understanding, 1,171,931 square miles, swelled to $23,500,000, or
almost $25 per section--a fact not stated in cyclopedias and school
histories, and therefore not generally understood. Spain still held
Florida and claimed a part of what we understood to be included in the
Louisiana purchase--a strip up to north latitude 31--and disputed our
boundary along the south and west, and even claimed Oregon. We bought
Florida and all the disputed land east of the Mississippi and her
claim to Oregon, and settled our southwestern boundary dispute for the
sum of $6,500,000. Texas smilingly proposed annexation to the United
States, and this great government was "taken in" December 29, 1845,
Texas keeping her public lands and giving us all her State debts and
a three-year war (costing us $66,000,000) with Mexico, who claimed
her for a runaway from Mexican jurisdiction. This was a bargain that
out-yankeed the Yankees, but the South insisted on it and the North
submitted. After conquering all the territory now embraced in New
Mexico, a part of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California, we
paid Mexico $25,000,000 for it--$15,000,000 for the greater part of it
and $10,000,000 for another slice, known as the "Gadsden purchase."
In 1867 we bought Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000. All the several
amounts above named were paid long ago. As for all the rest of our
landed possessions, we took them with us when we cut loose from mother
Britain's apron string, but did not get a clear title until we had
fought ten years for it--first in the Revolutionary War, costing us in
killed 7,343 reported--besides the unreported killed--and over 15,000
wounded, and $135,193,103 in money; afterward in the War of 1812-15,
costing us in killed 1,877, in wounded 3,737, in money $107,159,003.
We have paid everybody but the Indians, the only real owners, and,
thanks to gunpowder, sword, bayonet, bad whisky, small-pox, cholera
and other weapons of civilization, there are not many of them left to
complain. Besides all the beads, earrings, blankets, pots, kettles,