Territories Quotes
While not generally known, the Articles of Confederation contemplated the strong possibility that Canada would become part of the United States. However, there was too strong a Tory element in Canada and it did not happen. The Constitution was not drafted until 1787 and was ratified later. In the interim the young United States functioned under the Articles of Confederation, in a sense, our first Constitution.
They were corresponding about the anti-Chinese movement in America and the attempt to exclude Chinese from immigration to the United States and ethnically cleanse the country.
Giovanni Battista Cibo. This quotation is one of the proofs that the Inquisition was not a rogue group of zealots but represented the mainstream of the Catholic Church of the time. Note the tone whereby having a zealous inquisition is perceived almost as a “right” of which no community ought be deprived.
The French demand for land The French had demanded that the new Dutch Republic pay them an indemnity of 100 million florins to pay for the army expenses and that the Dutch cede France some territory at near the border and some of the Dutch Islands. The French had sent a small army to help the Dutch Revolution. The Dutch were ethically and morally outraged and sent this resolution on to France who were very surprised that their weak ally would even protest to them. The result was that the French compromised in the land and limited it to Maastricht, Venlo and Flanders and money.
Some whites opposed Slavery and new slave states, not becasue of any sympathy with Negroes or concern for the immorality of slavery, but becasue slavery made it difficult for the working white man to thrive.
This law governed the territories outside of the original 13 colonies. This is the first chance that Congress had to legislate on religious freedom, and they guaranteed that there would be no territory that would be founded by or unilaterally controlled by any particular religion at the expense of the religious freedom of other people.
De Gaulle, after the humiliation of France in WWII, tried to reestablish the French overseas Empire at a time when colonialism was on its way out and even the United States under Franklin Delano Roosevelt favored independence for Indochina. De Gaulle’s insistence on reestablishing control of Indochina led to the Vietnamese quest for independence and the Vietnam War.
Southerners from the slave states wanted California to be admitted to the Union as a slave state. But a large majority of Californians saw that as a terrible alternative. It was argued that the Southern states would never vote to admit California if it were a free state (see {613404}) and in order to make it clear to the South that admission as a slave state was out of the question, this clause was passed at the Constitutional Convention.
Alaska was then a territory and not yet a state. See {637486} for Eleanor Roosevelt’s then contemporaneous statement on statehood.
Some of the Patriots of Early America realized that the oppressions of British rule were coming from Parliament and initially took the position that only the King could make laws for the colonies and not Parliament. Therefore, they were as Englishmen challenging illegal English laws. Most American hostility was directed at Parliament and not the King. However, once there was any physical resistance, King George came down with such a heavy hand that American hatred transferred to him. For related quotes on the King/Parliament issue, see {639145}, {639143}, {639142}, {639141}, {639140}, & {639137}
Missouri was to be admitted to the Union. But the anti-slavery forces of Congress insisted that slavery be outlawed in the new state. Most Southerners argued that Congress had no right to regulate the slavery issue claiming among other arguments that the fact that slavery had not been regulated in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights was evidence of the agreement of the founding fathers that slavery was never to be interfered with. However the specific agreement on the subject called for no legislation on slavery to be debated in Congress in its early years, but the time of that agreement was up. The “Missouri Compromise” ended the debate for a short time. Niles knew his fellow Southerners and felt that Civil War was coming and strived to hold the Union together by compromise even though he was a personal opponent of slavery.
