en, Jefferson intended to make a
State out of Idaho, his act in acquiring that part of the Louisiana
Purchase was all right. Otherwise he violated the Constitution he had
helped to make and sworn to uphold. And yet, poor man, he hardly knew
of the existence of that part of the territory, and certainly never
dreamed that it would ever become a State, any more than Daniel Webster
dreamed, to quote his own language in the Senate, that "California
would ever be worth a dollar." Is Gouverneur Morris to be arraigned as
false to the Constitution he helped to frame because he wanted to
acquire Louisiana and Canada, and keep them both out of the Union? Did
Mr. Seward betray the Constitution and violate his oath in buying
Alaska without the purpose of making it a State? It seems--let it be
said with all respect--that we have reached the reductio ad absurdum,
and that the constitutional argument in any of its phases need not be
further pursued.

[Sidenote: The Little Americans.]

If I have wearied you with these detailed proofs of a doctrine which
Mr. Justice Morrow rightly says is now well established, and these
replies to its assailants, the apology must be found in the persistence
with which the utter lack of constitutional power to deal with our new
possessions has been vociferously urged from the outset by the large
class of our people whom I venture to designate as the Little
Americans, using that term not in the least in disparagement, but
solely as distinctive and convenient. From the beginning of the
century, at every epoch in our history we have had these Little
Americans. They opposed Jefferson as to getting Louisiana. They opposed
Monroe as to Florida. They were vehement against Texas, against
California, against organizing Oregon and Washington, against the
Gadsden Purchase, against Alaska, and against the Sandwich Islands. At
nearly every stage in that long story of expansion the Little Americans
have either denied the constitutional authority to acquire and govern,
or denounced the acquisitions as worthless and dangerous. At one stage,
indeed, they went further. When State after State was passing
ordinances of secession, they raised the cry,--erroneously attributed
to my distinguished predecessor and friend, Horace Greeley, but really
uttered by Winfield Scott,--"Wayward Sisters, depart in peace!"
Happily, this form, too, of Little Americanism failed. We are all glad
now,--my distinguished classmate here,[7] who w