have been carved twelve sovereign States and two Territories. At that time Napoleon uttered one of those far-seeing expressions which is important in its prophecy. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'it will be objected to me that the Americans of two or three centuries hence may be found too powerful for Europe, but my foresight does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among members of the Union. Confederacies that are called perpetual last only until one of the contending parties finds it is to its interests to break them. It is to prevent the danger to which the colossal power of England subjects us that I would provide such a remedy.' No such vision of the future came to our American statesmen, many of whom bitterly opposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. When the bill came up for discussion on the floor of Congress, Josiah Quincy, afterwards mayor of Boston, and for many years president of Harvard College, said, speaking of the incorporation in the Union of the territory of Louisiana: 'It appears to me that this measure would justify revolution in this country. I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion that if this bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the States which compose it are free from their moral obligation, and that, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must.' He said further: 'If this bill passes, it is a death blow to the Constitution.' Strange words, indeed, in our ears at this time, and it shows that the American statesmen of those days had not the imagination of Napoleon.