So far from consenting to punish Jackson, the
United States demanded the punishment of those Spanish officials who had
so flagrantly violated the obligations of the Treaty of 1795. "Spain
must immediately make her election either to place a force in Florida at
once adequate for the protection of her territory and to the fulfillment
of her engagements, or cede to the United States a province of which she
retains nothing but the nominal possession." This latter alternative,
indeed, the Administration never lost from view.

Confronted by the revolt of all her American colonies, Spain could
hardly resist this insistent pressure upon a province which she could
neither govern nor defend. On February 22, 1819, Don Onis set his hand
to a treaty which ceded the Floridas in return for the assumption by the
United States of claims of American citizens against her to an amount
not exceeding $5,000,000. The treaty contained also a definition of the
boundary between Spanish and American possessions on the North American
continent. Beginning at the mouth of the Sabine River, the line ran
along that river to the thirty-second parallel; thence due north to the
Red River, which it followed to the hundredth meridian; thence north to
the Arkansas and along that river to its source; thence to the
forty-second parallel, which it followed to the Pacific. As the United
States renounced all claims to the west and south of this boundary, so
Spain surrendered whatever shadowy title she had to the Northwest.

The ratification of the Florida Treaty was delayed by the attempt of the
Spanish Crown to grant extensive tracts to certain grandees, and by the
vigorous opposition of Henry Clay in the House of Representatives. The
treaty seemed to him a bad bargain. "What do we get?" he cried. "We get
Florida loaded and encumbered with land grants which leave scarcely a
foot of soil for the United States. What do we give? We give Texas free
and unencumbered, and we surrender all our claims on Spain for damages
not included in that five millions of dollars." He challenged the right
of the President and Senate to alienate territory without the consent of
the House. Behind Clay's opposition lay some personal pique against the
President and his Secretary of State; but he voiced, nevertheless, the
spirit of the Southwest, which already looked toward Texas as a possible
field of expansion and resented its surrender.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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