But  the  moment  the  peace  of  1783  extended  the  Western  boundary  of  the
United  States  to  that  river,  the  men  of  the  day  began  to  turn  their  attention  to
this  great  acquisition.  They  had  gone  through  the  Revolution,  under  certain  Ar-
ticles of  Confederation,  intended  mainly  for  military  purposes,  and  which  had
worked  badly  enough  even  in  that  respect.  Their  affairs  were  managed  by  a
Federal  Congress,  in  which  each  State  had  a  vote.  An  ordinance  was  intro-
duced into  that  body  by  Mr.  JEFFEJISON,  in  1784,  for  the  government  of  a  por-
tion of  the  territory  beyond  the  mountains,  but  it  was  wholly  silent  on  the
subject  of  commerce  or  navigation.
And  now  the  Mississippi  is  first  seen,  dimly  foreshadowing  its  future  pow-
er as  a  great  element  of  American  unity.  Some  of  our  statesmen  caught


6

glimpses  not  only  of  its  geographical  extent,  and  the  wide-spread  develop,
ment  of  its  valley,  but  also  of  its  vital  political  importance,  as  a  great  seat  of
empire  and  perpetual  bond  of  National  Union.  But  a  stream  possessing  such
power  and  attributes  was  a  new  fact  in  the  history  of  human  civilization.  In
Asia,  the  eagle  eye  of  ALEXANDER  the  Great  may  have  seen  something  a  little
like  it  in  the  Indus,  but  Western  Europe  afforded  no  example.  Its  scanty
and  ragged  peninsulas  projecting  into  the  Atlantic  from  the  Eastern  Conti-
nent, could  hold  no  such  basin.  The  two  small  British  Islands  dismembered
from  that  Continent,  furnished  us  language  and  laws,  but  no  idea  of  a  river.
