[FITZ]

I think you missed something there; nearly everything west of the Appalachian Mountains was part of Mexico, which was part of Spain, when the Constitution was written. (admittedly we had English-American settlers in quite a few places they weren't supposed to be, but...)

More like a bit west of the Mississippi maybe. It was territory of Spain at the time. The Spanish government couldn't get enough Spaniards to leave Mexico and settle in the northern territories --- in the case of Texas they invited Americans to come and settle the land. Mexico declared it's independence from Spain --- and about 25 years later Texas declared it's independence from Mexico.

[Old Student]

Ok, get nitpicky ;)

The treaty of Paris, 1763, ceded French claims in North America to the British and Spanish. The Spanish exchanged Florida and most of the Southern territories west to the Mississippi to Britain in exchange for everything that had been French on the west bank of the Mississippi (the Spanish did keep control of New Orleans, and the Delta). The Brits also got everything north of the former Spanish Territories on the east bank, from the French. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 returned Florida to Spain, and the east bank of the Mississippi to the brand new USA. The French bought the west bank of the Mississippi back from Spain in 1800, with the secret treaty of San Idelfonso, as Napoleon was trying to rebuild his fortunes. Then he turned around and sold it to us in 1803. My statement wasn't completely inaccurate, it just wasn't actually completely accurate, either. Better now?