Yet, neither Jefferson nor General Jackson were entirely satisfied with the treaty. General Jackson yielded his objections, but Mr. Jefferson could not bear to see the surrender of any portion of the territory which he had acquired. In 1803, when propositions had been made to exchange a portion of Louisiana for Florida, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Breckinridge : "Objections are raising to the eastward to the vast extent of our boundaries, and propositions are made to exchange Louisiana, or a part of it, for the Floridas; but as I have said, we shall get the Floridas without, and I would not give one inch of the waters of the Mississippi to any foreign nation. " He still retained in 1819 the sentiments which he expressed in 1803.
Thomas H. Benton, afterward the famous senator from Missouri, was at that time engaged in the practice of law at St. Louis. During the period which intervened between the execution of the treaty in 1819 and its final ratification in 1821, Mr. Benton attacked the authors of the treaty in newspaper publications, and especially blamed Mr. Adams for yielding Texas to Spain. In his luminous work, "Thirty Years in the United States Senate" written many years afterward, he makes the "honorable amend" to Mr. Adams, and gives a lucid explanation of the whole matter. (Benton s Thirty Years, vol. i, p. 14, et seq.) Mr. Monroe and his cabinet found a deep-seated repugnance still existing in the Northeast to the southward and westward extension of territory. The people of that section looked on territorial extension as a Southern conspiracy to destroy the balance of power between the States, and to deprive the Northeast of its legitimate share in the control of the country. There were, apparently, strong reasons for this apprehension, and up to 1820 the effect had certainly been to give the South a preponderating influence. The condition of the European powers which held American territory, as well as the geographical features of America, had rendered
