422
THE GREEN BAG
to a miscreant subordinate, while Tonty, in pursuance of their prearranged plan, was bringing succor down the Great River. The Mississippi, thus opened to the voyageur, is frequently traversed from the north, while French colonists near its mouth maintain a precarious existence. Spain establishes her colonies in Florida, and, although her ambition for foreign conquest is waning, casts jealous eyes toward the regions through which run the Father of Waters. John Law exploits his stupendous financiering project in Paris, attempting to capitalize, as it were, the unexplored wealth of the Great Valley, until the "Mississippi Bubble" has burst, and France has learned a world-famous lesson in political economy. Then the zeal of the Frenchman dies out and he sells to Spain the whole vast and indefinitely bounded region west of the Mississippi, to take it back again under Napoleon Bona parte and sell it to the United States to prevent its falling into the hands of -his im mediate enemy, the British. But the permanent dominion of a system of law or institutions is not to be determined by moves on the international chessboard. Had France been actually able to colonize and govern the region west of the Mississippi, the civil law would have been imposed upon it for all time, as it was imposed on that por tion of the region which was actually occu pied by France, now included within the lim its of the State of Louisiana, where the civil law still prevails. But beyond the region of actual French possession the dominion of the civil law was not extended. Into that region the common law was carried by pio neers from the east of the Mississippi who sought homes on the virgin soil of Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska; and, although the civil law no doubt had a temporary foot ing in St. Louis, as governing the transac tions of the French traders who were carry ing on their business at this frontier point, before the transfer of dominion to the United States, yet the first extended settle ments in the Missouri territorv were made
by English-speaking people, bringing with them Anglo-Saxon institutions, and con tinuing to live and prosper under a recog nition of the principles of the common law system. And there is no evidence that any established government ever recognized the civil law as having at any time been in force within the limits of the territory of Missouri. The exact facts seem to be, that by the Act of Congress of 1804, providing for the gov ernment of the newly acquired purchase, that portion of it north of the present southern boundary of Arkansas, designated as the District of Louisiana, was annexed for gov ernmental purposes to the territory of Indi ana, in which, of course, the common law was expressly recognized under the pro visions of the ordinance of 1787; that in 1805 a separate government was provided for the same region, designated as the Ter ritory of Louisiana, the name being changed in 1812 to that of the Territory of Missouri; and that the common law was virtually rec ognized in the Acts of Congress providing for the government of this territory; that in 1816 the legislature of the Territory of Mis souri expressly declared the common law of England as in force there, and that this declaration was subsequently reiterated when the present state of Missouri was admitted to the Union. The insistence on the introduction of the common law by the people of this region west of the Mississippi, over which theoreti cally the civil law had previously been ex tended by the sovereignty of France and Spain, and the like insistence on the part of the people of Texas on declaring their in dependence of Mexico, in which the civil law was also recognized, demonstrate a popular belief that the common law was more suitable to their conditions, and more consistent with a free government than the civil law. And, therefore, we have the re sult that, while the whole region of the United States west of the Mississippi, except that portion included in the states of Oregon and Washington, was acquired from
