To give colour to your memorial, you refer to the treaty of cession, (in which you were not one of the contracting parties,) concluded at Paris between the governments of the United States and France.
"The third article" you say "of the treaty lately concluded at Paris declares, that the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the mean time, they shall be protected in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the exercise of the religion they profess."
As from your former condition, you cannot be much acquainted with diplomatic policy, and I am convinced that even the gentleman who drew up the memorial is not, I will explain to you the grounds of this article. It may prevent your running into further errors.
The territory of Louisiana had been so often ceded to different European powers, that it became a necessary article on the part of France, and for the security of Spain, the ally of France, and which accorded perfectly with our own principles and intentions, that it should be ceded no more; and this article, stipulating for the incorporation of Louisiana into the union of the United States, stands as a bar against all future cession, and at the same time, as well as "in the mean time" secures to you a civil and political permanency, personal security and liberty which you never enjoyed before.
France and Spain might suspect, (and the suspicion would not have been ill-founded had the cession been treated for in the administration of John Adams, or when Washington was president, and Alexander Hamilton president over him,) that we bought Louisiana for the British government, or with a view of selling it to her; and though such suspicion had no just ground to stand upon with respect to our present president, Thomas Jefferson, who is not only not a man of intrigue but who possesses that honest pride of principle that cannot be intrigued with, and which keeps intriguers at a distance, the article was nevertheless necessary as a precaution against future contingencies. But you, from not knowing the political ground of the article, apply to yourselves personally and exclusively, what had reference to the territory, to prevent its falling into the hands of any foreign power that might endanger the [establishment of] Spanish dominion in America, or those of the French in the West India Islands.
You claim, (you say), to be incorporated into the union of the United States, and your remonstrances on this subject are unjust and without cause.
You are already incorporated into it as fully and effectually as the Americans themselves are, who are settled in Louisiana. You enjoy the same rights, privileges, advantages, and immunities, which they enjoy; and when Louisiana, or some part of it, shall be erected into a constitutional State, you also will be citizens equal with them.
You speak in your memorial, as if you were the only people who were to live in Louisiana, and as if the territory was purchased that you exclusively might govern it. In both these cases you are greatly mistaken. The emigrations from the United States into the purchased territory, and the population arising therefrom, will, in a few years, exceed you in numbers. It is but twenty-six years since Kentucky began to be settled, and it already contains more than double your population.
In a candid view of the case, you ask for what would be injurious to yourselves to receive, and unjust in us to grant. Injurious, because the settlement of Louisiana will go on much faster under the government and guardianship of Congress, then if the government of it were committed to your hands; and consequently, the landed property you possessed as individuals when the treaty was concluded, or have purchased since, will increase so much faster in value.—Unjust to ourselves, because as the reimbursements of the purchase money must come out of the sale of the lands to new settlers, the government of it cannot suddenly go out of the hands of Congress. They are guardians of that property for all the people of the United States. And besides this, as the new settlers will be chiefly from the United States, it would be unjust and ill policy to put them and their property under the jurisdiction of a people whose freedom they had contributed to purchase. You ought also to recollect, that the French Revolution has not exhibited to the world that grand display of principles and rights, that would induce settlers from other countries to put themselves under a French jurisdiction in Louisiana. Beware of intriguers who may push you on from private motives of their own.
You complain of two cases, one of which you have no right, no concern with; and the other is founded in direct injustice.