THE CIVIL AND THE COMMON LAW extended to unenlightened or barbarous peoples, they adopt the spirit and the char acteristic features of the one or the other, as they are brought within the scope of the influence of European peoples, or of the Anglo-Saxon peoples; and that the develop ment of civilization among any people will be materially affected by the question whether the principles of the civil law or those of the common law are thus intro duced. I need not say that in my opinion the social organization which shall ulti mately prevail among the various peoples which have recently been incorporated among the people of the United States, will be materially affected by the introduction among them of institutions recognizing the essential characteristics of the common law, in substitution for those molded under the civil law, even though the local customs and notions of personal and property rights, which have grown up under the civil law system, be recognized as continuing in forceIt is this fact which has given almost a dramatic interest to the rivalry between France and Spain on the one hand, and Great Britain and the United States on the other, with reference to the possession of the great Mississippi Valley and the regions westward to the Pacific coast. And cer tainly no historical drama has had more brilliant actors, a more startling or fascinat ing plot, or a more magnificent setting than that which has been played out on the North American continent during the last five cen turies. The prelude was dramatic. Colum bus, under Spanish patronage, reached the shores of a new world under the inspiration of a dim conception that the earth was round, and that, by going far enough, he might come to the known regions of the re mote East. But the Norsemen, of Teutonic race, had already discovered it in its northern latitudes, without any such conception, merely venturing in their rude barks on unknown seas. Spain made the discovery the occasion for an unprecedented extension of her dominion by the conquest of regions
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supposed to be rich in the precious metals, while England, under claims founded on the discoveries of Cabot, who had crossed the Atlantic in search of a northwest passage to China, sent out settlers to occupy the newly discovered territory for purpose of agricul ture and commerce, and France acquired rights which she still retains by taking pos session for fishing purposes of the banks of Newfoundland. As the plot goes forward, England, France, and Spain are the three rivals in the struggle to acquire dominion and power in the new world, and each reaches out his arms for the shy maiden, the beautiful West beyond the Mississippi. First comes De Soto, toiling with his Span ish soldiers through the wilderness west ward from Florida, hardy, treacherous, cruel, grasping, with the blind ambition of reaching some treasure-land of the Far East, and unmarked graves in Arkansas constitute the sole memorial of his struggle. The French, during the reign of the Great Monarch, extend their explorations up the St. Lawrence, holding it against the English, cultivating friendly relations with the native, whose soul their priests would save while their traders traffic in his furs, on around the Great Lakes to Detroit, to Mackinac, to Chicago; and finally Marquette and Joliet, the priest and the trader, hand in hand, voyage up the Fox River and down the Wis consin into the Mississippi, holding councils with the Indian tribes on either hand, and signalize the year 1673 as opening to the knowledge of civilization the greatest water way in the world. Within less than ten years, La Salle, with his lieutenant, Tonty, has descended the river, almost to its mouth, discovering the Missouri, the Ohio, and the Arkansas, and within three years afterward La Salle has brought a colony from France into the Gulf of Mexico, has missed the mouth of the Mississippi and landed at Matagorda on the Texas coast, has left the little colony in a vain struggle to reach succor by making his way overland to the northern lakes, and has yielded up his life
