"Florida, also, whensoever it may be rightfully
obtained, shall become a part of the United States.
Its white inhabitants shall thereupon become
citizens, and shall stand, as to their rights and
obligations, on the same footing with other citizens
of the United States in analogous situations."
Ford's Writings of Jefferson, vol. 8, p. 241.

 It is strenuously insisted that Mr. Jefferson's
conviction on the subject of the repugnancy of the
treaty to the Constitution was based alone upon
the fact that he thought the treaty exceeded the
limits of the Constitution, because he deemed that
it provided for the admission, according to the
Constitution, of the acquired territory as a new state
or states into the Union, and hence, for the
purpose of conferring this power, he drafted the
amendment. The contention is refuted by two
considerations: The first, because the two forms of
amendment which Mr. Jefferson prepared did not
purport to confer any power upon Congress to
admit new states; and, second, they absolutely
forbade Congress from admitting a new state out of
a described part of the territory without a further
amendment to the Constitution. It cannot be
conceived that Mr. Jefferson would have drafted an
amendment to cure a defect which he thought
existed, and yet say nothing in the amendment on
the subject of such defect. And, moreover, it
cannot be conceived that he drafted an
amendment to confer a power he supposed to be
wanting under the Constitution, and thus ratify the
treaty, and yet in the very amendment withhold in
express terms, as to a part of the ceded territory,
the authority which it was the purpose of the
amendment to confer.

 I excerpt in the margin two letters from Mr.
 Jefferson, one written under date of July 7, 1803,
 to William Dunbar, and the other dated September
 7, 1803, to Wilson Cary Nicholas, which show
 clearly the difficulties which were in the mind of Mr.
 Jefferson, and which remove all doubt concerning
 the meaning of the amendment which he wrote and
 the adoption of which he deemed necessary to
 cure any supposed want of power concerning the
 treaty would be provided for.

 These letters show that Mr. Jefferson bore in
 mind the fact that the Constitution in express terms
 delegated to Congress the power to admit new
 states, and therefore no further authority on this
 subject was required. But he thought this power in
 Congress was confined to the area embraced


within the limits of the United States, as existing at
the adoption of the Constitution. To fulfil the
stipulations of the treaty so as to cause the ceded
territory to become a part of the United States, Mr.
Jefferson deemed an amendment to the
Constitution to be essential. For this reason the
amendment which he formulated declared that the
territory ceded was to be "a part of the United
States, and its white inhabitants shall be citizens,
and stand, as to their rights and obligations, on the
same footing with other citizens of the United
States in analogous situations." What these words
meant is not open to doubt when it is observed that
they were but the paraphrase of the following
words, which were contained in the first proposed
amendment which Mr. Jefferson wrote: "Vesting
the inhabitants thereof with all rights possessed
by other territorial citizens of the United
States,"-which clearly show that it was the want of
power to incorporate the ceded country into the
United States as a territory which was in Mr.
Jefferson's mind, and to accomplish which result he
thought an amendment to the Constitution was
required. This provision of the amendment applied
to all of the territory ceded, and therefore brought it
all into the United States, and hence placed it in a
position where the power of Congress to admit new
states would have attached to it. As Mr. Jefferson
deemed that every requirement of the treaty would
be fulfilled by incorporation, and that it would be
unwise to form a new state out of the upper part of
the new territory, after thus providing for the
complete execution of the treaty by incorporation
of all the territory into the United States, he inserted
a provision forbidding Congress from admitting a
new state out of a part of the territory.

 With the debates which took place on the
 subject of the treaty I need not particularly concern
 myself. Some shared Mr. Jefferson's doubts as to
 the right of the treaty-making power to incorporate
 the territory into the United States without an
 amendment of the Constitution; others deemed
 that the provision of the treaty was but a promise
 that Congress would ultimately incorporate as a
 territory, and, until by the action of Congress this
 latter result was brought about, full power of
 legislation to govern as deemed best was vested in
 Congress. This latter view prevailed. Mr. Jefferson's
 proposed amendment to the Constitution,
 therefore, was never adopted by Congress, and
 hence was never submitted to the people.