| Show I iHE ORIGINAL EXPANSIONIST I A correspondent of the New York I Sun says that Alexander Hamilton was the original expansionist that the glory of the Louisiana purchase I I was due to Robert Livingston that Mr Jefferson reluctantly accepted it declaring that the acceptance was IL I violation of the Constitution but that thirteen years before in lTOO September 15th Alexnnd Hamilton I in a letter to Washington communicating communi-cating on the attitude of Spain said I Sho persistently obstructs our sharing I I 1 In the navigation of the Mississippi though It Is a privilege essential to us and to which we consider ourselves us having an Indisputable right In the same letter he sold When wo aro able to make good our protons on we ought not to leave In the possession any foreign power tho ter fvhinH at the mouth of the Mississippi which are to bo 1 regarded thc as key to It Again on January 27 1700 Hamilton wrote to the Secretary War Mc I Henry that Beside eventual security I against Inva sion we ought COI talnly to look to tho ossesslon or the Florithis and Louisiana and wo ought to squint at South AmerIca I It seems from tho foregoing that Hamilton was the first man to take in the idea that I the natural expansion expan-sion of our country required the unobstructed un-obstructed navigation of the Mississippi Missis-sippi and that there was not the least squeamishness on his part about taking any needed precaution to se cure to our commerce an undisputed right of way everywhere In a letter to Harrison Gray Otis dated January 26 1799 ho declared lor have long been in the habit of considering the acquisition of those countries Louis iana and Florida as essential to tho permanence of the Union Indeed Alexander Hamilton seemed In advance ad-vance of all the men alound him In seeing what was needed and in doing and saying the right things always Take away whaj Hamilton did from what was done between 1775 and JS05 and verymuch of the glory of those years would he beobliterated He was a very captalri among men |
