the catalogue. The return of the catalogue will of
course be needed, whether the tender be accepted or not. I do not
know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would
wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject
to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer. But
such a wish would not correspond with my views of preventing its
dismemberment. My desire is either to place it in their hands
entire, or to preserve it so here. I am engaged in making an
alphabetical index of the authors' names, to be annexed to the
catalogue, which I will forward to you as soon as completed. Any
agreement you shall be so good as to take the trouble of entering
into with the committee, I hereby confirm. |
Samuel
Harrison Smith
21 Sep 1814 |
LOUISIANA
AND THE FLORIDAS
The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by
Spain to France, works most sorely on the United States. …
There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is
our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the
produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market, and
from its fertility it will ere long yield more than half of our
whole produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants. …The
day that France takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence
which is to restrain her forever within her low-watermark. It seals
the union of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain
exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment, we must marry
ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We must turn all our
attention to a maritime force, for which our resources place us on
very high ground; and having formed and connected together a power
which may render reinforcement of her settlements here impossible to
France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the
signal for the tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for
holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the
common purposes of the United British and American nations.
This is not a state of things we seek or desire. It is one which
this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us as necessarily, as
any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary
effect. It is not from a fear of France that we deprecate this
measure proposed by her. For however greater her force is than ours,
compared in the abstract, it is nothing in comparison of ours, when
to be exerted on our soil. But it is from a sincere love of peace,
and a firm persuasion, that bound to France by the interests and the
strong sympathies still existing in the minds of our citizens, and
holding relative positions which insure their continuance, we are
secure of a long course of peace. Whereas, the change of friends,
which will be rendered necessary if France changes that position,
embarks us necessarily as a belligerent power in the first war of
Europe. In that case, France will have held possession of New
Orleans during the interval of a peace, long or short, at the end of
which it will be wrested from her. Will this short-lived possession
have been an equivalent to her for the transfer of such a weight
into the scale of her enemy? Will not the amalgamation of a young,
thriving nation, continue to that enemy the health and force which
are at present so evidently on the decline? And will a few years'
possession of New Orleans add equally to the strength of France? She
may say she needs Louisiana for the supply of her West Indies. She
does not need it in time of peace, and in war she could not depend
on them, because they would be so easily intercepted. I should
suppose that all these considerations might, in some proper form, be
brought into view of the government of France. Though stated by us,
it ought not to give offence; because we do not bring them forward
as a menace, but as consequences not controllable by us, but
inevitable from the course of things. We mention them, not as things
which we desire by any means, but as things we deprecate; and we
beseech a friend to look forward and to prevent them for our common
interest.
If France considers Louisiana, however, as
indispensable for her views, she might perhaps be willing to look
about for arrangements which might reconcile it to our interests. If
anything could do this, it would be the ceding to us the island of
New Orleans and the Floridas. This would certainly, in a great
degree, remove the causes of jarring and irritation between us, and
perhaps for such a length of time, as might produce other means of
making the measure permanently conciliatory to our interests and
friendships. It would, at any rate, relieve us from the necessity of
taking immediate measures for countervailing such an operation by
arrangements in another quarter. But still we should consider New
Qrleans and the Floridas as no equivalent for the risk of a quarrel
with France, produced by her vicinage. |
Robert
E. Livingston
(U.S. Minister to France)
18 Apr 1802 |
LOUISIANA
PURCHASE
I accept with pleasure, and with pleasure
reciprocate your congratulations on the acquisition of Louisiana;
for it is a subject of mutual congratulation, as it interests every
man of the nation. The territory acquired, as it includes all the
waters of the Missouri and Mississippi, has more than doubled the
area of the United States, and the new part is not inferior to the
old in soil, climate, productions and important communications. If
our Legislature dispose of it with the wisdom we have a right to
expect, they may make it the means of tempting all our Indians on
the east side of the Mississippi to remove to the west, and of
condensing instead of scattering our population. |
Horatio
Gates
(General)
11 Jul 1803 |
LOUISIANA
TERRITORY
While we were preparing such modifications of
the propositions of your letter of October the 4th as we could
assent to, an event happened which obliged us to adopt measures of
urgency. The suspension of the right of deposit at New Orleans,
ceded to us by our treaty with Spain … showed the necessity of
making effectual arrangements to secure the peace of the two
countries against the indiscreet acts of subordinate agents. For the
occlusion of the Mississippi is a state of things in which we cannot
exist. …Our circumstances are so imperious as to admit of no
delay as to our course; and the use of the Mississippi so
indispensable, that we cannot hesitate one moment to hazard our
existence for its maintenance. If we fail in this effort to put it
beyond the reach of accident, we see the destinies we have to run,
and prepare at once for them. Not but that we shall still endeavor
to go on in peace and friendship with our neighbors as long as we
can, if our rights of navigation and deposit are respected;
but as we foresee that the caprices of the local officers, and the
abuse of those rights by our boatmen and navigators, which neither
government can prevent, will keep up a state of irritation which
cannot long be kept inactive, we should be criminally improvident
not to take at once eventual measures for strengthening ourselves
for the contest. It may be said, if this object be so all-important
to us, why do we not offer such a sum so as to insure its purchase?
The answer is simple. We are an agricultural people, poor in money,
and owing great debts. These will be falling due by instalments for
fifteen years to come, and require from us the practice of a
rigorous economy to accomplish their payment; and it is our
principle to pay to a moment whatever we have engaged, and never to
engage what we cannot, and mean not faithfully to pay. We have
calculated our resources, and find the sum to be moderate which they
would enable us to pay, and we know from late trials that little can
be added to it by borrowing. The country, too, which we wish to
purchase, except the portion already granted, and which must be
confirmed to the private holders, is a barren sand, six hundred
miles from east to west, and from thirty to forty and fifty miles
from north to south, formed by deposition of the sands by the Gulf
Stream in its circular course round the Mexican Gulf, and which
being spent after performing a semicircle, has made from its last
depositions the sand bank of East Florida. In West Florida, indeed,
there are on the borders of the rivers some rich bottoms, formed by
the mud brought from the upper country. These bottoms are all
possessed by individuals. But the spaces between river and river are
mere banks of sand; and in East Florida there are neither rivers,
nor consequently any bottoms. We cannot then make anything by a sale
of the lands to individuals. So that it is peace alone which makes
it an object with us, and which ought to make the cession of it
desirable to France. |
Pierre
Samuel Dupont de Nemours
1 Feb 1803 |
LOUISIANA
TERRITORY
I very early saw that Louisiana was indeed a
speck in our horizon which was to burst in a tornado . . . The denouement
has been happy; and I confess I look to this duplication of area for
the extending a government so free and economical as ours, as a
great achievement to the mass of happiness which is to ensue.
Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and
Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the
happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be
as much our children and descendants as those of the eastern, and I
feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as
with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day,
yet I should feel the duty and the desire to promote the western
interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both
portions of our future family which should fall within my power.
|
Joseph
Priestley
29 Jan 1804 |
|
