A Failed Nation - The Closed River

In 1784, Spain closed the lower Mississippi River — and with it, the only road to market for the tens of thousands of Americans pouring into Kentucky and the West. This is the story of what that closed river nearly did to the United States. When Spain dangled a rich trade treaty in front of the commercial North in exchange for America formally giving up its western river, Foreign Secretary John Jay was willing to take the deal, and Congress split down a line it had never split along before: n...