The concluding stages by which the dominions of the United States came to be as we know them were: the annexation by agreement in 1846 of the Republic of Texas, which had separated itself from Mexico and which claimed besides the great State of Texas a considerable territory reaching north-west to the upper portions of the Arkansas River; the apportionment to the Union by a delimitation treaty with Great Britain in 1846 of the Oregon Territory, including roughly the State of that name and the rest of the basin of the Columbia River up to the present frontier--British Columbia being at the same time apportioned to Great Britain; the conquest from Mexico in 1848 of California and a vast mountainous tract at the back of it; the purchase from Mexico of a small frontier strip in 1853; and the acquisition at several later times of various outlying dependencies which will in no way concern us. 3. _The Growth of the Practice and Traditions of the Union Government_. We must turn back to the internal growth of the new united nation. When the Constitution had been formed and the question of its acceptance by the States had been at last settled, and when Washington had been inaugurated as the first President under it, a wholly new conflict arose between two parties, led by two Ministers in the President's Cabinet, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Both were potent and remarkable men, Hamilton in all senses a great man. These two men, for all their antagonism, did services to their country, without which the vigorous growth of the new nation would not have been possible.