At first, he thought he would cede a part of it to the Indians in exchange for their holdings on the east side of the Miseissippi, and " shut up all the rest from settlement for a long time to come." "I have indulged myself in these details," he writes James Dickinson, August 9, 1803, " because the subject being new it is advantageous to interchange ideas on it and to get our notions all corrected before we are obliged to act upon them." Then he raised the question of a constitutional amendment. " I suppose Congress must appeal to the nation for an additional article to the constitution approving and confirming an act which the nation had not previously authorized," he wrote Senator Breckenridge of Kentucky. '' The constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The Executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country have done an act beyond the constitution." When such views reached France, Livingston hurried off several letters to Jefferson, assuring him " that were the business to do over again it would never be done. They think we have obtained an immense advantage over them. Though the appearance of war had some influence, it had much less than is ascribed to it. I know from a faithful source that tlie Spanish government has made the most serious remonstrances against the cession of Louisiana, and that it is now well understood that, if any additional clause of