Page 162 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

American Naval Power. 143 ;

It was therefore the natural and proper aim
of the government of that day to abolish the
sources of difficulty, by bringing all the terri-
tory in question under our own control, if
it could be done by fair means. We conse-
quently entered upon a course of action pre-
cisely such as a European continental state
would have followed under like circumstances.
In order to get possession of the territory
in which our interests were involved, we
bargained and manoeuvred and threatened
and although Jefferson's methods were peace-
ful enough, few will be inclined to claim that
they were marked by excess of scrupulousness,
or even of adherence to his own political con-
victions. From the highly moral standpoint,
the acquisition of Louisiana under the actual
conditions— being the purchase from a gov-
ernment which had no right to sell, in defiance
of the remonstrance addressed to us by the
power who had ceded the territory upon the
express condition that it should not so be
sold, but which was too weak to enforce its
just reclamation against both Napoleon and
ourselves — reduces itself pretty much to a
choice between overreaching and violence, as