[75] See ante, under date of December 22.
[76] All the steps and proceedings which led to the acquisition of Louisiana (and the same occurred in the acquisition of Florida) are given in full, that it may be seen that this important negotiation, which was to involve an appropriation of money, had its foundation laid in the authority of the proper appropriating power—the House of Representatives; to which the purse-strings of the Union were specially confided.
[77] Above forty years afterwards, to wit, in 1846, the Virginia part of the District was retroceded to that State.