Today is the last full day that Clark and Lewis are at the Falls of the Ohio. No doubt they are preparing the boats and the new recruits for their journey down the Ohio to St. Louis.
In Washington City, Samuel Latham Mitchell—Representative from New York and supporter of the Western Expedition to the Pacific—argues to ratify the Louisiana Purchase treaty and conventions. The vote passes.
Spent Candle
© 2011 by Kristopher K. Townsend. Permission to use granted under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The Kaskaskia Question
Representative Samuel Latham Mitchell of New York State brings up cessions of land from Native Nations as an example of the United States’ authority to gain new territory by treaty.
My colleague has declared that the President and Senate have no power to acquire new territory by treaty, and he argues that our people are to be forever confined to their present limits. This is an assertion directly contrary to the powers inherent in independent nations, and contradictory to the frequent and allowed exercise of that power in our nation. We are constantly in the practice of receiving territory by cession from the red men of the West, the aborigines of our country. The very treaty mentioned in the President’s Message with the Kaskaskia Indians, whereby we have acquired a large extent of land, would, according to this doctrine, be unconstitutional; and so would all the treaties which add to the size of our statute book, with the numerous tribes of the natives on our frontiers.
. . . . .
The Indian tribes are as much aliens as any other foreign nations. Their lands are as much foreign dominion as the soil of France or Spain. Yet we have gone on to annex the territories which they sold us, to our present territory, from the time we acquired independence, and no mortal, until this debate arose, Mr. Chairman, has so much thought that thereby a breach of the Constitution was made.
Vote to Ratify Louisiana Treaty
1. Resolved, That provision ought to be made for carrying into effect the treaty and conventions concluded at Paris on the thirtieth of April, one thousand eight hundred and three, between the United States of America and the French Republic.
2. Resolved, That so much of the Message of the President, of the twenty-first instant, as relates to the establishment of a Provisional Government over the Territory acquired by the United States, in virtue of the treaty and conventions lately negotiated with the French Republic, be referred to a select committee; and that they report by bill, or otherwise.
.3. Resolved, That so much of the aforesaid conventions as relates to the payment, by the United States, of sixty millions of francs to the French Republic, and to the payment, by the United States, of the debts due by France to citizens of the United States, be referred to the Committee of Ways and Means.[1]Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 1st sess., 488–89 at “A Century of Lawmaking,” Library of Congress, accessed 11 August 2022, … Continue reading
Louisville Prices
| Item | Price |
|---|---|
| qtr. of beef | 18/3 |
| half barrel of whiskey | 16 dollars |
| pilot | 2 dollars |
| salt and small bowls | 3/4 of a dollar |
| steering hand | 3/4 of dollar |
| gallon of whiskey | 7/6 for common use |
| 2 candlesticks | 7/6 |
| candles | 11/3 |
| saw | 2 ½ dollars |
| carting goods below the falls | 2 dollars |
—Thomas Rodney[2]Compiled from 18 October 1803, Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University … Continue reading
Notes
| ↑1 | Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 1st sess., 488–89 at “A Century of Lawmaking,” Library of Congress, accessed 11 August 2022, https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llac&fileName=013/llac013.db&recNum=241. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Compiled from 18 October 1803, Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick, ed., A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney’s 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 124. Table formatting added. |
Experience the Lewis and Clark Trail
The Lewis and Clark Trail Experience—our sister site at lewisandclark.travel—connects the world to people and places on the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Discover More
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
- The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.
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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).