BOOK REVIEWS
The Territorial Papers of the United
States. Compiled and
edited by Clarence E. Carter. Vol. XIII,
The Territory of Louisi-
ana-Missouri, 1803-1806. (Washington, Government Printing Office,
1948. xi + 641p. $3.50.)
This is the first of three volumes
devoted to what the editor
calls, for lack of a simpler name, the
Territory of Louisiana-
Missouri-the part of the Louisiana
Purchase to the north of the
present state of Louisiana, called
officially the District of Louisiana
(1804-5), the Territory of Louisiana
(1805-12), and the Territory
of Missouri (1812-21). Most of the
documents pertain to the for-
mation of the new units and to the
administration of Governor
James Wilkinson. The collection is an
unusually rich one. As is
his custom, Professor Carter pays his
respects to other editors and
series in his invaluable footnotes and
devotes his space to hitherto
unpublished and (to most persons)
otherwise inaccessible materials.
The Burr conspiracy, which has been
fully documented elsewhere,
is left aside; in fact, there are only
two references to Burr, both
concerned with the appointment of a
territorial secretary.
Though Governor Wilkinson contrasted the
populations of
Michigan and Louisiana as well as their
climates (p. 370), those
who have followed Professor Carter's
volumes on the Old North-
west will note striking similarities.
Jefferson himself noted "the
same [violent dissensions] in the
territories of Louisiana and
Michigan" as in Mississippi (To
Governor Robert Williams, Novem-
ber 1, 1807, Writings [memorial
ed., 20 vols., Washington, 1903-4],
XI, 390). While officials exchanged the
usual charges of Federalism
and of private improprieties, the
citizens adapted themselves
quickly to their new country's
representative forms and to their
new leaders' partisanship. Jefferson was
soon justified in his hope
that the governor and judges might
"draw their laws & organiza-
tion to the mould of ours by degrees as
they find practicable"
(p. 101), whether because of the
population's readiness or the
officers' skill and tact or "their
utmost tenderness to the civil rights
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