A Memoir on the NorthEastern Boundary Author:Albert Gallatin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Mr. Webster then rose amidst great applause, on the cessation of which, addressing the Chair, he spoke as follows:— I have had very great gratification, Sir, ... more »in listening to your dissertation on the topics connected with the newly found map of the late Mr. Jay. I came here to be instructed: and I have been instructed, by an exhibition of the results of your own information, and consideration of that subject; and without the slightest expectation of being called on to say any thing upon that, or any other topic connected with the treaty, in the negotiation of which it was my fortune to bear a part. I am free to say, Sir, that the map which hangs over your head does appear to be proved, beyond any other documents now producible, to have been before the Commissioners in Paris in 1782. That fact, and the lines and marks which the map bears, lead to inferences of some importance. If they be not such inferences as remove all doubts from these contested topics, they may yet have no inconsiderable tendency towards rebutting or controlling other inferences of an opposite character, drawn, or attempted to be drawn, from similar sources. Before making any particular remarks upon the subject of the several maps, I will advert to two or three general ideas, which it is always necessary to carry along with us in any process of reasoning upon this subject. Let us remember, then, in the first place, that the treaty of '83 granted nothing to the United States—nothing. It granted no political rights. It granted not one inch of territory. Thepolitical rights of the United States had been asserted by the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and stood, "and stand, and always will stand, upon that declaration. (Great applause.) The territorial limits of the several States stood upon their respect...« less