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Title: History of the United States of America, Volume 2 (of 9) : During the First Administration of Thomas Jefferson
Author: Adams, Henry
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "History of the United States of America, Volume 2 (of 9) : During the First Administration of Thomas Jefferson" ***
THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION
OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON
1801–1805
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DURING THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON
BY HENRY ADAMS
VOL. II.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1889
_Copyright, 1889_,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. RUPTURE OF THE PEACE OF AMIENS 1
II. THE LOUISIANA TREATY 25
III. CLAIM TO WEST FLORIDA 51
IV. CONSTITUTIONAL DIFFICULTIES 74
V. THE LOUISIANA DEBATE 94
VI. LOUISIANA LEGISLATION 116
VII. IMPEACHMENTS 135
VIII. CONSPIRACY 160
IX. THE YAZOO CLAIMS 192
X. TRIAL OF JUSTICE CHASE 218
XI. QUARREL WITH YRUJO 245
XII. PINCKNEY’S DIPLOMACY 264
XIII. MONROE AND TALLEYRAND 288
XIV. RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND 316
XV. CORDIALITY WITH ENGLAND 342
XVI. ANTHONY MERRY 360
XVII. JEFFERSON’S ENEMIES 389
XVIII. ENGLAND AND TRIPOLI 410
INDEX TO VOLS. I. AND II. 439
[Illustration:
THE COAST OF
WEST FLORIDA
AND
LOUISIANA
(From Jeffery’s American Atlas. London, 1800.)]
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
CONGRESS expired; Monroe set sail March 8, 1803; Washington
relapsed into silence; and the President and his Cabinet waited
alone in the empty village, triumphing for the moment over their
difficulties. Although a French prefect was actually in New Orleans,
and the delivery of Louisiana to Bonaparte might from day to day
be expected, not an additional soldier stood on the banks of the
Mississippi, and the States of Kentucky and Tennessee were as quiet
as though their flat-boats still floated down to New Orleans. A month
passed before Madison or Jefferson again moved. Then the President
asked his Cabinet[1] what Monroe should do in case France, as he
expressed it, “refused our rights.” He proposed an alliance with
England, and suggested three inducements which might be offered to
Great Britain: “1. Not to make a separate peace. 2. To let her take
Louisiana. 3. Commercial privileges.” The Cabinet unanimously rejected
the second and third concessions, but Dearborn and Lincoln were alone
in opposing the first; and a majority agreed to instruct Monroe and
Livingston, “as soon as they find that no arrangements can be made with
France, to use all possible procrastination with them, and in the mean
time enter into conferences with the British government, through their
ambassador at Paris, to fix principles of alliance, and leave us in
peace till Congress meets; and prevent war till next spring.”
Madison wrote the instructions. If the French government, he said,[2]
should meditate hostilities against the United States, or force a war
by closing the Mississippi, the two envoys were to invite England to an
alliance, and were to negotiate a treaty stipulating that neither party
should make peace or truce without consent of the other. Should France
deny the right of deposit without disputing the navigation, the envoys
were to make no positive engagement, but should let Congress decide
between immediate war or further procrastination.
At no time in Talleyrand’s negotiations had the idea of war against
the United States been suggested. Of his intentions in this respect
alone he had given positive assurances.[3] Above all things both he
and the First Consul feared a war with the United States. They had
nothing to gain by it. Madison’s instructions therefore rested on an
idea which had no foundation, and which in face of the latest news from
Europe was not worth considering; yet even if intended only for use
at home, the instructions were startling enough to warrant Virginians
in doubting their authenticity. The late Administration, British in
feeling as it was supposed to be, had never thought an alliance with
England necessary even during actual hostilities with France, and had
not hesitated to risk the chances of independent action. Had either of
Jefferson’s predecessors instructed American ministers abroad, in case
of war with France, to bind the United States to make no peace without
England’s consent, the consequence would have been an impeachment
of the President, or direct steps by Virginia, Kentucky, and North
Carolina, as in 1798, tending to a dissolution of the Union. Such an
alliance, offensive and defensive, with England contradicted every
principle established by President Washington in power or professed by
Jefferson in opposition. If it was not finesse, it was an act such as
the Republicans of 1798 would have charged as a crime.
While Madison was writing these instructions, he was interrupted by
the Marquis of Casa Yrujo,[4] who came in triumph to say that his
Government had sent out a brigantine especially to tell the President
that the right of deposit would be restored and continued till
another agreement or equivalent place could be fixed upon.[5] Yrujo
was instructed to thank the President for his friendly, prudent, and
moderate conduct during the excitement. He sent to New Orleans the
positive order of King Charles IV. to the Intendant Morales, that the
right of deposit should be immediately restored; the western people
were told that their produce might go down the river as before, and
thus the last vestige of anxiety was removed. In face of this action by
Godoy, and of the war evidently at hand between France and England, the
success of the peace policy was assured. These events in some degree
explained the extraordinary nature of the new instructions of April,
1803.
Monroe was then already at Paris. In order to make clear the situation
in which he found himself, the sequence of events in Europe needs to be
understood.
Bonaparte’s expedition to Louisiana was to have sailed at the end of
September, 1802.[6] A general of division, three generals of brigade,
five battalions of infantry, two companies of artillery, sixteen
pieces of cannon, and three thousand muskets were to be collected at
Dunkirk for shipment; but as fast as regiments could be named they
were consumed by the fiery furnace of St. Domingo. Nevertheless, all
the orders and arrangements were gradually made. Victor was to command
the forces in Louisiana; Laussat was to be prefect, charged with the
civil administration. Both received elaborate written instructions; and
although Victor could not sail without ships or troops, Laussat was
sent on his way.
These instructions, which were never published, had extreme value for
the decision of disputes which were to perturb American politics for
the next twenty years. Although Victor was forced to wait in Holland
for the expedition he commanded, a copy of his instructions was given
to Laussat, and served to regulate his conduct as long as he remained
in office. Decrès, the Minister of Marine, was the author of this
paper, which unfolded the purpose that had guided France in recovering,
and was to control her in administering, this vast possession. Nothing
could be simpler, clearer, or more consistent with French policy than
this document, which embodied so large a part of Talleyrand’s political
system.
The instructions began, as was natural, by a careful definition of the
new province. After reciting the terms of the retrocession according to
the Third Article of Berthier’s Treaty, Decrès fixed the boundaries of
the territory which Victor, on the part of the French republic, was to
receive from the Marquis of Somoruelos, the Captain-General of Cuba.[7]
“The extent of Louisiana,” he said, “is well determined on the
south by the Gulf of Mexico. But bounded on the west by the
river called Rio Bravo from its mouth to about the 30° parallel,
the line of demarcation stops after reaching this point, and
there seems never to have been any agreement in regard to
this part of the frontier. The farther we go northward, the
more undecided is the boundary. This part of America contains
little more than uninhabited forests or Indian tribes, and the
necessity of fixing a boundary has never yet been felt there.
There also exists none between Louisiana and Canada.”
In this state of things the captain-general would have to relieve
the most remote Spanish garrisons, in order to establish possession;
in other respects he would be guided only by political and military
interests. The western and northern boundary was of less consequence
than the little strip which separated New Orleans from Mobile; and
to this point the instructions specially called Victor’s attention.
Quoting the treaty of 1763 between Spain, Great Britain, and France,
when Florida was to become a British possession, Decrès fixed its terms
as still binding upon all the interested parties.
“‘It is agreed,’” said the seventh article of this treaty,
“‘that in future the boundaries between the States of his Most
Christian Majesty and those of his Britannic Majesty shall
be irrevocably fixed by a line drawn down the middle of the
Mississippi River from its source to the River Iberville, and
from there by a line down the middle of that river and of the
lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea. New Orleans and
the island on which it stands shall belong to France.’ Such is
still to-day the eastern limit of Louisiana. All to the east and
north of this limit makes part of the United States or of West
Florida.”
Nothing could be clearer. Louisiana stretched from the Iberville to the
Rio Bravo; West Florida from the Iberville to the Appalachicola. The
retrocession of Louisiana by Spain to France could restore only what
France had ceded to Spain in 1762. West Florida had nothing to do with
the cession of 1762 or the retrocession of 1800, and being Spanish by
a wholly different title could not even be brought in question by the
First Consul, much as he wanted Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pensacola.
Victor’s orders were emphatic:--
“There is therefore no obscurity as to our boundary on this side
any more than as to that of our allies; and although Florida
belongs to Spain, Spain’s right of property in this quarter will
have as much interest for the Captain-General of Louisiana as
though Florida were a French possession.”
After thus establishing the boundary, as far as possible, in every
direction, the minister treated at some length of the English claim to
navigation on the Mississippi, and at last reached the general subject
of the relation between Louisiana and the world about it,--the subject
in which Jefferson would have found acute interest:--
“The system of this, as of all our other colonies, should be to
concentrate its commerce in the national commerce; it should
have in particular the aim of establishing its relations with
our Antilles, so as to take the place, in these colonies, of the
American commerce for all the objects whose import and export
is permitted to them. The captain-general should especially
abstain from every innovation favorable to strangers, who
should be restricted to such communications as are absolutely
indispensable to the prosperity of Louisiana and to such as are
explicitly determined by the treaties.”
Commercial relations with the Spanish colonies were to be encouraged
and extended as much as possible, while the utmost caution was to be
observed toward the United States:--
“From what has been said of Louisiana and the adjacent States,
it is clear that the republic of France, being master of
both banks at the mouth of the Mississippi, holds the key to
its navigation. This navigation is nevertheless a matter of
the highest importance for the western States of the Federal
Government.... This is enough to show with what jealousy the
Federal Government will see us take possession of Louisiana.
Whatever may be the events which this new part of the continent
has to expect, the arrival of the French forces should be marked
there by the expression of sentiments of great benevolence for
these new neighbors.”
Expression of benevolent sentiments was a pleasing duty; but it was not
to interfere with practical measures, both defensive and offensive:--
“The greatest circumspection will be required in directing the
colonial administration. A little local experience will soon
enable you to discern the sentiments of the western provinces
of the Federal Government. It will be well to maintain sources
of intelligence in that country, whose numerous, warlike, and
sober population may present you a redoubtable enemy. The
inhabitants of Kentucky especially should fix the attention of
the captain-general.... He must also fortify himself against
them by alliance with the Indian nations scattered to the east
of the river. The Chibackas, Choctaws, Alabamas, Creeks, etc.,
are represented as being entirely devoted to us.... He will not
forget that the French government wishes peace; but that if war
takes place, Louisiana will certainly become the theatre of
hostilities.... The intention of the First Consul is to raise
Louisiana to a degree of strength which will allow him in time
of war to abandon it to its own resources without anxiety; so
that enemies may be forced to the greatest sacrifices merely in
attempting to attack it.”
In these instructions not a word could be found which clashed with
Jefferson’s pacific views; and partly for that reason they were more
dangerous to the United States than if they had ordered Victor to seize
American property on the Mississippi and occupy Natchez with his three
thousand men. Victor was instructed, in effect, to tamper with every
adventurer from Pittsburg to Natchez; buy up every Indian tribe in the
Georgia and Northwestern Territory; fortify every bluff on the western
bank from St. Louis to New Orleans; and in a few years create a series
of French settlements which would realize Madison’s “sound policy” of
discouraging the United States from colonizing the west bank.
Fortified by these instructions, the Citizen Laussat set sail Jan. 12,
1803, and in due time arrived at New Orleans. Victor labored in Holland
to put his ships and supplies in a condition to follow. As Laussat
sailed, another step was taken by the French government. General
Bernadotte, a very distinguished republican officer, brother-in-law
of Joseph Bonaparte, was appointed minister at Washington.[8] The
First Consul had his own reasons for wishing to remove Bernadotte,
as he meant to remove Moreau; and Washington was a place of indirect
banishment for a kinsman whose character was to be feared. Bernadotte’s
instructions[9] were signed by Talleyrand Jan. 14, 1803, the day after
Monroe was confirmed as special envoy to France by the Senate at
Washington, and while Laussat was still on the French coast. Although
Bonaparte had been obliged to withdraw a part of Victor’s force, he
still intended that the expedition should start at once with two
thousand men;[10] and its departure was to be so timed that Bernadotte
should reach Washington as Victor and his troops reached New Orleans.
Their instructions were on one point identical. News of the closure
of the Mississippi by Morales had reached Paris, and had already
caused an official protest by Livingston, when Talleyrand drew up the
instructions to Bernadotte:--
“Louisiana being soon to pass into our hands, with all the
rights which have belonged to Spain, we can only with pleasure
see that a special circumstance has obliged the Spanish
Administration to declare formally [_constater_] its right
to grant or to refuse at will to the Americans the privilege
of a commercial _entrepôt_ at New Orleans; the difficulty
of maintaining this position will be less for us than that of
establishing it.... Yet in any discussion that may arise on
this subject, and in every discussion you may have to sustain,
the First Consul wishes you to be informed of his most positive
and pronounced desire to live in good understanding with the
American government, to cultivate and to improve for the
advantage of American commerce the relations of friendship which
unite the two peoples. No one in Europe wishes the prosperity of
that people more than he. In accrediting you to its Government
he has given it a peculiar mark of his good disposition; he
doubts not that you will make every effort to bind closer the
ties which exist between the two nations. In consequence of the
firm intention which the First Consul has shown on this subject,
I must recommend you to take every care to avoid whatever might
alter our relations with that nation and its Government. The
agents of the French republic in the United States should forbid
themselves whatever might even remotely lead to a rupture. In
ordinary communication, every step should show the benevolent
disposition and mutual friendship which animate the chiefs and
all the members of the two Governments; and when any unforeseen
difficulty rises which may in any degree whatever compromise
their good understanding, the simplest and most effectual means
of preventing all danger is to refer its solution to the inquiry
and direct judgment of the two Governments.”
Talleyrand’s language was more elaborate, but not clearer, than that
which Bonaparte himself used to Victor.[11]
“I have no need to tell you,” the First Consul wrote, “with
what impatience the Government will wait for news from you in
order to settle its ideas in regard to the pretensions of the
United States and their usurpations over the Spaniards. What the
Government may think proper to do must not be judged in advance
until you have rendered an account of the state of things.
Every time you perceive that the United States are raising
pretensions, answer that no one has an idea of this at Paris
(_que l’on n’a aucune idée de cela à Paris_); but that you
have written, and that you are expecting orders.”
These were the ideas held by the government of France at the moment
when Jefferson nominated Monroe as a special envoy to buy New Orleans
and West Florida. Jefferson’s hopes of his success were small; and
Livingston, although on the spot and eager to try the experiment,
could only write:[12] “Do not absolutely despair.” Whatever chance
existed of obtaining New Orleans seemed to lie in the possibility
that Addington’s peaceful administration in England might be driven
into some act contrary to its vital interests; and even this chance
was worth little, for so long as Bonaparte wanted peace, he could
always keep it. England was thoroughly weary of war; and proved it by
patiently looking on while Bonaparte, during the year, committed one
arbitrary act after another, which at any previous time would have been
followed by an instant withdrawal of the British minister from Paris.
On the other hand, the world could see that Bonaparte was already tired
of peace; his _rôle_ of beneficent shopkeeper disgusted him, and
a new war in Europe was only a question of months. In such a case the
blow might fall on the east bank of the Rhine, on Spain, or on England.
Yet Bonaparte was in any case bound to keep Louisiana, or return it to
Spain. Florida was not his to sell. The chance that Jefferson could
buy either of these countries, even in case of a European war, seemed
so small as hardly to be worth considering; but it existed, because
Bonaparte was not a man like other men, and his action could never be
calculated in advance.
The news that Leclerc was dead, that his army was annihilated, St.
Domingo ruined, and the negroes more than ever beyond control, reached
Paris and was printed in the “Moniteur” Jan. 7, 1803, in the same
active week when Bernadette, Laussat, and Victor were ordered from
France to America, and Monroe was ordered from America to France. Of
all the events of the time, Leclerc’s death was the most decisive.
The colonial system of France centred in St. Domingo. Without that
island the system had hands, feet, and even a head, but no body. Of
what use was Louisiana, when France had clearly lost the main colony
which Louisiana was meant to feed and fortify? The new ruler of France
was not unused to failure. More than once he had suddenly given up his
dearest plans and deserted his oldest companions when their success
was hopeless. He had abandoned Paoli and Corsica with as little
compunction as afterward he abandoned the army and the officers whom
he led to Egypt. Obstinate in pursuing any object which led to his
own advancement, he was quick to see the moment when pursuit became
useless; and the difficulties that rose in his path toward colonial
empire were quite as great as those which had driven him to abandon
Corsica and Egypt. Not only had the island of St. Domingo been ruined
by the war, its plantations destroyed, its labor paralyzed, and its
population reduced to barbarism, so that the task of restoring its
commercial value had become extremely difficult; but other and greater
objections existed to a renewal of the struggle. The army dreaded
service in St. Domingo, where certain death awaited every soldier; the
expense was frightful; a year of war had consumed fifty thousand men
and money in vast amounts, with no other result than to prove that at
least as many men and as much money would be still needed before any
return could be expected for so lavish an expenditure. In Europe war
could be made to support war; in St. Domingo peace alone could but
slowly repair some part of this frightful waste.
Leclerc was succeeded at St. Domingo by General Rochambeau, a son
of the Comte de Rochambeau, who twenty years before had commanded
the French corps which enabled Washington to capture Cornwallis
at Yorktown. A brave officer, but known to be little fit for
administration, Rochambeau was incompetent for the task that fell
on him. Leclerc had warned the Government that in case of his own
retirement he had no officer fit to replace him,--least of all
Rochambeau, who was next in rank. Rochambeau wrote to inform the
First Consul that thirty-five thousand men must be sent to save the
island.[13] Without a new commander-in-chief of the highest ability, a
new army was useless; and meanwhile Rochambeau was certain to waste the
few thousand acclimated soldiers who should form its nucleus.
The First Consul found himself in a difficult and even dangerous
situation. Probably the colonial scheme had never suited his tastes,
and perhaps he had waited only until he should be firm in power in
order to throw off the tutelage of Talleyrand; but the moment had
arrived when his tastes coincided with policy. A second failure at
St. Domingo would destroy his own credit, and disgust both the army
and the public. Abandonment of the island was equally hazardous; for
it required the abandonment of French traditions and a confession of
failure. Retirement from St. Domingo was impossible, except under
cover of some new enterprise; and as Europe stood, no other enterprise
remained for France to undertake which would not lead her armies across
the Rhine or the Pyrenees. For this undertaking Bonaparte was not yet
ready; but even had he been so, it would have offered no excuse for
abandoning the colonies. The ocean would still have been open, and St.
Domingo within easy reach.
Only one resource remained. Bonaparte told no one his plans; but he was
not a man to hesitate when decision was needed. From the day when news
of Leclerc’s death arrived, during the first week of January, 1803, the
First Consul brooded over the means of abandoning St. Domingo without
appearing to desert intentionally a policy dear to France. Talleyrand
and Decrès were allowed to go on as before; they gave instructions to
Bernadotte, and hurried the preparations of Victor, whom the ice and
snow of Holland and the slowness of the workmen held motionless; they
prepared a reinforcement of fifteen thousand men for Rochambeau, and
Bonaparte gave all the necessary orders for hastening the departure
of both expeditions. As late as February 5, he wrote to Decrès that
fifteen thousand men had been, or were about to be, sent to St.
Domingo, and that fifteen thousand more must be ready to sail by the
middle of August.[14] Yet his policy of abandoning the colonial system
had been already decided; for on January 30 the “Moniteur” produced
Sebastiani’s famous Report on the military condition of the East,--a
publication which could have no other object than to alarm England.[15]
Livingston was quick to see the change of policy; but although he
understood as much as was known to any one, he could not count with
certainty on the result.[16] Not even Joseph and Lucien knew what was
in their brother’s mind. Talleyrand seems to have been elaborately
deceived; even as late as February 19 he was allowed to instruct
General Beurnonville, the French ambassador at Madrid, to express “the
warm satisfaction which the last acts of sovereignty exercised by the
King of Spain in Louisiana have given to the First Consul.”[17] The
last act of sovereignty exercised by Spain in Louisiana had been the
closure of the Mississippi. Before Beurnonville could obey this order,
Godoy, hastening to anticipate possible interference from France,
promised Pinckney, February 28, that the _entrepôt_ should be
restored. King Charles’s order of restitution bore date March 1,
1803; Beurnonville’s note, urging the King to sustain Morales, bore
date March 4, and March 10 Don Pedro Cevallos replied to Talleyrand’s
congratulation in a tone so evasive as to show that Godoy was again
deceiving the First Consul.[18] Cevallos did not say that the right of
deposit had ten days before been restored; he contented himself with
mentioning the reasons alleged by Morales for his act, adding at the
close the empty assurance that “in every way his Majesty prizes highly
the applause of the French government.” In January, only a few weeks
before, Godoy had told Beurnonville, with unconcealed satisfaction,
that Bonaparte should not have Florida,--although without Florida the
town of New Orleans was supposed to be of little value. In February he
snatched away what he could of New Orleans by replacing the Americans
in all their privileges there.
Livingston plied the French officials with arguments and memorials;
but he might have spared himself the trouble, for Bonaparte’s policy
was already fixed. The First Consul acted with the rapidity which
marked all his great measures. England at once took Sebastiani’s
Report as a warning, and began to arm. February 20 Bonaparte sent to
the Corps Législatif his Annual Report, or Message, which spoke of
Great Britain in language that could not be disregarded; finally,
March 12, Livingston saw a melodramatic spectacle which transfixed him
with surprise and excitement.[19] The scene was at Madame Bonaparte’s
drawing-room; the actors were Bonaparte and Lord Whitworth, the British
ambassador. “I find, my Lord, your nation want war again!” said the
First Consul. “No, sir,” replied Whitworth; “we are very desirous of
peace.” “_I must either have Malta or war!_” rejoined Bonaparte.
Livingston received these words from Lord Whitworth himself on the
spot; and returning at once to his cabinet, wrote to warn Madison.
Within a few days the alarm spread through Europe, and the affairs of
St. Domingo were forgotten.
Bonaparte loved long-prepared transformation-scenes. Such a scene he
was preparing, and the early days of April, 1803, found the actors
eagerly waiting it. All the struggles and passions of the last two
years were crowded into the explosion of April. At St. Domingo, horror
followed fast on horror. Rochambeau, shut in Port au Prince,--drunken,
reckless, surrounded by worthless men and by women more abandoned
still, wallowing in the dregs of the former English occupation and of
a half-civilized negro empire,--waged as he best could a guerrilla
war, hanging, shooting, drowning, burning all the negroes he could
catch; hunting them with fifteen hundred bloodhounds bought in Jamaica
for something more than one hundred dollars each; wasting money,
squandering men; while Dessalines and Christophe massacred every white
being within their reach. To complete Bonaparte’s work, from which he
wished to turn the world’s attention, high among the Jura Mountains,
where the ice and snow had not yet relaxed their grip upon the desolate
little Fortress and its sunless casemate, in which for months nothing
but Toussaint’s cough had been heard, Commander Amiot wrote a brief
military Report to the Minister of Marine:[20] “On the 17th [April 7],
at half-past eleven o’clock of the morning, on taking him his food,
I found him dead, seated on his chair near his fire.” According to
Tavernier, doctor of medicine and _chirurgien_ of Pontarlier, who
performed the autopsy, pleuro-pneumonia was the cause of Toussaint’s
death.
Toussaint never knew that St. Domingo had successfully resisted the
whole power of France, and that had he been truer to himself and
his color he might have worn the crown that became the plaything of
Christophe and Dessalines; but even when shivering in the frosts of the
Jura, his last moments would have glowed with gratified revenge, had
he known that at the same instant Bonaparte was turning into a path
which the negroes of St. Domingo had driven him to take, and which was
to lead him to parallel at St. Helena the fate of Toussaint himself at
the Château de Joux. In these days of passion, men had little time for
thought; and the last subject on which Bonaparte thereafter cared to
fix his mind was the fate of Toussaint and Leclerc. That the “miserable
negro,” as Bonaparte called him, should have been forgotten so soon was
not surprising; but the prejudice of race alone blinded the American
people to the debt they owed to the desperate courage of five hundred
thousand Haytian negroes who would not be enslaved.
If this debt was due chiefly to the negroes, it was also in a degree
due to Godoy and to Spain. In the new shifting of scenes, Godoy
suddenly found himself, like Toussaint eighteen months before, face
to face with Bonaparte bent on revenge. No one knew better than Godoy
the dangers that hung over him and his country. Aware of his perils,
he tried, as in 1795, to conciliate the United States by a course
offensive to France. Not only did he restore the _entrepôt_ at
New Orleans, but he also admitted the claims for damages sustained by
American citizens from Spanish subjects in the late war, and through
Don Pedro Cevallos negotiated with Pinckney a convention which provided
for a settlement of these claims.[21] Although he refused to recognize
in this convention the spoliations made by Frenchmen within Spanish
jurisdiction, and insisted that these were in their nature claims
against France which Spain was not morally bound to admit, he consented
to insert an article copied from the expunged Article II. of the
treaty of Morfontaine, reserving to the United States the right to
press these demands at a future time.
So well pleased was Jefferson with the conduct of Spain and the
Spanish ministers, that not a complaint was made of ill treatment;
and even the conduct of Morales did not shake the President’s faith
in the friendliness of King Charles. No doubt he mistook the motives
of this friendliness, for Spain had no other object than to protect
her colonies and commerce on the Gulf of Mexico, and hoped to prevent
attack by conciliation; while Madison imagined that Spain might be
induced by money to part with her colonies and admit the United States
to the Gulf. In this hope he instructed Pinckney,[22] in case he should
find that Louisiana had not been retroceded to France, to offer a
guaranty of Spanish territory west of the Mississippi as part of the
consideration for New Orleans and the Floridas. The offer was made with
a degree of cordiality very unlike the similar offer to France, and
was pressed by Pinckney so zealously that at last Cevallos evaded his
earnestness by a civil equivocation.
“The system adopted by his Majesty,” said he,[23] “not to
dispossess himself of any portion of his States, deprives him
of the pleasure of assenting to the cessions which the United
States wish to obtain by purchase.... The United States can
address themselves to the French government to negotiate the
acquisition of territories which may suit their interest.”
Cevallos knew that Bonaparte had bound himself formally never to
alienate Louisiana, and in referring Pinckney to France he supposed
himself safe. Pinckney, on the other hand, prided himself on having
helped to prevent France from gaining Florida as well as Louisiana, and
was anxious to secure West Florida for his own credit; while he had no
idea that Louisiana could be obtained at all.
Yet nearly a week before this note was written Louisiana had become
American property. So completely was Godoy deceived, that when April
arrived and he saw Spain again about to be dragged into unknown perils,
he never divined that he was to be struck in America; his anxieties
rose from fear that Spain might be dragged into a new war in Europe,
in subservience to France. He could expect to escape such a war only
by a quarrel with Napoleon, and he knew that a war with Napoleon was a
desperate resource.
In London statesmanship had an easier game, and played it at first
simply and coolly. Rufus King watched it with anxious eyes. He wished
to escape from the duty of expressing a diplomatic policy which
he might not approve, to a Government which had other and heavier
tasks than that of listening to his advice or warnings. The British
Ministry behaved well to America; for their advices from Thornton led
them to hope that the United States would, if properly supported,
seize Louisiana and accept war with Bonaparte. “If you can obtain
Louisiana,--well!” said Addington to Rufus King;[24] “if not, we ought
to prevent its going into the hands of France.”
CHAPTER II.
MONROE arrived in sight of the French coast April 7, 1803;
but while he was still on the ocean, Bonaparte without reference to
him or his mission, opened his mind to Talleyrand in regard to ceding
Louisiana to the United States. The First Consul a few days afterward
repeated to his Finance Minister, Barbé Marbois,[25] a part of the
conversation with Talleyrand; and his words implied that Talleyrand
opposed Bonaparte’s scheme, less because it sacrificed Louisiana than
because its true object was not a war with England, but conquest of
Germany. “He alone knows my intentions,” said Bonaparte to Marbois. “If
I attended to his advice, France would confine her ambition to the left
bank of the Rhine, and would make war only to protect the weak States
and to prevent any dismemberment of her possessions; but he also admits
that the cession of Louisiana is not a dismemberment of France.” In
reality, the cession of Louisiana meant the overthrow of Talleyrand’s
influence and the failure of those hopes which had led to the coalition
of the 18th Brumaire.
Easter Sunday, April 10, 1803, arrived, and Monroe was leaving Havre
for Paris, when Bonaparte, after the religious ceremonies of the day at
St. Cloud, called to him two of his ministers, of whom Barbé Marbois
was one.[26] He wished to explain his intention of selling Louisiana
to the United States; and he did so in his peculiar way. He began by
expressing the fear that England would seize Louisiana as her first
act of war. “I think of ceding it to the United States. I can scarcely
say that I cede it to them, for it is not yet in our possession. If,
however, I leave the least time to our enemies, I shall only transmit
an empty title to those republicans whose friendship I seek. They ask
of me only one town in Louisiana; but I already consider the colony as
entirely lost; and it appears to me that in the hands of this growing
Power it will be more useful to the policy, and even to the commerce,
of France than if I should attempt to keep it.”
To this appeal the two ministers replied by giving two opposite
opinions. Marbois favored the cession, as the First Consul probably
expected him to do; for Marbois was a republican who had learned
republicanism in the United States, and whose attachment to that
country was secured by marriage to an American wife. His colleague,
with equal decision, opposed the scheme. Their arguments were waste of
breath. The First Consul said no more, and dismissed them; but the next
morning, Monday, April 11, at daybreak, summoning Marbois, he made a
short oration of the kind for which he was so famous:[27]--
“Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season; I
renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I cede; it
is the whole colony, without reserve. I know the price of what I
abandon. I have proved the importance I attach to this province,
since my first diplomatic act with Spain had the object of
recovering it. I renounce it with the greatest regret; to
attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to
negotiate the affair. Have an interview this very day with Mr.
Livingston.”
The order so peremptorily given was instantly carried out; but not by
Marbois. Talleyrand, in an interview a few hours afterward, startled
Livingston with the new offer.[28]
“M. Talleyrand asked me this day, when pressing the subject,
whether we wished to have the whole of Louisiana. I told him no;
that our wishes extended only to New Orleans and the Floridas;
that the policy of France, however, should dictate (as I had
shown in an official note) to give us the country above the
River Arkansas, in order to place a barrier between them and
Canada. He said that if they gave New Orleans the rest would be
of little value, and that he would wish to know ‘what we would
give for the whole.’ I told him it was a subject I had not
thought of, but that I supposed we should not object to twenty
millions [francs], provided our citizens were paid. He told me
that this was too low an offer, and that he would be glad if I
would reflect upon it and tell him to-morrow. I told him that
as Mr. Monroe would be in town in two days, I would delay my
further offer until I had the pleasure of introducing him. He
added that he did not speak from authority, but that the idea
had struck him.”
The suddenness of Bonaparte’s change disconcerted Livingston. For
months he had wearied the First Consul with written and verbal
arguments, remonstrances, threats,--all intended to prove that there
was nothing grasping or ambitious in the American character; that
France should invite the Americans to protect Louisiana from the
Canadians; that the United States cared nothing for Louisiana, but
wanted only West Florida and New Orleans,--“barren sands and sunken
marshes,” he said; “a small town built of wood; ... about seven
thousand souls;” a territory important to the United States because
it contained “the mouths of some of their rivers,” but a mere drain
of resources to France.[29] To this rhapsody, repeated day after day
for weeks and months, Talleyrand had listened with his imperturbable
silence, the stillness of a sceptical mind into which such professions
fell meaningless; until he suddenly looked into Livingston’s face and
asked: “What will you give for the whole?” Naturally Livingston for a
moment lost countenance.
The next day, Tuesday, April 12, Livingston, partly recovered from his
surprise, hung about Talleyrand persistently, for his chance of reaping
alone the fruit of his labors vanished with every minute that passed.
Monroe had reached St. Germain late Monday night, and at one o’clock
Tuesday afternoon descended from his postchaise at the door of his
Paris hotel.[30] From the moment of his arrival he was sure to seize
public attention at home and abroad. Livingston used the interval to
make one more effort with Talleyrand:[31]--
“He then thought proper to declare that his proposition was only
personal, but still requested me to make an offer; and upon my
declining to do so, as I expected Mr. Monroe the next day, he
shrugged up his shoulders and changed the conversation. Not
willing, however, to lose sight of it, I told him I had been
long endeavoring to bring him to some point, but unfortunately
without effect; and with that view had written him a note which
contained that request.... He told me he would answer my note,
but that he must do it evasively, because Louisiana was not
theirs. I smiled at this assertion, and told him that I had seen
the treaty recognizing it.... He still persisted that they had
it in contemplation to obtain it, but had it not.”
An hour or two afterward came a note from Monroe announcing that he
would wait upon Livingston in the evening. The two American ministers
passed the next day together,[32] examining papers and preparing to
act whenever Monroe could be officially presented. They entertained a
party at dinner that afternoon in Livingston’s apartments, and while
sitting at table Livingston saw Barbé Marbois strolling in the garden
outside. Livingston sent to invite Marbois to join the party at table.
While coffee was served, Marbois came in and entered into conversation
with Livingston, who began at once to tell him of Talleyrand’s
“extraordinary conduct.” Marbois hinted that he knew something of the
matter, and that Livingston had better come to his house as soon as
the dinner company departed. The moment Monroe took leave, Livingston
acted on Marbois’s hint, and in a midnight conversation the bargain was
practically made. Marbois told a story, largely of his own invention,
in regard to the First Consul’s conduct on Easter Sunday, three days
before. Bonaparte mentioned fifty million francs as his price for
Louisiana; but as Marbois reported the offer to Livingston, Bonaparte
said: “Well! you have charge of the Treasury. Let them give you one
hundred millions of francs, and pay their own claims, and take the
whole country.” The American claims were estimated at about twenty-five
millions, and therefore Marbois’s price amounted to at least one
hundred and twenty-five million francs.
Yet twenty-four or twenty-five million dollars for the whole west bank
of the Mississippi, from the Lake of the Woods to the Gulf of Mexico,
and indefinitely westward, was not an extortionate price, especially
since New Orleans was thrown into the bargain, and indirect political
advantages which could not be valued at less than the cost of a war,
whatever it might be. Five million dollars were to be paid in America
to American citizens, so that less than twenty millions would come
to France. Livingston could hardly have been blamed for closing with
Marbois on the spot, especially as his instructions warranted him in
offering ten millions for New Orleans and the Floridas alone; but
Livingston still professed that he did not want the west bank. “I told
him that the United States were anxious to preserve peace with France;
that for that reason they wished to remove them to the west side of
the Mississippi; that we would be perfectly satisfied with New Orleans
and the Floridas, and had no disposition to extend across the river;
that of course we would not give any great sum for the purchase.... He
then pressed me to name the sum.” After a little more fencing, Marbois
dropped at once from one hundred millions to sixty, with estimated
claims to the amount of twenty millions more. “I told him that it was
vain to ask anything that was so greatly beyond our means; that true
policy would dictate to the First Consul not to press such a demand;
that he must know it would render the present government unpopular.”
The conversation closed by Livingston’s departure at midnight with
a final protest: “I told him that I would consult Mr. Monroe, but
that neither he nor I could accede to his ideas on the subject.” Then
he went home; and sitting down to his desk wrote a long despatch to
Madison, to record that without Monroe’s help he had won Louisiana. The
letter closed with some reflections:--
“As to the quantum, I have yet made up no opinion. The
field open to us is infinitely larger than our instructions
contemplated, the revenue increasing, and the land more than
adequate to sink the capital, should we even go the sum proposed
by Marbois,--nay, I persuade myself that the whole sum may be
raised by the sale of the territory west of the Mississippi,
with the right of sovereignty, to some Power in Europe whose
vicinity we should not fear. I speak now without reflection and
without having seen Mr. Monroe, as it was midnight when I left
the Treasury Office, and it is now near three o’clock. It is so
very important that you should be apprised that a negotiation is
actually opened, even before Mr. Monroe has been presented, in
order to calm the tumult which the news of war will renew, that
I have lost no time in communicating it. We shall do all we can
to cheapen the purchase; but my present sentiment is that we
shall buy.”
A week was next passed in haggling over the price.[33] Livingston did
his utmost to beat Marbois down, but without success. Meanwhile he ran
some risk of losing everything; for when Bonaparte offered a favor
suitors did well to waste no time in acceptance. A slight weight might
have turned the scale; a divulgence of the secret, a protest from
Spain, a moment of irritation at Jefferson’s coquetry with England or
at the vaporings of the American press, a sudden perception of the
disgust which every true Frenchman was sure sooner or later to feel at
this squandering of French territory and enterprise,--any remonstrance
that should stir the First Consul’s pride or startle his fear of
posterity, might have cut short the thread of negotiation. Livingston
did not know the secrets of the Tuileries, or he would not have passed
time in cheapening the price of his purchase. The voice of opposition
was silenced in the French people, but was still so high in Bonaparte’s
family as to make the Louisiana scheme an occasion for scenes so
violent as to sound like the prelude to a tragedy.
One evening when Talma was to appear in a new _rôle_, Lucien
Bonaparte, coming home to dress for the theatre, found his brother
Joseph waiting for him.[34] “Here you are at last!” cried Joseph; “I
was afraid you might not come. This is no time for theatre-going;
I have news for you that will give you no fancy for amusement. The
General wants to sell Louisiana.”
Lucien, proud of having made the treaty which secured the retrocession,
was for a moment thunderstruck; then recovering confidence, he said,
“Come, now! if he were capable of wishing it, the Chambers would never
consent.”
“So he means to do without their consent,” replied Joseph. “This is
what he answered me, when I said to him, like you, that the Chambers
would not consent. What is more, he added that this sale would supply
him the first funds for the war. Do you know that I am beginning to
think he is much too fond of war?”
History is not often able to penetrate the private lives of famous men,
and catch their words as they were uttered. Although Lucien Bonaparte’s
veracity was not greatly superior to that of his brother Napoleon, his
story agreed with the known facts. If his imagination here and there
filled in the gaps of memory,--if he was embittered and angry when he
wrote, and hated his brother Napoleon with Corsican passion, these
circumstances did not discredit his story, for he would certainly have
told the truth against his brother under no other conditions. The story
was not libellous, but Napoleonic; it told nothing new of the First
Consul’s character, but it was honorable to Joseph, who proposed to
Lucien that they should go together and prevent their brother from
committing a fault which would rouse the indignation of France, and
endanger his own safety as well as theirs.
The next morning Lucien went to the Tuileries; by his brother’s order
he was admitted, and found Napoleon in his bath, the water of which
was opaque with mixture of _eau de Cologne_. They talked for
some time on indifferent matters. Lucien was timid, and dared not
speak until Joseph came. Then Napoleon announced his decision to sell
Louisiana, and invited Lucien to say what he thought of it.
“I flatter myself,” replied Lucien, “that the Chambers will not give
their consent.”
“You flatter yourself!” repeated Napoleon in a tone of surprise; then
murmuring in a lower voice, “that is precious, in truth!” (_c’est
précieux, en vérité!_)
“And I too flatter myself, as I have already told the First Consul,”
cried Joseph.
“And what did I answer?” said Napoleon warmly, glaring from his bath at
the two men.
“That you would do without the Chambers.”
“Precisely! That is what I have taken the great liberty to tell Mr.
Joseph, and what I now repeat to the Citizen Lucien,--begging him at
the same time to give me his opinion about it, without taking into
consideration his paternal tenderness for his diplomatic conquest.”
Then, not satisfied with irony, he continued in a tone of exasperating
contempt: “And now, gentlemen, think of it what you will; but both of
you go into mourning about this affair,--you, Lucien, for the sale
itself; you, Joseph, because I shall do without the consent of any one
whomsoever. Do you understand?”
At this Joseph came close to the bath, and rejoined in a vehement tone:
“And you will do well, my dear brother, not to expose your project to
parliamentary discussion; for I declare to you that if necessary I
will put myself first at the head of the opposition which will not fail
to be made against you.”
The First Consul burst into a peal of forced laughter, while Joseph,
crimson with anger and almost stammering his words, went on: “Laugh,
laugh, laugh, then! I will act up to my promise; and though I am not
fond of mounting the tribune, this time you will see me there!”
Napoleon, half rising from the bath, rejoined in a serious tone: “You
will have no need to lead the opposition, for I repeat that there will
be no debate, for the reason that the project which has not the fortune
to meet your approval, conceived by me, negotiated by me, shall be
ratified and executed by me alone, do you comprehend?--by me, who laugh
at your opposition!”
Hereupon Joseph wholly lost his self-control, and with flashing eyes
shouted: “Good! I tell you, General, that you, I, and all of us, if you
do what you threaten, may prepare ourselves soon to go and join the
poor innocent devils whom you so legally, humanely, and especially with
such justice, have transported to Sinnamary.”
At this terrible rejoinder Napoleon half started up, crying out: “You
are insolent! I ought--” then threw himself violently back in the
bath with a force which sent a mass of perfumed water into Joseph’s
flushed face, drenching him and Lucien, who had the wit to quote, in a
theatrical tone, the words which Virgil put into the mouth of Neptune
reproving the waves,--
“_Quos ego...._”
Between the water and the wit the three Bonapartes recovered their
tempers, while the valet who was present, overcome by fear, fainted
and fell on the floor. Joseph went home to change his clothes, while
Lucien remained to pass through another scene almost equally amusing.
A long conversation followed after the First Consul’s toilet was
finished. Napoleon spoke of St. Domingo. “Do you want me to tell you
the truth?” said he. “I am to-day more sorry than I like to confess
for the expedition to St. Domingo. Our national glory will never come
from our marine.” He justified what he called, in jest at Lucien, his
“Louisianicide,” by the same reasons he gave to Marbois and Talleyrand,
but especially by the necessity of providing funds for the war not yet
declared. Lucien combated his arguments as Joseph had done, until at
last he reached the same point. “If, like Joseph, I thought that this
alienation of Louisiana without the assent of the Chambers might be
fatal to me,--to me alone,--I would consent to run all risks in order
to prove the devotion you doubt; but it is really too unconstitutional
and--”
“Ah, indeed!” burst out Napoleon with another prolonged, forced laugh
of derisive anger. “You lay it on handsomely! Unconstitutional is droll
from you. Come now, let me alone! How have I hurt your Constitution?
Answer!” Lucien replied that the intent to alienate any portion
whatever of territory belonging to the Republic without the consent
of the Chambers was an unconstitutional project. “In a word, the
Constitution--”
“Go about your business!” broke in the guardian of the Constitution
and of the national territory. Then he quickly and vehemently went on:
“Constitution! unconstitutional! republic! national sovereignty!--big
words! great phrases! Do you think yourself still in the club of St.
Maximin? We are no longer there, mind that! Ah, it becomes you well,
Sir Knight of the Constitution, to talk so to me! You had not the same
respect for the Chambers on the 18th Brumaire!”
Nothing exasperated Lucien more than any allusion to the part he took
in the _coup d’état_ of the 18th Brumaire, when he betrayed the
Chamber over which he presided. He commanded himself for the moment;
but when Napoleon went on to say with still more contempt, “I laugh at
you and your national representation,” Lucien answered coldly, “I do
not laugh at you, Citizen Consul, but I know well what I think about
it.”
“_Parbleu!_” said Napoleon, “I am curious to know what you think
of me: say it, quick!”
“I think, Citizen Consul, that having given your oath to the
Constitution of the 18th Brumaire into my own hands as President of the
Council of Five Hundred, seeing you despise it thus, if I were not your
brother I would be your enemy.”
“My enemy! ah, I would advise you! My enemy! That is a trifle strong!”
cried Napoleon, advancing as though to strike his younger brother. “You
my enemy! I would break you, look, like this box!” And so saying he
flung his snuff-box violently on the floor.
In these angry scenes both parties knew that Napoleon’s bravado was not
altogether honest. For once, Lucien was in earnest; and had his brother
left a few other men in France as determined as he and his friend
Bernadotte, the First Consul would have defied public opinion less
boldly. Joseph, too, although less obstinate than his brothers, was not
easily managed. According to Lucien there were further scenes between
them, at one of which Joseph burst into such violence that the First
Consul took refuge in Josephine’s room. These stories contained nothing
incredible. The sale of Louisiana was the turning-point in Napoleon’s
career; no true Frenchman forgave it. A second betrayal of France, it
announced to his fellow conspirators that henceforward he alone was to
profit by the treason of the 18th Brumaire.
Livingston and Monroe knew nothing of all this; they even depended upon
Joseph to help their negotiation. Monroe fell ill and could not act.
Over the negotiation of the treaty has always hung a cloud of mystery
such as belonged to no other measure of equal importance in American
history. No official report showed that the commissioners ever met in
formal conference; no protocol of their proceedings, no account of
their discussions, no date when their agreement was made, was left
on record. Both the treaty itself and the avowals of Livingston gave
evidence that at the end all parties acted in haste. If it were not
for a private memorandum by Monroe,--not sent to the Government, but
preserved among his private papers,--the course of negotiation could
not be followed.
A fortnight passed after Monroe’s arrival without advancing matters
a step. This period of inaction seems to have been broken by the
First Consul. April 23 he drew up a “_Projet_ of a Secret
Convention,”[35] which he gave to Marbois and which set forth that to
prevent misunderstandings about the matters of discussion mentioned in
Articles II. and V. of the Morfontaine treaty, and also to strengthen
friendly relations, the French republic was to cede its rights over
Louisiana; and “in consequence of the said cession, Louisiana, its
territory, and its proper dependencies shall become part of the
American Union, and shall form successively one or more States on the
terms of the Federal Constitution;” in return the United States were
to favor French commerce in Louisiana, and give it all the rights of
American commerce, with perpetual _entrepôts_ at six points on
the Mississippi, and a corresponding perpetual right of navigation;
further, they were to assume all debts due to American citizens under
the treaty of Morfontaine; and, finally, were to pay a hundred million
francs to France. With this _projet_ Marbois went by appointment,
at two o’clock, April 27, to Monroe’s lodgings, where the three
gentlemen had an informal meeting, of which no other record is known
to exist than Monroe’s memoranda.[36] Monroe himself was too unwell to
sit at the table, and reclined on a sofa throughout the discussion.
Marbois produced Bonaparte’s _projet_, and after admitting that it
was hard and unreasonable, presented a substitute of his own which he
thought the First Consul would accept.
Livingston tried to give precedence to the claims; he wanted to
dispose of them first, in case the cession should fail; but after
pressing the point as far as he could, he was overruled by Monroe, and
Livingston took Marbois’s project for consideration. The two American
commissioners passed a day in working over it. Livingston drafted a
claims convention, and it was drawn, as he thought, “with particular
attention.”[37] Monroe thought differently. “My colleague took Mr.
Marbois’s project with him, and brought me one, very loosely drawn,
founded on it.”[38] Monroe made a draft of his own which was certainly
not creditable to his legal or diplomatic skill, and which began by
adopting an oversight contained in Bonaparte’s draft, according to
which the cancelled Article II. of the treaty of Morfontaine was made
a foundation of the new convention.[39] “We called on Mr. Marbois the
29th, and gave him our project, which was read to him and discussed.
We proposed to offer fifty millions to France, and twenty millions
on account of her debt to the citizens of the United States, making
seventy in the whole.” Marbois replied that he would proceed only on
the condition that eighty millions were accepted as the price. Then at
last the American commissioners gave way; and with this change Marbois
took their _projet_ for reference to the First Consul the next
morning.
The 30th of April was taken by Marbois for consultation with the First
Consul. May 1 Monroe was presented at the Tuileries, and dined there
with Livingston; but Bonaparte said nothing of their business, except
that it should be settled. The same evening the two envoys had a
final discussion with Marbois. “May 2, we actually signed the treaty
and convention for the sixty million francs to France, in the French
language; but our copies in English not being made out, we could not
sign in our language. They were however prepared, and signed in two or
three days afterward. The convention respecting American claims took
more time, and was not signed till about the 8th or 9th.” All these
documents were antedated to the 30th April.[40]
The first object of remark in this treaty was the absence of any
attempt to define the property thus bought and sold. “Louisiana with
the same extent that is now in the hands of Spain, and that it had
when France possessed it, and such as it should be after the treaties
subsequently entered into between Spain and other States,”--these
words, taken from Berthier’s original treaty of retrocession, were
convenient for France and Spain, whose governments might be supposed to
know their own boundaries; but all that the United States government
knew upon the subject was that Louisiana, as France possessed it,
had included a part of Florida and the whole Ohio Valley as far as
the Alleghany Mountains and Lake Erie. The American commissioners at
first insisted upon defining the boundaries, and Marbois went to the
First Consul with their request. He refused.[41] “If an obscurity did
not already exist, it would perhaps be good policy to put one there.”
He intentionally concealed the boundary he had himself defined, a
knowledge of which would have prevented a long and mortifying dispute.
Livingston went to Talleyrand for the orders given by Spain to the
Marquis of Somoruelo, by France to Victor and Laussat. “What are the
eastern bounds of Louisiana?” asked Livingston. “I do not know,”
replied Talleyrand; “you must take it as we received it.” “But what
did you mean to take?” urged Livingston. “I do not know,” repeated
Talleyrand. “Then you mean that we shall construe it our own way?”
“I can give you no direction. You have made a noble bargain for
yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it,” was the final
reply of Talleyrand. Had Livingston known that Victor’s instructions,
which began by fixing the boundaries in question, were still in
Talleyrand’s desk, the answer would have been the same.
One point alone was fixed,--the Floridas were not included in the
sale; this was conceded on both sides. In his first conversation with
Marbois, Livingston made a condition that France should aid him in
procuring these territories from Spain.[42] “I asked him, in case of
purchase, whether they would stipulate that France would never possess
the Floridas, and that she would aid us to procure them, and relinquish
all right that she might have to them. He told me that she would go
thus far.” Several days later, Marbois repeated this assurance to
Monroe, saying that the First Consul authorized him, besides offering
Louisiana, “to engage his support of our claim to the Floridas with
Spain.”[43] Yet when the American commissioners tried to insert this
pledge into the treaty, they failed. Bonaparte would give nothing but a
verbal promise to use his good offices with Spain.
Besides the failure to dispose of these two points, which were in
reality but one, the treaty contained a positive provision, Article
III., taken from Bonaparte’s _projet_, with slight alteration,
that “the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated
in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible,
according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the
enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of
the United States.” On republican principles of the Virginian school,
only the States themselves could by a new grant of power authorize
such an incorporation. Article III. violated Madison’s instructions,
which forbade the promise.[44] “To incorporate the inhabitants of the
hereby-ceded territory with the citizens of the United States,” said
these instructions, “being a provision which cannot now be made, it is
to be expected, from the character and policy of the United States,
that such incorporation will take place without unnecessary delay.” The
provision, which Madison said could not be made, was nevertheless made
by Livingston and Monroe.
Embarrassing as these omissions or provisions were, they proved not
so much that the treaty was carelessly drawn, as that the American
negotiators were ready to stipulate whatever was needed for their
purpose. Other portions of the treaty were not to be defended on that
excuse. The price stipulated for Louisiana was sixty million francs, in
the form of United States six-per-cent bonds, representing a capital
of $11,250,000. Besides this sum of eleven and a quarter million
dollars, the United States government was to assume and pay the debts
due by France to American citizens, estimated at twenty million francs,
or, at the same rate of exchange, $3,750,000,--making fifteen million
dollars in all as the price to be paid. Livingston himself drew the
claims convention with what he supposed to be particular attention;
but it was modified by Monroe, and still further altered by Marbois.
“The moment was critical; the question of peace or war was in the
balance; and it was important to come to a conclusion before either
scale preponderated. I considered the convention as a trifle compared
with the other great object,” avowed Livingston; “and as it had already
delayed us many days, I was ready to take it under any form.”[45] The
claims convention was not signed till nearly a week after the signature
of the treaty of cession. The form in which Livingston took it showed
that neither he nor Monroe could have given careful attention to the
subject; for not only did the preamble declare that the parties were
acting in compliance with Article II. of the treaty of Morfontaine,--an
Article which had been formally struck out by the Senate, cancelled by
Bonaparte, and the omission ratified by the Senate and President since
Livingston’s residence at Paris; not only did the claims specified fail
to embrace all the cases provided for by the treaty of 1800, which
this convention was framed to execute; not only were the specifications
arbitrary, and even self-contradictory,--but the estimate of twenty
million francs was far below the amount of the claims admitted in
principle; no rule of apportionment was provided, and, worst of all,
the right of final decision in every case was reserved to the French
government. The meaning of this last provision might be guessed from
the notorious corruption of Talleyrand and his band of confidential or
secret agents.
Doubtless Livingston was right in securing his main object at any cost;
but could he have given more time to his claims convention, he would
perhaps have saved his own reputation and that of his successor from
much stain, although he might have gained no more than he did for his
Government. In the two conventions of 1800 and 1803 the United States
obtained two objects of the utmost value,--by the first, a release from
treaty obligations which, if carried out, required war with England; by
the second, the whole west bank of the Mississippi River and the island
of New Orleans, with all the incidental advantages attached. In return
for these gains the United States government promised not to press the
claims of its citizens against the French government beyond the amount
of three million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which was
one fourth part of the price paid for Louisiana. The legitimate claims
of American citizens against France amounted to many million dollars;
in the result, certain favored claimants received three million seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars less their expenses, which reduced
the sum about one half.
The impression of diplomatic oversight was deepened by the scandals
which grew out of the distribution of the three million seven
hundred and fifty thousand dollars which the favored claimants were
to receive. Livingston’s diplomatic career was poisoned by quarrels
over this money.[46] That the French government acted with little
concealment of venality was no matter of surprise; but that Livingston
should be officially charged by his own associates with favoritism
and corruption,--“imbecility of mind and a childish vanity, mixed
with a considerable portion of duplicity,”--injured the credit of
his Government; and the matter was not bettered when he threw back
similar charges on the Board of Commissioners, or when at last
General Armstrong, coming to succeed him, was discredited by similar
suspicions. Considering how small was the amount of money distributed,
the scandal and corruption surpassed any other experience of the
national government.
Livingston’s troubles did not end there. He could afford to suffer some
deduction from his triumph; for he had achieved the greatest diplomatic
success recorded in American history. Neither Franklin, Jay, Gallatin,
nor any other American diplomatist was so fortunate as Livingston for
the immensity of his results compared with the paucity of his means.
Other treaties of immense consequence have been signed by American
representatives,--the treaty of alliance with France; the treaty of
peace with England which recognized independence; the treaty of Ghent;
the treaty which ceded Florida; the Ashburton treaty; the treaty
of Guadeloupe Hidalgo,--but in none of these did the United States
government get so much for so little. The annexation of Louisiana was
an event so portentous as to defy measurement; it gave a new face to
politics, and ranked in historical importance next to the Declaration
of Independence and the adoption of the Constitution,--events of
which it was the logical outcome; but as a matter of diplomacy it was
unparalleled, because it cost almost nothing.
The scandalous failure of the claims convention was a trifling
drawback to the enjoyment of this unique success; but the success
was further embittered by the conviction that America would give the
honor to Monroe. Virginia was all-powerful. Livingston was unpopular,
distrusted, not liked even by Madison; while Monroe, for political
reasons, had been made a prominent figure. Public attention had been
artificially drawn upon his mission; and in consequence, Monroe’s
name grew great, so as almost to overshadow that of Madison, while
Livingston heard few voices proclaiming his services to the country. In
a few weeks Livingston began to see his laurels wither, and was forced
to claim the credit that he thought his due. Monroe treated him less
generously than he might have done, considering that Monroe gained
the political profit of the success.[47] Acknowledging that his own
share was next to nothing in the negotiation, he still encouraged the
idea that Livingston’s influence had been equally null. This view was
doubtless correct, but if universally applied in history, would deprive
many great men of their laurels. Monroe’s criticism helped only to
diminish the political chances of a possible rival who had no Virginia
behind him to press his preferment and cover his mistakes.
CHAPTER III.
When Marbois took the treaty to the First Consul, Bonaparte listened
to its provisions with lively interest; and on hearing that twenty
millions were to be employed in paying claims,--a use of money which
he much disliked,--he broke out: “Who authorized you to dispose of the
money of the State? I want to have these twenty millions paid into
the Treasury. The claimants’ rights cannot come before our own.”[48]
His own _projet_ had required the Americans to assume these
claims,--which was, in fact, the better plan. Marbois’s alteration
turned the claims into a French job. Perhaps Bonaparte was not averse
to this; for when Marbois reminded him that he had himself fixed the
price at fifty millions, whereas the treaty gave him sixty, and settled
the claims besides,--“It is true,” he said; “the negotiation leaves me
nothing to wish. Sixty millions for an occupation that will not perhaps
last a day! I want France to have the good of this unexpected capital,
and to employ it in works of use to her marine.” On the spot he
dictated a decree for the construction of five canals. This excellent
use of the money seemed inconsistent with Lucien’s remark that it was
wanted for war,--but the canals were never built or begun; and the
sixty millions were spent, to the last centime, in preparations for an
impracticable descent on England.
Yet money was not the inducement which caused Bonaparte to sell
Louisiana to the United States. The Prince of Peace would at any
time have given more money, and would perhaps have been willing, as
he certainly was able, to pay it from his private means rather than
allow the United States to own Louisiana. In other respects, the
sale needed explanation, since it contradicted the First Consul’s
political theories and prejudices. He had but two rooted hatreds. The
deeper and fiercer of these was directed against the republic,--the
organized democracy, and what he called ideology, which Americans knew
in practice as Jeffersonian theories; the second and steadier was his
hatred of England as the chief barrier to his military omnipotence.
The cession of Louisiana to the United States contradicted both
these passions, making the ideologists supreme in the New World, and
necessarily tending in the end to strengthen England in the Old.
Bonaparte had been taught by Talleyrand that America and England,
whatever might be their mutual jealousies, hatreds, or wars, were
socially and economically one and indivisible. Barely ten years after
the Revolutionary War had closed, and at a time when the wounds it made
were still raw, Talleyrand remarked: “In every part of America through
which I have travelled, I have not found a single Englishman who did
not feel himself to be an American; not a single Frenchman who did not
find himself a stranger.” Bonaparte knew that England held the monopoly
of American trade, and that America held the monopoly of democratic
principles; yet he did an act which was certain to extend British trade
and fortify democratic principles.
This contradiction was due to no change in Bonaparte’s opinions; these
remained what they were. At the moment when talking to Marbois about
“those republicans whose friendship I seek,” he was calculating on the
chance that his gift would one day prove their ruin. “Perhaps it will
also be objected to me,” he said,[49] “that the Americans may in two
or three centuries be found too powerful for Europe; but my foresight
does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect
rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations that are
called perpetual last only till one of the contracting parties finds
it to its interest to break them.... It is to prevent the danger to
which the colossal power of England exposes us that I would provide
a remedy.” The colossal power of England depended on her navy, her
colonies, and her manufactures. Bonaparte proposed to overthrow it
by shattering beyond repair the colonial system of France and Spain;
and even this step was reasonable compared with what followed. He
expected to check the power of England by giving Louisiana to the
United States,--a measure which opened a new world to English commerce
and manufactures, and riveted England’s grasp on the whole American
continent, inviting her to do what she afterward did,--join hands
with the United States in revolutionizing Mexico and South America in
her own interests. As though to render these results certain, after
extending this invitation to English commerce and American democracy,
Bonaparte next invited a war with England, which was certain to drive
from the ocean every ship belonging to France or Spain,--a war which
left even the United States at England’s mercy.
Every detail that could explain Bonaparte’s motives becomes interesting
in a matter so important to American history. Certain points were
clear. Talleyrand’s colonial and peace policy failed. Resting on the
maintenance of order in Europe and the extension of French power
in rivalry with the United States and England in America, it was a
statesmanlike and honorable scheme, which claimed for the Latin races
what Louis XIV. tried to gain for them; but it had the disadvantage
of rousing hostility in the United States, and of throwing them into
the arms of England. For this result Talleyrand was prepared. He knew
that he could keep peace with England, and that the United States alone
could not prevent him from carrying out his policy. Indeed, Madison
in his conversation with Pichon invited such action, and Jefferson
had no means of resisting it; but from the moment when St. Domingo
prevented the success of the scheme, and Bonaparte gained an excuse
for following his own military instincts, the hostility of the United
States became troublesome. President Jefferson had chiefly reckoned on
this possibility as his hope of getting Louisiana; and slight as the
chance seemed, he was right.
This was, in effect, the explanation which Talleyrand officially wrote
to his colleague Decrès, communicating a copy of the treaty, and
requesting him to take the necessary measures for executing it.[50]
“The wish to spare the North American continent the war with
which it was threatened, to dispose of different points in
dispute between France and the United States of America, and to
remove all the new causes of misunderstanding which competition
and neighborhood might have produced between them; the position
of the French colonies; their want of men, cultivation, and
assistance; in fine, the empire of circumstances, foresight of
the future, and the intention to compensate by an advantageous
arrangement for the inevitable loss of a country which war was
going to put at the mercy of another nation,--all these motives
have determined the Government to pass to the United States
the rights it had acquired from Spain over the sovereignty and
property of Louisiana.”
Talleyrand’s words were always happily chosen, whether to reveal or
to conceal his thoughts. This display of reasons for an act which
he probably preferred to condemn, might explain some of the First
Consul’s motives in ceding Louisiana to the United States; but it only
confused another more perplexing question. Louisiana did not belong
to France, but to Spain. The retrocession had never been completed;
the territory was still possessed, garrisoned, and administered by Don
Carlos IV.; until actual delivery was made, Spain might yet require
that the conditions of retrocession should be rigorously performed. Her
right in the present instance was complete, because she held as one of
the conditions precedent to the retrocession a solemn pledge from the
First Consul never to alienate Louisiana. The sale of Louisiana to the
United States was trebly invalid: if it were French property, Bonaparte
could not constitutionally alienate it without the consent of the
Chambers; if it were Spanish property, he could not alienate it at all;
if Spain had a right of reclamation, his sale was worthless. In spite
of all these objections the alienation took place; and the motives
which led the First Consul to conciliate America by violating the
Constitution of France were perhaps as simple as he represented them to
be; but no one explained what motives led Bonaparte to break his word
of honor and betray the monarchy of Spain.
Bonaparte’s evident inclination toward a new war with England greatly
distressed King Charles IV. Treaty stipulations bound Spain either to
take part with France in the war, or to pay a heavy annual subsidy;
and Spain was so weak that either alternative seemed fatal. The Prince
of Peace would have liked to join England or Austria in a coalition
against Bonaparte; but he knew that to this last desperate measure
King Charles would never assent until Bonaparte’s hand was actually
on his crown; for no one could reasonably doubt that within a year
after Spain should declare an unsuccessful war on France, the whole
picturesque Spanish court--not only Don Carlos IV. himself and Queen
Luisa, but also the Prince of Peace, Don Pedro Cevallos, the Infant
Don Ferdinand, and the train of courtiers who thronged La Granja and
the Escorial--would be wandering in exile or wearing out their lives
in captivity. To increase the complication, the young King of Etruria
died May 27, 1803, leaving an infant seated upon the frail throne
which was sure soon to disappear at the bidding of some military order
countersigned by Berthier.
In the midst of such anxieties, Godoy heard a public rumor that
Bonaparte had sold Louisiana to the United States; and he felt it
as the death-knell of the Spanish empire. Between the energy of the
American democracy and the violence of Napoleon whom no oath bound,
Spain could hope for no escape. From New Orleans to Vera Cruz was but
a step; from Bayonne to Cadiz a winter campaign of some five or six
hundred miles. Yet Godoy would probably have risked everything, and
would have thrown Spain into England’s hands, had he been able to
control the King and Queen, over whom Bonaparte exercised the influence
of a master. On learning the sale of Louisiana, the Spanish government
used language almost equivalent to a rupture with France. The Spanish
minister at Paris was ordered to remonstrate in the strongest terms
against the step which the First Consul had taken behind the back of
the King his ally.[51]
“This alienation,” wrote the Chevalier d’Azara to Talleyrand,
“not only deranges from top to bottom the whole colonial system
of Spain, and even of Europe, but is directly opposed to the
compacts and formal stipulations agreed upon between France and
Spain, and to the terms of the cession in the treaty of Tuscany;
and the King my master brought himself to give up the colony
only on condition that it should at no time, under no pretext,
and in no manner, be alienated or ceded to any other Power.”
Then, after reciting the words of Gouvion St.-Cyr’s pledge, the note
continued:--
“It is impossible to conceive more frankness or loyalty than
the King has put into his conduct toward France throughout this
affair. His Majesty had therefore the right to expect as much on
the part of his ally, but unhappily finds himself deceived in
his hopes by the sale of the said colony. Yet trusting always in
the straightforwardness and justice of the First Consul, he has
ordered me to make this representation, and to protest against
the alienation, hoping that it will be revoked, as manifestly
contrary to the treaties and to the most solemn anterior
promises.”
Not stopping there, the note also insisted that Tuscany should be
evacuated by the French troops, who were not needed, and had become
an intolerable burden, so that the country was reduced to the utmost
misery. Next, King Charles demanded that Parma and Piacenza should be
surrendered to the King of Etruria, to whom they belonged as the heir
of the late Duke of Parma. Finally, the note closed with a complaint
even more grave in substance than any of the rest:--
“The King my master could have wished also a little more
friendly frankness in communicating the negotiations with
England, and especially in regard to the dispositions of the
Northern courts, guarantors of the treaty of Amiens; but as this
affair belongs to negotiations of another kind, the undersigned
abstains for the moment from entering into them, reserving the
right to do so on a better occasion.”
Beurnonville, the French minister at Madrid, tried to soothe or
silence the complaints of Cevallos; but found himself only silenced in
return. The views of the Spanish secretary were energetic, precise,
and not to be met by argument.[52] “I have not been able to bring M.
Cevallos to any moderate, conciliatory, or even calm expression,”
wrote Beurnonville to Talleyrand; “he has persistently shown himself
inaccessible to all persuasion.” The Prince of Peace was no more
manageable than Cevallos: “While substituting a soft and pliant tone
for the sharpest expressions, and presenting under the appearance of
regret what had been advanced to me with the bitterness of reproach,
the difference between the Prince’s conduct and that of M. Cevallos is
one only in words.” Both of them said, what was quite true, that the
United States would not have objected to the continued possession of
Louisiana by Spain, and that France had greatly exaggerated the dispute
about the _entrepôt_.
“The whole matter reduces itself to a blunder (_gaucherie_)
of the Intendant,” said Cevallos; “it has been finally explained
to Mr. Jefferson, and friendship is restored. On both sides
there has been irritation, but not a shadow of aggression; and
from the moment of coming to an understanding, both parties see
that they are at bottom of one mind, and mutually very well
disposed toward each other. Moreover, it is quite gratuitous
to assume that Louisiana is so easy to take in the event of a
war, either by the Americans or by the English. The first have
only militia,--very considerable, it is true, but few troops
of the line; while Louisiana, at least for the moment, has ten
thousand militia-men, and a body of three thousand five hundred
regular troops. As for the English, they cannot seriously have
views on a province which is impregnable to them; and all things
considered, it would be no great calamity if they should take
it. The United States, having a much firmer hold on the American
continent, should they take a new enlargement, would end by
becoming formidable, and would one day disturb the Spanish
possessions. As for the debts due to Americans, Spain has still
more claim to an arrangement of that kind; and in any case the
King, as Bonaparte must know, would have gladly discharged
all the debts contracted by France, and perhaps even a large
instalment of the American claim, in order to recover an old
domain of the crown. Finally, the intention which led the King
to give his consent to the exchange of Louisiana was completely
deceived. This intention had been to interpose a strong dyke
between the Spanish colonies and the American possessions; now,
on the contrary, the doors of Mexico are to stay open to them.”
To these allegations, which Beurnonville called “insincere, weak,
and ill-timed,” Cevallos added a piece of evidence which, strangely
enough, was altogether new to the French minister, and reduced him to
confusion: it was Gouvion St.-Cyr’s letter, pledging the First Consul
never to alienate Louisiana.
When Beurnonville’s despatch narrating these interviews reached Paris,
it stung Bonaparte to the quick, and called from him one of the angry
avowals with which he sometimes revealed a part of the motives that
influenced his strange mind. Talleyrand wrote back to Beurnonville,
June 22, a letter which bore the mark of the First Consul’s hand.
“In one of my last letters,” he began,[53] “I made known to
you the motives which determined the Government to give up
Louisiana to the United States. You will not conceal from the
Court of Madrid that one of the causes which had most influence
on this determination was discontent at learning that Spain,
after having promised to sustain the measures taken by the
Intendant of New Orleans, had nevertheless formally revoked
them. These measures would have tended to free the capital
of Louisiana from subjection to a right of deposit which was
becoming a source of bickerings between the Louisianians and
Americans. We should have afterward assigned to the United
States, in conformity to their treaty with Spain, another place
of deposit, less troublesome to the colony and less injurious
to its commerce; but Spain put to flight all these hopes by
confirming the privileges of the Americans at New Orleans,--thus
granting them definitively local advantages which had been at
first only temporary. The French government, which had reason to
count on the contrary assurance given in this regard by that of
Spain, had a right to feel surprise at this determination; and
seeing no way of reconciling it with the commercial advantages
of the colony and with a long peace between the colony and its
neighbors, took the only course which actual circumstances and
wise prevision could suggest.”
These assertions contained no more truth than those which Cevallos had
answered. Spain had not promised to sustain the Intendant, nor had
she revoked the Intendant’s measures after, but before, the imagined
promise; she had not confirmed the American privileges at New Orleans,
but had expressly reserved them for future treatment. On the other
hand, the restoration of the deposit was not only reconcilable with
peace between Louisiana and the United States, but the whole world
knew that the risk of war rose from the threat of disturbing the right
of deposit. The idea that the colony had become less valuable on this
account was new. France had begged for the colony with its American
privileges, and meaning to risk the chances of American hostility;
but if these privileges were the cause of selling the colony to the
Americans, and if, as Talleyrand implied, France could and would
have held Louisiana if the right of deposit at New Orleans had been
abolished and the Americans restricted to some other spot on the
river-bank, fear of England was not, as had been previously alleged,
the cause of the sale. Finally, if the act of Spain made the colony
worthless, why was Spain deprived of the chance to buy it back?
The answer was evident. The reason why Bonaparte did not keep his word
to Don Carlos IV. was that he looked on Spain as his own property, and
on himself as representing her sovereignty. The reasons for which he
refused to Spain the chance to redeem the colony, were probably far
more complicated. The only obvious explanation, assuming that he still
remembered his pledge, was a wish to punish Spain.
After all these questions were asked, one problem still remained.
Bonaparte had reasons for not returning the colony to Spain; he had
reasons, too, for giving it to the United States,--but why did he
alienate the territory from France? Fear of England was not the true
cause. He had not to learn how to reconquer Louisiana on the Danube and
the Po. At one time or another Great Britain had captured nearly all
the French colonies in the New World, and had been forced not only
to disgorge conquests, but to abandon possessions; until of the three
great European Powers in America, England was weakest. Any attempt to
regain old ascendency by conquering Louisiana would have thrown the
United States into the hands of France; and had Bonaparte anticipated
such an act, he should have helped it. That Great Britain should waste
strength in conquering Louisiana in order to give it to the United
States, was an idea not to be gravely argued. Jefferson might, indeed,
be driven into an English alliance in order to take Louisiana by force
from France or Spain; but this danger was slight in itself, and might
have been removed by the simple measure of selling only the island of
New Orleans, and by retaining the west bank, which Jefferson was ready
to guarantee. This was the American plan; and the President offered for
New Orleans alone about half the price he paid for all Louisiana.[54]
Still, Bonaparte forced the west bank on Livingston. Every diplomatic
object would have been gained by accepting Jefferson’s _projet_ of
a treaty, and signing it without the change of a word. Spain would have
been still in some degree protected; England would have been tempted to
commit the mistake of conquering the retained territory, and thereby
the United States would have been held in check; the United States
would have gained all the stimulus their ambition could require for
many years to come; and what was more important to Bonaparte, France
could not justly say that he had illegally and ignobly sold national
territory except for a sufficient and national object.
The real reasons which induced Bonaparte to alienate the territory
from France remained hidden in the mysterious processes of his mind.
Perhaps he could not himself have given the true explanation of his
act. Anger with Spain and Godoy had a share in it, as he avowed through
Talleyrand’s letter of June 22; disgust for the sacrifices he had made,
and impatience to begin his new campaigns on the Rhine,--possibly a
wish to show Talleyrand that his policy could never be revived, and
that he had no choice but to follow into Germany,--had still more to do
with the act. Yet it is also reasonable to believe that the depths of
his nature concealed a wish to hide forever the monument of a defeat.
As he would have liked to blot Corsica, Egypt, and St. Domingo from the
map, and wipe from human memory the record of his failures, he may have
taken pleasure in flinging Louisiana far off, and burying it forever
from the sight of France in the bosom of the only government which
could absorb and conceal it.
For reasons of his own, which belonged rather to military and European
than to American history, Bonaparte preferred to deal with Germany
before crossing the Pyrenees; and he knew that meanwhile Spain could
not escape. Godoy on his side could neither drag King Charles into a
war with France, nor could he provide the means of carrying on such
a war with success. Where strong nations like Austria, Russia, and
Prussia were forced to crouch before Bonaparte, and even England would
have been glad to accept tolerable terms, Spain could not challenge
attack. The violent anger that followed the sale of Louisiana and the
rupture of the peace of Amiens soon subsided. Bonaparte, aware that he
had outraged the rights of Spain, became moderate. Anxious to prevent
her from committing any act of desperation, he did not require her
to take part in the war, but even allowed her stipulated subsidies
to run in arrears; and although he might not perhaps regret his sale
of Louisiana to the United States, he felt that he had gone too far
in shaking the colonial system. At the moment when Cevallos made his
bitterest complaints, Bonaparte was least disposed to resent them by
war. Both parties knew that so far as Louisiana was concerned, the act
was done and could not be undone; that France was bound to carry out
her pledge, or the United States would take possession of Louisiana
without her aid. Bonaparte was willing to go far in the way of
conciliation, if Spain would consent to withdraw her protest.
Of this the American negotiators knew little. Through such
complications, of which Bonaparte alone understood the secret, the
Americans moved more or less blindly, not knowing enemies from friends.
The only public man who seemed ever to understand Napoleon’s methods
was Pozzo di Borgo, whose ways of thought belonged to the island
society in which both had grown to manhood; and Monroe was not skilled
in the diplomacy of Pozzo, or even of Godoy. Throughout life, Monroe
was greatly under the influence of other men. He came to Paris almost a
stranger to its new society, for his only relations of friendship had
been with the republicans, most of whom Bonaparte had sent to Cayenne.
He found Livingston master of the situation, and wisely interfered in
no way with what Livingston did. The treaty was no sooner signed than
he showed his readiness to follow Livingston further, without regard to
embarrassments which might result.
When Livingston set his name to the treaty of cession, May 2, 1803,
he was aware of the immense importance of the act. He rose and shook
hands with Monroe and Marbois. “We have lived long,” said he; “but
this is the noblest work of our lives.” This was said by the man
who in the Continental Congress had been a member of the committee
appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence; and it was said to
Monroe, who had been assured only three months before, by President
Jefferson of the grandeur of his destinies in words he could hardly
have forgotten:[55] “Some men are born for the public. Nature, by
fitting them for the service of the human race on a broad scale, has
stamped them with the evidences of her destination and their duty.”
Monroe was born for the public, and knew what destiny lay before him;
while in Livingston’s mind New York had thenceforward a candidate for
the Presidency whose claims were better than Monroe’s. In the cup of
triumph of which these two men then drank deep, was yet one drop of
acid. They had been sent to buy the Floridas and New Orleans. They
had bought New Orleans; but instead of Florida, so much wanted by the
Southern people, they had paid ten or twelve million dollars for the
west bank of the Mississippi. The negotiators were annoyed to think
that having been sent to buy the east bank of the Mississippi, they
had bought the west bank instead; that the Floridas were not a part
of their purchase. Livingston especially felt the disappointment, and
looked about him for some way to retrieve it.
Hardly was the treaty signed, when Livingston found what he sought.
He discovered that France had actually bought West Florida without
knowing it, and had sold it to the United States without being paid
for it. This theory, which seemed at first sight preposterous, became
a fixed idea in Livingston’s mind. He knew that West Florida had not
been included by Spain in the retrocession, but that on the contrary
Charles IV. had repeatedly, obstinately, and almost publicly rejected
Bonaparte’s tempting bids for that province. Livingston’s own argument
for the cession of Louisiana had chiefly rested on this knowledge,
and on the theory that without Mobile New Orleans was worthless.
He recounted this to Madison in the same letter which announced
Talleyrand’s offer to sell:[56]--
“I have used every exertion with the Spanish Ambassador and
Lord Whitworth to prevent the transfer of the Floridas, ... and
unless they [the French] get Florida, I have convinced them that
Louisiana is worth little.”
In the preceding year one of the French ministers had applied to
Livingston “to know what we understand in America by Louisiana;”
and Livingston’s answer was on record in the State Department at
Washington:[57] “Since the possession of the Floridas by Britain and
the treaty of 1762, I think there can be no doubt as to the precise
meaning of the terms.” He had himself drafted an article which he
tried to insert in Marbois’s _projet_, pledging the First Consul
to interpose his good offices with the King of Spain to obtain the
country east of the Mississippi. As late as May 12, Livingston wrote to
Madison:[58] “I am satisfied that ... if they [the French] could have
concluded with Spain, we should also have had West Florida.” In his
next letter, only a week afterward, he insisted that West Florida was
his:[59]--
“Now, sir, the sum of this business is to recommend to you in
the strongest terms, after having obtained the possession that
the French commissary will give you, to insist upon this as a
part of your right, and to take possession at all events to the
River Perdido. I pledge myself that your right is good.”
The reasoning on which he rested this change of opinion was in
substance the following: France had, in early days, owned nearly all
the North American continent, and her province of Louisiana had then
included Ohio and the watercourses between the Lakes and the Gulf, as
well as West Florida, or a part of it. This possession lasted until
the treaty of peace, Nov. 3, 1762, when France ceded to England not
only Canada, but also Florida and all other possessions east of the
Mississippi, except the Island of New Orleans. Then West Florida by
treaty first received its modern boundary at the Iberville. On the
same day France further ceded to Spain the Island of New Orleans and
all Louisiana west of the Mississippi. Not a foot of the vast French
possessions on the continent of North America remained in the hands of
the King of France; they were divided between England and Spain.
The retrocession of 1800 was made on the understanding that it referred
to this cession of 1762. The province of Louisiana which had been ceded
was _retro_-ceded, with its treaty-boundary at the Iberville.
Livingston knew that the understanding between France and Spain was
complete; yet on examination he found that it had not been expressed
in words so clearly but that these words could be made to bear a
different meaning. Louisiana was retroceded, he perceived, “with the
same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when
France possessed it, and such as it should be according to the treaties
subsequently entered into between Spain and other States.” When France
possessed Louisiana it included Ohio and West Florida: no one could
deny that West Florida was in the hands of Spain; therefore Bonaparte,
in the absence of negative proof, might have claimed West Florida, if
he had been acute enough to know his own rights, or willing to offend
Spain,--and as all Bonaparte’s rights were vested in the United States,
President Jefferson was at liberty to avail himself of them.
The ingenuity of Livingston’s idea was not to be disputed; and as a
ground for a war of conquest it was as good as some of the claims which
Bonaparte made the world respect. As a diplomatic weapon, backed as
Napoleon would have backed it by a hundred thousand soldiers, it was as
effective an instrument as though it had every attribute of morality
and good faith; and all it wanted, as against Spain, was the approval
of Bonaparte. Livingston hoped that after the proof of friendship which
Bonaparte had already given in selling Louisiana to the United States,
he might without insuperable difficulty be induced to grant this favor.
Both Marbois and Talleyrand, under the First Consul’s express orders,
led him on. Marbois did not deny that Mobile might lie in Louisiana,
and Talleyrand positively denied knowledge that Laussat’s instructions
contained a definition of boundaries. Bonaparte stood behind both
these agents, telling them that if an obscurity did not exist about the
boundary they should make one. Talleyrand went so far as to encourage
the pretensions which Livingston hinted: “You have made a noble bargain
for yourselves,” said he, “and I suppose you will make the most of it.”
This was said at the time when Bonaparte was still intent on punishing
Spain.
Livingston found no difficulty in convincing Monroe that they had
bought Florida as well as Louisiana.[60]
“We consider ourselves so strongly founded in this conclusion,
that we are of opinion the United States should act on it in all
the measures relative to Louisiana in the same manner as if West
Florida was comprised within the Island of New Orleans, or lay
to the west of the River Iberville.”
Livingston expected that “a little force,”[61] as he expressed himself,
might be necessary.
“After the explanations that have been given here, you need
apprehend nothing from a decisive measure; your minister here
and at Madrid can support your claim, and the time is peculiarly
favorable to enable you to do it without the smallest risk at
home.... The moment is so favorable for taking possession of
that country that I hope it has not been neglected, even though
a little force should be necessary to effect it. Your minister
must find the means to justify it.”
A little violence added to a little diplomacy would answer the purpose.
To use the words which “Aristides” Van Ness was soon to utter with
striking effect, the United States ministers to France “practised with
unlimited success upon the Livingston maxim,--
‘Rem facias, rem
Si possis recte; si non, quocunque modo, REM.’”
CHAPTER IV.
IN the excitement of this rapid and half-understood foreign
drama, domestic affairs seemed tame to the American people, who
were busied only with the routine of daily life. They had set their
democratic house in order. So short and easy was the task, that the
work of a single year finished it. When the President was about to meet
Congress for the second time, he had no new measures to offer.[62]
“The path we have to pursue is so quiet that we have nothing scarcely
to propose to our legislature.” The session was too short for severe
labor. A quorum was not made until the middle of December, 1802;
the Seventh Congress expired March 4, 1803. Of these ten weeks, a
large part was consumed in discussions of Morales’s proclamation and
Bonaparte’s scheme of colonizing Louisiana.
On one plea the ruling party relied as an excuse for inactivity and
as a defence against attack. Their enemies had said and believed that
the democrats possessed neither virtue nor ability enough to carry on
the government; but after eighteen months of trial, as the year 1803
began, the most severe Federalist could not with truth assert that
the country had yet suffered in material welfare from the change.
Although the peace in Europe, after October, 1801, checked the shipping
interests of America, and although France and Spain, returning to the
strictness of their colonial system, drove the American flag from their
harbors in the Antilles, yet Gallatin at the close of the first year of
peace was able to tell Congress[63] that the customs revenue, which he
had estimated twelve months before at $9,500,000, had brought into the
Treasury $12,280,000, or much more than had ever before been realized
in a single year from all sources of revenue united. That the Secretary
of the Treasury should miscalculate by one third the product of his
own taxes was strange; but Gallatin liked to measure the future, not
by a probable mean, but by its lowest possible extreme, and his chief
aim was to check extravagance in appropriations for objects which he
thought bad. His caution increased the popular effect of his success.
Opposition became ridiculous when it persisted in grumbling at a system
which, beginning with a hazardous reduction of taxes, brought in a
single year an immense increase in revenue. The details of Gallatin’s
finance fretted the Federalists without helping them.
The Federalists were equally unlucky in finding other domestic
grievances. The removals from office did not shock the majority. The
Judiciary was not again molested. The overwhelming superiority of
the democrats was increased by the admission of Ohio, Nov. 29, 1802.
No man of sense could deny that the people were better satisfied with
their new Administration than they ever had been with the old. Loudly
as New England grumbled, the Federalists even there steadily declined
in relative strength; while elsewhere an organized body of opposition
to the national government hardly existed. From New York to Savannah,
no one complained of being forced to work for national objects; South
Carolina as well as Virginia was pleased with the power she helped to
sway.
Here and there might be found districts in which Federalism tried
to hold its own; but the Federalism of Delaware and Maryland was
not dangerous, and even in Delaware the Federalist champion Bayard
was beaten by Cæsar A. Rodney in his contest for the House, and was
driven to take refuge in the Senate. Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia,
and North Carolina were nearly unanimous; and beyond the mountains
democracy had its own way without the trouble of a discussion.
Federalism was already an old-fashioned thing; a subject of ridicule
to people who had no faith in forms; a half-way house between the
European past and the American future. The mass of Americans had become
democratic in thought as well as act; not even another political
revolution could undo what had been done. As a democrat, Jefferson’s
social success was sweeping and final; but he was more than a
democrat,--and in his other character, as a Virginia republican of the
State-rights school, he was not equally successful.
In the short session of 1802–1803 many signs proved that the revolution
of 1800 had spent its force, and that a reaction was at hand. Congress
showed no eagerness to adopt the President’s new economies, and
dismissed, with silence almost contemptuous, his scheme for building
at Washington a large dry-dock in which the navy should be stored for
safety and saving. The mint was continued by law for another five
years, and twenty thousand dollars were quietly appropriated for its
support. Instead of reducing the navy, Congress decided to build four
sixteen-gun brigs and fifteen gunboats, and appropriated ninety-six
thousand dollars for the brigs alone. The appropriation of two millions
as a first instalment toward paying for New Orleans and Florida was
another and a longer stride in the old Federalist path of confidence
in the Executive and liberality for national objects. The expenditure
for 1802, excluding interest on debt, was $3,737,000. Never afterward
in United States history did the annual expenditure fall below four
millions. The navy, in 1802, cost $915,000; never afterward did it cost
less than a million.
The reaction toward Federalist practices was more marked in the
attitude of the Executive than in that of Congress. If Jefferson’s
favorite phrase was true,--that the Federalist differed from the
Republican only in the shade more or less of power to be given
the Executive,--it was hard to see how any President could be more
Federalist than Jefferson himself. A resolution to commit the nation
without its knowledge to an indissoluble British alliance, was more
than Washington would have dared take; yet this step was taken by the
President, and was sustained by Madison, Gallatin, and Robert Smith
as fairly within the limits of the Constitution. In regard to another
stretch of the treaty-making power, they felt with reason the gravest
doubts. When the President and Cabinet decided early in January,
1803, to send Monroe with two million dollars to buy New Orleans and
Florida, a question was instantly raised as to the form in which such
a purchase could be constitutionally made. Attorney-General Lincoln
wished to frame the treaty or convention in such language as to make
France appear not as adding new territory to the United States, but as
extending already existing territory by an alteration of its boundary.
He urged this idea upon the President in a letter written the day of
Monroe’s nomination to the Senate.[64]
“If the opinion is correct,” said he, “that the general
government when formed was predicated on the then existing
_United_ States, and such as could grow out of them, and
out of them only; and that its authority is constitutionally
limited to the people composing the several political State
societies in that Union, and such as might be formed out of
them,--would not a direct independent purchase be extending the
executive power farther, and be more alarming, and improvable
by the opposition and the Eastern States, than the proposed
indirect mode?”
Jefferson sent this letter to Gallatin, who treated it without
favor.[65]
“If the acquisition of territory is not warranted by the
Constitution,” said he, “it is not more legal to acquire for
one State than for the United States.... What could, on his
construction, prevent the President and Senate, by treaty,
annexing Cuba to Massachusetts, or Bengal to Rhode Island, if
ever the acquirement of colonies should become a favorite object
with governments, and colonies should be acquired? But does any
constitutional objection really exist?... To me it would appear,
(1) that the United States, as a nation, have an inherent
right to acquire territory; (2) that whenever that acquisition
is by treaty, the same constituted authorities in whom the
treaty-making power is vested have a constitutional right to
sanction the acquisition.”
Gallatin not only advanced Federal doctrine, but used also what the
Virginians always denounced as Federalist play on words. “The United
States as a nation” had an inherent right to do whatever the States in
union cared to do; but the Republican party, with Jefferson, Madison,
and Gallatin at their head, had again and again maintained that the
United States _government_ had the inherent right to do no act
whatever, but was the creature of the States in union; and its acts, if
not resulting from an expressly granted power, were no acts at all,
but void, and not to be obeyed or regarded by the States. No foreigner,
not even Gallatin, could master the theory of Virginia and New England,
or distinguish between the nation of States in union which granted
certain powers, and the creature at Washington to which these powers
were granted, and which might be strengthened, weakened, or abolished
without necessarily affecting the nation. Whether the inability to
grasp this distinction was a result of clearer insight or of coarser
intelligence, the fact was the same; and on this point, in spite of his
speech on the Alien and Sedition Acts, Gallatin belonged to the school
of Hamilton, while both were of one mind with Dallas. The chief avowed
object of Jefferson’s election had been to overthrow the reign of this
school. No Virginian could be expected within two short years to adopt
the opinions of opponents who had been so often branded as “monocrats,”
because of acting on these opinions. Although the Attorney-General’s
advice was not followed, the negotiation for New Orleans was begun on
the understanding that the purchase, if made, would be an inchoate act
which would need express sanction from the States in the shape of an
amendment to the Constitution.
There the matter rested. At the moment of Monroe’s appointment, the
President, according to his letters, had little hope of quick success
in the purchase of territory. His plan was to “palliate and endure,”
unless France should force a war upon him; the constitutional question
could wait, and it was accordingly laid aside. Yet the chief ambition
of Southern statesmen in foreign affairs was to obtain the Floridas
and New Orleans; and in effecting this object they could hardly escape
establishing a serious precedent. Already Jefferson had ordered his
ministers at Paris to buy this territory, although he thought the
Constitution gave him no power to do so; he was willing to increase
the national debt for this purpose, even though a national debt was a
“mortal canker;” and he ordered his minister, in case Bonaparte should
close the Mississippi, to make a permanent alliance with England, or in
his own words to “marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation,” as
the price of New Orleans and Florida. Jefferson foresaw and accepted
the consequences of the necessity; he repeatedly referred to them and
deprecated them in his letters; but the territory was a vital object,
and success there would, as he pointed out, secure forever the triumph
of his party even in New England.
“I believe we may consider the mass of the States south and west
of Connecticut and Massachusetts as now a consolidated body of
Republicanism,”--he wrote to Governor McKean in the midst of the
Mississippi excitement.[66] “In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New
Hampshire there is still a Federal ascendency; but it is near its last.
If we can settle happily the difficulties of the Mississippi, I think
we may promise ourselves smooth seas during our time.” What he rightly
feared more than any other political disaster was the risk of falling
back to the feelings of 1798 and 1799, “when a final dissolution of all
bonds, civil and social, appeared imminent.”[67] With zeal which never
flagged, Jefferson kept up his struggle with the New England oligarchy,
whose last move alarmed him. So sensitive was the President, that he
joined personally in the fray that distracted New England; and while
waiting for news from Monroe, he wrote a defence of his own use of
patronage, showing, under the assumed character of a Massachusetts man,
that a proportionate division of offices between the two parties would,
since the Federalists had so much declined in numbers, leave to them
even a smaller share of Federal offices than they still possessed. This
paper he sent to Attorney-General Lincoln,[68] to be published in the
Boston “Chronicle;” and there, although never recognized, it appeared.
Had the Federalists suspected the authorship, they would have fallen
without mercy upon its arguments and its modest compliment to “the
tried ability and patriotism of the present Executive;” but the
essay was no sooner published than it was forgotten. The “Chronicle”
of June 27, 1803, contained Jefferson’s argument founded on the
rapid disappearance of the Federalist party; the next issue of the
“Chronicle,” June 30, contained a single headline, which sounded the
death-knell of Federalism altogether: “Louisiana ceded to the United
States!” The great news had arrived; and the Federalist orators of July
4, 1803, set about their annual task of foreboding the ruin of society
amid the cheers and congratulations of the happiest society the world
then knew.
The President’s first thought was of the Constitution. Without delay he
drew up an amendment, which he sent at once to his Cabinet.[69] “The
province of Louisiana is incorporated with the United States and made
part thereof,” began this curious paper; “the rights of occupancy in
the soil and of self-government are confirmed to the Indian inhabitants
as they now exist.” Then, after creating a special Constitution for
the territory north of the 32d parallel, reserving it for the Indians
until a new amendment to the Constitution should give authority for
white ownership, the draft provided for erecting the portion south of
latitude 32° into a territorial government, and vesting the inhabitants
with the rights of other territorial citizens.
Gallatin took no notice of this paper, except to acknowledge receiving
it.[70] Robert Smith wrote at some length, July 9, dissuading Jefferson
from grafting so strange a shoot upon the Constitution.[71]
“Your great object is to prevent emigrations,” said he,
“excepting to a certain portion of the ceded territory.
This could be effectually accomplished by a constitutional
prohibition that Congress should not erect or establish in that
portion of the ceded territory situated north of latitude 32°
any new state or territorial government, and that they should
not grant to any people excepting Indians any right or title
whatever to any part of the said portion of the said territory.”
Of any jealousy between North and South which could be sharpened by
such a restriction of northern and extension of southern territory,
Jefferson was unaware. He proposed his amendment in good faith as a
means of holding the Union together by stopping its too rapid extension
into the wilderness.
Coldly as his ideas were received in the Cabinet, Jefferson did not
abandon them. Another month passed, and a call was issued for a special
meeting of Congress October 17 to provide the necessary legislation for
carrying the treaty into effect. As the summer wore away, Jefferson
imparted his opinions to persons outside the Cabinet. He wrote, August
12, to Breckenridge of Kentucky a long and genial letter. Congress, he
supposed,[72] after ratifying the treaty and paying for the country,
“must then appeal to _the nation_ for an additional article to the
Constitution approving and confirming an act which the nation had not
previously authorized. 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. The Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical
subtleties and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify
and pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for
them unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had
they been in a situation to do it.”
Breckenridge--whose Kentucky Resolutions, hardly five years before,
declared that unconstitutional assumptions of power were the surrender
of the form of government the people had chosen, and the replacing it
by a government which derived its powers from its own will--might be
annoyed at finding his principles abandoned by the man who had led
him to father them; and surely no leader who had sent to his follower
in one year the draft of the Kentucky Resolutions could have expected
to send in another the draft of the Louisiana treaty. “I suppose they
must then appeal to _the nation_” were the President’s words; and
he underscored this ominous phrase. “We shall not be disavowed by the
nation, and their act of indemnity will confirm and not weaken the
Constitution by more strongly marking out its lines.” The Constitution,
in dealing with the matter of amendments, made no reference to the
nation; the word itself was unknown to the Constitution, which
invariably spoke of the _Union_ wherever such an expression was
needed; and on the Virginia theory Congress had no right to appeal to
the nation at all, except as a nation of States, for an amendment. The
language used by Jefferson was the language of centralization, and
would have been rejected by him and his party in 1798 or in 1820.
On the day of writing to Breckenridge the President wrote in a like
sense to Paine; but in the course of a week despatches arrived from
Paris which alarmed him. Livingston had reason to fear a sudden change
of mind in the First Consul, and was willing to hasten the movements of
President and Congress. Jefferson took the alarm, and wrote instantly
to warn Breckenridge and Paine that no whisper of constitutional
difficulties must be heard:[73]--
“I wrote you on the 12th instant on the subject of Louisiana and
the constitutional provision which might be necessary for it.
A letter received yesterday shows that nothing must be said on
that subject which may give a pretext for retracting, but that
we should do _sub silentio_ what shall be found necessary.
Be so good, therefore, as to consider that part of my letter as
confidential.”
He gave the same warning to his Cabinet:[74] “I infer that the less
we say about constitutional difficulties the better; and that what is
necessary for surmounting them must be done _sub silentio_.”
He then drew up a new amendment, which he sent to the members of his
Cabinet.[75] The July draft was long, elaborate, and almost a new
Constitution in itself; the August draft was comparatively brief.
“Louisiana as ceded by France to the United States is made a part of
the United States. Its white inhabitants shall be citizens, and stand,
as to their rights and obligations, on the same footing with other
citizens of the United States in analogous situations.” The whole
country north of the Arkansas River was reserved for Indians until
another amendment should be made; and as an afterthought Florida was
to be admitted as a part of the United States “whenever it may be
rightfully obtained.”
These persistent attempts to preserve his own consistency and that of
his party were coldly received. Jefferson found himself alone. Wilson
Cary Nicholas, a prominent supporter of the Virginia Resolutions
in 1798 and a senator of the United States in 1803, had a long
conversation with the President, and in the early days of September
wrote him a letter which might have come from Theodore Sedgwick or
Roger Griswold in the days of Jay’s treaty, when Federalist notions of
prerogative ran highest.
“Upon an examination of the Constitution,” wrote Nicholas,[76]
“I find the power as broad as it could well be made (Sect.
3, Art. IV.), except that new States cannot be formed out of
the old ones without the consent of the _State_ to be
dismembered; and the exception is a proof to my mind that it was
not intended to confine the Congress in the admission of new
States to what was then the territory of the United States.
Nor do I see anything in the Constitution that limits the
treaty-making power, except the general limitations of the other
powers given to the government, and the evident objects for
which the government was instituted.”
Had Nicholas reasoned thus in 1798 he would have been a Federalist, as
he seemed conscious, for he went on to say: “I am aware that this is to
us delicate ground, and perhaps my opinions may clash with the opinions
given by our friends during the discussion of the British treaty.”
Nevertheless he argued that if this treaty was unconstitutional, all
other treaties were open to the same objection, and the United States
government in such a case could make no treaty at all. Finally, he
begged the President to avoid giving an opinion on the subject: “I
should think it very probable if the treaty should be declared by you
to exceed the constitutional authority of the treaty-making power, it
would be rejected by the Senate, and if that should not happen, that
great use would be made with the people of a wilful breach of the
Constitution.”
Such reasoning in the mouths of Virginia Republicans, who had asked and
gained office by pledging themselves to their people against the use
of implied powers, marked a new epoch. From them the most dangerous of
all arguments, the _reductio ad absurdum_, was ominous. What right
had they to ask whether any constitutional grant was less complete
than the people might have wished or intended? If the Constitution
were incomplete or absurd, not the government, but the people of the
States who had made it were the only proper authority to correct it.
Otherwise, as Nicholas had so often pointed out, their creature would
become their tyrant, as had been the law of politics from the beginning.
Jefferson was distressed to find himself thus deserted by his closest
friends on an issue which he felt to be vital. The principle of strict
construction was the breath of his political life. The Pope could as
safely trifle with the doctrine of apostolic succession as Jefferson
with the limits of Executive power. If he and his friends were to
interpret the treaty-making power as they liked, the time was sure to
come when their successors would put so broad an interpretation on
other powers of the government as to lead from step to step, until at
last Virginia might cower in blood and flames before the shadowy terror
called the war-power. With what face could Jefferson then appear before
the tribunal of history, and what position could he expect to receive?
All this he felt in his kindly way; and with this weight on his mind
he wrote his reply to Nicholas.[77] Beginning with the warning that
Bonaparte could not be trusted, and that Congress must act with as
little debate as possible, particularly as respected the constitutional
difficulty, he went on:--
“I am aware of the force of the observations you make on the
power given by the Constitution to Congress to admit new States
into the Union without restraining the subject to the territory
then constituting the United States. But when I consider that
the limits of the United States are precisely fixed by the
treaty of 1783, that the Constitution expressly declares itself
to be made for the United States, ... I do not believe it was
meant that [Congress] might receive England, Ireland, Holland,
etc., into it,--which would be the case on your construction....
I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation, where
it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which
would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in the
possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank
paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinion of those
who consider the grant of the treaty-making power as boundless.
If it is, then we have no Constitution.”
From the Virginia standpoint nothing could be better said. Jefferson
in this letter made two points clear: the first was that the admission
of Louisiana into the Union without express authority from the
States made blank paper of the Constitution; the second was that if
the treaty-making power was equal to this act, it superseded the
Constitution. He entertained no doubts on either point, and time
sustained his view; for whether he was right or wrong in law, the
Louisiana treaty gave a fatal wound to “strict construction,” and the
Jeffersonian theories never again received general support. In thus
giving them up, Jefferson did not lead the way, but he allowed his
friends to drag him in the path they chose. The leadership he sought
was one of sympathy and love, not of command; and there was never a
time when he thought that resistance to the will of his party would
serve the great ends he had in view. The evils which he foresaw were
remote: in the hands of true Republicans the Constitution, even though
violated, was on the whole safe; the precedent, though alarming, was
exceptional. So it happened that after declaring in one sentence the
Constitution at an end if Nicholas had his way, Jefferson in the next
breath offered his acquiescence in advance:--
“I confess I think it important in the present case to set an
example against broad construction by appealing for new power to
the people. If, however, our friends shall think differently,
certainly I shall acquiesce with satisfaction, confiding
that the good sense of our country will correct the evil of
construction when it shall produce ill effects.”
With these words Jefferson closed his mouth on this subject forever.
Although his future silence led many of his friends to think that he
ended by altering his opinion, and by admitting that his purchase of
Louisiana was constitutional, no evidence showed the change; but rather
one is led to believe that when in later life he saw what he called the
evils of construction grow until he cried against them with violence
almost as shrill as in 1798, he felt most strongly the fatal error
which his friends had forced him to commit, and which he could neither
repudiate nor defend. He had declared that he would acquiesce with
satisfaction in making blank paper of the Constitution.
A few weeks later, Oct. 17, 1803, Congress met. The President’s Message
had little to say of domestic affairs. The Kaskaskia Indians had sold
their territory to the United States, the revenue had again exceeded
the estimate, more than three millions of debt had been paid within
the year. Much was said about war in Europe and the rights and duties
of neutrals, about gunboats which were no longer needed, and about
the unsettled boundary in Maine and at the Lake of the Woods, but not
a word about the constitutional difficulties raised by the Louisiana
treaty. “With the wisdom of Congress it will rest,” said Jefferson,
“to take those ulterior measures which may be necessary for the
immediate occupation and temporary government of the country, for its
incorporation into our Union, for rendering the change of government a
blessing to our newly adopted brethren, for securing to them the rights
of conscience and of property, for confirming to the Indian inhabitants
their occupancy and self-government.” These were the points of his
proposed amendment; but he gave no sign of his opinion that Congress
was incompetent to deal with them, and that the Senate was equally
incompetent to make the treaty valid.
There were good reasons for silence. Not only were Livingston’s letters
alarming, but the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, the friend and benefactor of
the Administration, sent to Madison one protest after another against
the sale of Louisiana.[78] He quoted St.-Cyr’s letter of July, 1802,
which bound France not to alienate the province, and he declared that
France had never carried out the conditions of contract in regard to
Tuscany, and therefore could not rightfully treat Louisiana as her
own. A probable war with Spain stared Jefferson in the face, even if
Bonaparte should raise no new difficulties. The responsibility for a
mistake was great, and no one could blame Jefferson if he threw his
burden on Congress.
CHAPTER V.
IF President Jefferson and Secretary Madison, who wrote the
Resolutions of 1798, acquiesced, in 1803, in a course of conduct which
as Jefferson believed made blank paper of the Constitution, and which,
whether it did so or not, certainly made waste paper of the Virginia
and Kentucky Resolutions, no one could expect that their followers
would be more consistent or more rigid than themselves. Fortunately,
all the more prominent Republicans of 1798 had been placed in office by
the people as a result of popular approval, and were ready to explain
their own views. In the Senate sat John Breckenridge of Kentucky,
supposed to be the author of the Kentucky Resolutions, and known as
their champion in the Kentucky legislature. From Virginia came John
Taylor of Caroline, the reputed father of the Virginia Resolutions,
and the soundest of strict constructionists. Twenty years later, his
“Construction Construed” and “New Views of the Constitution” became
the text-books of the State-rights school. His colleague was Wilson
Cary Nicholas, who had also taken a prominent part in supporting the
Virginia Resolutions, and whose devotion to the principles of strict
construction was beyond doubt. One of the South Carolina senators
was Pierce Butler; one of those from North Carolina was David Stone;
Georgia was represented by Abraham Baldwin and James Jackson,--stanch
State-rights Republicans all. In the House a small coterie of
State-rights Republicans controlled legislation. Speaker Macon was at
their head; John Randolph, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
was their mouthpiece. Joseph H. Nicholson of Maryland, and Cæsar A.
Rodney of Delaware, supported Randolph on the committee; while two
of President Jefferson’s sons-in-law, Thomas Mann Randolph and John
W. Eppes, sat in the Virginia delegation. Both in Senate and House
the Southern Republicans of the Virginia school held supremacy; their
power was so absolute as to admit no contest; they were at the flood
of that tide which had set in three years before. In the Senate they
controlled twenty-five votes against nine; in the House, one hundred
and two against thirty-nine. Virginia ruled the United States, and the
Republicans of 1798 ruled Virginia. The ideal moment of Republican
principles had arrived.
This moment was big with the fate of theories. Other debates of more
practical importance may have frequently occurred,--for in truth
whatever the decision of Congress might have been, it would in no case
have affected the result that Louisiana was to enter the Union: and
this inevitable result overshadowed all theory,--but no debate ever
took place in the Capitol which better deserved recollection.
Of extraordinary ability Congress contained but little, and owing to
the meagre character of the reports, appeared to contain even less
than it actually possessed; but if no one rose to excellence either of
logic or rhetoric, the speakers still dealt with the whole subject,
and rounded the precedent with all the argument and illustration that
a future nation could need. Both actions and words spoke with decision
and distinctness till that time unknown in American politics.
The debate began first in the House, where Gaylord Griswold of New
York, Oct. 24, 1803, moved for such papers as the Government might
possess tending to show the value of the title to Louisiana as against
Spain. Under the lead of John Randolph the House refused the call.
That this decision clashed with the traditions of the Republican party
was proved by the vote. With a majority of three to one, Randolph
succeeded in defeating Griswold only by fifty-nine to fifty-seven;
while Nicholson, Rodney, Varnum of Massachusetts, and many other stanch
Republicans voted with the Federalists.
The next day the House took up the motion for carrying the treaty
into effect. Griswold began again, and without knowing it repeated
Jefferson’s reasoning. The framers of the Constitution, he said,
“carried their ideas to the time when there might be an extended
population; but they did not carry them forward to the time when
an addition might be made to the Union of a territory equal to the
whole United States, which additional territory might overbalance the
existing territory, and thereby the rights of the present citizens of
the United States be swallowed up and lost.” The power to admit new
States referred only to the territory existing when the Constitution
was framed; but this right, whatever it might be, was vested in
Congress, not in the Executive. In promising to admit Louisiana as a
State into the Union, the treaty assumed for the President power which
in any case could not have been his. Finally, the treaty gave to French
and Spanish ships special privileges for twelve years in the port of
New Orleans; while the Constitution forbade any preference to be given,
by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State
over those of another.
John Randolph next rose. Just thirty years old, with a sarcasm of tone
and manner that overbore remonstrance, and with an authority in the
House that no one contested, Randolph spoke the voice of Virginia with
autocratic distinctness. His past history was chiefly marked by the
ardor with which, from 1798 to 1800, he had supported the principles of
his party and encouraged resistance to the national government. He had
gone beyond Jefferson and Madison in willingness to back their theories
by force, and to fix by a display of Virginia power the limit beyond
which neither Executive, Congress, nor Judiciary should pass. Even then
he probably cared little for what he called the “parchment barriers”
of the Constitution: in his mind force was the real balance,--force
of State against force of Union; and any measure which threatened to
increase the power of the national government beyond that of the State,
was sure of his enmity. A feather might turn the balance, so nice
was the adjustment; and Randolph again and again cried with violence
against feathers.
In the Louisiana debate, Randolph spoke in a different tone. The
Constitution, he said, could not restrict the country to particular
limits, because at the time of its adoption the boundary was unsettled
on the northeastern, northwestern, and southern frontiers. The power
to settle disputes as to limits was indispensable; it existed in the
Constitution, had been repeatedly exercised, and involved the power of
extending boundaries.
This argument was startling in the mouth of one who had helped to arm
the State of Virginia against a moderate exercise of implied powers.
Randolph asserted that the right to annex Louisiana, Texas, Mexico,
South America, if need be, was involved in the right to run a doubtful
boundary line between the Georgia territory and Florida. If this power
existed in the government, it necessarily devolved on the Executive
as the organ for dealing with foreign States. Thus Griswold’s first
objection was answered.
Griswold objected in the second place that the treaty made New Orleans
a favored port. “I regard this stipulation,” replied Randolph, “as
a part of the price of the territory. It was a condition which the
party ceding had a right to require, and to which we had a right to
assent. The right to acquire involves the right to give the equivalent
demanded.” Randolph did not further illustrate this sweeping principle
of implied power.
After the subject had been treated by speakers of less weight, Roger
Griswold of Connecticut took the floor. So long as his party had been
in office, the vigor of the Constitution had found no warmer friend
than he; but believing New England to have fallen at the mercy of
Virginia, he was earnest to save her from the complete extinction which
he thought near at hand. Griswold could not deny that the Constitution
gave the power to acquire territory: his Federalist principles were
too fresh to dispute such an inherent right; and Gouverneur Morris,
as extreme a Federalist as himself, whose words had been used in the
Constitution, averred that he knew in 1788 as well as he knew in
1803, that all North America must at length be annexed, and that it
would have been Utopian to restrain the movement.[79] This was old
Federalist doctrine, resting on “inherent rights,” on nationality and
broad construction,--the Federalism of President Washington, which
the Republican party from the beginning denounced as monarchical.
Griswold would not turn his back on it; he still took a liberal
view of the power, and even stretched it beyond reasonable shape to
accord with Morris’s idea. “A new territory and new subjects,” said
he, “may undoubtedly be obtained by conquest and by purchase; but
neither the conquest nor the purchase can incorporate them into the
Union. They must remain in the condition of colonies, and be governed
accordingly.” This claim gave the central government despotic power
over its new purchase; but it declared that a treaty which pledged the
nation to admit the people of Louisiana into the Union must be invalid,
because it assumed that “the President and Senate may admit at will
any foreign nation into this copartnership without the consent of the
States,”--a power directly repugnant to the principles of the compact.
In substance, Griswold maintained that either under the war power or
under the treaty-making power the government could acquire territory,
and as a matter of course could hold and govern that territory as it
pleased,--despotically if necessary, or for selfish objects; but that
the President and Senate could not admit a foreign people into the
Union, as a State. Yet to this, the treaty bound them.
To meet this attack the Republicans put forward their two best
men,--Joseph H. Nicholson of Maryland, and Cæsar A. Rodney of Delaware.
The task was difficult, and Nicholson showed his embarrassment at the
outset. “Whether the United States,” said he, “as a sovereign and
independent empire, has a right to acquire territory is one thing;
but whether they can admit that territory into the Union upon an
equal footing with the other States is a question of a very different
nature.” He refused to discuss this latter issue; in his opinion it was
not before the House.
This flinching was neither candid nor courageous; but it was within
the fair limits of a lawyer’s if not of a statesman’s practice, and
Nicholson at least saved his consistency. On the simpler question,
whether “a sovereign nation,” as he next said, “had a right to acquire
new territory,” he spoke with as much emphasis as Roger Griswold and
Gouverneur Morris, and he took the same ground. The separate States had
surrendered their sovereignty by adopting the Constitution; “the right
to declare war was given to Congress; the right to make treaties, to
the President and Senate. Conquest and purchase alone are the means
by which nations acquire territory.” Griswold was right, then, in the
ground he had taken; but Nicholson, not satisfied with gaining his
point through the treaty-making power, which was at least express,
added: “The right must exist somewhere: it is essential to independent
sovereignty.” As it was prohibited to the States, the power was
necessarily vested in the United States.
This general implication, that powers inherent in sovereignty which had
not been expressly reserved to the States were vested in the national
government, was not more radical centralization than Nicholson’s next
point. The treaty gave to the port of New Orleans a decided preference
over all other ports of the United States, although the Constitution
said that no preference should be given to the ports of one State over
those of another. To this objection Nicholson replied that Louisiana
was not a State. “It is a territory purchased by the United States in
their confederate capacity, and may be disposed of by them at pleasure.
It is in the nature of a colony whose commerce may be regulated without
any reference to the Constitution.” The new territory, therefore, was
in the nature of a European colony; the United States government might
regulate its commerce without regard to the Constitution, give its
population whatever advantages Congress might see fit, and use it to
break down New England--or slavery.
With the fecund avowal that Louisiana must be governed by Congress at
pleasure without reference to the Constitution, Nicholson sat down; and
Cæsar Rodney took the floor,--an able and ingenious lawyer, who came
to the House with the prestige of defeating the Federalist champion
Bayard. If Randolph and Nicholson, like the mouse in the fable nibbling
at the cords which bound the lion of Power, had left one strand still
unsevered, the lion stood wholly free before Rodney ended. He began
by appealing to the “general welfare” clause,--a device which the
Republican party and all State-rights advocates once regarded as
little short of treason. “I cannot perceive,” said he, “why within
the fair meaning of this general provision is not included the power
of increasing our territory, if necessary for the general welfare or
common defence.” This argument in such a mouth might well have sent
a chill to the marrow of every Republican of 1798; but this was not
the whole. He next invoked the “necessary and proper” clause, even at
that early time familiar to every strict constructionist as one of the
most dangerous instruments of centralization. “Have we not also vested
in us every power necessary for carrying such a treaty into effect,
in the words of the Constitution which give Congress the authority
to ‘make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying
into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by
this Constitution in the government of the United States or in any
department or officer thereof’?”
One more point was affirmed by Rodney. Gaylord Griswold had maintained
that the territory mentioned in the Constitution was the territory
existing in 1789. Rodney denied it. Congress, he said, had express
power to “make all needful rules and regulations” respecting any and
all territory; it had no need to infer this power from other grants. As
for the special privilege of trade accorded to New Orleans, it violated
in no way the Constitution; it was indirectly a benefit to all the
States, and a preference to none.
The Northern democrats also supported these views; but the opinions of
Northern democrats on constitutional questions carried little weight.
Neither among them nor among Southern Republicans did any member
question what Randolph, Nicholson, and Rodney had said. Macon sat
silent in his chair, while John Randolph closed the debate. As though
he could not satisfy himself with leaving a doubt as to the right of
Government to assume what powers it wanted, Randolph took this moment
to meet Roger Griswold’s assertion that the United States government
could not lawfully incorporate Great Britain or France into the Union.
Randolph affirmed that, so far as the Constitution was concerned, this
might be done. “We cannot because we cannot.”
The reply was disingenuous, but decisive. The question was not whether
the States in union could lawfully admit England or France into the
Union, for no one denied that the States could do what they pleased.
Griswold only affirmed that the people of the States had never
delegated to John Randolph or Thomas Jefferson, or to a majority of
the United States Senate, the right to make a political revolution by
annexing a foreign State. Jefferson agreed with Griswold that they had
not; if they had, “then we have no Constitution” was his comment. Yet
not a voice was raised in the Administration party against Randolph’s
views. After one day’s debate, ninety Republicans supported Randolph
with their votes, and twenty-five Federalists alone protested. Of these
twenty-five, not less than seventeen were from New England.
A week afterward, Nov. 2, 1803, the Senate took up the subject.
After several speeches had been made without touching deeply the
constitutional difficulty, Senator Pickering of Massachusetts took the
floor, and in a few words stated the extreme New England doctrine.
Like Griswold and Gouverneur Morris, he affirmed the right of conquest
or of purchase, and the right to govern the territory so acquired as
a dependent province; but neither the President nor Congress could
incorporate this territory in the Union, nor could the incorporation
lawfully be effected even by an ordinary amendment to the Constitution.
“I believe the assent of each individual State to be necessary for
the admission of a foreign country as an associate in the Union,
in like manner as in a commercial house the consent of each member
would be necessary to admit a new partner into the company.” With
his usual skill in saying what was calculated to annoy,--a skill in
which he had no superior,--he struck one truth which no other eyes
would see. “I believe that this whole transaction has been purposely
wrapped in obscurity by the French government. The boundary of
Louisiana, for instance, on the side of Florida is in the treaty really
unintelligible; and yet nothing was more easy to define.”
Pickering was followed by Dayton of New Jersey, and he by the
celebrated John Taylor of Caroline, the senator from Virginia, whose
Resolutions of 1798, with echoes which were to ring louder and louder
for sixty years to come, had declared “deep regret that a spirit
has in sundry instances been manifested by the federal government
to enlarge its powers by forced constructions of the constitutional
charter which defines them; and that indications have appeared of a
design to expound certain general phrases ... so as to consolidate the
States by degrees into one sovereignty.” In purchasing Louisiana, the
United States government had done an act identical with the despotic
acts of consolidated European governments,--it had bought a foreign
people without their consent and without consulting the States, and
had pledged itself to incorporate this people in the Union. Colonel
Taylor’s argument, so far as it went, supported the act; and although
it evaded, or tried to evade, the most difficult points of objection,
it went as far as the farthest in the path of forced construction. On
the right to acquire territory, Taylor took the ground taken by Joseph
Nicholson in the House,--he inferred it from the war and treaty powers:
“If the means of acquiring and the right of holding are equivalent
to the right of acquiring territory, then this right merged from the
separate States to the United States, as indispensably annexed to the
treaty-making power and the power of making war.” This part of the
Federalist scheme he adopted without a murmur; but when he came to
the next inevitable step, he showed the want of courage often felt by
honest men trying to be untrue to themselves. This territory which
the Washington government could acquire by conquest or treaty,--what
was its status? Could the Washington government “dispose of” it, as
the government was expressly permitted to dispose of the territory it
already held under the Constitution; or must Louisiana be governed
extra-constitutionally by “inherent powers,” as Griswold maintained;
or ought Congress to ask for new and express authority from the
States? Taylor took the first position. The treaty-making power, he
said, was not defined; it was competent to acquire territory. This
territory by the acquisition became a part of the Union, a portion of
the territories of the United States, and might be “disposed of” by
Congress without an amendment to the Constitution. Although Taylor
differed with Jefferson on this point, no objection could be made to
the justice of his opinion except that it left the true dispute to
be settled by mere implication. The power of the government over the
territory had no limits, so far as Colonel Taylor defined it; yet it
either could or could not admit the new territory as a State. If it
could, the government could alter the original compact by admitting
a foreign country as a State; if it could not, either the treaty was
void, or government must apply to the people of the States for new
powers.
Uriah Tracy of Connecticut replied to Taylor in a speech which was
probably the best on his side of the question. His opposition to the
purchase was grounded on a party reason: “The relative strength
which this admission gives to a Southern and Western interest is
contradictory to the principles of our original Union.” The President
and Senate had no power to make States, and the treaty was void.
“I have no doubt but we can obtain territory either by conquest
or compact, and hold it, even all Louisiana and a thousand times
more if you please, without violating the Constitution. We can
hold territory; but to admit the inhabitants into the Union,
to make citizens of them, and States, by treaty, we cannot
constitutionally do; and no subsequent act of legislation, or
even ordinary amendment to our Constitution, can legalize such
measures. If done at all, they must be done by universal consent
of all the States or partners to our political association; and
this universal consent I am positive can never be obtained to
such a pernicious measure as the admission of Louisiana,--of a
world, and such a world, into our Union. This would be absorbing
the Northern States, and rendering them as insignificant in the
Union as they ought to be, if by their own consent the measure
should be adopted.”
Tracy’s speech was answered by Breckenridge of Kentucky, who had
induced the Kentucky legislature, only five years before, to declare
itself determined “tamely to submit to undelegated, and consequently
unlimited, powers in no man or body of men on earth;” and to assert
further that submission to the exercise of such powers “would be to
surrender the form of government we have chosen, and to live under one
deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority.”
When he came to deal with the same question in a new form, he glided
with extreme delicacy over the thin ice of the Constitution. His
answer to Tracy was an admission. He pointed out that the Federalist
argument carried centralization further than it was carried by this
treaty. “By his construction,” said Breckenridge, “territories and
citizens are considered and held as the property of the government of
the United States, and may consequently be used as dangerous engines
in the hands of the government against the States and people.” This
was true. The Federalists maintained that such territory could be
held only as property, not as part of the Union; and the consequences
of this doctrine, if granted, were immense. Breckenridge argued
that the admission by treaty of a foreign State was less dangerous,
and therefore more constitutional, than such ownership of foreign
territory. The conclusion was not perfectly logical, and was the less
so because he denied the power in neither case. “Could we not,” he
went on, quoting from Tracy’s speech, “incorporate in the Union some
foreign nation containing ten millions of inhabitants,--Africa, for
instance,--and thereby destroy our government? Certainly the thing
would be possible if Congress would do it and the people consent to
it.... The true construction must depend on the manifest import of the
instrument and the good sense of the community.” What then had become
of the old Republican principle that acts of undelegated authority were
no acts at all? Or had the States really delegated to the President
and two thirds of the Senate the right to “destroy our government”?
If Breckenridge had expressed these ideas in his Kentucky Resolutions,
American history would have contained less dispute as to the meaning of
State-rights and the powers of the central government; but Breckenridge
himself would have then led the Federalist, not the Republican party.
Breckenridge’s speech was followed by one from Pickering’s colleague,
the young senator from Massachusetts, son of John Adams, the Federalist
President whom Jefferson had succeeded. The Federalist majority in
Massachusetts was divided; one portion followed the lead of the Essex
Junto, the other and larger part yielded unwillingly to the supremacy
of Alexander Hamilton and George Cabot. When in the spring of 1803 both
seats of Massachusetts in the United States Senate became by chance
vacant at once, the Essex Junto wished to choose Timothy Pickering for
the long term. The moderate Federalists set Pickering aside, elected
John Quincy Adams, then thirty-six years old, for the long term, and
allowed Pickering to enter the Senate only as junior senator to a man
more than twenty years younger than himself, whose father had but three
years before dismissed Pickering abruptly and without explanation from
his Cabinet. Neither of the senators owned a temper or character likely
to allay strife. The feud between them was bitter and life-long. From
the moment of their appearance in the Senate they took opposite sides.
Pickering held with Tracy, Griswold, and all the extreme Federalists
that the treaty was void, and that the admission of Louisiana as a
State without the separate consent of each State in the Union was a
rupture of the compact, which broke the tie and left each State free to
act independently of the rest. His colleague was as decided in favor of
the Louisiana purchase as Pickering and Tracy were opposed to it; but
he too agreed that the treaty was outside of the Constitution, and he
urged the Senate to take this view. He believed that even Connecticut
would approve of admitting Louisiana if the Southern majority had the
courage to try the experiment. “I firmly believe, if an amendment to
the Constitution, amply sufficient for the accomplishment of everything
for which we have contracted, shall be proposed, as I think it ought,
it will be adopted by the legislature of every State in the Union.”
This was in effect the view which Jefferson had pressed upon his
Cabinet and friends.
Then came Wilson Cary Nicholas. Five years before, in the Virginia
legislature, Nicholas had spoken and voted for the Resolutions moved
by his colleague, John Taylor of Caroline. He then said that if the
principle were once established that Congress had a right to use powers
not expressly delegated, “the tenure by which we hold our liberty
would be entirely subverted: instead of rights independent of human
control, we must be content to hold by the courtesy and forbearance
of those whom we have heretofore considered as the servants of the
people.” Instead of using the same language in 1803, he accepted his
colleague’s views as to the extent of the treaty-making power, and
added reasoning of his own. If the spirit of New England Calvinism
contained an element of self-deceit, Virginia metaphysics occasionally
ran into slippery evasion, as the argument of Nicholas showed.
He evaded a straightforward opinion on every point at issue. The
treaty-making power was undefined, he thought, but not unlimited; the
general limitations of the Constitution applied to it, not the special
limitations of power; and of course the treaty must be judged by its
conformity with the general meaning of the compact. He then explained
away the apparent difficulties in the case. “If the third article of
the treaty,” said he, “is an engagement to incorporate the territory
of Louisiana into the Union of the United States and to make it a
State, it cannot be considered as an unconstitutional exercise of the
treaty-making power, for it will not be asserted by any rational man
that the territory is incorporated as a State by the treaty itself.”
This incorporation was stipulated to be done “according to the
principles of the Constitution,” and the States might do it or not, at
their discretion: if it could not be done constitutionally, it might be
done by amendment.
Nothing could be more interesting than to see the discomfort with which
the champions of State-rights tossed themselves from one horn to the
other of the Federalist dilemma. The Federalists cared little on which
horn their opponents might choose to impale themselves, for both were
equally fatal. Either Louisiana must be admitted as a State, or must be
held as territory. In the first case the old Union was at an end; in
the second case the national government was an empire, with “inherent
sovereignty” derived from the war and treaty-making powers,--in either
case the Virginia theories were exploded. The Virginians felt the
embarrassment, and some of them, like Nicholas, tried to hide it in
a murmur of words and phrases; but the Republicans of Kentucky and
Tennessee were impatient of such restraint, and slight as it was,
thrust it away. The debate was closed by Senator Cocke of Tennessee,
who defied opposition. “I assert,” said he, “that the treaty-making
powers in this country are competent to the full and free exercise of
their best judgment in making treaties without limitation of power.”
On this issue the vote was taken without further discussion, and
by twenty-six to five the Senate passed the bill. Pickering of
Massachusetts, Tracy and Hillhouse of Connecticut, and the two senators
Wells and White from Delaware, were alone in opposition.
The result of these debates in the Senate and House decided only one
point. Every speaker, without distinction of party, agreed that the
United States government had the power to acquire new territory either
by conquest or by treaty; the only difference of opinion regarded the
disposition of this territory after it was acquired. Did Louisiana
belong to the central government at Washington, or to the States? The
Federalists maintained that the central government, representing the
States in union, might, if it pleased, as a consequence of its inherent
sovereignty, hold the rest of America in its possession and govern it
as England governed Jamaica or as Spain was governing Louisiana, but
without the consent of the States could not admit such new territory
into the Union. The Republicans seemed rather inclined to think that
new territory acquired by war or conquest would become at once a part
of the general territory mentioned in the Constitution, and as such
might be admitted by Congress as a State, or otherwise disposed of as
the general welfare might require, but that in either case neither the
people nor the States had anything to do with the matter. At bottom,
both doctrines were equally fatal to the old status of the Union. In
one case the States, formed or to be formed, east of the Mississippi
had established a government which could hold the rest of the world
in despotic control, and which bought a foreign people as it might
buy cattle, to rule over them as their owner; in the other case, the
government was equally powerful, and might besides admit the purchased
or conquered territory into the Union as States. The Federalist theory
was one of empire, the Republican was one of assimilation; but both
agreed that the moment had come when the old Union must change its
character. Whether the government at Washington could possess Louisiana
as a colony or admit it as a State, was a difference of no great matter
if the cession were to hold good; the essential point was that for the
first time in the national history all parties agreed in admitting that
the government could govern.
CHAPTER VI.
Hardly was it decided that the government had an inherent right to
acquire territory and annex foreign States, when the next question
forced itself on Congress for settlement,--What were the powers of
Congress over the new territory?
Three paths were open. The safest was to adopt an amendment of the
Constitution admitting Louisiana into the Union and extending over
it the express powers of Congress as they had applied to the old
territory of the United States. The second course was to assume that
the new territory became, by the fact of acquisition, assimilated
to the old, and might be “disposed of” in the same way. The third
was to hold it apart as a peculiar estate, and govern it, subject to
treaty stipulations, by an undefined power implied in the right to
acquire,--on the principle that government certainly had the right to
govern what it had the right to buy.
The first plan, which was in effect Jefferson’s original idea,
preserved the theory of the Constitution as far as was possible;
but the Republicans feared the consequences with France and Spain
of throwing a doubt on the legality of the treaty. Another reason
for their activity lay in the peculiarities of their character as a
party. The Northern democrats, never strict constructionists, knew and
cared little for the dogmas of their Southern allies. The Southern
Republicans, especially those of the Virginia school, were honest in
their jealousy of the central government; but as a class they were
impatient of control and unused to self-restraint: they liked to do
their will, and counted so surely on their own strength and honesty of
purpose that they could not feel the need of a curb upon their power.
None of them moved. The only man in Congress who showed a sincere wish
to save what could be preserved of the old constitutional theory was
Senator Adams of Massachusetts, who called upon Madison October 28,
before the debate, to ask whether the Executive intended, through any
member of either House, to propose an amendment of the Constitution to
carry the treaty into effect.[80] Madison talked to him openly, and
expressed ideas which as far as they went were the same with those of
Jefferson. For his own part, said Madison, had he been on the floor of
Congress he should have seen no difficulty in acknowledging that the
Constitution had not provided for such a case as this; that it must be
estimated by the magnitude of the object; and that those who had agreed
to it must rely upon the candor of their country for justification.
Probably, when the immediate pressure of special legislation was past,
the matter would be attended to; and if he should have any agency in
concerting the measure, he would request its mover to consult Senator
Adams. There for a month the matter rested, while Congress adopted its
special legislation.
At length, November 25, Senator Adams, becoming impatient, called again
on the Secretary of State, with the draft of an amendment which he
meant to propose. Madison thought it too comprehensive, and suggested
a simple declaration to meet the special case: “Louisiana is hereby
admitted into this Union.” On the same day Adams accordingly moved for
a committee, but could not obtain a seconder. The Senate unanimously
refused even the usual civility of a reference. No more was ever heard
of amending the Constitution.
With almost unanimous consent Louisiana was taken into the Union by
the treaty-making power, without an amendment. This point being fixed,
Congress had also to determine whether the new territory should be
governed by authority drawn from the power of acquisition, or whether
it should be merged in the old territory which Congress had express
right to “dispose of” and regulate at will.
By an act of sovereignty as despotic as the corresponding acts of
France and Spain, Jefferson and his party had annexed to the Union
a foreign people and a vast territory, which profoundly altered the
relations of the States and the character of their nationality. By
similar acts they governed both. Jefferson, in his special Message of
October 23, requested Congress to make “such temporary provisions ...
as the case may require.” A select committee, Randolph being chairman,
immediately reported a Bill, emanating from the Executive.
“It was a startling Bill,” was the criticism[81] of a man who
shared in much legislation, “continuing the existing Spanish
government; putting the President in the place of the King of
Spain; putting all the territorial officers in the place of
the King’s officers, and placing the appointment of all these
officers in the President alone without reference to the Senate.
Nothing could be more incompatible with our Constitution than
such a government,--a mere emanation of Spanish despotism, in
which all powers, civil and military, legislative, executive,
and judicial, were in the Intendant General, representing the
King; and where the people, far from possessing political
rights, were punishable arbitrarily for presuming to meddle with
political subjects.”
The Federalists immediately objected that the powers conferred on
the President by this bill were unconstitutional. The Republicans
replied, in effect, that the Constitution was made for States, not
for territories. Rodney explained the whole intent of his party
in advocating the bill: “It shows that Congress have a power in
the territories which they cannot exercise in the States, and that
the limitations of power found in the Constitution are applicable
to States and not to territories.”[82] John Randolph defended the
assumption of power on the ground of necessity, and maintained that
the government of the United States, with respect to this territory,
possessed the powers of European sovereignty: “Gentlemen will see the
necessity of the United States taking possession of this country in
the capacity of sovereigns, in the same extent as that of the existing
government of the province.” The Bill passed Congress by a party vote,
and was approved by Jefferson, October 31,[83] without delay.
The Act of October 31 was a temporary measure rather for taking
possession of the territory than for governing it. Four weeks later,
Senator Breckenridge moved for a committee to prepare a territorial
form of government for Louisiana. Two senators of the State-rights
school,--Jackson and Baldwin of Georgia,--besides Breckenridge and J.
Q. Adams, were appointed on this committee; and they reported, December
30, a Bill that settled the principle on which the new territory should
be governed.
Breckenridge’s Bill divided the purchased country at the 33d parallel,
the line which afterward divided the State of Arkansas from the State
of Louisiana. The country north of that line was named the District of
Louisiana, and, after some dispute, was subjected to the territorial
government of the Indiana Territory, consisting of a governor,
secretary, and judges without a legislature, all controlled by the
Ordinance of 1787. This arrangement implied that Congress considered
the new territory as assimilated to the old, and “disposed of” it by
the same constitutional power.
The northern district contained few white inhabitants, and its
administrative arrangements chiefly concerned Indians; but the southern
district, which received the name “Territory of Orleans,” included an
old and established society, numbering fifty thousand persons. The
territory of Ohio numbered only forty-five thousand persons by the
census of 1800, while the States of Delaware and Rhode Island contained
less than seventy thousand. The treaty guaranteed that “the inhabitants
of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United
States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles
of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights,
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States; and in the
mean time they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment
of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.”
Breckenridge’s Bill, which was probably drawn by Madison in
co-operation with the President, created a territorial government in
which the people of Louisiana were to have no share. The governor and
secretary were to be appointed by the President for three years; the
legislative council consisted of thirteen members to be appointed by
the President without consulting the Senate, and was to be convened
and prorogued by the governor as he might think proper. The judicial
officers, also appointed by the President, were to hold office for
four years, instead of the usual term of good behavior. The right to
a jury trial was restricted to cases where the matter in controversy
exceeded twenty dollars, and to capital cases in criminal prosecutions.
The slave-trade was restricted by threefold prohibitions: 1. No slave
could be imported from abroad; 2. No slave could be brought into the
territory from the Union who had been imported from abroad since
May 1, 1798; 3. No slave could be introduced into the territory,
“directly or indirectly,” except by an American citizen “removing into
said territory for actual settlement, and being, at the time of such
removal, _bona fide_ owner of such slave,”--the penalty being
three hundred dollars fine and the slave’s freedom.
This Bill seemed to set the new Territory apart, as a peculiar
estate, to be governed by a power implied in the right to acquire
it. The debate which followed its introduction into the Senate was
not reported, but the Journal mentioned that Senator Adams, Jan. 10,
1804, moved three Resolutions, to the effect that no constitutional
power existed to tax the people of Louisiana without their consent,
and carried but three voices with him in support of the principle.[84]
Other attempts were made to arrest the exercise of arbitrary power
without better success, and the Bill passed the Senate, Feb. 18, 1804,
after six weeks consideration, by a vote of twenty to five.
Few gaps in the parliamentary history of the Union left so serious a
want as was caused by the failure to report the Senate debate on this
Bill; but the report of the House debate partly supplied the loss, for
the Bill became there a target for attack from every quarter. Michael
Leib, one of the extreme Pennsylvania democrats, began by objecting
to the power given to the governor over the Louisiana legislature
as “royal.” His colleague, Andrew Gregg, objected altogether to the
appointment of the council by the President. Varnum of Massachusetts
denounced the whole system, and demanded an elective legislature.
Matthew Lyon, who represented Kentucky, compared Jefferson to
Bonaparte. “Do we not owe something on this score to principle?”
he asked. Speaker Macon took the same ground. George W. Campbell
of Tennessee was more precise. “It really establishes a complete
despotism,” he said; “it does not evince a single trait of liberty;
it does not confer one single right to which they are entitled under
the treaty; it does not extend to them the benefits of the Federal
Constitution, or declare when, hereafter, they shall receive them.” On
the other hand Dr. Eustis, of Boston, took the ground that a despotism
was necessary: “I am one of those who believe that the principles of
civil liberty cannot suddenly be engrafted on a people accustomed to a
regimen of a directly opposite hue.” In contradiction to the language
of the treaty and the principles of his party, he went on to say that
the people of Louisiana had no rights: “I consider them as standing in
nearly the same relation to us as if they were a conquered country.”
Other speakers supported him. The Louisianians, it was said, had shed
tears when they saw the American flag hoisted in place of the French;
they were not prepared for self-government. When the treaty was under
discussion, the speakers assumed that the people of Louisiana were so
eager for annexation as to make an appeal to them useless; when they
were annexed, they were so degraded as not to be worth consulting.
The House refused to tolerate such violation of principle, and by the
majority of seventy-four to twenty-three struck out the section which
vested legislative powers in the President’s nominees. John Randolph
did not vote; but his friend Nicholson and the President’s son-in-law,
Thomas Mann Randolph, were in the minority. By fifty-eight to forty-two
the House then adopted an amendment which vested legislative powers,
after the first year, in an elective council; by forty-four to
thirty-seven the restriction on jury trials was rejected; the Act was
then limited to two years; and so altered it passed the House March 17,
1804, several Republicans recording their votes against it to the end.
When the Bill, thus amended, came back to the Senate, that body, March
20, summarily disagreed with all the changes made by the House except
the limitation of time, which the Senate further reduced to one year.
This change reconciled the House, not very cheerfully, to recede, and
March 23 the Bill, as it passed the Senate, became law by a vote of
fifty-one to forty-five. With the passage of this Act and its twin
statute for collecting duties in the ceded territory, the precedent was
complete. Louisiana received a government in which its people, who had
been solemnly promised all the rights of American citizens, were set
apart, not as citizens, but as subjects lower in the political scale
than the meanest tribes of Indians, whose right to self-government was
never questioned.
By these measures the Executive and the Legislature recorded their
decision in regard to the powers of government over national territory.
The Judiciary was not then consulted; but twenty-five years afterward,
in the year 1828, Chief-Justice Marshall was in his turn required
to give an opinion, and he added the final authority of the Supreme
Court to the precedent. With characteristic wisdom he claimed for the
government both the constitutional and the extra-constitutional powers
in question. The case concerned the rights of inhabitants of Florida,
who he said--
“Do not participate in political power; they do not share in
the government till Florida shall become a State. In the mean
time Florida continues to be a territory of the United States,
governed by virtue of that clause in the Constitution which
empowers Congress ‘to make all needful rules and regulations
respecting the territory or other property belonging to the
United States.’ Perhaps the power of governing a territory
belonging to the United States which has not, by becoming
a State, acquired the means of self-government, may result
necessarily from the fact that it is not within the jurisdiction
of any particular State, and is within the power and
jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be
the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory.
Whichever may be the source whence the power is derived, the
possession of it is unquestioned.”[85]
The effect of such a precedent on constitutional principles was certain
to be great. A government competent to interpret its own powers so
liberally in one instance, could hardly resist any strong temptation
to do so in others. The doctrines of “strict construction” could
not be considered as the doctrines of the government after they had
been abandoned in this leading case by a government controlled by
strict constructionists. The time came at last when the opponents of
centralization were obliged to review their acts and to discover the
source of their mistakes. In 1856 the Supreme Court was again required
to pronounce an opinion, and found itself confronted by the legislation
of 1803–1804 and the decision of Chief-Justice Marshall in 1828.
Chief-Justice Taney and his associates, in the case of Dred Scott,
then reviewed the acts of Jefferson and his friends in 1803–1804, and
pronounced upon them the final judgment of the State-rights school.
Chief-Justice Taney affirmed the right of the government to buy
Louisiana and to govern it, but not to govern it as a part of the
old territory over which the Constitution gave Congress unlimited
power. Louisiana was governed, according to Marshall’s dictum,
by a power which was “the inevitable consequence of the right to
acquire territory,”--a power limited by the general purposes of the
Constitution, and therefore not extending to a colonial system like
that of Europe. Territory might thus be acquired; but it was acquired
in order to become a State, and not to be held as a colony and governed
by Congress with absolute authority; citizens who migrated to it
“cannot be ruled as mere colonists dependent upon the will of the
general government, and to be governed by any laws it may think proper
to impose.” The chief-justice dwelt on this point at much length; the
federal government, he said, “cannot, when it enters a territory of
the United States, put off its character and assume discretionary or
despotic powers which the Constitution has denied it.”
Even this emphatic opinion, which implied that all the Louisiana
legislation was unconstitutional, did not satisfy Justice Campbell,
a Georgian, who represented the ultimate convictions of the strict
constructionists. Campbell reviewed the national history in search
of evidence “that a consolidated power had been inaugurated, whose
subject comprehended an empire, and which had no restriction but the
discretion of Congress.” He held that the Constitution had been plainly
and repeatedly violated; “and in reference to the precedent of 1804,
the wisest statesmen protested against it, and the President more than
doubted its policy and the power of the government.” The Court, he
said, could not undertake to conquer their scruples as the President
and Congress had done. “They acknowledge that our peculiar security is
in the possession of a written Constitution, and they cannot make it
blank paper by construction.”
This sneer at President Jefferson was almost the last official
expression of strict-constructionist principles. Of its propriety the
Court itself was the best judge, but its historical interest could not
be denied.
If Justice Campbell and Chief-Justice Taney were right, according to
the tenets of their school the legislation of 1803–1804 was plainly
unconstitutional. In that case, by stronger reasoning the treaty itself
was unconstitutional and void from the beginning; for not only did
Jefferson’s doubts to which Campbell alluded refer to the treaty and
not to the legislation, but the treaty was at least equally responsible
with the laws for making, in 1803, a situation which required what
Campbell denounced,--“the supreme and irresistible power which is now
claimed for Congress over boundless territories, the use of which
cannot fail to react upon the political system of the States to its
subversion.”
With the law the story need not concern itself, but the view of
American history thus suggested was peculiarly interesting. If the
chief-justice and his associate expressed correctly the opinions of the
strict-constructionist school, the government had at some time been
converted from a government of delegated powers into a sovereignty.
Such was the belief of Campbell’s political friends. Four years after
the Dred Scott decision was declared, the State of South Carolina,
in Convention, issued an “Address to the People of the Slave-holding
States,” justifying its act of secession from the Union.
“The one great evil,” it declared, “from which all other evils
have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United
States. The government of the United States is no longer the
government of confederated republics, but of a consolidated
democracy. It is no longer a free government, but a despotism.”
If the strict constructionists held this opinion, they necessarily
believed that at some moment in the past the government must have
changed its character. The only event which had occurred in American
history so large in its proportions, so permanent in its influence, and
so cumulative in its effects as to represent such a revolution was the
Louisiana purchase; and if the Louisiana purchase was to be considered
as having done what the Federalists expected it to do,--if it had made
a new constitution and a government of sovereign powers,--the strict
constructionists were not only consenting parties to the change, they
were its authors.
From every point of view, whether Justice Campbell and the secession
convention of South Carolina were right or wrong in their historical
judgment, the Louisiana purchase possessed an importance not to be
ignored. Even in 1804 the political consequences of the act were
already too striking to be overlooked. Within three years of his
inauguration Jefferson bought a foreign colony without its consent and
against its will, annexed it to the United States by an act which he
said made blank paper of the Constitution; and then he who had found
his predecessors too monarchical, and the Constitution too liberal in
powers,--he who had nearly dissolved the bonds of society rather than
allow his predecessor to order a dangerous alien out of the country in
a time of threatened war,--made himself monarch of the new territory,
and wielded over it, against its protests, the powers of its old kings.
Such an experience was final; no century of slow and half-understood
experience could be needed to prove that the hopes of humanity lay
thenceforward, not in attempting to restrain the government from doing
whatever the majority should think necessary, but in raising the people
themselves till they should think nothing necessary but what was good.
Jefferson took a different view. He regarded, or wished to regard,
the Louisiana treaty and legislation as exceptional and as forming
no precedent. While he signed the laws for governing the territory,
he warmly objected to the establishment of a branch bank of the
United States at New Orleans. “This institution is one of the most
deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our
Constitution,” he wrote to Gallatin;[86] “ought we to give further
growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?” Gallatin was clear
that the business of the Treasury required such aid, and Jefferson
again acquiesced. Gallatin was also allowed and encouraged to enforce
the restrictions on the importation of slaves into Louisiana.[87] “It
seems that the whole Cabinet,” wrote the French _chargé_ to his
government, “put the utmost weight on this prohibition. Mr. Jefferson
is earnestly bent on maintaining it, and his Secretary of the Treasury
takes the severest measures to insure its execution.”
As though the annexation of Louisiana alone made not enough change
in the old established balances of the Constitution, Congress took
up another matter which touched the mainspring of the compact. A new
Presidential election was at hand. The narrow escape of 1800 warned the
party in power not again to risk society by following the complicated
arrangements of 1788. In the convention which framed the Constitution
no single difficulty was more serious than that of compromising the
question of power between the large and small States. Delaware, New
Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Connecticut were well aware that
the large States would take the lion’s share of power and patronage;
they knew that except by accident no citizen of theirs could ever reach
the Presidency; and as accident alone could give the small States a
chance, accident was to them a thing of value. Whatever tended to make
their votes decisive was an additional inducement with them to accept
the Constitution. The Vice-presidency, as originally created, more
than doubled their chance of getting the Presidency, and was invented
chiefly for this purpose; but this was not all. As the number of
electoral votes alone decided between President and Vice-president, a
tie-vote was likely often to occur; and such a tie was decided by the
House of Representatives, where another bribe was intentionally offered
to the small States by giving the election to the State delegations
voting as units, so that the vote of Delaware weighed as heavily as the
vote of Pennsylvania.
The alarm caused by Burr’s rivalry with Jefferson in February, 1801,
satisfied the Republican party that such a door to intrigue ought
not to be left open. Oct. 17, 1803, before the Louisiana treaty was
taken up, an amendment to the Constitution was moved by friends of the
Administration in the House. This, which took shape at length as the
Twelfth Amendment, obliged the members of the electoral college to
distinguish in their ballots the persons voted for as President and
Vice-president.
Slight as this change might appear, it tended toward centralizing
powers hitherto jealously guarded. It swept away one of the checks on
which the framers had counted to resist majority rule by the great
States. Lessening the influence of the small States, and exaggerating
the office of President by lowering the dignity of Vice-president,
it made the processes of election and government smoother and more
efficient,--a gain to politicians, but the result most feared by the
State-rights school. The change was such as Pennsylvania or New York
might naturally want; but it ran counter to the theories of Virginia
Republicans, whose jealousy of Executive influence had been extreme.
Roger Griswold said with prophetic emphasis:[88]--
“The man voted for as Vice-president will be selected without
any decisive view to his qualifications to administer the
government. The office will generally be carried into the
market to be exchanged for the votes of some large States for
President; and the only criterion which will be regarded as
a qualification for the office of Vice-president will be the
temporary influence of the candidate over the electors of his
State.... The momentary views of party may perhaps be promoted
by such arrangements, but the permanent interests of the country
are sacrificed.”
Griswold held that true reform required abolition of the office; and
in this opinion his old enemy John Randolph warmly agreed. In the
Senate, had the question risen as a new one, perhaps a majority might
have favored abolition, for the results of retaining the office were
foreseen; but the discussion was hampered by the supposed popular will
and by express votes of State legislatures, and Congress felt itself
obliged to follow a prescribed course. The amendment was adopted by the
usual party vote; and the Federalists thenceforward were able to charge
Jefferson and his party with responsibility not only for stripping the
small States of an advantage which had made part of their bargain, but
also for putting in the office of President, in case of vacancies, men
whom no State and no elector intended for the post.
CHAPTER VII.
THE extraordinary success which marked Jefferson’s foreign
relations in the year 1803 was almost equally conspicuous in domestic
affairs. The Treasury was as fortunate as the Department of State.
Gallatin silenced opposition. Although the customs produced two
millions less than in 1802, yet when the Secretary in October, 1803,
announced his financial arrangements, which included the purchase-money
of fifteen million dollars for Louisiana, he was able to provide for
all his needs without imposing a new tax. The treaty required the issue
of six-per-cent bonds for eleven million two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, redeemable after fifteen years. These were issued; and to meet
the interest and sinking fund Gallatin added from his surplus an annual
appropriation of seven hundred thousand dollars to his general fund;
so that the discharge of the whole debt would take place within the
year 1818, instead of eighteen months earlier, as had been intended.
New Orleans was expected to provide two hundred thousand dollars a
year toward the interest. Of the remaining four millions, the Treasury
already held half, and Gallatin hoped to provide the whole from future
surplus, which he actually did.
This was ideal success. On a sudden call, to pay out four million
dollars in hard money, and add seven hundred thousand dollars to annual
expenditure, without imposing a tax, and with a total revenue of eleven
millions, was a feat that warranted congratulations. Yet Gallatin’s
success was not obtained without an effort. As usual, he drew a part of
his estimated surplus from the navy. He appealed to Jefferson to reduce
the navy estimates from nine hundred thousand to six hundred thousand
dollars.[89]
“I find that the establishment now consists of the
‘Constitution,’ the ‘Philadelphia,’ each 44, and five small
vessels, all of which are now out, and intended to stay the
whole year, as the crew is enlisted for two years. In my opinion
one half of the force,--namely, one frigate and two or three
small vessels,--were amply sufficient.”
Jefferson urged the reduction,[90] and Secretary Smith consented. The
navy estimates were reduced to six hundred and fifty thousand dollars,
and on the strength of this economy Gallatin made his calculation. As
he probably foresaw, the attempt failed. Whether in any case Smith
could have effected so great a retrenchment was doubtful; but an event
occurred which made retrenchment impossible.
The war with Tripoli dragged tediously along, and seemed no nearer
its end at the close of 1803 than eighteen months before. Commodore
Morris, whom the President sent to command the Mediterranean squadron,
cruised from port to port between May, 1802, and August, 1803,
convoying merchant vessels from Gibraltar to Leghorn and Malta, or lay
in harbor and repaired his ships, but neither blockaded nor molested
Tripoli; until at length, June 21, 1803, the President called him
home and dismissed him from the service. His successor was Commodore
Preble, who Sept. 12, 1803, reached Gibraltar with the relief-squadron
which Secretary Gallatin thought unnecessarily strong. He had the
“Constitution,” of 44 guns, and the “Philadelphia,” of 38; the four
new brigs just built,--the “Argus” and the “Syren,” of 16 guns, the
“Nautilus” and the “Vixen,” of 14 guns; and the “Enterprise,” of 12.
With this force Preble set energetically to work.
Tripoli was a feeble Power, and without much effort could be watched
and blockaded; but if the other governments on the coast should make
common cause against the United States, the task of dealing with them
was not so easy. Morocco was especially dangerous, because its ports
lay on the ocean, and could not be closed even by guarding the Straits.
When Preble arrived, he found Morocco taking part with Tripoli. Captain
Bainbridge, who reached Gibraltar in the “Philadelphia” August 24,
some three weeks before Preble arrived, caught in the neighborhood
a Moorish cruiser of 22 guns with an American brig in its clutches.
Another American brig had just been seized at Mogador. Determined to
stop this peril at the outset, Preble united to his own squadron the
ships which he had come to relieve, and with this combined force,--the
“Constitution,” 44; the “New York,” 36; the “John Adams,” 28; and
the “Nautilus,” 14,--sending the “Philadelphia” to blockade Tripoli,
he crossed to Tangiers October 6, and brought the Emperor of Morocco
to reason. On both sides prizes and prisoners were restored, and the
old treaty was renewed. This affair consumed time; and when at length
Preble got the “Constitution” under way for the Tripolitan coast, he
spoke a British frigate off the Island of Sardinia, which reported that
the “Philadelphia” had been captured October 21, more than three weeks
before.
The loss greatly embarrassed Preble. The “Philadelphia” was, next to
the “Constitution,” his strongest ship. Indeed he had nothing else but
his own frigate and small brigs of two and three hundred tons; but the
accident was such as could not fail sometimes to happen, especially
to active commanders. Bainbridge, cruising off Tripoli, had chased a
Tripolitan cruiser into shoal water, and was hauling off, when the
frigate struck on a reef at the mouth of the harbor. Every effort was
made without success to float her; but at last she was surrounded by
Tripolitan gunboats, and Bainbridge struck his flag. The Tripolitans,
after a few days’ work, floated the frigate, and brought her under the
guns of the castle. The officers became prisoners of war, and the crew,
in number three hundred or more, were put to hard labor.
The affair was in no way discreditable to the squadron. Morris had been
recalled in disgrace for over-caution, and Bainbridge was required to
be active. The Tripolitans gained nothing except the prisoners; for at
Bainbridge’s suggestion Preble, some time afterward, ordered Stephen
Decatur, a young lieutenant in command of the “Enterprise,” to take a
captured Tripolitan craft re-named the “Intrepid,” and with a crew of
seventy-five men to sail from Syracuse, enter the harbor of Tripoli by
night, board the “Philadelphia,” and burn her under the castle guns.
The order was literally obeyed. Decatur ran into the harbor at ten
o’clock in the night of Feb. 16, 1804, boarded the frigate within half
gun-shot of the Pacha’s castle, drove the Tripolitan crew overboard,
set the ship on fire, remained alongside until the flames were beyond
control, and then withdrew without losing a man, while the Tripolitan
gunboats and batteries fired on him as rapidly as want of discipline
and training would allow. Gallant and successful as the affair was,
it proved only what was already well known, that the Tripolitans were
no match for men like Decatur and his companions; and it left Preble,
after losing in the “Philadelphia” nearly one third of his force, still
strong enough to do the work that needed to be done.
The frigate had been built by the citizens of Philadelphia, and given
to the government in 1799. So far as the ship was concerned, the loss
was not much regretted, for the Republicans when in opposition had
strenuously opposed the building of frigates, and still considered them
a danger rather than a defence. Although the “Philadelphia” was the
newest ship in the service, a companion to the “Constellation,” the
“Congress,” and the “Chesapeake,” she was never replaced; two 18-gun
brigs, the “Hornet” and the “Wasp,” were constructed instead of one
38-gun frigate; and these were the last sea-going vessels built under
Jefferson’s administration. The true annoyance was not that a frigate
had been lost, but that the captivity and enslavement of the crew
obliged Government to rescue them and to close the war, by a kind of
expenditure which the Republican party disliked.
Bainbridge’s report of his capture, which had happened at the end
of October, 1803, was sent to Congress March 20, 1804, in the last
week of the session. The President sent with it a brief Message
recommending Congress to increase the force and enlarge expenses
in the Mediterranean. As Gallatin never willingly allowed his own
plans for the public service to be deranged, Congress adopted a
new means for meeting the new expense. Although the Treasury held
a balance of $1,700,000, Gallatin would not trench upon this fund,
but told Randolph, who was Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee,
that the specie in the Treasury could not be safely reduced below
that amount.[91] He informed Joseph Nicholson that $150,000 was the
utmost sum he could spare. The sum wanted was $750,000 per annum. A
Bill was introduced which imposed an additional duty of 2½ per cent
on all imports that paid duty _ad valorem_. These imports had
been divided, for purposes of revenue, into three classes, taxed
respectively 12½, 15, and 20 per cent; the increase raised them to
15, 17½, and 22½ per cent. The average _ad valorem_ duty was
before about 13½; the additional tax raised it above 16 per cent; and
the Republicans preferred this method of raising money as in every
way better than the system of internal taxation. After imposing the
additional duty of 2½ per cent,--a duty intended to produce about
$750,000,--the Bill made of it a separate Treasury account, to be
called the “Mediterranean Fund,” which was to last only as long as the
Mediterranean war should last, when the 2½ per cent duty was to cease
three months after a general peace.
The Mediterranean Fund was meant as a protest against loose
expenditure,--a dike against the impending flood of extravagance. The
Mediterranean war was the first failure of President Jefferson’s theory
of foreign relations, and the Mediterranean Fund was the measure of
the error in financial form. No reproach henceforward roused more ill
temper among Republicans than the common charge that their elaborate
financial precautions and formalities were a deception, and that the
Mediterranean Fund was meant to conceal a change of principle and
a return to Federalist practices. Even in the first words of the
debate, Roger Griswold told them that their plausible special fund
was “perfectly deceptive,” and amounted to nothing. John Randolph
retaliated by declaring that the Republican government consisted of men
who never drew a cent from the people except when necessity compelled
it; and Griswold could not assert, though he might even then foresee,
that for ten years to come, Randolph would denounce the extravagance
and waste of the men whom he thus described.
The annexation of Louisiana, the constitutional amendment in regard to
the Vice-presidency, the change of financial practices foreshadowed by
the Mediterranean Fund, were signs of reaction toward nationality and
energy in government. Yet the old prejudices of the Republican party
had not yet wholly lost their force. Especially the extreme wing,
consisting of men like John Randolph and W. B. Giles, thought that a
substantial reform should be attempted. Increase of power encouraged
them to act. The party, stimulated by its splendid success and
irresistible popularity, at length, after long hesitation, prepared for
a trial of strength with the last remnant of Federalism,--the Supreme
Court of the United States.
A year of truce between Congress and the Supreme Court had followed
the repeal of the Judiciary Act. To prevent Chief-Justice Marshall and
his associates from interfering with the new arrangements, Congress
in abolishing the circuit courts in 1801 took the strong measure of
suspending for more than a year the sessions of the Supreme Court
itself. Between December, 1801, and February, 1803, the court was not
allowed to sit. Early in February, 1803, a few days before the Supreme
Court was to meet, after fourteen months of separation, President
Jefferson sent an ominous Message to the House of Representatives.
“The enclosed letter and affidavits,” he said,[92] “exhibiting
matter of complaint against John Pickering, district judge
of New Hampshire, which is not within executive cognizance,
I transmit them to the House of Representatives, to whom the
Constitution has confided a power of instituting proceedings
of redress if they shall be of opinion that the case calls for
them.”
The enclosed papers tended to show that Judge Pickering, owing to
habits of intoxication or other causes, had become a scandal to the
bench, and was unfit to perform his duties. At first sight the House
of Representatives might not understand what it had to do with such a
matter; but the President’s language admitted no doubt of his meaning.
The Constitution said that the House of Representatives “shall have
the sole power of impeachment;” and “all civil officers of the United
States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction
of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Jefferson’s Message officially announced to the House the President’s
opinion that Judge Pickering’s conduct was a misdemeanor within the
reach of impeachment.
The House referred the Message to a committee of five, controlled
by Joseph Nicholson and John Randolph. A fortnight later, Nicholson
reported a resolution ordering the impeachment; and before the session
closed, the House, by a vote of forty-five to eight, adopted his
report, and sent Nicholson and Randolph to the bar of the Senate to
impeach Judge Pickering of high crimes and misdemeanors. March 3, 1803,
the last day of the session, the two members delivered their message.
Precisely as the House, by the President’s invitation, was about to
impeach Judge Pickering, the Supreme Court, through the Chief-Justice’s
mouth, delivered an opinion which could be regarded in no other light
than as a defiance. Chief-Justice Marshall’s own appointment had been
one of those made by the last President between Dec. 12, 1800, and
March 4, 1801, which Jefferson called an “outrage on decency,”[93] and
which, except as concerned life offices, he held to be “nullities.”
His doctrine that all appointments made by a retiring President were
nullities, unless made with the consent of the President elect, rested
on the argument that the retiring President was no longer selecting his
own but his successor’s agents. Perhaps it involved also the favorite
idea that the election of 1800 was something more than a change
of Presidents,--that it was a real revolution in the principle of
government. Any theory was sufficient for the Executive, but executive
theories did not necessarily bind the Judiciary. Among the nominations
which, like the appointment of Marshall, were obnoxious to Jefferson,
was that of William Marbury as justice of the peace for five years for
the District of Columbia. The nomination was sent to the Senate March
2, 1801, and was approved the next day, a few hours before Jefferson
took his oath of office. The commission, regularly made out, signed
by the President, countersigned by John Marshall the acting Secretary
of State, and duly sealed, was left with other documents on the
table in the State Department, where it came into the possession of
Attorney-General Lincoln, acting as President Jefferson’s Secretary of
State. Jefferson, having decided that late appointments were nullities,
retained Marbury’s commission. Marbury, at the December term of 1801,
moved the Supreme Court for a Rule to Secretary Madison to show cause
why a mandamus should not issue commanding him to deliver the document.
The Rule was duly served, and the case argued in December, 1801; but
the Judiciary Act having suspended for fourteen months the sessions of
the Supreme Court, the Chief-Justice did not deliver his opinion until
Feb. 24, 1803.[94]
The strongest admirers of Marshall admitted that his manner of dealing
with this case was unusual. Where a judgment was to turn on a question
of jurisdiction, the Court commonly considered that point as first and
final. In the case of Marbury the Court had no original jurisdiction,
and so decided; but instead of beginning at that point and dismissing
the motion, the Court began by discussing the merits of the case, and
ruled that when a commission had been duly signed and sealed the act
was complete, and delivery was not necessary to its validity. Marbury’s
appointment was complete; and as the law gave him the right to hold
for five years, independent of the Executive, his appointment was not
revocable: “To withhold his commission, therefore, is an act deemed by
the Court not warranted by law, but violative of a legal vested right.”
This part of the decision bore the stamp of Marshall’s character. The
first duty of law, as he understood it, was to maintain the sanctity
of pledged word. In his youth society had suffered severely from want
of will to enforce a contract. The national government, and especially
the judiciary, had been created to supply this want by compelling men
to perform their contracts. The essence of the opinion in Marbury’s
case was that the Executive should be held to the performance of a
contract, all the more because of his personal repugnance. Marshall
ruled that Marbury had to his commission a vested legal right of which
the Executive could not deprive him; and although the Court could
not intermeddle with the prerogatives of the Executive, it might and
would command a head of department to perform a duty not depending
on Executive discretion, but on particular Acts of Congress and the
general principles of law. The mandamus might issue, but not from the
Supreme Court, which had appellate jurisdiction only. In other words,
if Marbury chose to apply for the mandamus to Judge Cranch and the
District Court, he might expect the success of his application.
The decision in Marbury’s case naturally exasperated Jefferson; but the
chief-justice knew the point beyond which he could not go in asserting
the jurisdiction of his court, and was content to leave the matter as
it stood. Marbury never applied for the mandamus in the court below.
The opinion in the case of Marbury and Madison was allowed to sleep,
and its language was too guarded to furnish excuse for impeachment; but
while the President was still sore under the discourtesy of Marshall’s
law, another member of the Supreme Bench attacked him in a different
way. If one judge in the United States should have known the peril in
which the judiciary stood, it was Justice Samuel Chase of Maryland, who
had done more than all the other judges to exasperate the democratic
majority. His overbearing manners had twice driven from his court the
most eminent counsel of the circuit; he had left the bench without a
quorum in order that he might make political speeches for his party;
and his contempt for the popular will was loudly expressed. In the
cases of Fries and Callender, in 1800, he had strained the law in order
to convict for the government; and inasmuch as his energy was excess of
zeal, for conviction was certain, he had exposed himself to the charge
of over-officiousness in order to obtain the chief-justice’s chair,
which was given to Marshall. That he was not impeached after the change
of administration proved the caution of the Republican party; but by
this neglect Congress seemed to have condoned his old offences, or
at least had tacitly consented to let their punishment depend on the
judge’s future good behavior.
Unluckily Chase’s temper knew no laws of caution. He belonged to the
old class of conservatives who thought that judges, clergymen, and
all others in authority should guide and warn the people. May 2,
1803, barely two months after Marshall’s defiance of the President
in Marbury’s case and the impeachment of Pickering, Justice Chase
addressed the grand jury at Baltimore on the democratic tendencies of
their local and national government.[95]
“Where law is uncertain, partial, or arbitrary,” he said; “where
justice is not impartially administered to all; where property
is insecure, and the person is liable to insult and violence
without redress by law,--the people are _not free_,
whatever may be their form of government. To this situation I
greatly fear we are fast approaching.... The late alteration
of the Federal judiciary by the abolition of the office of the
sixteen circuit judges, and the recent change in our State
Constitution by the establishing of universal suffrage, and the
further alteration that is contemplated in our State judiciary
(if adopted) will in my judgment take away all security for
property and personal liberty. The independence of the national
judiciary is already shaken to its foundation, and the virtue of
the people alone can restore it.... Our republican Constitution
will sink into a mobocracy,--the worst of all possible
governments.... The modern doctrines by our late reformers,
that all men in a state of society are entitled to enjoy equal
liberty and equal rights, have brought this mighty mischief upon
us; and I fear that it will rapidly progress until peace and
order, freedom and property, shall be destroyed.”
At the moment of Justice Chase’s outburst to the Baltimore grand jury,
the President was at Washington deeply interested in the Louisiana
business, and unaware that on the day when Chase delivered his tirade
Livingston and Monroe in Paris were signing their names to a treaty
which put the Administration beyond danger from such attacks. When he
saw in the newspapers a report of what had been said from the bench at
Baltimore, he wrote to Joseph Nicholson, in whose hands already lay the
management of Pickering’s impeachment:[96]--
“You must have heard of the extraordinary charge of Chase
to the grand jury at Baltimore. Ought this seditious and
official attack on the principles of our Constitution and on
the proceedings of a State to go unpunished; and to whom so
pointedly as yourself will the public look for the necessary
measures? I ask these questions for your consideration; for
myself, it is better that I should not interfere.”
“Non-intervention,” according to Talleyrand, “is a word used in
politics and metaphysics, which means very nearly the same thing as
intervention.” The event proved that non-intervention was wise policy;
but Jefferson was somewhat apt to say that it was better he should not
interfere in the same breath with which he interfered. The warning that
he could not officially interfere seemed to imply that the quarrel was
personal; for in the case of Pickering he had interfered with decision.
If this was his view, the success of any attack upon Chase would be
a gain to him, and he was so ordering as to make failure a loss only
to those who undertook it. Nicholson, hot-headed though he was, did
not enter readily into this hazardous venture. He reflected upon it
all summer, and consulted the friends on whose support he depended.
Macon wrote to him a letter of unusual length,[97] suggesting grave
doubts whether a judge ought to be impeached for expressing to a grand
jury political opinions which every man was at liberty to hold and
express elsewhere, and closed by announcing the conviction that if any
attempt were made to impeach, Nicholson ought not to be the leader. In
this opinion Macon was evidently right, for Chase’s friends could not
fail to suggest that Nicholson was to be rewarded by an appointment
to Chase’s vacant seat on the Supreme Bench; but the House of
Representatives contained no other leader whose authority, abilities,
and experience warranted him in taking so prominent a part, unless it
were John Randolph.
A worse champion than Randolph for a difficult cause could not be
imagined. Between him and Jefferson little sympathy existed. Randolph
had quarrelled with the branch of his family to which Jefferson was
closely allied; and his private feelings stood in the way of personal
attachment. His intimates in Congress were not chiefly Virginians,
but men like Macon of North Carolina, Joseph Bryan of Georgia, and
Nicholson of Maryland,--independent followers of Virginia doctrine, who
owned no personal allegiance to Jefferson. That the President should
have been willing to let such a man take entire responsibility for an
impeachment was natural; but had Jefferson directed the step, he would
never have selected Randolph to manage a prosecution on which the fate
of his principles closely depended. Randolph was no lawyer; but this
defect was a trifling objection compared with his greater unfitness
in other respects. Ill-balanced, impatient of obstacles, incapable of
sustained labor or of methodical arrangement, illogical to excess, and
egotistic to the verge of madness, he was sparkling and formidable in
debate or on the hustings, where he could follow the wayward impulse of
his fancy running in the accustomed channels of his thought; but the
qualities which helped him in debate were fatal to him at the bar.
Such was the origin of a measure which did more to define the character
of the government than any other single event in Jefferson’s first
administration, except the purchase of Louisiana. Randolph threw
himself into the new undertaking; for he sincerely believed in the
justice of his cause, and was alive to the danger of leaving the
Supreme Court in the hands of Marshall and men of his stamp who were
determined to consolidate the government. Yet the chance of obtaining a
conviction, on a charge no stronger than that of the Baltimore address,
was so slight as to incline Randolph against risking it; and he decided
to insure success by putting the cases of Fries and Callender in the
foreground.
This was not easily done. Pickering’s impeachment had been brought
before the House by a Message from the President; but in Chase’s case
the President preferred not to take part. Randolph was forced to
escape the difficulty by an awkward manœuvre. During the autumn and
early winter of 1803 Congress was busy with Louisiana legislation,
and had no leisure for other matters; but soon after the new year
Randolph rose and said[98] that in the course of the last session
Mr. Smilie of Pennsylvania had made some statements in regard to
Justice Chase’s conduct which seemed to call for notice, but that
want of time had precluded action. Finding his attention thus drawn
to the matter, Randolph gravely continued, he had felt it his duty to
investigate Smilie’s charges; and having convinced himself that ground
for impeachment existed, he asked the House to appoint a committee
of inquiry. Such an introduction of a great constitutional struggle
was not imposing; but party discipline was at its highest point, and
after some vigorous Federalist resistance Randolph carried his motion
by a vote of eighty-one to forty. Three Northern democrats voted with
the Federalists; and although the defection seemed not serious so far
as concerned the scientific Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, whose political
principles were liberal enough at all times, some importance even then
attached to the vote of John Smith of New York, who was about to enter
the Senate and to act as one of Chase’s judges.
Meanwhile Judge Pickering’s trial began. The Senate, “sitting as a
Court of Impeachments,” listened while Nicholson, Randolph, Rodney,
and six or seven other Republican members “exhibited the grand inquest
of the nation.” The character of a court was taken in all the forms of
summons. The Secretary of the Senate signed, and the Sergeant-at-Arms
served, the summons to Judge Pickering, while the witnesses were
regularly subpœnaed by the Secretary, “to appear before the Senate of
the United States in their capacity of a Court of Impeachments,” and
the subpœnas were served by the marshals of the district courts.
Judge Pickering was ordered to appear on the 2d of March, 1804; but
when the day arrived, and the Senate was assembled, with the managers
in attendance, John Pickering’s name was three times called without an
answer. Vice-President Burr then submitted to the Senate a petition
from Jacob Pickering, son of the impeached judge, praying the court to
postpone the trial that he might have time to collect evidence with
the view of showing that when the alleged crimes were committed, and
two years before as well as ever since, the judge was wholly deranged,
incapable of transacting any kind of business which required the
exercise of reason, and therefore incapable of corruption of judgment,
no subject of impeachment, and amenable to no tribunal for his actions.
With this petition a letter from Robert G. Harper was laid before the
court, requesting to be allowed to appear on the part of the petitioner
in support of the petition. Harper, having been invited to a seat
within the bar, asked whether he might be heard, not as counsel for
Judge Pickering, who being insane could give no authority for the
purpose, but as agent for the petitioner, to ask a postponement.
The question threw all parties into agitation. The managers instantly
protested that Harper in such a character could not be heard. The
senators retired for consultation, and debated all day without coming
to a decision. The impeaching party dreaded the alternative to which
the proof of insanity must force them,--of saying either that an
insane man was responsible, or that a man mentally irresponsible might
still be guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” for purposes of
impeachment. Senator Jackson of Georgia, who had always the merit of
speaking with candor, avowed the fear that presently Judge Chase’s
friends would come and pretend that he too was mad;[99] but he could
not, even with Breckenridge’s help, carry his point. The Northern
democrats flinched. Six of them and three Southern senators voted with
the Federalists, and admitted Harper in his volunteer character.
Harper put in his testimony, which was decisive in regard to the
insanity; but when he rose to do so, the managers retired, saying that
they considered themselves under no obligation to discuss a preliminary
question raised by an unauthorized third party. The Senate went on with
its session. The managers were obliged to maintain that insanity was no
bar to impeachment, and the Northern democrats were forced to accept
the doctrine.[100]
This view of impeachment, so far as concerned the judiciary, had strong
arguments in its favor. Although the Constitution made judges’ tenure
of office dependent on their good behavior, it provided no other
means than that of impeachment for their removal. Even in England
and in Massachusetts, judges could be removed by the joint action
of Legislature and Executive; but this was not the case under the
Constitution of the United States. If insanity or any other misfortune
was to bar impeachment, the absurdity followed that unless a judge
committed some indictable offence the people were powerless to protect
themselves. Even Federalists might reasonably assume that the people
had never placed themselves in such a situation, but that in making
their judges subject to impeachment for misdemeanors they had meant to
extend the scope of impeachment, and to include within it all cases of
misbehavior which might require a removal from office for the good of
the public service.
This ground was fairly taken by the impeachers, though not formally
expressed. When Harper had put in his evidence and retired, the
Senate sent again for the managers, who occupied one day in supplying
evidence, and then left their case without argument in the hands of
the court. The Senate found itself face to face with an issue beyond
measure delicate, which had never been discussed, but from which escape
was impossible. Acquittal of Pickering would probably be fatal to the
impeachment of Chase, and would also proclaim that the people could not
protect themselves from misbehavior in their judicial servants. On the
other hand, conviction would violate the deep principle of law and
justice that an insane man was not responsible for his acts, and not
amenable to any earthly tribunal. Virginians like Randolph and Wilson
Cary Nicholas, or John Breckenridge, were ready to make a precedent
which should fix the rule that impeachment need not imply criminality,
and might be the equivalent to removal by address. The Northern
democrats were not unwilling to accept this view; but their consciences
revolted against saying “guilty” where no guilt was implied or proved.
To escape this objection a compromise was proposed and adopted. The
Federalists would have forced senators to say in their final vote
that Judge Pickering was “guilty” or “not guilty” of high crimes and
misdemeanors. Senator Anderson of Tennessee eluded this challenge by
moving for a yea-and-nay vote on the question whether Pickering was
guilty “as charged.” The nine Federalists alone opposed his motion,
which was at length adopted by a majority of two to one. By a vote of
nineteen to seven Judge Pickering was declared “guilty as charged” in
the articles of impeachment; and by a vote of twenty to six the Senate
resolved that he ought to be removed from office.
Two of the Federalist senators refused to vote, on the ground that
the proceedings were irregular; Senator Bradley of Vermont, Senator
Armstrong of New York, and Senator Stone of North Carolina tacitly
protested by absenting themselves. In a Senate of thirty-four members
only twenty-six voted, and only nineteen voted for conviction. So
confused, contradictory, and irregular were these proceedings that
Pickering’s trial was never considered a sound precedent. That an
insane man could be guilty of crime, and could be punished on _ex
parte_ evidence, without a hearing, with not even an attorney to act
in his behalf, seemed such a perversion of justice that the precedent
fell dead on the spot. Perhaps, from the constitutional point of view,
a more fatal objection was that in doing what the world was sure to
consider an arbitrary and illegal act, the Virginians failed to put
on record the reasons which led them to think it sound in principle.
In the Louisiana purchase they had acted in a way equally arbitrary,
but they had given their reasons for thinking themselves in the right.
In Pickering’s case not a word was publicly spoken on either side;
a plainly extra-constitutional act was done without recording the
doctrine on which it rested.
The Republicans showed no hesitation. John Randolph’s orders were
obeyed without open protest. Senator Bradley of Vermont talked strongly
in private against them; Senator Armstrong of New York would not
support them; barely half the Senate voted in their favor; but Randolph
forced his party forward without stopping to see how well his steps
were taken, or how far he was likely to go. As though to intimidate the
Senate, March 6, the day after the managers were defeated on the vote
to hear Harper, Randolph reported to the House a resolution ordering
the impeachment of Justice Chase. March 12, the day when the Senate
voted Pickering guilty, the House took up Randolph’s report, and the
majority, without debate, voted by seventy-three to thirty-two that
Chase should be impeached. Not a Republican ventured to record a vote
in the negative. The next morning Randolph again appeared at the bar of
the Senate, and announced that the House of Representatives would in
due time exhibit articles of impeachment against Samuel Chase.
CHAPTER VIII.
AS the year 1804 began, with Louisiana annexed, the Electoral
Amendment secured, and the impeachments in prospect, the Federalists
in Congress wrought themselves into a dangerous state of excitement.
All agreed that the crisis was at hand; democracy had nearly reached
its limit; and, as Justice Chase said from the bench, peace and
order, freedom and property, would soon be destroyed. They discussed
in private what should be done; and among the New Englanders almost
all the men of weight were found to favor the policy of at least
saving New England. Of the six Federalist senators from the Eastern
States,--Plumer and Olcott of New Hampshire, Pickering and Adams of
Massachusetts, Tracy and Hillhouse of Connecticut,--all but Olcott
and Adams thought a dissolution of the Union inevitable.[101] Among
the Federalist members of the House, Roger Griswold of Connecticut
was the most active; he too was convinced that New England must
protect herself. Samuel Hunt of New Hampshire, and Calvin Goddard of
Connecticut held the same opinion. Indeed, Pickering declared that he
did not know “one reflecting Nov-Anglian” who held any other.
In the month of January, 1804, despair turned into conspiracy.
Pickering, Tracy, Griswold, Plumer, and perhaps others of the New
England delegation, agreed to organize a movement in their States
for a dissolution of the Union. They wrote to their most influential
constituents, and sketched a plan of action. In a letter to George
Cabot, Pickering recounted the impending dangers[102]:--
“By the Philadelphia papers I see that the Supreme Court judges
of Pennsylvania are to be hurled from their seats, on the
pretence that in punishing one Thomas Passmore for a contempt
they acted illegally and tyrannically. I presume that Shippen,
Yates, and Smith are to be removed by the Governor, on the
representation of the Legislature. And when such grounds are
taken in the National and State legislatures to destroy the
rights of the judges, whose rights can be safe? Why destroy
_them_, unless as the prelude to the destruction of every
influential Federalist and of every man of considerable property
who is not of the reigning sect? New judges, of characters and
tempers suited to the object, will be the selected ministers of
vengeance.”
A separation, Pickering inferred, had become necessary; but when and
how was it to be effected?
“If Federalism is crumbling away in New England, there is no
time to be lost, lest it should be overwhelmed and become unable
to attempt its own relief; its last refuge is New England,
and immediate exertion perhaps its only hope. It must begin in
Massachusetts. The proposition would be welcomed in Connecticut;
and could we doubt of New Hampshire? But New York must be
associated; and how is her concurrence to be obtained? She must
be made the centre of the confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey
would follow of course, and Rhode Island of necessity. Who can
be consulted, and who will take the lead? The legislatures of
Massachusetts and Connecticut meet in May, and of New Hampshire
in the same month, or June. The subject has engaged the
contemplation of many. The Connecticut gentlemen have seriously
meditated upon it.... Tracy has written to several of his most
distinguished friends in Connecticut, and may soon receive
their answers. R. Griswold, examining the finances, has found
that the States above mentioned, to be embraced by the Northern
confederacy, now pay as much or more of the public revenues as
would discharge their share of the public debts due those States
and abroad, leaving out the millions given for Louisiana.”
Roger Griswold wrote a few weeks afterward to Oliver Wolcott in similar
terms:[103]--
“The project which we had formed was to induce, if possible,
the legislatures of the three New England States who remain
Federal to commence measures which should call for a reunion
of the Northern States. The extent of those measures, and the
rapidity with which they shall be followed up, must be governed
by circumstances. The magnitude and jealousy of Massachusetts
would render it necessary that the operation should be commenced
there. If any hope can be created that New York will ultimately
support the plan, it may perhaps be supported.”
The first action, said he, must come from the Legislature of
Massachusetts, which was not yet elected, but would meet early in
June. Connecticut and New Hampshire were to follow; and to Pickering’s
sanguine mind the Northern Confederacy seemed already established.
“The people of the East,” he said, “cannot reconcile their habits,
views, and interests with those of the South and West. The latter are
beginning to rule with a rod of iron.”
Pickering knew that the Federalist majority in Massachusetts was none
too great. The election in May, four months later, showed a Federalist
vote of 30,000 against a Republican minority of 24,000, while in the
Legislature Harrison Gray Otis was chosen Speaker by 129 votes to 103.
Pickering knew also that his colleague, Senator Adams, was watching
his movements with increasing ill-will, which Pickering lost no chance
to exasperate. Nothing could be more certain than that at the first
suggestion of disunion Senator Adams and the moderate Federalists would
attack the Essex Junto with the bitterness of long-suppressed hatred;
and if they could not command fourteen votes in the Legislature and
three thousand in the State, a great change must have occurred since
the year before, when they elected Adams to the Senate for the long
term over Pickering’s head. Pickering concealed his doings from his
colleague; but Tracy was not so cautious. Adams learned the secret
from Tracy; and the two senators from Massachusetts drew farther and
farther apart, in spite of the impeachments, which tended to force them
together.
The Essex Junto, which sent Pickering to Washington, and to which he
appealed for support, read his letter with evident astonishment. George
Cabot, Chief-Justice Parsons, Fisher Ames, and Stephen Higginson,
who were the leaders consulted,[104] agreed that the scheme was
impracticable; and Cabot, as gently as possible, put their common
decision into words.
“All the evils you describe,” he said,[105] “and many more, are
to be apprehended; but I greatly fear that a separation would
be no remedy, because the source of them is in the political
theories of our country and in ourselves. A separation at some
period not very remote may probably take place,--the first
impression of it is even now favorably received by many; but I
cannot flatter myself with the expectation of essential good
to proceed from it while we retain maxims and principles which
all experience, and I may add reason too, pronounce to be
impracticable and absurd. Even in New England, where there is
among the body of the people more wisdom and virtue than in any
other part of the United States, we are full of errors which no
reasoning could eradicate if there were a Lycurgus in every
village. We are democratic altogether; and I hold democracy in
its natural operation to be the government of the worst.
“There is no energy in the Federal party, and there could
be none manifested without great hazard of losing the State
government. Some of our best men in high stations are kept in
office because they forbear to exert any influence, and not
because they possess right principles. They are permitted to
have power if they will not use it.... I incline to the opinion
that the essential alterations which may in future be made to
amend our form of government will be the consequences only of
great suffering or the immediate effects of violence. If we
should be made to feel a very great calamity from the abuse
of power by the National Administration, we might do almost
anything; but it would be idle to talk to the deaf, to warn
the people of distant evils. By this time you will suppose I
am willing to do nothing but submit to fate. I would not be
so understood. I am convinced we cannot do what is wished;
but we can do much, if we work with Nature (or the course of
things), and not against her. A separation is now impracticable,
because we do not feel the necessity or utility of it. The same
separation then will be unavoidable when our loyalty to the
Union is generally perceived to be the instrument of debasement
and impoverishment. If it is prematurely attempted, those
few only will promote it who discern what is hidden from the
multitude.”
Cabot’s letter, more clearly than any writing of Alexander Hamilton
himself, expressed the philosophy and marked the tactics of their
school. Neither Cabot nor Hamilton was a lively writer, and the dust
which has gathered deep on their doctrines dulls whatever brilliancy
they once possessed; but this letter showed why Cabot was considered
the wisest head in his party, to whose rebuke even Hamilton was forced
to bow. For patient and willing students who have groped in search
of the idea which, used by Hamilton and Jefferson, caused bitterer
feeling and roused deeper terrors than civil war itself, Cabot’s long
and perhaps pedantic letter on the policy of disunion was full of
meaning. “We shall go the way of all governments wholly popular,--from
bad to worse,--until the evils, no longer tolerable, shall generate
their own remedies.” Democracy must end in a crisis, experience and
reason pronounced it impracticable and absurd, Nature would in due
time vindicate her own laws; and when the inevitable chaos should
come, then conservative statesmanship could set society on a sound
footing by limiting the suffrage to those citizens who might hold in
their own right two thousand dollars value in land. Meanwhile disunion
would be useless, and the attempt to bring it about would break up the
Federalist party. “A war with Great Britain manifestly provoked by our
rulers” was the only chance which Cabot foresaw of bringing the people
of New England to a dissolution of the Union.
Pickering was not so intelligent as Cabot, Parsons, and Ames; his
temper was harsher than theirs; he was impatient of control, and never
forgot or wholly forgave those who forced him to follow another course
than the one he chose. Cabot’s letter showed a sense of these traits;
for though it was in the nature of a command or entreaty to cease
discussing disunion, if the Federalist party in Massachusetts were to
be saved, it was couched in gentle language, and without affecting a
tone of advice suggested ideas which ought to guide Federalists in
Congress. Pickering was to wait for the crisis. Inaction was easy; and
even though the crisis should be delayed five or ten years,--a case
hardly to be supposed,--no step could be taken without a blunder before
the public should be ready for it. With this simple and sound principle
to guide them, conservatives could not go wrong. Cabot there left the
matter.
Such gentleness toward a man of Pickering’s temper was a mistake,
which helped to cost the life of one whom conservatives regarded
as their future leader in the crisis. Pickering was restive under
the sense that his friends preferred other counsellors; whereas his
experience and high offices, to say nothing of his ability, entitled
him, as he thought, to greater weight in the party than Hamilton,
Cabot, or Rufus King. Backed by Tracy, Griswold, and other men of
standing, Pickering felt able to cope with opposition. His rough sense
and democratic instincts warned him that the fine-drawn political
theories of George Cabot and Theophilus Parsons might end in impotence.
He could see no reason why Massachusetts, once corrupted, might not
wallow in democratic iniquities with as much pleasure as New York
or Pennsylvania; and all that was worth saving might be lost before
her democracy would consent to eat the husks of repentance and ask
forgiveness from the wise and good. Cabot wanted to wait a few months
or years until democracy should work out its own fate; and whenever
the public should yearn for repose, America would find her Pitt and
Bonaparte combined in the political grasp and military genius of
Alexander Hamilton. Pickering, as a practical politician, felt that
if democracy were suffered to pull down the hierarchy of New England,
neither disunion nor foreign war, nor “a very great calamity” of any
kind, could with certainty restore what had once been destroyed.
Cabot’s argument shook none of Pickering’s convictions; but the
practical difficulty on which the home Junto relied was fatal
unless some way of removing it could be invented. During the month
of February, 1804, when the impeachment panic was at its height in
Congress, Pickering, Tracy, and Plumer received letter after letter
from New England, all telling the same story. The eminent Judge Tapping
Reeve, of Connecticut, wrote to Tracy:[106] “I have seen many of our
friends; and all that I have seen and most that I have heard from
believe that we must separate, and that this is the most favorable
moment.” He had heard only one objection,--that the country was not
prepared; but this objection, which meant that the disunionists were
a minority, was echoed from all New England. The conspirators dared
not openly discuss the project. “There are few among my acquaintance,”
wrote Pickering’s nephew, Theodore Lyman,[107] “with whom I could on
that subject freely converse; there may be more ready than I am aware
of.” Plumer found a great majority of the New Hampshire Federalists
decidedly opposed. Roger Griswold, toward the end of the session,
summed up the result in his letter to Oliver Wolcott:--
“We have endeavored during this session to rouse our friends in
New England to make some bold exertions in that quarter. They
generally tell us that they are sensible of the danger, that
the Northern States must unite; but they think the time has not
yet arrived. Prudence is undoubtedly necessary; but when it
degenerates into procrastination it becomes fatal. Whilst we are
waiting for the time to arrive in New England, it is certain
the democracy is making daily inroads upon us, and our means of
resistance are lessening every day. Yet it appears impossible to
induce our friends to make any decisive exertions. Under these
circumstances I have been induced to look to New York.”
The representatives of the wise and good looked at politics with eyes
which saw no farther than those of the most profligate democrat into
the morality of the game. Pickering enjoyed hearing himself called
“honest Tim Pickering,” as though he were willing to imply a tinge
of dishonesty in others, even in the Puritan society of Wenham and
Salem. Griswold was to the end of his life a highly respected citizen
of Connecticut, and died while governor of the State. That both these
worthy men should conspire to break up the Union implied to their minds
no dishonesty, because they both held that the Republican majority
had by its illegal measures already destroyed the Constitution which
they had sworn to support; but although such casuistry might excuse in
their own consciences the act of conspiracy, neither this reasoning
nor any other consistent with self-respect warranted their next step.
Griswold’s remark that the procrastination of New England had led him
to look to New York was not quite candid; his plan had from the first
depended on New York. Pickering had written to Cabot at the outset,
“She must be made the centre of the confederacy.” New York seemed,
more than New England, unfit to be made the centre of a Northern
confederacy, because there the Federalist party was a relatively
small minority. If Massachusetts and Connecticut showed fatal apathy,
in New York actual repulsion existed; the extreme Federalists had
no following. To bring New York to the Federalism of Pickering and
Griswold, the Federalist party needed to recover power under a leader
willing to do its work. The idea implied a bargain and an intrigue on
terms such as in the Middle Ages the Devil was believed to impose upon
the ambitious and reckless. Pickering and Griswold could win their game
only by bartering their souls; they must invoke the Mephistopheles of
politics, Aaron Burr.
To this they had made up their minds from the beginning. Burr’s four
years of office were drawing to a close. The Virginians had paid
him the price he asked for replacing them in power; and had it been
Shylock’s pound of flesh, they could not have looked with greater
care to see that Burr should get neither more nor less, even in the
estimation of a hair, than the exact price they had covenanted to pay.
In another year the debt would be discharged, and the Virginians would
be free. Burr had not a chance of regaining a commanding place among
Republicans, for he was bankrupt in private and public character. In
New York the Clintons never ceased their attacks, with the evident
wish to drive him from the party. Cheetham, after publishing in 1802
two heavy pamphlets, a “Narrative” and a “View,” attempted in 1803 to
crush him under the weight of a still heavier volume, containing “Nine
Letters on the Subject of Aaron Burr’s Political Defection.” Nov. 16,
1803, the “Albany Register” at length followed Cheetham’s lead; and
nearly all the other democratic newspapers followed the “Register,”
abandoning Burr as a man who no longer deserved confidence.
Till near the close of 1803 the Vice-President held his peace.
The first sign that he meant energetic retaliation was given by
an anonymous pamphlet,[108] which won the rare double triumph of
political and literary success, in which ability and ill temper seemed
to have equal shares. The unexpected appearance of “Aristides” startled
New York. This attack recalled the scandal which Alexander Hamilton had
created four years before by his pamphlet against his own President.
“Aristides” wrote with even more bitterness than Hamilton, and the
ferocity of his assault on the personal and political characters of
the Republican leaders made the invectives of Hamilton and Cheetham
somewhat tame; but the scandal in each case was due not so much to
personalities of abuse as to breaches of confidence. “Aristides”
furnished to the enemies of the Clintons and Livingstons an arsenal
of poisoned weapons; but what was more to the purpose, his defence of
Burr was strong. That it came directly from the Vice-President was
clear; but the pamphlet showed more literary ability than Burr claimed,
and the world was at a loss to discover who could be held responsible
for its severities. Cheetham tried in vain to pierce the incognito.
Not till long afterward was “Aristides” acknowledged by Burr’s most
intimate friend, William Peter Van Ness.
An attempt to separate what was just from what was undeserved in Van
Ness’s reproaches of the Clintons and Livingstons would be useless. The
Clintons and Livingstons, however unprincipled they might be, could say
that they were more respectable than Burr; but though this were true
so far as social standing was concerned, they could not easily show
that as a politician the Vice-President was worse than his neighbors.
The New England Federalists knew well that Burr was not to be trusted,
but they did not think much worse of him than they thought of De Witt
Clinton, or John Armstrong, or Edward Livingston, at this moment
removed from office by Jefferson for failing to account for thirty
thousand dollars due to the United States Treasury. As a politician
Burr had played fast and loose with all parties; but so had most of
his enemies. Seeing that he was about to try another cast of the dice,
all the political gamblers gathered round to help or hurt his further
fortunes; and Van Ness might fairly have said that in the matter of
principle or political morality, none of them could show clean hands.
Although Vice-President until March, 1805, Burr announced that he meant
to offer himself as a candidate for the post of governor of New York in
April, 1804. At the same time Governor Clinton privately gave warning
of his own retirement. De Witt Clinton was annoyed at his uncle’s
conduct, and tried to prevent the withdrawal by again calling Jefferson
to his aid and alarming him with fear of Burr.
“A certain gentleman was to leave this place yesterday morning,”
wrote De Witt to the President.[109] “He has been very active in
procuring information as to his probable success for governor
at the next election. This, I believe, is his intention at
present, although it is certain that if the present Governor
will consent to be a candidate, he will prevail by an immense
majority.... Perhaps a letter from you may be of singular
service.”
Jefferson declined to interfere, putting his refusal on the ground of
Burr’s candidacy.
“I should think it indeed a serious misfortune,” was his
reply,[110] “should a change in the administration of your
government be hazarded before its present principles be well
established through all its parts; yet on reflection you will be
sensible that the delicacy of my situation, considering who may
be competitors, forbids my intermeddling even so far as to write
the letter you suggest. I can therefore only brood in silence
over my secret wishes.”
No real confidence ever existed between Jefferson and the Clintons.
A few days after these letters were written, “Aristides” betrayed
the secret that Governor Clinton, in the spring of 1800, declared
Jefferson to be “an accommodating trimmer, who would change with times
and bend to circumstances for the purposes of personal promotion.”
This revelation by “Aristides,” supported by the names of persons who
heard the remark, forced Governor Clinton into an awkward denial of the
charge, and led to an exchange of letters[111] and to professions of
confidence between him and Jefferson; but time showed that neither the
Governor nor his nephew loved the Virginians more than they were loved
by Burr.
The threads of intrigue drew together, as they were apt to do before
a general election. The last week in January came. Three days before
Senator Pickering wrote his conspiracy letter to George Cabot, a letter
which implied co-operation with Burr in making him governor of New
York, Burr asked for a private interview with Jefferson, and formally
offered him the choice between friendship or enmity. The President
thought the conversation so curious that he made a note of it.
“He began,” said Jefferson,[112] “by recapitulating summarily
that he had come to New York a stranger, some years ago; that
he found the country in possession of two rich families,--the
Livingstons and Clintons; ... that since, those great families
had become hostile to him and had excited the calumnies which I
had seen published; that in this Hamilton had joined, and had
even written some of the pieces against him.... He observed,
he believed it would be for the interest of the Republican
cause for him to retire,--that a disadvantageous schism would
otherwise take place; but that were he to retire, it would be
said he shrank from the public sentence, which he would never
do; that his enemies were using my name to destroy him, and
something was necessary from me to prevent and deprive them of
that weapon,--some mark of favor from me which would declare to
the world that he retired with my confidence.”
Jefferson, with many words but with his usual courtesy, intimated that
he could not appoint the Vice-President to an Executive office; and
Burr then united his intrigues with those of Pickering and Griswold.
Thenceforth his chance of retaining power depended on the New York
election; and his success in this election depended on the Federalists.
Before George Cabot had yet written his answer to Pickering’s
questions, Pickering could no longer resist the temptation to act.
The effect of what passed at Washington was instantly felt at Albany.
Toward the middle of February, about three weeks after Jefferson had
civilly rejected the Vice-President’s advances, Burr’s friends in the
New York legislature announced that they should hold a caucus February
18, and nominate him as candidate for governor. The Federalists at
once called a preliminary caucus to decide whether they should support
Burr. Alexander Hamilton, who happened to be engaged in law business
at Albany, Feb. 16, 1804, attended the Federal caucus, and used his
influence in favor of the regular Clinton candidate against Burr’s
pretensions. The drift of his argument was given in an abstract of
reasons which he drew up for the occasion.[113] Unfortunately the
strongest of these reasons was evidently personal; the leadership of
Hamilton would not tolerate rivalry from Burr. Hamilton pointed out
that Burr’s elevation by the Federalists of New York would present
him as their leader to the Federalists of New England, and would
assist him to disorganize New England if so disposed; that there “the
ill-opinion of Jefferson, and jealousy of the ambition of Virginia, is
no inconsiderable prop of good opinions; but these causes are leading
to an opinion that a dismemberment of the Union is expedient. It would
probably suit Mr. Burr’s views to promote this result,--to be the chief
of the Northern portion; and placed at the head of the State of New
York, no man would be more likely to succeed.”
If the Union was to be severed, Hamilton was the intended chief of the
Northern portion; but he wanted no severance that should leave the
germs of the democratic disease. His philosophy was that of George
Cabot, William Pitt, and Talleyrand; he waited for the whole country to
come to its senses and restore sound principles, that democracy might
everywhere die out or be stifled. Burr’s methods were democratic, and
would perpetuate in a Northern confederacy the vices of the Union; they
would break up the conservative strength without weakening democracy.
Within a few days the danger which Hamilton foresaw came to pass.
Burr’s little band of friends in the Legislature, Feb. 18, 1804, set
him in nomination; and a large majority of Federalists, in defiance of
Hamilton’s entreaties, meant to vote for him.
As the situation became clearer, Hamilton’s personal feeling became
public. While at Albany, February 16, he dined with Judge Taylor,
and at table talked of the political prospect. One of the company,
Dr. Charles D. Cooper, an active partisan, wrote an account of the
conversation to a certain Mr. Brown near Albany: “General Hamilton and
Judge Kent have declared, in substance, that they looked upon Mr. Burr
to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the
reins of government.” The letter was printed, and went the rounds of
the press. As it roused some question and dispute, Cooper wrote again:
“I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General
Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr.” This letter also was printed; the
“Albany Register” of April 24 contained the correspondence.
The news of Burr’s nomination reached Washington at the moment when
Pickering and Tracy received answers to their disunion scheme; and
it served to keep them steady to their plan. The Federalists, who
professed to consider Hamilton their leader, seldom followed his
advice; but on this occasion they set him somewhat unkindly aside. Too
much in awe of Hamilton to say directly to his face that he must be
content with the place of Burr’s lieutenant, they wrote letters to that
effect which were intended for his eye.
Of all Federalist leaders, moderate and extreme, Rufus King, who had
recently returned from London, stood highest in the confidence of his
party. He was to be the Federalist candidate for Vice-President; he had
mixed in none of the feuds which made Hamilton obnoxious to many of his
former friends; and while King’s manners were more conciliatory, his
opinions were more moderate, than those of other party leaders. To him
Pickering wrote, March 4, 1804, in a tone of entreaty:--
“I am disgusted with the men who now rule, and with their
measures. At some manifestations of their malignancy I am
shocked. The cowardly wretch at their head, while like a
Parisian revolutionary monster prating about humanity, would
feel an infernal pleasure in the utter destruction of his
opponents.”
After avowing his hopes of disunion, Pickering next touched the New
York election:[114]--
“The Federalists here in general anxiously desire the election
of Mr. Burr to the chair of New York, for they despair of a
present ascendency of the Federalist party. Mr. Burr alone, we
think, can break your democratic phalanx, and we anticipate much
good from his success. Were New York detached, as under his
administration it would be, from the Virginia influence, the
whole Union would be benefited. Jefferson would then be forced
to observe some caution and forbearance in his measures. And
if a separation should be deemed proper, the five New England
States, New York, and New Jersey would naturally be united.”
Rufus King was as cautious as Pickering was indiscreet. He acknowledged
this letter in vague terms of compliment,[115] saying that Pickering’s
views “ought to fix the attention of the real friends of liberty in
this quarter of the Union, and the more so as things seem to be fast
advancing to a crisis.” Even King’s cool head was possessed with the
thought which tormented Hamilton, Cabot, Ames, Pickering, Griswold, and
Tracy,--the crisis which was always coming, and which, in the midst
of peace, plenty, and contentment such as a tortured world had seldom
known, overhung these wise and virtuous men like the gloom of death.
A week later Roger Griswold followed Pickering’s example by writing
to another of Hamilton’s friends, Oliver Wolcott, who apparently sent
the letter to Hamilton.[116] A Congressional caucus, February 25,
nominated George Clinton as the Republican candidate for Vice-President
by sixty-five votes against forty-one,--Burr’s friends absenting
themselves. This nomination showed some division between the Northern
and Southern democrats; but Griswold rightly argued that nothing could
be done in Congress,--the formation of a Northern interest must begin
at home, and must find its centre of union in Burr. The arguments for
this course were set forth with entire candor.
“I have wished to ascertain,” wrote Griswold, “the views of
Colonel Burr in relation to the general government; but having
had no intimacy with him myself, and finding no one on the spot
calculated, or indeed authorized, to require an explanation,
I have obtained but little information. He speaks in the most
bitter terms of the Virginia faction, and of the necessity of
a union at the northward to resist it; but what the ultimate
objects are which he would propose, I do not know. It is
apparent that his election is supported in New York on the
principle of resisting Virginia and uniting the North; and
it may be presumed that the support given to him by Federal
men would tend to reconcile the feelings of those democrats
who are becoming dissatisfied with their Southern masters.
But it is worthy of great consideration whether the advantage
gained in this manner will not be more than counterbalanced by
fixing on the Northern States a man in whom the most eminent
of our friends will not repose confidence. If Colonel Burr is
elevated in New York to the office of governor by the votes of
Federalism, will he not be considered, and must he not in fact
become, the head of the Northern interest? His ambition will not
suffer him to be second, and his office will give him a claim to
the first rank.”
Having proposed this question, Griswold argued it as one in which the
interests of New York must yield to the larger interests behind, and
decided that “unpleasant as the thing may be,” Burr’s election and
consequent leadership of the Federalist party was “the only hope which
at this time presents itself of rallying in defence of the Northern
States.... What else can we do? If we remain inactive, our ruin is
certain. Our friends will make no attempts alone. By supporting Mr.
Burr we gain some support, although it is of a doubtful nature, and of
which, God knows, we have cause enough to be jealous. In short, I see
nothing else left for us.”
Had this been all, though it was a rude blow to Hamilton, it might
have passed as a difference of opinion on a point of party policy;
but Griswold’s object in writing these excuses was to explain that he
had already done more, and had even entered into personal relations
with Colonel Burr in view of a bargain. What this bargain was to be,
Griswold explained:--
“I have engaged to call on the Vice-President as I pass through
New York. The manner in which he gave me the invitation appeared
to indicate a wish to enter upon some explanation. He said he
wished very much to see me, and to converse, but his situation
in this place did not admit of it, and he begged me to call
on him at New York. This took place yesterday in the library.
Indeed, I do not see how he can avoid a full explanation with
Federal men. His prospects must depend on the union of the
Federalists with his friends, and it is certain that his views
must extend much beyond the office of governor of New York. He
has the spirit of ambition and revenge to gratify, and can do
but little with his ‘little band’ alone.”
Even George Cabot deserted Hamilton, and wrote from Boston to Rufus
King a long letter, in the tone of indolent speculation which irritated
restless fighters like Pickering and Griswold:[117]--
“An _experiment_ has been suggested by some of our friends,
to which I object that it is impracticable, and if practicable
would be ineffectual. The thing proposed is obvious and natural;
but it would now be thought too bold, and would be fatal to its
advocates as public men; yet the time _may_ soon come when
it will be demanded by the people of the North and East, and
then it will unavoidably take place.”
He explained his favorite thesis,--the last resource of failing
protestants,--that things must be worse before they were better; but
closed by wishing success to Burr. “I should rejoice to see Burr win
the race in your State, but I cannot approve of aid being given him by
any of the _leading_ Federalists.”
Ten days later, March 27, Congress adjourned; and thenceforward the
intrigue centred about Burr and Hamilton in New York. No sooner did
Griswold reach that city, a week afterward, on his way from Washington
to Connecticut, than he kept his engagement with Burr, and the
conversation strengthened him in his policy.[118] Burr was cautious,
but said that in his present canvass “he must go on democratically to
obtain the government; that if he succeeded, he should administer it in
a manner that would be satisfactory to the Federalists. In respect to
the affairs of the nation, Burr said that the Northern States must be
governed by Virginia, or govern Virginia, and that there was no middle
course; that the democratic members of Congress from the East were in
this sentiment,--some of those from New York, some of the leaders in
Jersey, and likewise in Pennsylvania.” Further than this he would not
go; and Griswold contented himself with such vague allurements.
On the other hand, Rufus King’s library was the scene of grave
dissensions. There Pickering went, April 8, to urge his scheme of
disunion, and retired on the appearance of his colleague, Senator
Adams, who for the first and last time in his life found himself
fighting the battle of Alexander Hamilton, whom he disliked as
decidedly as Pickering professed to love him. As the older senator
left the house at his colleague’s entrance, King said to Adams:[119]
“Colonel Pickering has been talking to me about a project they have
for a separation of the States and a Northern Confederacy; and he has
also been this day talking of it with General Hamilton. Have you heard
anything of it at Washington?” Adams replied that he had heard much,
but not from Colonel Pickering. “I disapprove entirely of the project,”
said King; “and so, I am happy to tell you, does General Hamilton.”
The struggle for control between Hamilton and the conspirators lasted
to the eve of the election,--secret, stifled, mysterious; the intrigue
of men afraid to avow their aims, and seeming rather driven by their
own passions than guided by the lofty and unselfish motives which ought
to inspire those whom George Cabot emphatically called the _best_!
The result was a drawn battle. Hamilton prevented leading Federalists
from open committal of the party, but he could not prevent the party
itself from voting for Burr. The election took place April 25, 1804;
and although Burr succeeded in carrying to the Federalists a few
hundred voters in the city of New York, where his strength lay, giving
him there a majority of about one hundred in a total vote of less than
three thousand, he polled but about twenty-eight thousand votes in
the State against thirty-five thousand for the Clinton candidate. The
Federalists gained nothing by supporting him; but only a small portion
of the party refused him their aid.
The obstinacy of Pickering and Griswold in pressing Burr on the party
forced Hamilton to strain his strength in order to prevent what he
considered his own humiliation. That all Hamilton’s doings were known
to Burr could hardly be doubted. When the election closed, a new era
in Burr’s life began. He was not a vindictive man, but this was the
second time Hamilton had stood in his way and vilified his character.
Burr could have no reason to suppose that Hamilton was deeply loved;
for he knew that four fifths of the Federal party had adopted his own
leadership when pitted against Hamilton’s in the late election, and he
knew too that Pickering, Griswold, and other leading Federalists had
separated from Hamilton in the hope of making Burr himself the chief of
a Northern confederacy. Burr never cared for the past,--the present and
future were his only thought; but his future in politics depended on
his breaking somewhere through the line of his personal enemies; and
Hamilton stood first in his path, for Hamilton would certainly renew at
every critical moment the tactics which had twice cost Burr his prize.
Pickering and Griswold saw their hopes shattered by the result of the
New York election. They gained at the utmost only an agreement to hold
a private meeting of leading Federalists at Boston in the following
autumn;[120] and as Hamilton was to be present, he probably intended to
take part only in order to stop once for all the intrigues of these two
men. Such an assemblage, under the combined authority of Cabot, King,
and Hamilton, could not have failed to restore discipline.
Nearly two months passed after the New York election, when, on the
morning of June 18, William P. Van Ness, not yet known as “Aristides,”
appeared in Hamilton’s office. He brought a note from Vice-President
Burr, which enclosed newspaper-cuttings containing Dr. Cooper’s report
of Hamilton’s “despicable” opinion of Burr’s character. The paragraph,
Burr said, had but very recently come to his knowledge. “You must
perceive, sir, the necessity of a prompt and unqualified acknowledgment
or denial of the use of any expression which would warrant the
assertions of Dr. Cooper.” General Hamilton took two days to consider
the subject; and then replied in what Burr thought an evasive manner,
but closed with two lines of defiance: “I trust on more reflection
you will see the matter in the same light with me; if not, I can only
regret the circumstance, and must abide the consequences.”[121]
These concluding words were the usual form in which men expressed
themselves when they intended to accept a challenge to a duel. At first
sight, no sufficient reason for accepting a challenge was shown by
Hamilton’s letter, which disavowed Dr. Cooper’s report so far as Burr
was warranted in claiming disavowal. Hamilton might without impropriety
have declined to give further satisfaction. In truth, not the personal
but the political quarrel drew him into the field; he knew that Burr
meant to challenge, not the man, but the future political chief, and
that an enemy so bent on rule must be met in the same spirit. Hamilton
fought to maintain his own right to leadership, so rudely disputed by
Burr, Pickering, and Griswold. He devoted some of his moments before
the duel to the task of explaining, in a formal document, that he
fought only to save his political influence.[122] “The ability to be
in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good, in
those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would
probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this
particular.”
Always the crisis! Yet this crisis which brought Hamilton in July
to the duelling-ground at Weehawken was not the same as that which
Pickering and Griswold had so lately tried to create. Pickering’s
disunion scheme came to a natural end on Burr’s defeat in April.
The legislatures of the three Federalist States had met and done
nothing; all chance of immediate action was lost, and all parties,
including even Pickering and Griswold, had fallen back on their faith
in the “crisis”; but the difference of opinion between Hamilton and
the New Englanders was still well defined. Hamilton thought that
disunion, from a conservative standpoint, was a mistake; nearly all
the New Englanders, on the contrary, looked to ultimate disunion as a
conservative necessity. The last letter which Hamilton wrote, a few
hours before he left his house for the duelling-ground, was a short and
earnest warning against disunion, addressed to Theodore Sedgwick, one
of the sternest Massachusetts Federalists of Pickering’s class.[123]
“Dismemberment of our empire,” said Hamilton, “will be a
clear sacrifice of great positive advantages, without any
counterbalancing good; administering no relief to our real
disease, which is _democracy_,--the poison of which, by a
subdivision, will only be the more concentred in each part, and
consequently the more virulent.”
The New Englanders thought this argument unsound, as it certainly
was; for a dissolution of the American Union would have struck a blow
more nearly fatal to democracy throughout the world than any other
“crisis” that man could have compassed. Yet the argument showed that
had Hamilton survived, he would probably have separated from his New
England allies, and at last, like his friends Rufus King and Oliver
Wolcott, would have accepted the American world as it was.
The tragedy that actually happened was a fitter ending to this dark
chapter than any tamer close could have been. Early on the morning
of July 11, in the brilliant sunlight of a hot summer, the two men
were rowed to the duelling-ground across the river, under the rocky
heights of Weehawken, and were placed by their seconds face to face.
Had Hamilton acted with the energy of conviction, he would have met
Burr in his own spirit; but throughout this affair Hamilton showed want
of will. He allowed himself to be drawn into a duel, but instead of
killing Burr he invited Burr to kill him. In the paper Hamilton left
for his justification, he declared the intention to throw away his
first fire. He did so. Burr’s bullet passed through Hamilton’s body.
The next day he was dead.
As the news spread, it carried a wave of emotion over New England,
and roused everywhere sensations strangely mixed. In New York the
Clinton interest, guided by Cheetham, seized the moment to destroy
Burr’s influence forever. Cheetham affected to think the duel a murder,
procured Burr’s indictment, and drove him from the State. Charges were
invented to support this theory, and were even accepted as history. In
the South and West, on the other hand, the duel was considered as a
simple “affair of honor,” in which Burr appeared to better advantage
than his opponent. In New England a wail of despair arose. Even the
clergy, though shocked that Hamilton should have offered the evil
example of duelling, felt that they had lost their champion and sword
of defence. “In those crises of our public affairs which seemed likely
to happen,” Hamilton’s genius in council and in the field had been
their main reliance; he was to be their Washington, with more than
Washington’s genius,--their Bonaparte, with Washington’s virtues. The
whole body of Federalists, who had paid little regard to Hamilton’s
wishes in life, went into mourning for his death, and held funeral
services such as had been granted to no man of New England birth.
Orators, ministers, and newspapers exhausted themselves in execration
of Burr. During the whole summer and autumn, undisturbed by a breath
of discord or danger, except such as their own fears created, they
bewailed their loss as the most fatal blow yet given to the hopes of
society.
The death of Hamilton cleared for a time the murky atmosphere of
New York and New England politics. Pickering and Griswold, Tracy
and Plumer, and their associates retired into the background. Burr
disappeared from New York, and left a field for De Witt Clinton to
sacrifice in his turn the public good to private ambition. The bloody
feuds of Burr’s time never again recurred. The death of Hamilton and
the Vice-President’s flight, with their accessories of summer-morning
sunlight on rocky and wooded heights, tranquil river, and distant
city, and behind all, their dark background of moral gloom, double
treason, and political despair, still stand as the most dramatic moment
in the early politics of the Union.
CHAPTER IX.
President Jefferson was told from day to day of the communications that
passed between Burr and the Connecticut Federalists. Of all members
of the Government, the most active politician was Gideon Granger, the
Postmaster-General, whose “intimacy with some of those in the secret,”
as Jefferson afterward testified, gave him “opportunities of searching
into their proceedings.”[124] Every day during this period Granger
made a confidential report to the President; and at the President’s
request Granger warned De Witt Clinton of Burr’s intrigues with the
Federalists. What passed in Rufus King’s library and in Burr’s private
room seemed known at once by Granger, and was reported within a few
days to Jefferson, who received the news with his innate optimism,
warranted by experience.[125]
“It will be found in this, as in all other similar cases, that
crooked schemes will end by overwhelming their authors and
coadjutors in disgrace, and that he alone who walks strict and
upright, and who in matters of opinion will be contented that
others should be as free as himself, and acquiesce when his
opinion is fairly overruled, will attain his object in the end.”
If Jefferson and his Virginia friends in 1798, when their own opinions
were overruled, had expressed the idea of acquiescence as strongly, the
nation might perhaps have been saved the necessity of proving later the
truth of his words; but Jefferson could afford to treat with contempt
the coalition between Burr and Pickering, because, as he wisely said,
it had no cohesive force to hold it together, no common principle on
which to rest. When Burr’s defeat in April and Hamilton’s death in July
dissolved the unnatural connection, Jefferson let the secret die; he
wanted no scandal. He stood a little in awe of the extreme Federalists,
whom he called incurables, and was unwilling to exasperate them without
an object.
The Administration had every reason to rejoice that Burr’s factious
influence in the State of New York was at an end; for other causes of
anxiety gave the President more personal annoyance. The strength of the
Republican party lay in the alliance between Virginia and Pennsylvania.
So long as these two central States, with their forty members of
Congress, remained harmonious, nothing could shake Jefferson’s power;
but any discord which threatened his control of Pennsylvania caused
him anxiety. Hardly had Burr’s schism been checked in New York by a
succession of measures as energetic as De Witt Clinton could persuade
Jefferson to adopt, when a schism, that threatened greater mischief,
broke out in Pennsylvania.
In this State no social hierarchy existed such as governed New England,
nor were rich families with political followings to be found there,
as in New York; but instead, Duane’s “Aurora” shone without break or
bar over one broad democratic level. Duane was represented in Congress
by Michael Leib; while over the State Legislature his influence was
complete. In Jefferson’s Cabinet Pennsylvania was represented by
Gallatin, who had little sympathy with the “Aurora,” and began his
administration of the finances by resisting Duane’s demand for Federal
patronage.
“The thirst for offices,” to use Gallatin’s own words,[126] “too
much encouraged by Governor McKean’s first measures, created
a schism in Philadelphia as early as 1802. Leib, ambitious,
avaricious, envious, and disappointed, blew up the flame, and
watched the first opportunity to make his cause a general one.
The vanity, the nepotism, and the indiscretion of Governor
McKean afforded the opportunity. Want of mutual forbearance
among the best-intentioned and most respectable Republicans has
completed the schism. Duane, intoxicated by the persuasion that
he alone had overthrown Federalism, thought himself neither
sufficiently rewarded nor respected; and possessed of an engine
which gives him an irresistible control over public opinion, he
easily gained the victory for his friends.”
In the spring of 1803 the “Aurora” began to attack Gallatin and
Madison, under cover of devotion to the President; and from this
beginning Duane went on to quarrel with Governor McKean and Alexander
J. Dallas, the district attorney.
The impeachment of Judge Pickering in Congress followed and in some
degree imitated an impeachment by the Pennsylvania Legislature of Judge
Addison, one of the five president judges of the Common Pleas. With
the help of Dallas and Governor McKean, the Legislature in January,
1803, removed Judge Addison; then, inspired by Randolph’s attack
on Justice Chase, they turned against their Supreme Court,--at one
sweep impeaching three of the judges, and addressing the Governor for
the removal of H. H. Brackenridge, the fourth, because he insisted
on making common cause with his associates. The alleged ground of
impeachment was the arbitrary committal of a suitor for contempt of
court; the real motive seemed rather to be a wish for legal reforms
such as society was too unskilful to make for itself, and lawyers were
slow to begin. Throughout America the bar was a sort of aristocracy,
conservative to a degree that annoyed reformers of every class.
Jefferson and his party raised one Republican lawyer after another
to the bench, only to find that when their professions of political
opinion were tested in legal form, the Republican judge rivalled
Marshall in the Federalist and English tendencies of his law. The
bar chose to consider the prejudice of society against their caste
unreasonable; but the bar was itself somewhat unreasonable to require
that an untrained and ill-led body of country farmers and local
politicians should say precisely what legal reform they wanted, or know
exactly what was practicable.
No sooner did the Pennsylvania Legislature begin to pull in pieces
the judicial system of the State, and persecute the legal profession,
than Dallas, McKean, and all the educated leaders of the Republican
party broke from the mass of their followers, and attempted to check
their violence. Governor McKean stopped with his veto certain measures
which the Legislature had approved, and he declined to remove Judge
Breckenridge when the Legislature asked him to do so. Dallas became
counsel for the impeached judges. Duane and Leib raged against McKean
and Dallas; a large majority of Pennsylvania Republicans followed
the “Aurora;” Gallatin lost control over his State, and saw himself
threatened, like his friend Dallas, with ostracism; while the outside
world, roused by the noise of this faction-fight, asked what it meant,
and could not understand the answer. The Federalists alone professed to
explain the mystery which perplexed people less wise than themselves;
they had said from the beginning that the democrats had neither virtue
nor understanding to carry on the government, and must bring about a
crisis at last.
After the excitement of Burr’s intrigues and Hamilton’s death subsided,
leaving the politics of New York in comparative repose, the autumn
elections in Pennsylvania began to disturb Jefferson’s temper.
“Thank Heaven!” wrote Dallas to Gallatin, in October,[127]
“our election is over! The violence of Duane has produced a
fatal division. He seems determined to destroy the Republican
standing and usefulness of every man who does not bend to his
will. He has attacked me as the author of an address which I
never saw till it was in the press. He menaces the Governor;
you have already felt his lash; and I think there is reason for
Mr. Jefferson himself to apprehend that the spirit of Callender
survives.”
A struggle took place over the re-election of Leib to Congress, which
the “Aurora” carried by a few hundred votes. Republicans of Dallas’s
kind, who would not support Leib, were nicknamed “Quids” by Duane,
after the _tertium quid_, which was worth not even a name. At
least three fourths of the Republican party followed the “Aurora,” and
left the “Quids” in the solitude of deserted leaders.
Jefferson’s social relations were wholly with Gallatin, McKean, and
Dallas, but his political strength depended on the popular vote, which
followed Duane and Leib. At one moment he wanted to reason with Duane,
but by Gallatin’s advice gave up this idea. At length he temporized,
became neutral, and left Gallatin and Dallas to their own resources.
“I see with infinite pain,” he wrote to Dr. Logan,[128] “the
bloody schism which has taken place among our friends in
Pennsylvania and New York, and will probably take place in
other States. The main body of both sections mean well, but
their good intentions will produce great public evil. The
minority, whichever section shall be the minority, will end in
coalition with the Federalists and some compromise of principle.
Republicanism will thus lose, and royalism gain, some portion of
that ground which we thought we had rescued to good government.”
The idea that “royalism” could in any case gain support among the
factions of Pennsylvania democrats was one which could have occurred
only to Jefferson, who saw monarchy, as the New Englanders saw
Antichrist, in every man who opposed him in politics. Apart from this
trick of words, Jefferson’s theory of his own duties failed to satisfy
his followers. Dallas was disgusted at the situation in which he found
himself left.
“It is obvious to me,”[129] he wrote to Gallatin soon after
the schism broke out, “that unless our Administration take
decisive measures to discountenance the factious spirit that has
appeared; unless some principle of political cohesion can be
introduced into our public councils as well as at our elections;
and unless men of character and talents can be drawn from
professional and private pursuits into the legislative bodies of
our governments, Federal and State,--the empire of Republicanism
will moulder into anarchy, and the labor and hope of our lives
will terminate in disappointment and wretchedness.... At present
we are the slaves of men whose passions are the object of all
their actions,--I mean your Duanes, Cheethams, Leibs, etc. They
have the press in their power; and though we may have virtue to
assert the liberty of the press, it is too plain that we have
not spirit enough to resist the tyranny of the printers.”
This last sharp sentence aimed at the President, who displeased Dallas
by showing too evident a wish not to offend Duane. “The duty of an
upright Administration,” Jefferson told Dr. Logan,[130] “is to pursue
its course steadily, to know nothing of these family dissensions, and
to cherish the good principles of both parties.” Had the President
followed this duty in the case of Burr, the triumph of De Witt Clinton
and Cheetham would have been more difficult than it was; but the
President feared Burr the less because Burr’s newspaper, the “Morning
Chronicle,” was respectable, while the “Aurora” was unscrupulous, and
to cherish Duane’s principles, whether good or bad, was the only way of
escaping the lash of his tongue. Jefferson chose the path of caution
in refusing to sustain Dallas and the “Quids” against the party and
the Legislature; but during the rest of his term he was forced to
endure Duane’s attachment, and to feel that Madison and Gallatin were
sacrificed to his own safety. Duane never hesitated to assert that he
was in Jefferson’s confidence and was acting in his interests,[131] and
commonly he or some of his friends could show a recent letter in the
President’s handwriting which gave color to their assertion.
The Pennsylvania schism was not serious. Governor McKean and Dallas
were alarmed when they saw the democratic system blundering in its
rude way, without taking sound advice or heeding trained lawyers; but
only the Federalists believed in a crisis. Society went undisturbed
to its daily duties in spite of Duane’s outcries and Dallas’s
grumbling. The only result of the Pennsylvania schism was to check the
aggressive energy of the democratic movement by alarming a few of the
older leaders and causing them to halt. From the day of Jefferson’s
inauguration this tendency toward reaction had begun, and it developed
in party schisms which could not fail to hurry the process. The
symptom, however unpleasant to old political leaders such as Jefferson,
McKean, and Dallas, who liked the quiet enjoyment of power, was healthy
for society at large; but no one could fail to be struck by the
contrast which in this respect was offered by the two great sections
of the country. While the mobile, many-sided, restless democracy of
New England, New York, and Pennsylvania exhibited its faults, and
succeeded, with much personal abuse, in thrusting out the elements
foreign to its character which retarded its movement, the society of
the Southern States was classically calm. Not a breath disturbed the
quiet which brooded over the tobacco and cotton fields between the
Potomac and Florida. A Presidential election was taking place, but
the South saw only one candidate. The State legislatures quietly chose
electors to vote for Jefferson and Clinton. From the St. Mary’s to the
Potomac and the Ohio, every electoral voice was given to Jefferson.
With some surprise the public learned that Maryland gave two of eleven
votes to C. C. Pinckney, who received also the three votes of Delaware.
This little State even went back on its path, repudiated Cæsar A.
Rodney, and returned to its favorite Bayard, who was sent by a handsome
majority to his old seat in the House of Representatives. Broken for an
instant only by this slight check, the tide of democratic triumph swept
over the States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, and burst
upon Connecticut as though Jefferson’s hope of dragging even that State
from its moorings were at length to be realized. With difficulty the
Connecticut hierarchy held its own; and with despair after the torrent
passed by, it looked about and found itself alone. Even Massachusetts
cast 29,310 votes for Jefferson, against 25,777 for Pinckney.
Rarely was a Presidential election better calculated to turn the
head of a President, and never was a President elected who felt more
keenly the pleasure of his personal triumph. At the close of four
years of administration, all Jefferson’s hopes were fulfilled. He had
annihilated opposition. The slanders of the Federalist press helped to
show that he was the idol of four fifths of the nation. He received one
hundred and sixty-two of one hundred and seventy-six electoral votes,
while in 1801 he had but seventy-three in one hundred and thirty-eight;
and in the Ninth Congress, which was to meet in December, 1805, barely
seven out of thirty-four senators, and twenty-five out of one hundred
and forty-one representatives, would oppose his will. He described his
triumph, in language studiously modest, in a letter to Volney:[132]--
“The two parties which prevailed with so much violence when
you were here are almost wholly melted into one. At the late
Presidential election I have received one hundred and sixty-two
votes against fourteen only. Connecticut is still Federalist by
a small majority, and Delaware on a poise, as she has been since
1775, and will be till Anglomany with her yields to Americanism.
Connecticut will be with us in a short time. Though the people
in mass have joined us, their leaders had committed themselves
too far to retract. Pride keeps them hostile; they brood over
their angry passions, and give them vent in the newspapers which
they maintain. They still make as much noise as if they were the
whole nation.”
Such success might have turned the head of any philosopher that ever
sat on a throne. Easily elated, unwilling to forebode trouble, devoid
of humor, and unable to see himself in any but the heroic light,
President Jefferson basked in the sunshine of popularity and power as
though it were no passing warmth such as had led scores of kings into
disaster, but shone by virtue of some democratic law which rested
on truth that could never change. The White House was filled with an
atmosphere of adulation. Flattery, gross as any that man could ask,
was poured into the President’s ear, but was as nothing compared with
the more subtle flattery of the popular vote. No friend stopped him to
ask how such a miraculous success had been brought about. Four years
had not passed since Jefferson and his party had clamored against
attempts to give energy to government; and no one could ever forget
that they claimed and received power from the people in order to defend
State-rights, restrict Executive influence, and correct strained
constructions of the Constitution. Who upheld State-rights in 1804, and
complained of Executive influence and strained constructions? Certainly
not Jefferson or his friends, but the monarchical Federalists, who
were fit inmates for an asylum. Whenever Jefferson had occasion to
discuss the aims and opinions of the two parties, he did not allude
to the principles set forth in 1798; not a word was said of “strict
construction.” The only theories opposed to his own which he could see
in the political horizon were those of a few hundred conservatives of
the colonial epoch.
“What, in fact,” he wrote,[133] “is the difference of principle
between the two parties here? The one desires to preserve an
entire independence of the executive and legislative branches on
each other and the dependence of both on the same source,--the
free election of the people. The other party wishes to lessen
the dependence of the Executive and of one branch of the
Legislature on the people, some by making them hold for life,
some hereditary, and some even for giving the Executive an
influence by patronage or corruption over the remaining popular
branch, so as to reduce the elective franchise to its minimum.”
After nearly four years of Executive authority more complete than had
ever before been known in American history, Jefferson could see in
himself and in his principles only a negation of Executive influence.
What had become of the old radical division of parties,--the line
between men who wished the national government to exercise inherent
powers of sovereignty and those who held to a strict observance of
powers expressly delegated by the people of the States?
Jefferson said with truth that the two old parties were almost wholly
melted into one; but in this fusion his own party had shown even more
willingness than its opponents to mix its principles in a useful,
but not noble, amalgam. His own protests in regard to the Louisiana
purchase and the branch bank at New Orleans were recorded. With such
evidence on their side, the moderate Federalists who in the election of
1804 gave to Jefferson the nineteen electoral votes of Massachusetts
and the seven of New Hampshire, could claim that they had altered no
opinion they ever held; that the government had suffered no change in
principle from what it had been under President Washington; that not
a Federalist measure, not even the Alien and Sedition laws, had been
expressly repudiated; that the national debt was larger than it had
ever been before, the navy maintained and energetically employed, the
national bank preserved and its operations extended; that the powers
of the national government had been increased to a point that made
blank paper of the Constitution as heretofore interpreted by Jefferson,
while the national territory, vastly more than doubled in extent,
was despotically enlarged and still more despotically ruled by the
President and Congress, in the teeth of every political profession the
Republican party had ever made. Had this been the work of Federalists,
it would have been claimed as a splendid triumph of Federalist
principles; and the good sense of New England was never better shown
than when Massachusetts and New Hampshire flung aside their prejudices
and told Jefferson that they accepted his inaugural pledge to be a
Federalist as they were Republicans.
Every Federalist who came over and every State that joined the majority
weakened the relative influence of Virginia, and helped to dilute
the principles of the pure Virginia school. The new democrats in New
England, New York, and Ohio were Federalists in disguise, and cared
nothing for fine-spun constitutional theories of what government
might or might not do, provided government did what they wanted. They
feared no corruption in which they were to have a part. They were in
secret jealous of Virginia, and as devoted as George Cabot and Stephen
Higginson to the interests of commerce and manufactures. A majority
of the Northern democrats were men of this kind. Their dislike of
Federalists was a social rather than political feeling, for Federalist
manners seemed to them a wilful impertinence; but the Varnums and
Crowninshields of Massachusetts cared as little as De Witt Clinton
or Aaron Burr for the notions of Speaker Macon and John Randolph. As
orators and leaders the Northern democrats made a poor figure beside
the Virginians; but their votes weighed more and more heavily with
every succeeding Congress, and both Randolph and Macon were becoming
suspicious that these votes were too apt to be cast against the wishes
of Virginia.
The second session of the Eighth Congress met on the first Monday
in November, as provided by a law passed in view of Judge Chase’s
impeachment. The President’s Message, sent to Congress Nov. 8, 1804,
was as usual toned to cheerful harmony. The income had reached eleven
millions and a half of dollars; more than three million six hundred
thousand dollars of the public debt had been discharged within the
year, more than twelve millions since 1801; and the revenue was still
increasing. Difficulties had risen with foreign nations, but no
disturbance of the peace was to be expected. The Indians were quiet.
Gunboats were in course of construction. No increase of the army was
called for. Congress had only to inquire whether anything remained to
be done for the public good.
The Federalists were reduced to showing that Jefferson’s political
success had not chastened his style; for the Message contained a number
of sentences that exaggerated his peculiar faults of expression:--
“The war which was lighted up in Europe a little before our
last meeting has not yet extended its flames to other nations,
nor been marked by the calamities which sometimes stain the
footsteps of war.”
The Federalists reasonably objected to the figure of a war which
not only extended flames but also made footsteps and marked them by
calamities which stained. Jefferson went on to say that he had bought
from the Delaware Indians the country between the Wabash and the Ohio:--
“This acquisition is important not only for its extent and
fertility, but as fronting three hundred miles on the Ohio,
and near half that on the Wabash. The produce of the settled
country descending those rivers will no longer pass in view of
the Indian frontier but in a small portion, and with the cession
heretofore made by the Kaskaskias nearly consolidates our
possessions north of the Ohio in a very respectable breadth from
Lake Erie to the Mississippi.”
Produce passing in view of a frontier in a portion and consolidating
possessions in a breadth did not suit fastidious Federalists; nor were
they satisfied with the President’s closing exhortation, requesting the
Legislature to inquire “whether laws are provided in all cases where
they are wanting.” They enjoyed their jests at Jefferson’s literary
style; but with the public the matter of the Message was more weighty
than its manner. No kind of criticism had less political value than
that wasted on the style of a public document.
Yet one thing was certainly wanting in this Message. No hint was
given that Congress stood in danger of overstepping the limits of its
powers, or would do well to return within them. This silence was not
accidental; it marked the moment of separation between Jefferson and
the old Republicans of 1798. Speaker Macon, John Randolph, and Joseph
Nicholson soon showed that they meant to take no such view of their
duties.
Hardly had legislation begun, when Randolph, November 26, made a
report against the remission of duties on books imported for the
use of schools and colleges. The Constitution, he said, was a grant
of limited powers for general objects; its leading feature was an
abhorrence of exclusive privileges; impost must be uniform; if Congress
could exempt one class of the people from taxes, they might exempt
other classes; and although the practice had been different, and
philosophical apparatus for the use of schools was actually exempt by
law, he believed that law to be unconstitutional. The doctrine, which
if carried to its ultimate conclusions would have left hardly a tax on
the statute-book, was accepted by the same House which had supported
Randolph in defending the Louisiana purchase by arguments that, in
President Jefferson’s opinion, left no Constitution at all. Two days
afterward Randolph repeated the lesson, and his friends Macon and
Nicholson came to his support. A Bill was before the House authorizing
the corporation of Georgetown to construct a dam or causeway from
Mason’s Island to the shore of the Potomac, in order to scour the
channel and improve navigation. Randolph affirmed that the Potomac was
the joint property of Maryland and Virginia, over which Congress had
no right to legislate; that the Bill authorized the corporation of
Georgetown to lay a tax which would be unequal and oppressive, because
all Georgetown property would not be equally benefited by deepening
the harbor; and finally, “he hoped a prompt rejection of the Bill
would serve as a general notice to the inhabitants of the District
to desist from their daily and frivolous applications to Congress.”
Macon, Nicholson, and a number of the Virginians spoke earnestly in
the same sense. “So long as I have the honor of a seat in the House,”
said Nicholson, “I will hold up my hands against any measure like the
present, which would go to affect the rights of any of the States.
If Congress have a right to interfere in the least with the free
navigation of the Potomac, they have a right to stop it altogether.”
In reply to these exhortations the House passed the Bill by a vote of
sixty-six to thirty-eight; and more than enough Republicans voted for
it to have passed it without Federalist help.
The reason for this sudden decline of Randolph’s influence was not far
to seek. He was undertaking to act without concert with the President.
While he and his friends argued on the State-rights theory at one
end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Jefferson at the other end said openly,
to Federalists and Republicans alike, that such arguments were mere
metaphysical subtleties which ought to have no weight.[134] The next
subject in debate left no longer a doubt of the cleft opening between
the old Republicans of 1798 and the Republicans of the future, with
Jefferson and Madison at their head. That Randolph had determined to
fight for control of the party and for the principles upon which it
had come into office was clear; but the reason for the suddenness and
violence of his emotion was found in the once famous story of the Yazoo
Claims, which from his youth acted on his passionate temper with the
force of a point of honor.
As already told, Congress seemed about to settle these claims as early
as April, 1802, when the six commissioners made their Report.[135]
John Randolph and his friends were then supreme. Dec. 30, 1803, a
few days before the Federalists were startled by Randolph’s demand
for the impeachment of Judge Chase, the Northern democrats and the
friends of Madison were surprised by a Resolution offered by Randolph
excluding claimants under the Georgia grants of 1795 from any share
in the proposed settlement. A few weeks later, Feb. 20, 1804,
Randolph withdrew this Resolution, in order to introduce a series of
declaratory Resolves, which, after reciting the story of the Georgia
grants, affirmed the right of Georgia to rescind them, and forbade the
appropriation of money to the settlement of claims derived from them.
March 7, 1804, he made a long and earnest speech on the subject; and
after a sharp struggle in a House nearly equally divided, he succeeded
in defeating action on the Bill. On the final vote of postponement,
March 12, 1804, he carried fifteen members of the Virginia delegation
with him. Of the three Republicans from Virginia who rejected his lead,
one was John G. Jackson, brother-in-law of the Secretary of State.
From that moment Randolph’s energies quickened in sympathy with old
Republican principles; and when he returned to Congress in November,
1804, he and his friends began at once to take extreme ground as
champions of State-rights. He lost no chance of enforcing his theories,
whether in regard to exemptions from taxes, or in denying to government
power to improve navigation within the District of Columbia, or in
reproving the people of Georgetown for proposing to lay a general tax
on their property for the betterment of their river front. He found
the Administration opposed to him. “Mere metaphysical subtleties,”
said Jefferson. The influence of Madison was strong in favor of the
Yazoo Compromise, and the Northern democrats supported the Secretary.
A struggle for supremacy was imminent, and its consequences were soon
felt. The impeachment of Judge Chase was Randolph’s measure, and
received no support from Madison. The Yazoo Compromise was Madison’s
measure, and its defeat was Randolph’s passionate wish.
The three branches of government were likely to be at variance on a
point of deep concern. No one who knew Chief-Justice Marshall could
doubt that he, and the Supreme Bench with him, would hold that the
State of Georgia was bound by its contract with the Land Companies. The
Administration had taken the ground that the State was not bound in
law, but that the United States should nevertheless make an equitable
compromise with the claimants. Randolph was bent on forcing Congress
to assert that a State had the right to repudiate its own acts where
it was evident that these acts were against common morality or public
interest; and that its decision in such a case should be final. The
conflict was embittered by the peculiarities of Randolph’s character.
In his eyes, when such questions of honor were involved, every man who
opposed him seemed base. Unfortunately the New England Mississippi
Company secured the services of Gideon Granger, the Postmaster-General,
as their agent; and Randolph’s anger became intense when, at the close
of the year 1804, he saw the Postmaster-General on the floor of the
House openly lobbying for the passage of the Bill.
At length, at the end of January, 1805, the House went into committee
on the Georgia claims, and Randolph for the first time displayed
the full violence of his temper. Hitherto as a leader he had been
at times arrogant; but from this moment he began the long series of
personal assaults which made him famous, as though he were the bully
of a race course, dispensed from regarding ordinary rules of the ring,
and ready at any sudden impulse to spring at his enemies, gouging,
biting, tearing, and rending his victims with the ferocity of a
rough-and-tumble fight. The spectacle was revolting, but terrific; and
until these tactics lost their force by repetition, few men had the
nerve and quickness to resist them with success.
“Past experience has shown,” he cried, “that this is one of those
subjects which pollution has sanctified.” He treated the majority
of the House as corruptionists, “As if animated by one spirit, they
perform all their evolutions with the most exact discipline, and
march in a firm phalanx directly up to their object. Is it that men
combined to effect some evil purpose, acting on previous pledge to
each other, are ever more in unison than those who, seeking only to
discover truth, obey the impulse of that conscience which God has
placed in their bosoms?” He fell upon Granger: “Millions of acres are
easily digested by such stomachs. Goaded by avarice, they buy only to
sell, and sell only to buy. The retail trade of fraud and imposture
yields too small and slow a profit to gratify their cupidity. They buy
and sell corruption in the gross.” He hinted that the Administration
was to blame: “Is it come to this? Are heads of executive departments
to be brought into this House, with all the influence and patronage
attached to them, to extort from us now what was refused at the last
session of Congress?” He closed by asserting that this was the spirit
of Federalism, and that Republicans who yielded to it were false to
their party: “Of what consequence is it that a man smiles in your
face, holds out his hand, and declare himself the advocate of those
political principles to which you are also attached, when you see him
acting with your adversaries upon other principles which the voice
of the nation has put down, and which I did hope were buried, never
to rise again in this section of the globe?” He maintained that the
Federalist administrations had done no act so corrupt: “If Congress
shall determine to sanction this fraud upon the public, I trust in
God we shall hear no more of the crimes and follies of the former
Administration. For one, I promise that my lips upon this subject shall
be closed in eternal silence. I should disdain to prate about the petty
larcenies of our predecessors after having given my sanction to this
atrocious public robbery.”
The tirade could have no other result than a personal quarrel and
a party schism. Madison and the Administration had done nothing to
deserve the attack, and of course could not trust Randolph again. The
question whether the claimants had rights which the government would
do well to compromise was for the law to decide, and was ultimately
settled by Chief-Justice Marshall in their favor. The question of
morality, in regard to sanctioning fraud, though a much wider issue,
was not to be settled _ex parte_, but must abide by the answer
to the question of law. Only the State-rights difficulty remained;
and even on that delicate ground, although the right of Georgia to
repudiate her own pledges under the plea of her own corruption were
conceded, the State-rights theory could not insist that this act must
bind other States, or affect any sovereignty except that which was
directly involved. After the property in question had been sold to the
United States government, Georgia need not prevent the purchaser from
doing what it would with its own. Randolph could not make State-rights
serve his whole purpose in the argument, and was obliged to rely on the
charge of sanctioning corruption and fraud,--a charge irrelevant to
the claim of innocent third parties like the New Englanders, unless he
could prove their complicity, which was not in his power.
Randolph’s harangue struck at the credit of Madison; and the conduct
of the Postmaster-General in acting as claim-agent cast a shadow of
corruption over the whole government. Madison’s friends were obliged
to take up the challenge; and his brother-in-law, John G. Jackson of
Virginia, replied to Randolph in a speech which was thought to bear
evident marks of Madison’s hand. Some of Jackson’s retorts carried a
sting. Randolph had dwelt much on the silence and discipline of the
majority. “When unprincipled men,” said he, “acquire the ascendency,
they act in concert and are silent.” “Silence and concert, then,”
retorted Jackson, “are to him proofs of corrupt motive. Is this always
a correct position? Does the gentleman recollect that measures were
adopted a few years past without discussion, by my political friends in
conjunction with him, who were _silent and united_?” Throughout
Jackson’s speech ran a tone of irritating disregard for his colleague,
“whose influence in this House is equal to the rapacity of the
speculator whose gigantic grasp has been described by him as extending
from the shores of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Mobile.” Whether
Madison meant it or not, an impression prevailed in the House that in
Jackson’s speech the Secretary of State took up Randolph’s challenge
with a defiance equally strong.
Randolph returned to his charges, attacking Granger bitterly, but
not yet venturing to take the single step that remained to create
a Virginia feud; he left Jackson and Madison alone. He bore with
something like patience the retorts which his violence drew upon him,
and his self-esteem made him proof to the insults of democrats like
Matthew Lyon, who thanked his Creator “that he gave me the face of a
man, not that of an ape or a monkey, and that he gave me the heart of a
man also.” After a long and ill-tempered debate, Feb. 2, 1805, Randolph
closed by an allusion to Madison and Gallatin which implied hesitation.
“When I first read their Report, I was filled with unutterable
astonishment, finding men in whom I had and still have the highest
confidence recommend a measure which all the facts and all the reasons
they had collected opposed and unequivocally condemned.” Prudence
restrained him from making a final breach with Madison; and perhaps he
was the more cautious because he felt the danger of pressing too far
his influence over Virginia sentiment which to this point supported
his opposition. When the House divided, a majority of sixty-three to
fifty-eight sustained the compromise, and ordered the committee of
claims to report a Bill; but in the minority Randolph found by his side
every Republican member of the Virginia delegation except two, one
of whom was Jackson. Even the two sons-in-law of President Jefferson
voted against the Yazoo claims. So strong was the current of opinion
in Virginia, that Senator Giles went about Washington[136] asserting
that Jefferson himself would lose an election there if he were known
to favor the compromise, and that Jackson would certainly be defeated.
For the moment Randolph might fairly suppose that in a contest for
supremacy with the Secretary of State, his own hold on Virginia was
stronger than Madison’s. In spite of the majority against him, he
succeeded in postponing action on the Bill.
Perhaps his temper was further restrained by another motive. The trial
of Judge Chase was near at hand. Within a few days after the close of
the Yazoo debate, Randolph was to open the case for the managers before
the Senate; and he had reason to fear that the Northern democrats were
beginning to doubt the wisdom of this Virginia scheme.
CHAPTER X.
THE schisms which characterized the last year of President
Jefferson’s first term increased the difficulty of convicting Justice
Chase. Burr was still Vice-President, and was sure not only to preside
at the trial, but also, unless conciliated, to encourage rebellion
against the Virginians. He had warm friends even in the Senate; and
he was observed to cultivate close social relations with John Smith,
the senator from Ohio, whose vote was likely to be necessary for
conviction. Although the two senators from New York were no friends
of Burr, one of them, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, was known to oppose
impeachment; and not only he, but also his colleague, another John
Smith, when members of the House, voted against Randolph’s motion for a
committee of inquiry. Senator Bradley of Vermont privately talked with
earnestness against the Pickering impeachment, and never favored that
of Chase. His colleague, Israel Smith, shared his doubts. Twenty-three
votes were required to convict, and the Republicans had but twenty-five
senators against nine Federalists. A defection of three Republican
senators would be fatal; but the votes of at least five were in doubt.
Randolph’s attack on the Yazoo Republicans and on the friends of
Madison took from them all desire to strengthen his influence; while,
as though to complicate confusion, his assault on his own party was
cheered by Duane and the “Aurora,” until the Pennsylvania schism
seemed about to join with a Virginia schism for the overthrow of the
judiciary in the first place, and of Madison and Gallatin afterward.
A collapse of the Republican party was to be feared. In the success
of impeachment, the interests of Duane and Randolph were closely
connected, and Duane controlled Pennsylvania as Randolph ruled
Virginia. Everything tended to show that Chase’s conviction would add
to the power already in the hands of these two men; and hands less
fitted to guide a government or less trusted by moderate Republicans
could hardly be found in either party.
Duane’s support of Randolph was the warmer because his own attack on
the judiciary failed. The Pennsylvania judges were brought to trial
in January, 1805. The managers for the Legislature, knowing no law
themselves and unable to persuade any competent Pennsylvania lawyer to
act as counsel, sent for Cæsar A. Rodney from Delaware to conduct the
case. So important did Randolph and Nicholson at Washington think the
success of the Pennsylvania impeachment, that at the end of December,
1804, they allowed Rodney to drop his work as member of Congress and
manager of Chase’s trial, in order to hurry to Lancaster and do battle
with Dallas, Jefferson’s district attorney, who was defending the
judges. After a long struggle, Jan. 28, 1805, the Senate at Lancaster
came to a vote, and Rodney was beaten. Thirteen senators declared the
judges guilty,--three less than the required two thirds.
This defeat of the impeachers occurred the day before Randolph
attacked Granger and the Yazoo claims in Congress. During the week
that preceded Chase’s trial, Randolph’s bad management or ill-luck
seemed accumulating disasters on his head. He roused needless hatred
against himself in Congress; his alliance with Duane was unsuccessful;
he exhausted his strength in fighting the Yazoo Bill, and was in no
condition of mind or body to meet the counsel of Judge Chase.
Neither the Administration nor his Virginia friends failed to support
Randolph. They made efforts to conciliate Burr, whose opposition to the
impeachment was most feared. Jefferson appointed J. B. Prevost of New
York, Burr’s stepson, a judge of the Superior Court at New Orleans;
James Brown, who married Mrs. Burr’s sister, was made secretary to the
Louisiana Territory and sent to govern St. Louis, solely on Burr’s
recommendation; James Wilkinson, one of Burr’s most intimate friends
and general-in-chief of the army, was made governor of the Louisiana
Territory,--an appointment directly opposed to Jefferson’s theories
about the union of civil and military authority.[137] Besides these
conciliatory compliments the President repeatedly invited Burr to
dinner, and treated him with more attention than ever before;[138] both
Madison and Gallatin kept up friendly relations with him; while Senator
Giles of Virginia drew an Address to Governor Bloomfield of New Jersey,
and caused it to be signed by all the senators who could be induced to
let their names be used, requesting that a _nolle prosequi_ should
be entered on the indictment against Burr found by the grand jury of
Bergen county.
The Virginians closed their quarrels for the moment in order to support
the impeachment. William B. Giles, who came to the Senate in place of
Wilson Cary Nicholas, acted as Randolph’s representative in shaping
the Senate’s rules.[139] He canvassed its members, and dealt with
those who doubted, laboring earnestly and openly to bring senators
to the Virginia standpoint, as fixed by him in a speech intended to
serve as guide in framing rules for the proceedings about to begin.
This speech, made Dec. 20, 1804,[140] maintained that the Constitution
put no limit on impeachment, but said only that the Senate should
try _all_ impeachments; and therefore, while any civil officer
convicted of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors
should be removed from office, in all other cases not enumerated the
Senate might at its discretion remove, disqualify, or suspend the
officer. Thus Judge Pickering had been removed, said Giles, though
undoubtedly insane and incapable of committing any crime or of making
his defence. “So the assumption of power on the part of the Supreme
Court in issuing their process to the office of the Secretary of
State, directing the Executive how a law of the United States should
be executed, and the right which the courts have assumed to themselves
of reviewing and passing upon the Acts of the Legislature in other
cases,” were matter of impeachment. In arguing this thesis Giles was
obliged to take the ground that the Senate was not a court, and ought
to discard all analogy with a court of justice;[141] impeachment need
imply no criminality or corruption, and removal was nothing more than a
notice to the impeached officer that he held opinions dangerous to the
State, and that his office must be put in better hands. He induced the
Senate to strike out the word “court” where it occurred in the proposed
rules;[142] and at length went so far as to deny that the secretary of
the Senate could administer the oath to witnesses, or that the Senate
had power to authorize the secretary to administer such an oath, but
must send for a magistrate competent for the purpose. Unfortunately
for him, the impeachment of Judge Pickering was a precedent directly
opposed to this doctrine. He was compelled to submit while the Senate
unwillingly took the forms of a court.
Giles’s view of impeachment, which was the same with that of Randolph,
had the advantage of being clear and consistent. The opposite extreme,
afterward pressed by Luther Martin and his associate counsel for the
defence, restricted impeachment to misdemeanors indictable at law,--a
conclusion not to be resisted if the words of the Constitution were to
be understood in a legal sense. Such a rule would have made impeachment
worthless for many cases where it was likely to be most needed; for
comparatively few violations of official duty, however fatal to the
State, could be brought within this definition. Giles might have
quoted Madison in support of the broader view; and if Madison did not
understand the Constitution, any other Virginian might be excused for
error. So far back as the year 1789, when Congress began to discuss
the President’s powers, Madison said: “I contend that the wanton
removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and
removal from his own high trust.” Such a misdemeanor was certainly not
indictable, and could not technically be brought within the words of
the Constitution; it was impeachable only on Giles’s theory.
The Senate became confused between these two views, and never knew on
what theory it acted. Giles failed to take from its proceedings the
character of a court of justice; but though calling itself a court
of justice, it would not follow strict rules of law. The result was
a nondescript court, neither legal nor political, making law and
voting misdemeanors for itself as it went, and stumbling from one
inconsistency to another.
The managers added to the confusion. They put forward no steady theory
of their own as to the nature of impeachment; possibly differing in
opinion, they intentionally allotted different lines of argument to
each. In opening the case, Feb. 20, 1805, one of the managers, George
W. Campbell of Tennessee, took the ground that “misdemeanor” in the
Constitution need imply no criminality. “Impeachment,” said he,
“according to the meaning of the Constitution, may fairly be considered
a kind of inquest into the conduct of an officer merely as it regards
his office.... It is more in the nature of a civil investigation
than of a criminal prosecution.” Such seemed to be the theory of the
managers and of the House; for although the articles of impeachment
reported by Randolph in March, 1804, had in each case alleged acts
which were inspired by an evil intent to oppress the victim or to
excite odium against the Government, and were at least misdemeanors in
the sense of misbehavior, Randolph at the last moment slipped into the
indictment two new articles, one of which alleged no evil intent at
all, while both alleged, at worst, errors in law such as every judge
in the United States had committed. Article V. charged that Chase had
issued a _capias_ against Callender, when the law of Virginia
required a summons to appear at the next court. Article VI. charged
that he had, “with intent to oppress,” held Callender for trial at
once, contrary to the law of Virginia. Every judge on the Supreme
Bench had ruled that United States courts were not bound to follow
the processes of the State courts; Chief-Justice Marshall himself, as
Giles threatened, must be the first victim if such an offence were a
misdemeanor in constitutional law.
That a judge was impeachable for a mistake in declaring the law seemed
therefore to be settled, so far as the House and its managers could
decide the point. Judge Chase’s counsel assumed that this principle,
which had been so publicly proclaimed, was seriously meant; and one
after another dwelt on the extravagance of the doctrine that a civil
officer should be punished for mere error of judgment. In reply, Joseph
H. Nicholson, Randolph’s closest ally, repudiated the theory on which
he had himself acted in Pickering’s case, and which Giles, Randolph,
and Campbell pressed; he even denied having heard such ground taken as
that an impeachment was a mere inquest of office:--
“For myself, I am free to declare that I heard no such position
taken. If declarations of this kind have been made, in the name
of the managers I here disclaim them. We do contend that this is
a criminal prosecution for offences committed in the discharge
of high official duties, and we now support it,--not merely
for the purpose of removing an individual from office, but in
order that the punishment inflicted on him may deter others from
pursuing the baneful example which has been set them.”
The impeachment, then, was a criminal prosecution, and the Senate was a
criminal court; yet no offence was charged which the law considered a
misdemeanor, while error of judgment, with no imputed ill-intent, was
alleged as a crime.
Staggering under this load of inconsistencies, uncertain what line of
argument to pursue, and ignorant whether the Senate would be ruled
by existing law or invent a system of law of its own, the managers,
Feb. 9, 1805, appeared in the Senate chamber to open their case and
produce their witnesses. Upon the popular imagination of the day
the impeachment of Warren Hastings had taken deep hold. Barely ten
years had passed since the House of Lords rendered its judgment in
that famous case; and men’s minds were still full of associations
with Westminster Hall. The impeachment of Judge Chase was a cold and
colorless performance beside the melodramatic splendor of Hastings’s
trial; but in the infinite possibilities of American democracy, the
questions to be decided in the Senate chamber had a weight for future
ages beyond any that were then settled in the House of Lords. Whether
Judge Chase should be removed from the bench was a trifling matter;
whether Chief-Justice Marshall and the Supreme Court should hold
their power and principles against this combination of State-rights
conservatives and Pennsylvania democrats was a subject for grave
reflection. Men who did not see that the tide of political innovation
had long since turned, and that the French revolution was no longer
raging, were consumed with anxiety for the fate of Chase, and not
wholly without reason; for had Marshall been a man of less calm and
certain judgment, a single mistake by him might easily have prostrated
the judiciary at the feet of partisans.
By order of the Vice-President the Senate chamber was arranged in
accordance with his ideas of what suited so grave an occasion. His own
chair stood, like that of the chief-justice in the court-room, against
the wall, and on its right and left crimson benches extended like the
seats of associate judges, to accommodate the thirty-four senators, who
were all present. In front of the Vice-President, on the right, a box
was assigned to the managers; on the left, a similar box was occupied
by Justice Chase and his counsel. The rest of the floor was given to
members of the House, foreign ministers, and other official persons.
Behind these a new gallery was erected especially for ladies, and at
each end of this temporary gallery boxes were reserved for the wives
and families of public officers. The upper and permanent gallery was
public. The arrangement was a mimic reproduction of the famous scene
in Westminster Hall; and the little society of Washington went to the
spectacle with the same interest and passion which had brought the
larger society of London to hear the orations of Sheridan and Burke.
Before this audience Justice Chase at last appeared with his array of
counsel at his side,--Luther Martin, Robert Goodloe Harper, Charles
Lee, Philip Barton Key, and Joseph Hopkinson. In such a contest
weakness of numbers was one element of strength; for the mere numbers
of Congressmen served only to rouse sympathy for the accused. The
contest was unequal in another sense, for the intellectual power of the
House was quite unable on the field of law to cope with the half-dozen
picked and trained champions who stood at the bar. Justice Chase alone
was a better lawyer than any in Congress; Luther Martin could easily
deal with the whole box of managers; Harper and Lee were not only
lawyers, but politicians; and young Hopkinson’s genius was beyond his
years.
In the managers’ box stood no lawyer of corresponding weight. John
Randolph, who looked upon the impeachment as his personal act, was not
only ignorant of law, but could not work by legal methods. Joseph H.
Nicholson and Cæsar A. Rodney were more formidable; but neither of them
would have outweighed any single member of Chase’s counsel. The four
remaining managers, all Southern men, added little to the strength of
their associates. John Boyle of Kentucky lived to become chief-justice
of that State, and was made district judge of the United States by a
President who was one of the Federalist senators warmly opposed to
the impeachment. George Washington Campbell of Tennessee lived to be
a senator, Secretary of the Treasury, and minister to Russia. Peter
Early of Georgia became a judge on the Supreme Bench of his own State.
Christopher Clark of Virginia was chosen only at the last moment to
take the place of Roger Nelson of Maryland, who retired. None of them
rose much above the average level of Congress; and Chase’s counsel
grappled with them so closely, and shut them within a field so narrow,
that no genius could have found room to move. From the moment that
the legal and criminal character of impeachment was conceded, Chase’s
counsel dragged them hither and thither at will.
Feb. 9, 1805, the case was opened by John Randolph. Randolph claimed to
have drawn all the articles of impeachment with his own hand. If any
one understood their character, it was he; and the respondent’s counsel
naturally listened with interest for Randolph’s explanation or theory
of impeachment, and for the connection he should establish between his
theory and his charges. These charges were numerous, but fell under
few heads. Of the eight articles which Randolph presented, the first
concerned the judge’s conduct at the trial of John Fries for treason
in Philadelphia in 1800; the five following articles alleged a number
of offences committed during the trial of James Thompson Callender for
libel at Richmond in that year; Article VII. charged as a misdemeanor
the judge’s refusal, in the same year, to dismiss the grand jury in
Delaware before indicting a seditious printer; finally, Article VIII.
complained of the judge’s harangue to the grand jury at Baltimore in
May, 1803, which it characterized as “highly indecent, extrajudicial,
and tending to prostitute the high judicial character with which he
was invested to the low purpose of an electioneering partisan.”
Serious as some of these charges certainly were,--for in the case
of Callender, even more than in that of Fries, Chase’s temper had
led him to strain, if not to violate, the law,--none of the articles
alleged an offence known to the statute-books or the common law; and
Randolph’s first task was to show that they could be made the subject
of impeachment, that they were high crimes and misdemeanors in the
sense of the Constitution, or that in some sense they were impeachable.
Instead of arguing this point, he contented himself by declaring the
theory of the defence to be monstrous. His speech touched the articles,
one by one, adding little to their force, but piling one mistake on
another in its assertions of fact and assumptions of law.
Ten days passed in taking evidence before the field was cleared and the
discussion began. Then, Feb. 20, 1805, Early and Campbell led for the
managers in arguments which followed more or less closely in Randolph’s
steps, inferring criminality in the accused from the manifest tenor of
his acts. Campbell ventured to add that he was not obliged to prove
the accused to have committed any crime known to the law,--it was
enough that he had transgressed the line of official duty with corrupt
motives; but this timid incursion into the field of the Constitution
was supported by no attempt at argument. “I lay it down as a settled
rule of decision,” said he, “that when a man violates a law or commits
a manifest breach of his duty, an evil intent or corrupt motive must be
presumed to have actuated his conduct.”
Joseph Hopkinson opened for the defence. Friends and enemies joined
in applauding the vigor of this young man’s attack. The whole effort
of Chase’s counsel was to drive the impeachers within the limits of
law, and compel them to submit to the restrictions of legal methods.
Hopkinson struck into the heart of the question. He maintained that
under the Constitution no judge could be lawfully impeached or removed
from office for any act or offence for which he could not be indicted;
“misdemeanor,” he argued, was a technical term well understood and
defined, which meant the violation of a public law, and which, when
occurring in a legal instrument like the Constitution, must be given
its legal meaning. After stating this proposition with irresistible
force, he dealt with Article I. of the impeachment, which covered
the case of Fries, and shook it to pieces with skill very unlike the
treatment of Early and Campbell. Barton Key next rose, and dealt with
Articles II., III., and IV., covering part of Callender’s case; he was
followed by Charles Lee, who succeeded in breaking down Randolph’s
interpolated Articles V. and VI. Then Luther Martin appeared on the
scene, and the audience felt that the managers were helpless in his
hands.
This extraordinary man--“unprincipled and impudent Federalist
bulldog,” as Jefferson called him--revelled in the pleasure of a
fight with democrats. The bar of Maryland felt a curious mixture of
pride and shame in owning that his genius and vices were equally
remarkable. Rough and coarse in manner and expression, verbose, often
ungrammatical, commonly more or less drunk, passionate, vituperative,
gross, he still had a mastery of legal principles and a memory that
overbalanced his faults, an audacity and humor that conquered ill-will.
In the practice of his profession he had learned to curb his passions
until his ample knowledge had time to give the utmost weight to his
assaults. His argument at Chase’s trial was the climax of his career;
but such an argument cannot be condensed in a paragraph. Its length and
variety defied analysis within the limits of a page, though its force
made other efforts seem unsubstantial.
Martin covered the same ground that his associates had taken before
him, dwelling earnestly on the contention that an impeachable offence
must be also indictable. Harper followed, concluding the argument for
the defence, and seeming to go beyond his associates in narrowing the
field of impeachment; for he argued that it was a criminal prosecution,
which must be founded on some wilful violation of a known law of the
land,--a line of reasoning which could end only in requiring the
violation of an Act of Congress. This theory did not necessarily clash
with that of Martin. No hesitation or inconsistency was shown on the
side of the defence; every resource of the profession was used with
energy and skill.
The managers then put forward their best pleaders; for they had need
of all their strength. Nicholson began by disavowing the idea that
impeachment was a mere inquest of office; this impeachment was, he
said, a criminal prosecution intended not merely to remove, but to
punish, the offender. On the other hand, he maintained that since
judges held their commissions during good behavior, and could be
removed only by impeachment, the Constitution must have intended that
any act of misbehavior should be considered a misdemeanor. He showed
the absurdities which would rise from construing the Constitution
in a legal sense. His argument, though vigorous and earnest, and
offering the advantages of a plausible compromise between two extreme
and impracticable doctrines, yet evidently strained the language of
the Constitution and disregarded law. As Nicholson himself said, he
discarded legal usage: “In my judgment the Constitution of the United
States ought to be expounded upon its own principles, and foreign aid
ought never to be called in. Our Constitution was fashioned after none
other in the known world; and if we understand the language in which it
is written, we require no assistance in giving it a true exposition.”
He wanted a construction “purely and entirely American.” In the mouth
of a strict constructionist this substitution of the will of Congress
for the settled rules of law had as strange a sound as Luther Martin
could have wished, and offered another example of the instinct, so
striking in the Louisiana debate, which not even Nicholson, Randolph,
or Jefferson himself could always resist.
Rodney, the same day, followed Nicholson; and as though not satisfied
with his colleague’s theory, did what Nicholson, in the name of all
the managers, had a few hours before expressly disclaimed,--he adopted
and pressed Giles’s theory of impeachment with all the precision
of language he could command. Nicholson seemed content to assume
impeachment as limited to “treason, bribery, or other high crimes
and misdemeanors;” but in his view misbehavior might be construed as
a misdemeanor in a “purely and entirely American” sense. Rodney was
not satisfied with this argument, and insisted that the Constitution
imposed no limit on impeachment.
“Is there a word in the whole sentence,” he asked, “which
expresses an idea, or from which any fair inference can be
drawn, that no person shall be impeached but for ‘treason,
bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors?’... From the
most cursory and transient view of this passage I submit with
due deference that it must appear very manifest that there are
other cases than those here specified for which an impeachment
will lie and is the proper remedy.”
The judges held their offices during good behavior; the instant a
judge should behave ill his office became forfeited. To ascertain the
fact “officially, or rather judicially,” impeachment was provided; the
authority of the Senate was therefore coextensive with the complaint.
Rodney stated this principle broadly, but did not rest upon it; on the
contrary, he accepted the respondent’s challenge, and undertook to show
that Chase had been guilty of crimes and misdemeanors in the technical
sense of the term. Probably he was wise in choosing this alternative;
for no one could doubt that his constitutional doctrine was one into
which Chase’s counsel were sedulously trying to drive him. If Rodney
was right, the Senate was not a court of justice, and should discard
judicial forms. Giles had seen this consequence of the argument, and
had acted upon it, until beaten by its inevitable inconsistencies;
at least sixteen senators were willing to accept the principle, and
to make of impeachment an “official, or rather judicial,” inquest of
office. Judge Chase’s counsel knew also that some half-dozen Republican
senators feared to allow a partisan majority in the Senate to decide,
after the fact, that such or such a judicial opinion had forfeited
the judge’s seat on the bench. This practice could end only in making
the Senate, like the House of Lords, a court of last appeal. Giles
threatened to impeach Marshall and the whole Supreme Court on Rodney’s
theory; and such a threat was as alarming to Dr. Mitchill of New York,
or Senator Bradley of Vermont, as it was to Pickering and Tracy.
When Rodney finished, the theory of impeachment was more perplexed than
ever, and but one chance remained to clear it. All the respondent’s
counsel had spoken in their turn; all the managers had expounded
their theories: John Randolph was to close. Randolph was an invalid,
overwhelmed by work and excitement, nervous, irritable, and not to
be controlled. When he appeared in the box, Feb. 27, 1805, he was
unprepared; and as he spoke, he not only made his usual long pauses
for recollection, but continually complained of having lost his notes,
of his weakness, want of ability, and physical as well as moral
incompetence. Such expressions in the mouths of other men might have
passed for rhetoric; but Randolph’s speech showed that he meant all
he said. He too undertook to answer the argument of Luther Martin,
Harper, and Hopkinson on the nature of impeachment; but he answered
without understanding it,--calling it “almost too absurd for argument,”
“a monstrous pretension,” “a miserable quibble,” but advancing no
theory of his own, and supporting neither Campbell’s, Nicholson’s, nor
Rodney’s opinion. After a number of arguments which were in no sense
answers, he said he would no longer worry the good sense of the Court
by combating such a claim,--a claim which the best lawyers in America
affirmed to be sound, and the two ablest of the managers had exhausted
themselves in refuting.
Randolph’s closing speech was overcharged with vituperation and with
misstatements of fact and law, but was chiefly remarkable on account of
the strange and almost irrational behavior of the speaker. Randolph’s
tall, thin figure, his penetrating eyes and shrill voice, were
familiar to the society of Washington, and his violence of manner in
the House only a short time before, in denouncing Granger and the Yazoo
men, had prepared his audience for some eccentric outburst; but no
one expected to see him, “with much distortion of face and contortion
of body, tears, groans, and sobs,” break down in the middle of his
self-appointed task, and congratulate the Senate that this was “the
last day of my sufferings and of yours.”[143]
The next day the Senate debated the form of its final judgment.[144]
Bayard moved that the question should be put: “Is Samuel Chase guilty
or not guilty of a high crime or misdemeanor as charged in the article
just read?” The point was vital; for if this form should be adopted,
the Senate returned to the ground it had deserted in the case of
Judge Pickering, and every senator would be obliged to assert that
Chase’s acts were crimes. At this crisis Giles abandoned the extreme
impeachers. He made a speech repeating his old argument, and insisting
that the House might impeach and the Senate convict not only for
other than indictable offences, but for other than high crimes and
misdemeanors; yet since in the present case the charges were avowedly
for high crimes and misdemeanors, he was willing to take the question
as Bayard proposed it, protesting meanwhile against its establishment
as a precedent. Bayard’s Resolution was adopted March 1, a few moments
before the hour of half-past twelve, which had been appointed for
pronouncing judgment.
The Senate chamber was crowded with spectators when Vice-President Burr
took the chair and directed the secretary to read the first article of
impeachment. Every member of the Senate answered to his name. Tracy
of Connecticut, prostrated by recent illness, was brought on a couch
and supported to his seat, where his pale face added to the serious
effect of the scene. The first article, which concerned the trial of
Fries, was that on which Randolph had founded the impeachment, and
on which the managers had thrown perhaps the greatest weight. As the
roll was called, Senator Bradley of Vermont, first of the Republican
members, startled the audience by saying “Not Guilty.” Gaillard of
South Carolina, and, to the astonishment of every one, Giles, the most
ardent of impeachers, repeated the same verdict. These three defections
decided the result; but they were only the beginning. Jackson of
Georgia, another hot impeacher, came next; then Dr. Mitchill, Samuel
Smith of Maryland, and in quick succession all the three Smiths of New
York, Ohio, and Vermont. A majority of the Senate declared against the
article, and the overthrow of the impeachers was beyond expectation
complete.
On the second article the acquittal was still more emphatic; but
on the third the impeachers rallied,--Giles, Jackson, and Samuel
Smith returned to their party, and for the first time a majority
appeared for conviction. Yet even with this support, the impeachers
were far from obtaining the required twenty-three votes; the five
recalcitrant Northern democrats stood firm; Gaillard was not to be
moved, and Stone of North Carolina joined him:--the impeachers could
muster but eighteen votes. They did no better on the fourth article.
On the fifth,--Randolph’s interpolated charge, which alleged no evil
intent,--every member of the Senate voted “Not Guilty;” on the sixth,
which was little more than a repetition of the fifth, only four
senators could be found to condemn, and on the seventh, only ten. One
chance of conviction remained, the eighth article, which covered the
judge’s charge to the grand jury at Baltimore in 1803. There lay the
true cause of impeachment; yet this charge had been least pressed and
least defended. The impeachers brought out their whole strength in its
support; Giles, Jackson, Samuel Smith, and Stone united in pronouncing
the judge guilty: but the five Northern democrats and Gaillard held out
to the last, and the managers saw themselves deserted by nearly one
fourth of the Republican senators. Nineteen voices were the utmost that
could be induced to sustain impeachment.
The sensation was naturally intense; and yet the overwhelming nature
of the defeat would have warranted an excitement still greater. No one
understood better the meaning of Chase’s acquittal than John Randolph,
whose authority it overthrew. His anger showed itself in an act which
at first alarmed and then amused his enemies. Hurrying from the Senate
chamber to the House, he offered a Resolution for submitting to the
States an amendment to the Constitution: “The judges of the Supreme and
all other courts of the United States shall be removed by the President
on the joint address of both Houses of Congress.” His friend Nicholson,
as though still angrier than Randolph, moved another amendment,--that
the legislature of any State might, whenever it thought proper, recall
a senator and vacate his seat. These resolutions were by a party vote
referred to the next Congress.
Randolph threatened in vain; the rod was no longer in his hands. His
overthrow before the Senate was the smallest of his failures. The
Northern democrats talked of him with disgust; and Senator Cocke of
Tennessee, who had voted “Guilty” on every article of impeachment
except the fifth, told his Federalist colleagues in the Senate that
Randolph’s vanity, ambition, insolence, and dishonesty, not only in the
impeachment but in other matters, were such as to make the acquittal no
subject for regret.[145] Madison did not attempt to hide his amusement
at Randolph’s defeat. Jefferson held himself studiously aloof. To
Jefferson and men of his class Randolph seems to have alluded, in a
letter written a few weeks later, as “whimsicals,” who “advocated
the leading measures of their party until they were nearly ripe for
execution, when they hung back, condemned the step after it was taken,
and on most occasions affected a glorious neutrality.”[146] Even
Giles turned hostile. He not only yielded to the enemies of Randolph
in regard to the form of vote to be taken on the impeachment, and
fairly joined them in the vote on the first article, but he also aided
in offering Randolph a rebuke on another point connected with the
impeachment.
In the middle of the trial, February 15, Randolph reported to the
House, and the House quickly passed, a Bill appropriating five thousand
dollars for the payment of the witnesses summoned by the managers.
When this Bill came before the Senate, Bayard moved to amend it by
extending its provisions to the witnesses summoned by Judge Chase. The
point was delicate; for if the Senate was a court, and impeachment a
criminal procedure, this court should follow the rules that guided
other judicial bodies; and every one knew that no court in America or
in Christendom obliged the State, as a prosecutor, to pay the witnesses
of the accused. After the acquittal, such a rule was either equivalent
to telling the House that its charges against Chase were frivolous and
should never have been presented, or it suggested that the trial had
been an official inquiry into the conduct of an officer, and not a
criminal procedure at law. The Republicans might properly reject the
first assumption, the Federalists ought to resist the second; yet when
Bayard’s amendment came to a vote, it was unanimously adopted.[147]
The House disagreed; the Senate insisted, and Giles led the Senate,
affirming that he had drawn the form of summons, and that this form
made no distinction between the witnesses for one party and the other.
The argument was not decisive, for the court records showed at once
by whom each witness was called; but Giles’s reasoning satisfied the
Senate, and led to his appointment, March 3, with Bradley, an enemy of
impeachment, as conferrees to meet Randolph, Nicholson, and Early on
the part of the House. They disagreed; and Randolph, with his friends,
felt that Giles and the Senate had inflicted on them a grievous insult.
The Report of the conference committee was received by the House at
about seven o’clock on the evening of March 3, when the Eighth Congress
was drawing its last breath. Randolph, who reported the disagreement,
moved that the House adhere; and having thus destroyed the Bill, he
next moved that the Clerk of the House should be directed to pay the
witnesses, or any other expense certified by the managers, from the
contingent fund. He would have carried his point, although it violated
every financial profession of the Republican party, but that the House
was thin, and the Federalists, by refusing to vote, prevented a quorum.
At half-past nine o’clock on Sunday night, the 3d of March, 1805, the
Eighth Congress came to an end in a scene of total confusion and
factiousness.
The failure of Chase’s impeachment was a blow to the Republican party
from which it never wholly recovered. Chief-Justice Marshall at length
was safe; he might henceforward at his leisure fix the principles
of Constitutional law. Jefferson resigned himself for the moment to
Randolph’s overthrow; but the momentary consolations passed away, and a
life-long disappointment remained. Fifteen years later his regret was
strongly expressed:--
“The Judiciary of the United States,” mourned the old
ex-President,[148] “is the subtle corps of sappers and miners
constantly working underground to undermine the foundations of
our confederated fabric. They are construing our Constitution
from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a
general and supreme one alone.... Having found from experience
that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scarecrow,
they consider themselves secure for life; they skulk from
responsibility; ... an opinion is huddled up in conclave,
perhaps by a majority of one, delivered as if unanimous, and
with the silent acquiescence of lazy or timid associates, by a
crafty chief-judge who sophisticates the law to his mind by the
turn of his own reasoning.”
The acquittal of Chase proved that impeachment was a scarecrow; but
its effect on impeachment as a principle of law was less evident. No
point was decided. The theory of Giles, Randolph, and Rodney was
still intact, for it was not avowedly applied to the case. The theory
of Judge Chase’s counsel--that an impeachable offence must be also
indictable, or even a violation of some known statute of the United
States--was overthrown neither by the argument nor by the judgment. So
far as Constitutional law was concerned, President Jefferson himself
might still be impeached, according to the dictum of Madison, for the
arbitrary removal of a useful tide-waiter, and Chief-Justice Marshall
might be driven from the bench, as Giles wished, for declaring the
Constitution to be above the authority of a statute; but although the
acquittal of Chase decided no point of law except his innocence of
high crimes or misdemeanors, as charged in the indictment, it proved
impeachment to be “an impracticable thing” for partisan purposes, and
it decided the permanence of those lines of Constitutional development
which were a reflection of the common law. Henceforward the legal
profession had its own way in expounding the principles and expanding
the powers of the central government through the Judiciary.
CHAPTER XI.
THE Louisiana treaty, signed in May, 1803, was followed by
two years of diplomatic activity. The necessary secrecy of diplomacy
gave to every President the power to involve the country without its
knowledge in dangers which could not be afterward escaped, and the
Republican party neither invented nor suggested means by which this old
evil of irresponsible politics could be cured; but of all Presidents,
none used these arbitrary powers with more freedom and secrecy than
Jefferson. His ideas of Presidential authority in foreign affairs were
little short of royal. He loved the sense of power and the freedom from
oversight which diplomacy gave, and thought with reason that as his
knowledge of Europe was greater than that of other Americans, so he
should be left to carry out his policy undisturbed.
Jefferson’s overmastering passion was to obtain West Florida. To this
end two paths seemed open. If he chose to conciliate, Yrujo was still
ready to aid; and Spain stood in such danger between England and France
that Godoy could not afford to throw the United States into the hands
of either. If Jefferson wished the friendship of Spain, he had every
reason to feel sure that the Prince of Peace would act in the same
spirit in which he had negotiated the treaty of 1795 and restored the
right of deposit in 1802. In this case Florida must be let alone until
Spain should be willing to cede, or the United States be ready for war.
On the other hand, the President might alienate Spain and grasp at
Florida. Livingston and Monroe warmly urged this policy, and were in
fact its authors. Livingston’s advice would by itself have had no great
weight with Jefferson or Madison, but they believed strongly in Monroe;
and when he made Livingston’s idea his own, he gave it weight. Monroe
had been sent abroad to buy Florida; he had bought Louisiana. From the
Potomac to the Mississippi, every Southern man expected and required
that by peace or war Florida should be annexed to the Union; and the
annexation of Louisiana made that of Florida seem easy. Neither Monroe,
Madison, nor Jefferson could resist the impulse to seize it.
Livingston’s plan has been described. He did not assert that Spain had
intended to retrocede Florida to France, or that France had claimed it
as included in the retrocession. He knew the contrary; and tried in
vain to find some one willing to say that the country to the Perdido
ought to be included in the purchase. He made much of Marbois’s
cautious encouragement and Talleyrand’s transparent manœuvres; but he
was forced at last to maintain that Spain had retroceded West Florida
to France without knowing it, that France had sold it to the United
States without suspecting it, that the United States had bought it
without paying for it, and that neither France nor Spain, although the
original contracting parties, were competent to decide the meaning of
their own contract. Believing that Bonaparte was pledged to support the
United States in their effort to obtain West Florida, Livingston was
anxious only to push Spain to the utmost. Talleyrand allowed him to
indulge in these dreams. “I have obtained from him,” wrote Livingston
to Madison,[149] “a positive promise that this government shall aid
any negotiation that shall be set on foot” for the purchase of East
Florida; while as for Florida west of the Perdido, “the moment is so
favorable for taking possession of that country, that I hope it has
not been neglected, even though a little force should be necessary to
effect it. Your minister must find the means to justify it.”
When the letters written by Livingston and Monroe in May, 1803,
reached Washington, they were carefully studied by the President,
fully understood, and a policy quickly settled. When Jefferson wrote
to Senator Breckenridge his ideas on the unconstitutionality of the
purchase, he spoke with equal clearness on the course he meant to
pursue toward Spain in order to obtain Florida:[150]--
“We have some claims to extend on the sea-coast westwardly to
the Rio Norte or Bravo, and, better, to go eastwardly to the Rio
Perdido, between Mobile and Pensacola, the ancient boundary of
Louisiana. These claims will be a subject of negotiation with
Spain; and if as soon as she is at war we push them strongly
with one hand, holding out a price with the other, we shall
certainly obtain the Floridas, and all in good time.”
This was not Livingston’s plan, but something quite distinct from it.
Livingston and Monroe wanted the President to seize West Florida, and
negotiate for East Florida. Jefferson preferred to negotiate for West
Florida and to leave East Florida alone for the time.
Madison had already instructed[151] the minister at Madrid that the
Floridas were not included in the treaty, “being, it appears, still
held by Spain,” and that the negotiation for their purchase would be
conducted by Monroe at Madrid. Instructions of the same date were
instantly sent to Monroe,[152] urging him to pursue the negotiation for
Florida, although owing to the large drain made on the Treasury, and
to the “manifest course of events,” the government was not disposed to
make sacrifices for the sake of obtaining that country. “Your inquiries
may also be directed,” wrote Madison, “to the question whether any, and
how much, of what passes for West Florida be fairly included in the
territory ceded to us by France.”
The idea that West Florida could be claimed as a part of the Louisiana
purchase was a turning-point in the second Administration of
Jefferson. Originating in Minister Livingston’s mind, it passed from
him to Monroe; and in a few weeks the President declared the claim
substantial.[153] As the summer of 1803 closed, Jefferson’s plan became
clear. He meant to push this claim, in connection with other claims,
and to wait the moment when Spain should be dragged into the war
between France and England.
These other claims were of various degrees of merit, and involved
France as well as Spain. During the _quasi_ war between the
United States and France, before Jefferson came into power, American
commerce in Spanish waters suffered severely from two causes. The first
consisted in captures made by Spanish cruisers, and condemnations
decided in Spanish courts; the second was due to captures made by
French cruisers, and condemned by French consuls in Spanish ports, or
by courts of appeal in France, without regard to the rights or dignity
of Spain. With much trouble, in August, 1802, at the time when Europe
and America were waiting for the end of Leclerc’s struggle with the
negroes and fevers of St. Domingo, Pinckney succeeded in persuading the
Prince of Peace to let the claims for Spanish depredations go before a
commission for settlement; but Godoy obstinately refused to recognize
the claims for French depredations, taking the ground that Spain was
in no way responsible for them, had never in any way profited by
them, and had no power at the time they occurred to prevent them; that
France, and France alone, had committed the offence, and should pay for
it.
Pinckney resisted this reasoning as energetically as possible; but
when Cevallos offered to sign a convention covering the Spanish
depredations, and reserving the Franco-Spanish claims for future
discussion, Pinckney properly decided to accept an offer which secured
for his fellow-citizens five or ten millions of money, and which left
the other claim still open.[154] The convention of Aug. 11, 1802, was
sent to the Senate Jan. 11, 1803, in the excitement that followed
Morales’s withdrawal of the _entrepôt_ at New Orleans. The Senate
deferred action until the last moment of the session; and then, March
3, 1803, after Nicholson and Randolph had appeared at the bar to
impeach Judge Pickering, Pinckney’s claims convention was taken up,
and the nine Federalists were allowed to defeat it by the absence of
Republican senators. The majority reconsidered the vote and postponed
the whole subject till the next session. Thus, owing to the action of
Federalist senators, when Jefferson in the following summer, after
buying Louisiana, looked about for the means of buying Florida, he
found these classes of claims, aggregating as he supposed between five
and ten million dollars, ready to his hand. Monroe was promptly ordered
to insist upon treating both classes alike, and setting both of them
against the proposed purchase of Florida. “On the subject of these
claims you will hold a strong language,” said Madison.[155]
A third class of claims could be made useful for the same purpose.
Damages had been sustained by individuals in the violation of their
right of deposit at New Orleans in the autumn of 1802.
“A distinction, however, is to be made,” wrote Madison, “between
the positive and specific damages sustained by individuals and
the general injuries accruing from that breach of treaty. The
latter could be provided for by a gross and vague estimate only,
and need not be pressed as an indispensable condition. The claim
however may be represented as strictly just, and a forbearance
to insist on it as an item in the valuable considerations for
which the cession [of Florida] is made. Greater stress may be
laid on the positive and specific damages capable of being
formally verified by individuals; but there is a point beyond
which it may be prudent not to insist, even here, especially
as the incalculable advantage accruing from the acquisition of
New Orleans will diffuse a joy throughout the western country
that will drown the sense of these little sacrifices. Should no
bargain be made on the subject of the Floridas, our claims of
every sort are to be kept in force.”
The President had not then decided to claim West Florida as included in
the Louisiana purchase, and he conceived of no reason which should make
Spain cling the more closely to Florida on account of the loss of New
Orleans.
The news of the Louisiana purchase reached Washington early in July,
1803; Madison wrote his instructions to Monroe at the end of the same
month; Jefferson announced his policy to Breckenridge in August. This
was the harvest season of his life. His theories were proved sound; his
system of government stood in successful rivalry with that of Bonaparte
and Pitt; and he felt no doubt that his friendship was as vital to
England, France, and Spain as all the armies and navies of the world.
In the midst of this enjoyment, September 4, he was suddenly told by
the Marquis of Casa Yrujo that he had bought stolen goods, and that
Spain as the rightful owner protested against the sale.[156]
Notwithstanding this strong measure, doubtless taken in obedience to
orders, Yrujo was still true to his old friendship. On hearing of the
cession, he did again what he had done eight months before, in the
excitement about the _entrepôt_ at New Orleans,--he tried to
smooth difficulties and quiet alarms.
“The ports of Florida,” he wrote to Don Pedro Cevallos,[157] “as
they would make it easy for us to annoy greatly the American
commerce in case of a war, would in like degree furnish the
Americans, if the Americans should possess them, the same means
of annoying ours, and of carrying on an immense contraband
trade from them, especially from Pensacola and Mobile, with
our provinces in the Gulf of Mexico. This last is the chief
evil which in my opinion will result from the acquisition of
Louisiana by the Americans, and can only be diminished by
numerous, watchful, and active revenue-cutters. For the rest I
do not look on the alienation of Louisiana as a loss for Spain.
That colony cost us much, and produced us very little.”
In short, Louisiana could not be defended by Spain, while as a part of
the United States it would certainly weaken, and probably dissolve, the
Union. As for the protest, he told[158] his Government, even before he
received Madison’s reply, that nothing would come of it.
As late as Nov. 5, 1803, Yrujo continued to write in the same tone to
his Government.
“The information I have received from trustworthy persons,” he
said,[159] “in regard to the disposition in which General Victor
was coming here, and the spirit of restlessness and almost of
rapine which reigned among many of the officials in his army,
leave me no doubt that the military colony of the French in
Louisiana would have been in reality a worse neighbor than the
Americans for us. Things have now taken such a turn, that in my
humble opinion if we are to lose Louisiana, the choice whether
that colony shall fall into the power of one nation rather than
another is not worth the expense and trouble of a war, provided
we preserve the Floridas.... I am convinced that this Government
knows perfectly the national interests, and to promote them will
follow in this respect a course of conduct which in proportion
as it better suits our own, should inspire us with greater
confidence.”
Yrujo acted the part of a true friend to both countries, in trying by
such arguments to reconcile his Government to the loss of Louisiana;
but there were limits to his good-will. He held that Spain could not
afford to part with Florida. Yrujo went to the extreme of concession
when he reconciled his Government to the loss of New Orleans, and
nothing would reconcile him to the further loss of Mobile and
Pensacola. Only on the theory that Spanish America was already ruined
by the cession of Louisiana could Yrujo argue in favor of selling
Florida.
On receiving Yrujo’s protests of September 4 and 27, Jefferson’s first
feeling was of anger. He sent a strong body of troops to Natchez.
“The Government of Spain,” he wrote to Dupont de Nemours,[160] “has
protested against the right of France to transfer, and it is possible
she may refuse possession, and that may bring on acts of force; but
against such neighbors as France there and the United States here, what
she can expect from so gross a compound of folly and false faith is not
to be sought in the book of wisdom.” The folly of such conduct might
be clear, but the charge of false faith against Spain for protesting
against being deprived of her rights, seemed unjust, especially in
the mouth of Jefferson, who meant to claim West Florida under a
Franco-Spanish treaty which was acknowledged by all parties to have
transferred Louisiana alone.
Only a week before this letter was written, the scheme of seizing West
Florida had been publicly avowed by John Randolph on the floor of the
House. Randolph’s speech of October 24, in language as offensive to
Spain as was possible in the mouth of a responsible leader, asserted,
as a fact admitting no doubt, that West Florida belonged to the United
States.[161] “We have not only obtained the command of the mouth of
the Mississippi, but of the Mobile, with its widely extended branches;
and there is not now a single stream of note rising within the United
States and falling into the Gulf of Mexico which is not entirely
our own, the Appalachicola excepted.” In a second speech the next
day, he reiterated the statement even more explicitly and in greater
detail.[162] The Republican press echoed the claim. Jefferson and
Madison encouraged the manœuvre until they could no longer recede, and
pushed inquiries in every direction,[163] without obtaining evidence
that West Florida was, or ever had been, a part of the government of
Louisiana. They even applied to Laussat,[164] the mortified and angry
French commissioner whom Bonaparte had sent to receive possession
of New Orleans; and Laussat, to the annoyance of Talleyrand and
Godoy, told the truth,--that the Iberville and the Rio Bravo were the
boundaries fixed by his instructions, and therefore that West Florida
was not a part of the purchase, but that Texas was.
Notwithstanding John Randolph’s official declaration, when the time
came for the delivery of Louisiana the Spanish governor, Dec. 20, 1803,
peacefully surrendered the province to Laussat; Laussat handed it in
due form to Claiborne; and Claiborne received it without asking for
West Florida, or even recording a claim for it. That this silence was
accidental no one pretended. The acquiescence in Spanish authority was
so implicit that Madison three months afterward, at a time when both
Executive and Legislature were acting on the theory that West Florida
was in Louisiana, found himself obliged to explain the cause of conduct
and contradictions so extraordinary. He wrote[165] to Livingston at
Paris that the President had for several reasons preferred to make no
demand for West Florida,--
“First, because it was foreseen that the demand would not only
be rejected by the Spanish authority at New Orleans, which
had in an official publication limited the cession westwardly
by the Mississippi and the Island of New Orleans, but it was
apprehended, as has turned out, that the French commissioner
might not be ready to support the demand, and might even be
disposed to second the Spanish opposition to it; secondly,
because in the latter of these cases a serious check would be
given to our title, and in either of them a premature dilemma
would result between an overt submission to the refusal and a
resort to force; thirdly, because mere silence would be no bar
to a plea at any time that a delivery of a part, particularly of
the seat of the government, was a virtual delivery of the whole.”
The President’s silence at New Orleans was the more conspicuous
because, at the moment when the province of Louisiana was thus
delivered with such boundaries as Spain chose to define, Congress
was legislating for Florida as an integral part of the Union. John
Randolph’s official assertion that Mobile belonged to the United
States under the treaty of cession, was made in the last part of
October, 1803, soon after Congress met. About a month later, November
30, he introduced a Bill nominally for giving effect to the laws of
the United States within the ceded territory. After much debate and
disagreement this Bill at length passed both Houses, and Feb. 24,
1804, received the President’s signature. The fourth section directed
that the territories ceded to the United States by the treaty, “and
also all the navigable waters, rivers, creeks, bays, and inlets lying
within the United States, which empty into the Gulf of Mexico east of
the River Mississippi, shall be annexed to the Mississippi district,
and shall, together with the same, constitute one district, to be
called the ‘District of Mississippi.’” This provision was remarkable,
because, as every one knew, no creeks, bays, or inlets lying within the
United States emptied into the Gulf. The Act by its eleventh section
authorized the President, “whenever he shall deem it expedient, to
erect the shores, waters, and inlets of the Bay and River of Mobile,
and of the other rivers, creeks, inlets, and bays emptying into the
Gulf of Mexico east of the said River Mobile, and west thereof to the
Pascagoula, inclusive, into a separate district, and to establish such
place within the same as he shall deem expedient, to be the port of
entry and delivery for such district.” This section gave the President
power of peace and war, for had he exercised it, the exercise must have
been an act of war; and John Randolph’s previous declarations left no
doubt as to the meaning in which he, who reported the Bill, meant it to
be understood.
By this time Yrujo was boiling with such wrath as a Spaniard alone
could imagine or express. His good-will vanished from the moment
he saw that to save Florida he must do battle with President,
Secretary of State, Congress, and people. One insult had followed
another with startling rapidity. The President’s _pêle-mêle_,
of which the story will be told hereafter, wounded him personally.
The cold reception of his protest against the Louisiana cession; the
captiousness of Madison’s replies to his remonstrances; the armed
seizure of New Orleans with which he was threatened; the sudden
disregard of his friendship and great services; the open eagerness of
the Government to incite Bonaparte to plunder and dismember Spain; the
rejection of the claims convention in March, and its sudden approval
by the Senate in January, as though to obtain all the money Spain was
willing to give before taking by force territory vital to her empire;
and above all, the passage of this law annexing the Floridas without
excuse or explanation,--all these causes combined to change Yrujo’s
ancient friendship into hatred.
In the midst of the complicated legislation about Louisiana, while the
Mobile Act was under discussion, Jefferson sent to the Senate, Dec.
21, 1803, the correspondence about the Spanish claims, and among the
rest an adverse opinion which Yrujo had obtained from five prominent
American lawyers on an abstract case in regard to the Franco-Spanish
spoliations. Madison was particularly annoyed by this legal opinion,
and thought it should bring these five gentlemen within the penalties
of the law passed Jan. 30, 1799, commonly known as Logan’s Act.
Senator Bradley of Vermont moved for a committee, which reported in
favor of directing the President to institute proceedings against
Jared Ingersoll, William Rawle, J. B. McKean, Peter S. Duponceau, and
Edward Livingston,--five lawyers whose legal, social, and political
character made a prosecution as unwise in politics as it was doubtful
in law. The Senate having at the moment too many prosecutions already
on its hands, let Senator Bradley’s Report lie unnoticed, and soon
afterward confirmed the claims convention by a vote of eighteen to
eight,[166]--barely two thirds, the least factious of the Federalists
joining the majority, and by this unpartisan act causing in the end
more embarrassment to the party in power than the most ingenious
factiousness could have plotted. Madison, in the midst of his measures
for pressing the acquisition of Florida, sent the ratified claims
convention to Madrid. The period fixed for ratification had long since
expired, and the attitude of the United States toward Florida had
altered the feelings and interests of Spain; but either Madison was
unaware of the change, or he wished to embarrass Godoy. He added in his
letter to Pinckney,[167] “It was judged best, on the whole, no longer
to deprive that class of our citizens who are comprehended in the
convention of the benefit of its provisions;” but although consenting
to take what Spain was willing to give, he spoke with contempt of the
Spanish argument against the Franco-Spanish claims, and insisted that
these should be pressed without relaxation. He even complained that
Yrujo, in taking the opinion of American lawyers, had failed in respect
to the United States government and his own.[168]
Madison seemed unconscious that Yrujo could have any just cause of
complaint, or that his Government could resent the tone and temper of
President and Congress. The passage of the Bill which made Mobile a
collection district and a part of the Mississippi territory gave Yrujo
the chance to retaliate. About a fortnight after the President had
signed this law, Yrujo one morning entered the State Department with
the printed Act in his hand, and overwhelmed Madison with reproaches,
which he immediately afterward supported by a note[169] so severe as
to require punishment, and so able as to admit of none. He had at
first, he said, regarded as “an atrocious libel” on the United States
government the assertion that it had made a law which usurped the
rights of Spanish sovereignty; yet such was the case. He gave a short
and clear abstract of the evidence which refuted the claim to West
Florida, and closed by requesting that the law be annulled.
Madison could neither maintain the law nor annul it; he could not even
explain it away. Gallatin told the President six months afterward,[170]
that “the public mind is altogether unprepared for a declaration that
the terms and object of the Mobile Act had been misunderstood by
Spain; for every writer, without a single exception, who has written
on the subject seems to have understood the Act as Spain did; it has
been justified by our friends on that ground.” Yet Jefferson was not
prepared to maintain and defend the Act in its full assertions of
authority, after accepting Louisiana without asking for West Florida.
Madison wrote a letter of complaint to Livingston at Paris,[171]
explaining, as already quoted, the reasons which had induced the
President to make no demand for West Florida before ascertaining the
views and claiming the interposition of the French government.
“In this state of things,” said he, “it was deemed proper by
Congress, in making the regulations necessary for the collection
of revenue in the ceded territory, and guarding against the new
danger of smuggling into the United States through the channels
opened by it, to include a provision for the case of West
Florida by vesting in the President a power which his discretion
might accommodate to events.”
This interpretation of the law was not in harmony with the law itself
or with Randolph’s speeches; but Madison hastened to turn from this
delicate subject in order to bring another complaint against Yrujo.
“The Act had been many weeks depending in Congress with these
sections, word for word, in it; ... it must in all probability
have been known to the Marquis d’Yrujo in an early stage of its
progress; if it was not, it marks much less of that zealous
vigilance over the concerns of his sovereign than he now makes
the plea for his intemperate conduct. For some days, even after
the Act was published in the Gazette of this city, he was
silent. At length, however, he called at the office of State,
with the Gazette in his hand, and entered into a very angry
comment.”
The Spanish minister’s subsequent notes had been written with “a
rudeness which no government can tolerate;” but his conduct was
chiefly of importance “as it urges the expediency of cultivating the
disposition of the French government to take our side of the question.”
The President came to Madison’s relief. By a proclamation issued a few
weeks afterward, reciting the terms of the Act of Congress in regard
to the Bay and River of Mobile, he declared all these “shores, waters,
inlets, creeks, and rivers, lying _within the boundaries of the
United States_,” to be a collection district, with Fort Stoddert for
its port of entry.[172] The italics were a part of the proclamation,
and suggested that such could not have been the intent of Congress,
because no part of the shores or waters of Mobile Bay, or of the other
bays east of Mobile, lay within the boundaries of the United States.
The evasion was a divergence from the words of the Act unwarranted by
anything in the context; and to give it authority, Jefferson, in spite
of Gallatin’s remonstrance, declared in his next Annual Message that
the Mobile Act had been misunderstood on the part of Spain.[173]
CHAPTER XII.
THOUGH Yrujo’s language was strong, and his anonymous writings in
the press were indiscreet, he had, down to the summer of 1804, laid
himself open to no just official censure; for whatever the Secretary
of State might think, no one could seriously blame a foreign minister
for obtaining the best legal advice in America on an abstract question
of international law. The protests with which Yrujo contented himself,
vigorous as they were, could neither be disavowed by his Government
nor answered by Madison. Had he stopped there, his triumph would have
been signal; but fortunately for Madison, the Spaniard, with all
the high qualities of his nation, had also its weaknesses, besides
having the love of intrigue inherent in diplomacy. Yrujo was in his
political training more American than Spanish. At home in Philadelphia,
son-in-law to Governor McKean, and well acquainted with the methods
of party politics, he burned to counteract the influence of the
Administration press, and had no other means of doing so than by
acting on Federalist editors. As no one but himself knew even a part
of the truth about the Spanish imbroglio, he was obliged to be the
channel for conveying his own information to the public; and from
time to time Madison read in opposition newspapers anonymous letters
which bore plain marks of Yrujo’s peculiar style. He had already
published a pamphlet on the Louisiana cession. After his hot protest
against the Mobile Act, in March, 1804, the Spanish minister left
Washington, without taking leave of the Secretary of State. At length
his indiscretions enabled Madison to enjoy the pleasure of seeing him
keenly mortified.
Among other Federalist newspapers in Philadelphia was one called the
“Political Register,” edited by a man named Jackson. In September,
1804, six months after the passage-at-arms over the Mobile Act, Yrujo,
then in Philadelphia, asked for an interview with Jackson, and urged
him to oppose the course which the President had taken against Spain.
“If you will consent,” he said, “to take elucidations on the subject
from me, I will furnish them, and I will make you any acknowledgment.”
He charged the Administration with wishing for war, and with intriguing
for a rebellion among the Spaniards of West Florida.
That Yrujo or any other diplomatic agent was quite ready to use money,
if by doing so he could obtain objects necessary for his purposes,
need not be doubted,--although corruption of this kind in the affairs
of the United States has left few traces even on the most secret
diplomatic records of England, France, and Spain. In the ethical code
of diplomacy the offer of money to an editor for inserting information
was no offence, but discovery was fatal; and for this reason perhaps
Yrujo told the truth when he afterward said that the use of money was
not in his mind. Had he meant to bribe, he would not have exposed
himself to detection, or put himself, without need, in the hands of a
person over whom he held no power. Nevertheless, his blunder deserved
the punishment which quickly followed.
A few days after his interview with Jackson, Yrujo left Philadelphia
to visit Jefferson at Monticello. Sept. 20, 1804, immediately after
his departure, Jackson printed an affidavit narrating the attempt
which Yrujo had made upon his virtue, and detailing every expression
of the minister which could do him most injury. As though to make
Yrujo’s position still more mortifying, Jackson sent this affidavit
to President Jefferson ten days or more before publishing it; and
when Yrujo, ignorant of the betrayal, after passing Madison’s door
at Montpelier without the courtesy of stopping to inquire for the
Secretary’s health,[174] at last reached Monticello, not only his host,
but every one except himself, had heard of the diplomatic scandal to
which he was a party.
Jefferson received his visitor with the usual hospitality, and said
not a word on the subject. Being obliged to return to Washington, the
President left Yrujo, two days later, under the protection of his
daughter Mrs. Randolph, and set out to meet his Cabinet on the last day
of the month at the Federal city. Madison was delayed at Montpelier,
and could not attend the Cabinet meeting, but wrote a few days
afterward:[175]--
“Jackson, I find, has lost no time in giving publicity to the
affair between him and Yrujo. What course the latter will
take, remains to be seen. Should circumstances of any kind
be thought to urge a close of the business with him, or any
other arrangement with respect to it, why might not one of the
other secretaries, or even Mr. Wagner, be made a channel of
your sentiments and determinations?... Should the door be shut
against further communication [through] Yrujo, and Pinckney’s
situation at Madrid not be contradicted, a direct communication
with Cevallos appears to be the next resource.”
Already Madison flattered himself with the hope that he was to be
relieved from relations with the Spaniard, whose continuance at
Washington he had asked as a favor from Don Carlos IV. only three years
before.
Jefferson’s delicacy and hospitality were worthy of a great lord of
Spain, and did honor to his innate kindliness; but they put Yrujo in
an attitude so mortifying, that when he returned to Washington and
learned what had taken place in his absence, he was overcome with shame
at finding himself charged with calumniating his host at the moment of
claiming his hospitality. He immediately prepared a counter-statement
and took it to the President, who replied that the matter was one
which should properly belong to Madison. Yrujo then printed his letter
in the “National Intelligencer,” where Madison first saw it. For
the moment the matter went no further; but Madison was fixed in his
purpose of effecting Yrujo’s recall, and when in the following spring
he instructed his minister at Madrid to ask this favor, he alleged the
affair of Jackson among the reasons which justified his request.
Pichon, who was in charge of the French legation, cordially disliked
Yrujo, and did nothing to help him against Madison, although the
relations between Spain and France were those of close alliance; but
Madison next suffered a severe loss in the removal of Pichon, and in
the arrival, Nov. 23, 1804, of the first minister sent by France to the
United States since the departure of Adet in President Washington’s
time. The new appointment was not a happy one. Pichon had carried
friendliness so far as on several serious questions to take sides with
the United States government against his own, and had fallen into
disfavor with Napoleon in consequence. The new minister was little
likely to repeat this blunder. Napoleon liked military discipline in
all things; and he sent as his minister to Washington a former general
of the Republic, Louis Marie Turreau, best known for the extreme
severities he was charged with having inflicted on the Vendeans in
1794. Like most of the republican generals, including even Moreau
and Bernadotte, Turreau accepted the _coup d’état_ of the 18th
Brumaire, and was for private reasons anxious to obtain some position
far removed from France. According to his own story, he had during
the Vendean war been so unfortunate as to be saved from death, in a
moment of extreme danger, by a woman’s self-sacrifice. In token of
his gratitude he married his preserver; but from that time his life
became a long regret. His wife’s temper was terrible; his own was
querulous and morbidly depressed. Although he could speak no English,
had no diplomatic experience and little taste for general society, he
sought the post of minister resident at Washington in order to escape
his wife. To his extreme annoyance, she followed him to America; and
Washington resounded with the scandal of their quarrels, which reached
the extremity of pitched battles. He wrote to his friends in the French
Foreign Office that he was almost mad with mortification and despair.
Such a minister was not happily chosen for the difficult task on
hand; but Bonaparte loaded him with other burdens, of a kind even
more embarrassing to a diplomatist. At best, the position of a French
minister in America was not agreeable. The mere difference in habits,
manners, amusements, and the want of a thousand luxuries and pleasures
such as made Paris dear to every Frenchman, rendered Washington a
place of exile. Perhaps nothing but fear of the guillotine could have
reconciled even republican Frenchmen to staying in a country where,
in the words of Talleyrand, there was no Frenchman who did not feel
himself a stranger; but if this were true while France was a republic
fighting the battles of American democracy, it became doubly true after
Bonaparte had crushed French liberties and made himself the foremost
enemy of republican ideas. Turreau arrived at Washington about six
months before Bonaparte took the title of Emperor; and he found that as
representative of Napoleon I. he could never hope for a friend in the
United States, unless it were among a few bankrupt adventurers, who to
retrieve their broken fortunes would have liked to see an 18th Brumaire
at New Orleans, which should give an imperial crown and the mines of
Mexico to Aaron Burr and his troop of embryo dukes and marshals.
As though to embarrass his representative to the utmost, Bonaparte
deprived him of the only means by which he could win even the venal
respect of a money-making people. At one stroke the First Consul had
annulled and sent to protest all the drafts drawn under Rochambeau’s
orders by the fiscal administrator of St. Domingo.[176] His avowed
reason was that every bill of exchange or draft on the public treasury
which did not purport to rest on the authority of a letter from
the minister authorizing the expenditure, should not be paid. The
true reason was that he had determined to waste no more money on
St. Domingo, but to sacrifice his army there under cover of a war
with England, which required all the means then at his disposal.
Rochambeau’s expenditures were becoming wild; but thus far his drafts
on the Treasury were regularly drawn. They had been taken in good faith
throughout the West Indies and in every commercial city on the American
seaboard; they rested on the national credit of France, and their
repudiation destroyed French credit in America, public and private.
Before Turreau sailed for his post, the credit of his Government was
at an end in the United States. Not only had the drafts drawn in St.
Domingo been refused payment, but Pichon’s had also suffered the same
fate; and neither the new minister nor his consuls could find a man in
Baltimore, Philadelphia, or New York to advance money on their official
signatures. Turreau complained bitterly to Talleyrand of the penury and
mortification to which he was condemned. In one of his despatches[177]
he reported that at a tavern in Baltimore one of the French agents,
not known to be such, was offered French government paper at fifty per
cent discount, and at the same time five per cent premium for drafts on
the British government. “In short, we are brought to such a state of
affairs that private discredit follows the discredit of the nation, and
I experience it for my own individual drafts.”
Owing to these circumstances, Turreau declared that his position
was hardly tolerable; but even apart from such matters, he found a
formidable legacy of diplomatic difficulties left by Pichon to be
settled. The question of trade with St. Domingo, of boundary on both
sides of Louisiana, the Spanish imbroglio, the unpaid claims on France,
and the repudiated drafts negotiated by Pichon in the United States,
were all matters which Turreau was required to master and manage; but
none of them gave him more trouble than the personal quarrel between
his colleague Yrujo and the Secretary of State.
Yrujo’s affair with Major Jackson occurred in September, 1804, and
Turreau, reaching Washington in the following November, was soon
obliged to take part in Yrujo’s feuds. Not only the tone of his
instructions, but the increasing certainty that Spain must side with
France in the war against England, obliged him to make common cause
with the Spanish minister, who came from Philadelphia to Washington
in order to invoke his services. The result was told in a despatch to
Talleyrand:[178]--
“Following your instructions and the request of M. d’Yrujo, I
consented to an interview with him at Mr. Madison’s.... I had no
trouble in perceiving from the outset of the conversation that
Mr. Madison and M. d’Yrujo cordially detested each other, and in
the discussion that their passions took the place of reason and
law.”
This discussion naturally turned on the question of West Florida; and
unfortunately for Madison, Turreau’s instructions on that point were
emphatic in support of Spain. Turreau was obliged to enter the lists in
defence of Yrujo’s position.
“I mixed in the discussion only in order to represent to Mr.
Madison, who is unwilling to stop at the treaty of 1762, that in
general the last conventions were those which ought to guide in
negotiations; otherwise, if each party invoked the antecedent
ones in favor of his system, we should be forced to go back to
the Deluge to find the primitive title. ‘But, General!’ replied
Mr. Madison, ‘we have a map which probably carries to the
Perdido the eastern limit of Louisiana!’--‘I should be curious
to see it, sir; the more, because I have one which includes
Tennessee and Kentucky in Louisiana. You will agree that maps
are not titles.’ The Secretary of State closed this session,
which lasted two long hours, by saying that if Spain had always
conducted herself toward the United States as well as France had
done, the difficulties would not have taken place. I did not
think myself called upon to appear very grateful for this kind
of cajolery.”
Turreau did not want keenness of insight; and this early experience
gave him no high respect either for Madison or for the American
system of government. His despatch explained that the dispute was in
great part due to the fact that the Louisiana purchase had been made
a battle-ground in the Presidential election just ended; that the
opposition, by depreciating its importance, had driven the party in
power to exaggerate its value; and that the Administration, to assure
itself of victory, had committed itself to the policy of obtaining
Florida by one means or another, till it could no longer recede.
Yrujo’s indiscretions had helped to make it impossible for Jefferson to
withdraw with dignity from his position.
“For the rest,” continued Turreau, “I have made every effort
to reconcile M. d’Yrujo with the Secretary of State, and if I
have not succeeded, it is the fault of the latter. He is dry
(_sec_), spiteful (_haineux_), passionate; and his
private resentments, still more than political difference, will
long keep him apart from M. d’Yrujo. Nevertheless, as I am on
very good terms with Mr. Madison, whom I was about to ask to
dine with me, I sent my first aide-de-camp to ask him whether
he would be pleased to meet the Spanish minister at dinner;
and in consequence of his very civil and even obliging answer,
I had them together at my table, where I again attempted a
reconciliation. M. d’Yrujo would have agreed to it; but the
Secretary of State cannot forgive.”
Finally, Turreau called Talleyrand’s attention to the question whether
it was for the interest of France and Spain that Yrujo should be kept
at Washington:--
“Doubtless the Government here wishes for his recall, and
regards this step as the duty of the Court at Madrid, the more
because Mr. Pinckney has been recalled; but ought the Spanish
minister to be changed because the American government wishes
it? This point deserves attention. These people here have been
well spoiled; it is time to send them back to their proper
place.”
The quarrel with Yrujo was the more unfortunate because it happened
at a moment when Charles Pinckney, the American minister at Madrid,
showed extreme want of discretion. The President had not intended
to leave Pinckney unassisted. After the conclusion of the Louisiana
treaty, in May, 1803, Madison supposed that Monroe, in obedience to his
instructions, would go at once to Madrid and take the negotiation from
Pinckney’s hands.[179] For reasons that will hereafter appear, Monroe
decided against this step, and went to London instead. On learning the
change of plan, Madison warned Pinckney[180] to make no propositions to
the Spanish government, which was not yet in a humor to receive them
with favor. Pinckney, restive under restraint, managed to keep up an
appearance of diplomatic activity that greatly vexed the Secretary of
State. Madison complained[181] to the President that his minister at
Madrid teased the Spanish government on the subject of Florida, which
he had been ordered not to touch without the presence or the advice
of Monroe; forbidden to make but permitted to accept offers, he was
continually offering to accept; while Livingston at Paris, equally
restive under the imposed authority of Monroe, could not resist the
temptation to stimulate Pinckney and offer advice both to France and
Spain. Madison’s complaints were well founded; but when he wrote
in this sense to Jefferson, he had not begun to appreciate the full
measure of diplomatic activity which his minister at Madrid was capable
of displaying.
Yrujo always managed to embarrass the American government without
seriously committing his own; but Pinckney showed no such forbearance,
and by the close of the year 1804 drew Madison into a mortifying
position. He began his activity in July, 1803, immediately after
hearing that Monroe had given up the proposed visit to Madrid, and
had gone to London. Without waiting to learn how this change of plan
and the purchase of Louisiana might affect the President’s views
toward Spain, Pinckney, to use his own words,[182] “pushed the new
propositions respecting our claims in that positive and decided manner
which the circumstances of Europe and the particular situation of Spain
seemed to me to warrant.” Cevallos contented himself with parrying this
attack by giving to Pinckney the written opinion obtained by Yrujo from
the five American lawyers in support of his argument that the United
States, by their treaty with France of Sept. 30, 1800, had renounced
their right to demand indemnity for losses sustained from French
cruisers.[183]
Both parties next appealed to the French ambassador at Madrid. The
Prince of Peace, though irritated by the sale of Louisiana, quickly saw
that his only chance of retaining Florida was to conciliate Bonaparte;
and Pinckney, who knew that the French ambassador at Madrid had been
instructed to support Monroe in negotiating for Florida, counted on the
same aid in order to maintain a threatening attitude. The result was
soon seen. Pinckney, disturbed by the news of Yrujo’s protest against
the sale of Louisiana, turned to the French ambassador for advice.[184]
Beurnonville accordingly wrote to Talleyrand for instructions; but
Talleyrand had already sent to the Spanish embassy at Paris a note of
sharp remonstrance against the protest.[185] Beurnonville, learning
this, asked the Prince of Peace for explanations; and Godoy hastened
to assure him that Bonaparte might be at ease on this score, for
orders had been sent to New Orleans to surrender the province without
opposition, and already Yrujo had been instructed to change his
tone at Washington.[186] Soon afterward Cevallos formally notified
Pinckney that the King renounced his opposition to the cession of
Louisiana.[187] In due time Yrujo sent to the State Department a formal
note to the same effect.[188]
At the cost of recognizing the Louisiana cession, Godoy pacified
Bonaparte, who stood in need of Spanish support. From that moment
Pinckney begged in vain for help from the French ambassador at Madrid,
although the need of aid increased from day to day. Just as his first
and least important point, the withdrawal of Yrujo’s protest, was
gained at Madrid, the Government at Washington created new difficulties
about his path. At the moment when Beurnonville, Talleyrand, and
Pinckney wrung from King Charles his adhesion to the Louisiana treaty,
the Senate at Washington, Jan. 9, 1804, ratified the Spanish claims
convention, which had been negotiated by Pinckney nearly eighteen
months before, and had been held an entire year under consideration
by the Senate. The last article of this convention provided, as usual
with such instruments, that it should have no effect until ratified by
both parties, and that the ratifications should be exchanged as soon as
possible. So far from performing its part of the contract, the Senate
had at one moment refused to ratify at all, and after reconsidering
this refusal, had delayed ratification an entire year, until the
relations of the two parties had been wholly changed. The idea that
the King of Spain was bound to ratify in his turn, implied excessive
confidence in his good-nature; but Madison, in sending the ratified
treaty to Pinckney, suggested no suspicion that Charles IV. might have
changed his mind, and gave not a hint to Pinckney of the course to be
followed in such a contingency. The Mobile Act had not yet become law,
and Yrujo was waiting for its signature by the President before waking
Madison from his dreams of doing what he pleased with Spanish property.
Early in February, 1804, Madison sent these new instructions to
Pinckney, inclosing the ratified treaty, and instructing him in
effect to press the reserved claims for French spoliations in Spanish
ports. The despatch reached Pinckney in May, and he went at once to
Cevallos for the ratification. To his great annoyance Cevallos made
difficulties. During the discussion, Cevallos received from Yrujo
a copy of the Mobile Act, which he sent to Pinckney May 31, with a
demand for explanations. Pinckney replied in a tone little short of
dictatorial.[189]
“Permit me on this subject to remind your Excellency,” said he,
“that on the first intelligence being received of the cession
of Louisiana, I communicated verbally to your Excellency and
the Prince of Peace the contents of an official letter I had
received from Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe, informing me that
they considered a great part of West Florida, as so called
by the English, as included. Such letter could not have been
written officially to me by them without their having been so
informed by the French plenipotentiary and government.”
Pinckney urged that the two subjects should be kept separate. “Do not
show the United States that you have no confidence either in their
honor or justice,--qualities on which they value themselves more than
on power or wealth.”
Unfortunately Pinckney’s note obliged Spain to show want of confidence
in the “honor or justice” of the United States, unless indeed she meant
to acquiesce in losing Florida as well as Louisiana. Pinckney next
appealed to the French ambassador for help.[190] “I took the course of
giving Mr. Pinckney an obliging but vague answer,” said Beurnonville,
writing for instructions to Talleyrand. Cevallos, on his side, wrote
to Admiral Gravina, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, instructing him
to remonstrate with Talleyrand against Pinckney’s conduct. After a
month’s delay, Cevallos, in answer to Pinckney’s letters, sent a sharp
note,[191] offering to ratify the convention on three conditions,--one
being that the reserved claim for French spoliations should be
abandoned, and another that the Mobile Act should be revoked.
Without waiting for further instructions, or even consulting Monroe at
London, Pinckney next wrote to Cevallos a letter which surpassed all
indiscretions that Madison could have imagined. Requesting Cevallos
“merely to answer this question,” whether ratification was refused
except on the conditions specified, he added:[192]--
“I wish to have your Excellency’s answer as quickly as possible,
as on Tuesday I send a courier with circular letters to all our
consuls in the ports of Spain, stating to them the critical
situation of things between Spain and the United States, the
probability of a speedy and serious misunderstanding, and
directing them to give notice thereof to all our citizens;
advising them so to arrange and prepare their affairs as to
be able to move off within the time limited by the treaty,
should things end as I now expect. I am also preparing the
same information for the commander of our squadron in the
Mediterranean, for his own notice and government, and that of
all the American merchant-vessels he may meet.”
Cevallos immediately answered[193] that as he could not comprehend
the motive for “breaking out in the decisions, not to say threats,”
of this letter, or how it was possible that Pinckney could have
the authority of his government for such conduct, he should by
the King’s order transfer the negotiation to Washington. Pinckney
rejoined by despatching his circular letter, which created a panic
in the Mediterranean. He then informed Cevallos that so soon as his
affairs could be arranged, he should send for his passports and quit
Madrid.[194]
Although this step was in the highest degree improper, Pinckney had
some excuse for his conduct. Left without instructions in the face of
an emergency which might have been foreseen at Washington, he argued
that his government, which had officially annexed West Florida, meant
to support its acts with a strong hand. He thought that the issue
presented by Cevallos was such as the President was bound to take
up, and he knew that the only chance of carrying the points which
the President had at heart was in energetic action. For three years
he had watched the peremptory tone of France and England at Madrid,
and had been assured by the common voice of his diplomatic colleagues
that threats alone could extort action from the Spanish government. He
had seen the Prince of Peace, after resorting to one subterfuge after
another, repeatedly forced to cower before the two great robbers who
were plundering Spain, and he explained to Madison the necessity of
imitating their example if the President meant that Spain should cower
before the United States. Perhaps he felt that Godoy looked on the
President at Washington as the jackal of Bonaparte, and he may have
wished to prove that America could act alone. His eager ambition to
make himself as important as the representatives of France and England
in the eyes of Europe might imply vanity, but rested also on logic.
The first result of this energetic tone was not what Pinckney had
hoped. Cevallos was outwardly unmoved; Pinckney’s violence only caused
him to lay aside that courtesy which was the usual mark of Spanish
manners. His official notes were in outward form still civil enough,
but in two or three conversations Pinckney listened to a series of
remarks as blunt as though Lord Harrowby were the speaker. Pinckney
reported to Madison the tenor of these rough rejoinders.[195] Cevallos
told him that the Americans, ever since their independence, had been
receiving the most pointed proofs of friendship and generosity from
Spain, who, as was well known, received no benefit from them,--on
the contrary, their commerce was extremely injurious to Spain; the
Spanish government had ten times more trouble with them than with
any other nation, and for his part, he did not wish to see the trade
with the United States extended. Spain had nothing to fear from the
United States, and had heard with contempt the threats of senators
like Ross and Gouverneur Morris. The Americans had no right to expect
much kindness from the King; in the purchase of Louisiana they had
paid no attention to his repeated remonstrances against the injustice
and nullity of that transaction, whereas if they had felt the least
friendship they would have done so. They were well known to be a nation
of calculators, bent on making money and nothing else; the French, and
probably in the result all the nations having possessions in the West
Indies, would be materially injured by them, for without a doubt it was
entirely owing to the United States that St. Domingo was in its present
situation.
Pinckney received[196] at the same time what he called secret
intelligence on which he could implicitly rely, that Cevallos meant
to create indefinite delays to the ratification, for Yrujo had written
that neither these nor the French spoliation claims, nor West Florida,
would induce the American government to depart from its pacific system.
France had indeed gone to the point of advising and even commanding
Spain to relinquish her claim on Louisiana, and this was the reason why
Spain had so quietly given it up; but in regard to the spoliations,
France preferred not to see them paid, as the more money Spain paid
America the less she could pay France, and France knew as well as
Spain how little serious was the American government in the idea of
abandoning its neutrality.
Pinckney having done his worst, found himself in a position extremely
awkward. Although he threatened to leave Spain, and proclaimed that
he meant soon to demand his passports, he did not venture to take
this last step without instructions. Cevallos, excessively perplexed
by his conduct, could not conceive that he should act thus without
some definite authority. Boldly as Cevallos talked, he was in truth
greatly alarmed by the idea of war. The French representative at Madrid
wrote to Talleyrand that Pinckney had terrified the secretary beyond
reason:[197]--
“The difficulty of making himself understood by M. de Cevallos
in a language with which he is not familiar, excites Mr.
Pinckney to fly out in terms beyond moderation and proper
civility. He positively threatens war, and loudly announces his
resolution shortly to demand his passports. The truth is that
he is preparing to depart, and finds himself almost deprived
of power to remain, not only in consequence of his personal
altercation with the minister, but also of the care with which
he has taken the public into his confidence.... M. de Cevallos
seems to me to be quite seriously alarmed at the results this
may have.”
Ten days later the Frenchman reported that Cevallos was more uneasy
than ever.[198]
“‘If the Emperor,’ added M. de Cevallos, ‘would but say a word,
and let the United States understand that he is not pleased
at seeing them abuse the advantages which they owe to their
strength and to the nearness of their resources over an ally
of France, this would reconcile all difficulties, and save his
Majesty the necessity of exacting satisfaction for an insult
which is as good as inflicted.’”
The Frenchman, having no instructions, contented himself with
suggesting that the Emperor had more pressing matters on hand.
“‘So,’ said M. de Cevallos, ‘France will have caused our actual
misunderstanding with our neighbors, and we are to expect no service
from her influence!’”
While Cevallos thus invoked the aid of France, the news of Pinckney’s
war slowly crossed the Atlantic. No sooner did it arrive than Yrujo
in the middle of October, shortly after his attempt to seduce the
patriotism of Major Jackson, wrote to the Secretary of State a formal
letter,[199] repeating what had already been said to Pinckney at
Madrid. Madison’s reply was studiously moderate and conciliatory.[200]
He explained as best he could the offensive language of the Mobile
Act, and announced that a special minister would soon reach Madrid, to
hasten the adjustment of all territorial disputes; he deprecated the
demand for an abandonment of the French claims, and argued that such
a condition of ratification was not supported by international law;
he urged Yrujo to give assurances of an unqualified ratification, but
he said not a word about Pinckney’s performances, and gave it to be
understood that Pinckney would be recalled. A few days afterward he
wrote to Monroe, ordering him in haste to Spain. “The turn which our
affairs at Madrid have taken renders it expedient in the judgment of
the President that you should proceed thither without delay.”[201]
In another letter, written at nearly the same time, he was more
explicit:[202]--
“Pinckney’s recall has been asked by the Spanish government, and
a letter of leave goes to him. I suspect he will not return in
good humor. I could not permit myself to flatter him, and truth
would not permit me to praise him. He is well off in escaping
reproof, for his agency has been very faulty as well as feeble.”
The first attempts to overawe Spain had failed. Pinckney, not disavowed
but ignored, fell into the background; and once more Monroe stepped
forward to rescue the Administration. When these instructions were
written, he had already reached Paris on his way to Madrid; but
Madison, undeterred by Pinckney’s disaster, still persisted in advising
him to place his main reliance “in a skilful appeal to the fears of
Spain.”[203]
CHAPTER XIII.
HARDLY was the Louisiana treaty sent to America in May, 1803,
when Monroe began preparations for a journey to Madrid. The outbreak
of temper with which Godoy and Cevallos received the news that Spain
had been secretly deprived of Louisiana, caused Bonaparte to feel that
further maltreatment of his ally was for the moment unwise; and he
interposed a sudden veto on Monroe’s journey. “With respect to Florida,
this is not the time to pursue that object,” said he, when Monroe came
to take leave.[204] The Consul Cambacérès echoed the warning: “You must
not go to Spain at present; it is not the time; you had better defer
it.” The Third Consul Lebrun spoke in the same tone. Monroe took the
advice, and abandoned the journey to Madrid. In July he crossed the
Channel to London, and Aug. 17, 1803, was duly presented to George III.
as the successor of Rufus King, who had already returned to America.
Livingston remained at Paris to manage the relations with Napoleon.
In spite of success that should have filled his cup of ambition
to overflowing, Livingston was far from satisfied. Neither the
President nor the Secretary of State liked him; and to the latter he
was a possible rival, who might become dangerous if the authority
of President Jefferson, which was Madison’s great support, should
wane, and should New York claim the presidency from Virginia. Monroe
distrusted Livingston, believing him to grasp at the whole credit of
the Louisiana treaty, and to be intriguing to withdraw the Florida
negotiation from Monroe’s hands by causing its transfer from Madrid
to Paris.[205] The Secretary of State was perpetually annoyed by
his minister. Sometimes Livingston experimented on Spain, sometimes
on England. At one moment he sent to the First Consul an indiscreet
memorial that brought a remonstrance from the British government;
at another he fell into a virulent quarrel with the American claims
commissioners under the Louisiana treaty. His claims convention was
admitted to be full of mistakes which he did not himself attempt to
defend, while the American consul at Paris declared that his conduct in
regard to certain claims was dictated by blind and insatiable vanity,
if not by corrupt and criminal motives.[206]
Mistakes cost Livingston little serious annoyance; but although he
could afford to disregard British complaints or Consul Skipwith’s
abuse, or even the severe criticisms of the claims commissioners,
he must have had more than human patience to sit quiet under the
superiority of Monroe. He knew that whatever diplomatic credit was due
for the Louisiana negotiation rightly belonged to him, and that Monroe
had no claim to any part of it, except that of supporting and approving
what was already accomplished; yet he saw the Administration and the
public attribute the chief honor to his rival. He showed his wounded
self-esteem in protests and statements to which the world was deaf. His
old Federalist friends took malicious pleasure in telling him that his
triumph had offended the vanity of Jefferson.[207]
Consoling himself with the reflection that he should insist on
returning to America in the autumn of 1804, Livingston endured these
annoyances as he best could, and found in the society of Robert Fulton
and Joel Barlow the hope of greater fame and profit than political
distinctions could possibly bring. While he watched and encouraged
Fulton’s experiments with the steamboat, clouds gathered more and more
thickly round his diplomatic path. The First Consul had never inspired
him with much confidence; but after the rupture of the Peace of Amiens,
in May, 1803, Bonaparte’s acts became more and more alarming to every
Republican. He passed the autumn of 1803 in preparations for a descent
on England. He next effected, in February, 1804, the arrest, trial, and
banishment of Moreau. The seizure and arbitrary execution of the Duc
d’Enghien followed a month afterward, and finally, in May, 1804, the
proclamation of the Empire.
In the midst of these events Livingston received from home the letter
already quoted, in which Madison told the story of the Mobile Act,
and complained of Yrujo’s violent conduct. “The correspondence is
chiefly of importance,” said the Secretary of State, “as it urges the
expediency of cultivating the disposition of the French government
to take our side of the question.” Livingston was personally rather
inclined to the opposite course. He had little faith in obtaining
favors from the Emperor, and no disposition to place the United States
in the attitude of begging for them; but he had not the chief share in
shaping action. A few weeks after receiving these instructions, when
he heard of the _quasi_ war which Pinckney in July declared at
Madrid, Livingston was already expecting the arrival of his successor,
General Armstrong, in the autumn.
The news from Spain reaching London, startled Monroe from his repose.
As soon as he could make ready, Oct. 8, 1804, placing his legation
in charge of a secretary, Monroe left London. While he waited in
Paris to sound the disposition of Talleyrand, General Armstrong
arrived to relieve Livingston. Thus it happened that three American
ministers--Monroe, Livingston, and Armstrong--met at Paris in
November, 1804, to cope with Talleyrand, in whose hands lay the
decision of Jefferson’s quarrel with Spain.
The question to be decided was whether the United States government
should disregard its obligations to Napoleon and act independently, or
whether the President should defer to the opinion of Talleyrand and
to the Emperor’s will. The story of diplomatic adventure, which has
so often an interest beyond what could be supposed possible from the
contact of three or four quiet and elderly gentlemen meeting about a
green table, or writing letters inordinately long, owes that interest
in most cases to a hope or a despair, to a mystery or an elucidation;
but Monroe’s labors at that time offered little mystery, and less hope.
Although he did not know all that was happening behind the diplomatic
curtain, he knew enough to be aware that his negotiation for Florida,
on the ground chosen by the President, was hopeless.
Three months had passed since Cevallos made his appeal to Talleyrand
for help. “If the Emperor would but say a word,” Cevallos urged;[208]
“if he would make the United States understand that he will not be
pleased at seeing them abuse their advantages,”--this would put an end
to insults like the Mobile Act and Pinckney’s threats. Talleyrand’s
answer could not be doubtful. Angry with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
and Livingston for their attack on West Florida, into which his own
and his master’s finessing had drawn them; still angrier with Pinckney
for the burlesque of Napoleonic manners with which he alarmed the
government of Spain; hostile at heart to Bonaparte’s ultimate schemes
against the Spanish empire, but determined that if Spain were to be
plundered France should have the booty; willing to repay a part of
the humiliation and disappointment which the United States had twice
inflicted upon him,--the instant the Spanish ambassador at Paris
brought the Mobile Act to his notice, Talleyrand assured him with
emphasis that the Emperor would formally oppose such pretensions on
the part of the United States;[209] and when Pinckney’s conduct was
reported to him, with the request that the Emperor would instruct
his minister at Washington to act in concert with Yrujo in order to
prevent a rupture, Talleyrand hastened to meet the wish of the Spanish
government.
Cevallos made other requests. After narrating the history of Pinckney’s
claims convention, he touched briefly on the claim for French
spoliations which the Americans so warmly urged against Spain, and he
asserted that Lucien Bonaparte had given an assurance that these claims
were covered by the Franco-American treaty of 1800, and therefore could
not be pressed against Spain. He complained that Pinckney had used
“language the most gross, the most insulting, and, so to speak, the
most audacious and menacing.” He called attention to the dangers which
would result from allowing the boundary of Louisiana to be extended
toward either Florida or Mexico; and he begged “that orders might be
sent to the French commissioner Laussat in Louisiana, enjoining him
to restrain the pretensions of the Americans regarding the limits of
that province, and not to show himself favorable to the wishes of the
Americans, as there is reason to suspect him of doing, according to his
correspondence with the Spanish commissioner.”
Laussat’s offence consisted in telling the American commissioners
that his instructions fixed the Rio Bravo as the western boundary of
Louisiana. Cevallos made no protest to Talleyrand against the truth
of Laussat’s statement. He tacitly admitted that Laussat was right;
but he invited Talleyrand to join in depriving the United States of
Texas, which the United States had bought, and the price of which they
had paid to France. That Godoy should conspire for this purpose was
natural, for he had no reason to respect the Louisiana cession, and
he had pledged his honor in no way to the United States; but that he
should ask Napoleon to deprive the United States of property which
Napoleon himself had bought from Spain and sold to the United States,
and for which he had received some millions of coin for his personal
objects and ambitions, showed that the Prince of Peace understood the
characters of Bonaparte and Talleyrand.
Talleyrand, who held that Bonaparte had made a mistake in selling
Louisiana to the United States, and who looked upon himself as having
no responsibility for the transaction, was glad to restrict what he
thought the evil that had been done. Taking the complaints of Spain to
the Emperor, he received permission to do what Spain requested; and
during the month of August he sent from the Foreign Office a series of
documents that disposed for the time of any hopes still nourished by
Jefferson’s diplomacy.
These three papers were too important to be forgotten. French
diplomatic writings were models of concise, impassive clearness,
contrasting with the diffuse and argumentative, if not disputatious,
style which sometimes characterized American and Spanish official
correspondence. These three short letters offered examples of French
methods. The first was addressed to General Turreau at Washington, and
concerned the boundaries of Louisiana toward the west:[210]--
“If the Mississippi and the Iberville trace with precision the
eastern boundary of that colony, it has less precise limits to
the westward. No river, no chain of mountains, separates it
from the Spanish possessions; and between the last settlements
of Louisiana and the first of those in the Spanish colonies are
frequently to be found intervals so great as to make a line of
demarcation difficult to agree upon. So Spain already appears to
fear that the United States, who show an intention of forcing
back the western limits of Louisiana, may propose to advance in
this direction to the ocean, and establish themselves on that
part of the American coast which lies north of California.”
Turreau was directed to divert the United States government from the
idea of extension toward the west and northwest in any manner that
might annoy Spain. He was to employ means of persuasion and friendly
influence for this purpose, rather than to act officially; all official
action being reserved for objects directly interesting France.
The second document[211] was also addressed to Turreau, but was more
decided in tone, as though the Emperor himself had dictated its
language. After a brief allusion to Pinckney’s claims convention and
the American theory that Spain was responsible for French spoliations
which she had not prevented, Talleyrand continued:--
“That convention, made under date of Aug. 11, 1802, is posterior
by--months to that which France concluded with the United
States, the 8th Vendemiaire, An ix. (30 Sept. 1800), and which
declared that no indemnity should be given for prizes made
by either of the two Powers. This Article ought to leave the
Americans no hope that prizes made against them on Spanish
shores would be excepted and paid for; it would be useless for
them to suppose that it is Spain from whom they seek these
indemnities: Spain, who would have only the advances to pay,
would afterward recur to France for reimbursement. It is,
then, upon France that this charge would ultimately fall; and
as we are relieved by the convention of Sept. 30, 1800, from
every kind of debt relating to prizes, we can only with some
surprise see the United States seeking to obtain from another
government a part of the indemnities which they had decidedly
renounced in their convention with France. Spain had doubtless
lost sight of these considerations, and had not in view this
convention of ours, when her plenipotentiary signed that of Aug.
11, 1802, which the United States now require her to ratify.
Circumstances which have since taken place have, fortunately,
furnished Spain with an occasion for retracing the false step
she took in signing this convention. The Federal government,
which by different acts relative to the Floridas has violated
the sovereign rights of Spain, and which for more than eighteen
months has refused to ratify its convention with her, has lost
the right to complain because the Court of Madrid now imitates
its refusal, and insists upon making such modifications in this
treaty as the lapse of time may make it think necessary and
better suited to its rights and dignity.”
After sending these instructions to Turreau, the French Minister for
Foreign Relations next turned to Spain, and wrote a note intended
to reassure Cevallos. The peculiar interest of this document lay in
the spirit it showed toward the United States. Cevallos had invited
an understanding as to the boundaries of Louisiana to be alleged
against the United States. These boundaries, defined eighteen months
before in the secret instructions for Victor, a copy of which was
given to Laussat, declared the Rio Bravo to be the western limit of
Louisiana:[212] “Bounded on the west by the river called Rio Bravo,
from the mouth of this stream up to the 30th parallel, beyond this
point the line of demarcation ceases to be traced, and it seems that
there has never been an agreement as to this part of the frontier.”
That Laussat meant to act on these instructions was proved by his
language to Governor Claiborne and General Wilkinson.[213] “M. Laussat
confidentially signified” to these two American commissioners that
the territory “did not comprehend any part of West Florida; adding at
the same time that it extended westwardly to the Rio Bravo, otherwise
called Rio del Norte.” Although Cevallos had remonstrated against the
indiscretion of this statement, he had not suggested that Laussat was
in error;[214] he merely invited Talleyrand to check a subordinate
officer, in order to limit American pretensions. In accordance with
this hint, Talleyrand marked for the Spanish government the line it was
to take in resisting the American claim to territory for which France
had received the purchase money.
After defining the western boundary of Florida as fixed by treaty
at the Iberville and the Mississippi rivers, the French minister
instructed the Spanish government as follows:[215]--
“The western limit of Louisiana not having been fixed in a
manner equally precise by the treaties which preceded that of
March 21, 1801, nor by that treaty itself, the uncertainty
which prevailed in regard to the direction of its frontiers
has necessarily continued since the cession made to the United
States. France could not even take upon herself to indicate
to the United States what ought to be that precise limit, for
fear of wounding on this point the pretensions of one or the
other Power directly interested in this question. It would have
become the object of negotiation between his Imperial and his
Catholic Majesties. To-day it can be treated only between Spain
and the United States. Nevertheless, as the Americans derive
their rights from France, I have been enabled to express to his
Imperial Majesty’s minister plenipotentiary near the United
States the chief bases on which the Emperor would have planted
himself in the demand for a demarcation of boundaries. Starting
from the Gulf of Mexico, we should have sought to distinguish
between settlements that belong to the kingdom of Mexico, and
settlements that had been formed by the French or by those
who succeeded them in this colony. This distinction between
settlements formed by the French or by the Spaniards would have
been made equally in ascending northwards. All those which are
of French foundation would have belonged to Louisiana; and since
European settlements in the interior are rare and scattered,
we might have imagined direct lines drawn from one to the other
to connect them; and it is to the west of this imaginary line
that the boundary between Louisiana and the Spanish possessions
would have been traced at such distance and in such direction
as France and Spain should have agreed. The great spaces which
sometimes exist between the last French settlements and the
last Spanish missions might have left still some doubts on the
direction of the boundary to be traced between them, but with
the views of friendship and conciliation which animate their
Majesties, these difficulties would have been soon smoothed
away.”
Such were, according to Talleyrand, the conciliatory intentions which
should have animated his Imperial Majesty. They were widely different
from the positive instructions formally approved by the First Consul
Nov. 26, 1802, which ordered Victor and Laussat to consider the Rio
Bravo as the boundary of their command. The difference was the whole
province of Texas.
On another point Talleyrand reassured the Spanish government.
“In any case,” said he, “the Court of Madrid would appear to
have no ground for the fear it shows that the United States
may make use of their possession of Louisiana in order to form
settlements on the northwest coast of America. Whatever boundary
may be agreed upon between Spain and the United States, the line
will necessarily be so far removed from the western coast of
America as to relieve the Court of Madrid from any anxiety on
that score.”
Yet no one knew better than Talleyrand the instincts of the American
people, and their ambition to use the entire continent for their
experiments! He knew that the First Consul, by his instructions to
Laussat, had given, so far as he could, the authority of both French
and Spanish governments to the claim of the United States that
Louisiana stretched westwardly to the Rio Bravo, and on the northwest
indefinitely to a line yet to be fixed. He knew that Laussat, who
hated the Spaniards more than he did the Americans, had betrayed the
secret. If Talleyrand hoped to repress American ambition, he must
have calculated on the effects of force or fear, or he must have been
overwhelmed by the immensity of the scale on which the Americans were
acting. The doctrine of contiguity, on which the United States could
rest their most plausible claim to Oregon, was as valid then as it ever
afterward became; and if Talleyrand did not appreciate it, Godoy proved
himself the more sagacious statesman.
By Sept. 1, 1804, these precautionary measures were completed, and
Talleyrand could wait for the coming of Monroe and Armstrong. About
the middle of October Monroe appeared in Paris. His instructions, sent
from Washington before the news of Pinckney’s extravagances had reached
America, obliged him to insist upon the right to West Florida as “a
_sine quâ non_, and no price to be given for it;”[216] to insist,
also, upon the right to Texas, but with a border-land to be kept
unsettled for thirty years; and to offer two million dollars for East
Florida beyond the Perdido. The Cabinet then for the first time decided
to commit itself to the doctrine that West Florida was a part of the
Louisiana purchase,[217] alleging as its ostensible reason, not so much
the abstract justice of the title, as the wish to avoid acknowledging
Spanish land-grants made in Florida since the Louisiana cession.
“It is indispensable,” wrote Madison, April 15, 1804, “that
the United States be not precluded from such a construction
[of the treaty],--first, because they consider the right as
well founded; secondly and principally, because it is known
that a great proportion of the most valuable lands between
the Mississippi and the Perdido have been granted by Spanish
officers since the cession was made by Spain. These illicit
speculations cannot otherwise be frustrated than by considering
the territory as included in the cession made by Spain.”
The hope that Spain might submit to these concessions rested on the
belief that she could not afford to quarrel with the United States.
Foreseeing that she must soon be drawn into the war with England, the
President from the first looked forward to that event, believing that
the same reasons which as he supposed had forced Bonaparte to cede
Louisiana, must reconcile Spain to the cession of Florida.
“Should she be engaged in the war,” wrote Madison to Monroe,
“or manifestly threatened with that situation, she cannot fail
to be the more anxious for a solid accommodation on all points
with the United States, and the more willing to yield, for that
purpose, to terms which, however proper in themselves, might
otherwise be rejected by her pride and misapplied jealousy.”
The first part of this calculation was realized even before Monroe
quitted London. Oct. 1, 1804, a British squadron seized the Spanish
treasure-ships on their voyage from America; and no one doubted that
Spain must declare war. She did so a few weeks later, December 12,
before Monroe reached Madrid. The effect of this new disaster on what
Madison called her “misapplied jealousy” remained to be seen.
The only published record of Monroe’s stay in Paris is contained
in a note dated Nov. 8, 1804, which he persuaded Livingston to
convey to Talleyrand. Although Livingston’s temper was peculiar, and
his diplomacy under ordinary circumstances restless, he was well
acquainted with the men who governed France; and he had little faith
in another man’s ability to do what he had himself attempted in vain.
That Livingston should be jealous of Monroe’s presence in Paris was
natural; for the American minister at London was not accredited to the
Emperor, and his interference could do nothing but harm to the actual
minister at Paris. When asked to act as medium for Monroe’s proposed
communications with Talleyrand, Livingston made objections. Not until
Armstrong arrived, about November 1, did the ministers agree upon the
terms of the note, and send it to its address. Monroe had then been one
month absent from London.
Nothing could be more courteous than the tone of Monroe’s letter, which
ignored Pinckney’s conduct, and breathed a spirit of benevolence.[218]
The object of writing was to ask the Emperor’s good offices in support
of the negotiation to be opened at Madrid; and in order to reach this
end, Monroe touched on the story of his present mission, recounting
the causes of the previous quarrel with Spain, and alluding to West
Florida, the spoliation claims, the claims for damages rising from
Morales’s occlusion of the Mississippi, and to the Mobile Act, which,
as Monroe admitted, was intended to authorize the taking immediate
possession of Florida. The only offensive idea suggested in the note
was that the Spanish occupation of Florida implied an aggression
against the United States, “which tends to provoke hostility and lead
to war.”
The note combining the diplomacy of three ministers was sent; and
the three diplomatists waited in fear of what would follow, dreading
nothing so much as Talleyrand’s answer. They had reason to know that it
would be unfavorable, and that at least on the question of West Florida
Talleyrand had already committed himself against the United States.
They were told, too, that on reading their note Napoleon showed great
irritation. Besides this, they had other causes of alarm. Within three
days after Monroe’s arrival at Paris, Marbois, his best friend among
Napoleon’s ministers, told him that the question was one of money:[219]
“Such was the situation of Spain at this time, that he was persuaded if
we would make her suitable pecuniary accommodations we might succeed.”
M. Hauterive, another gentleman within the circle of government, soon
afterward repeated the remark: “Spain must cede territory; the United
States must pay money.” Care was taken to let Monroe understand that
once this principle should be agreed upon, France would cause the
negotiation to be transferred to Paris. Armstrong soon afterward wrote
to Madison, alluding to the story in regard to the Emperor:[220]--
“This country has determined to convert the negotiation into a
job, and to draw from it advantages merely pecuniary to herself,
or, in other language, to her agents. It is this venality that
explains her present reserve, the degree of excitement displayed
by the Emperor on reading the note, and the marked incivility
with which Mr. Monroe was treated by Talleyrand. Since his
departure, repeated intimations have been given to me that if
certain persons could be sufficiently gratified, the negotiation
should be transferred hither, and brought to a close with which
we should have no reason to find fault.”
Monroe, though honest as any man in public life, and more courageous
in great emergencies than some of his friends or rivals, was commonly
not quick at catching an idea, nor did he see it at last from a great
elevation; but in this instance the idea was thrust so persistently
into his face, that had he been blind he could not have missed it.
Nothing could more clearly explain his situation than the language of
the diary in which he recorded, for the President’s benefit, the daily
course of his conduct.
“No other alternative,” he explained,[221] “presented itself
to me than to abandon the object and return to London, or to
submit to the terms which it was sufficiently well understood
France was willing to accept, and seemed in some measure to
dictate, which amounted to this: that we should create a new
loan of about seventy millions of livres, and transfer the same
to Spain, who would immediately pass them over to France, in
consideration of which we should be put in possession of the
disputed territory, under stipulations which should provide for
the adjustment of the ultimate right there, and reimbursement of
the money by instalment in seven years.”
“To submit to the terms proposed was altogether out of the question,”
continued Monroe. Having led his Government to take the ground that
West Florida had already been bought, he could not enter into a
negotiation to buy it a second time. His instructions made this point
a _sine quâ non_ of negotiation. Recognizing that under these
circumstances further effort was useless, or in his own words that no
other alternative presented itself but to abandon the object and return
to London, Monroe intimated to Talleyrand that he meant not only to pay
no money, but also to negotiate in spite of Napoleon; and started for
Madrid.
“I did not hesitate,” he wrote home,[222] “in many informal
communications, the substance of which I was persuaded were
made known to those in power, to declare most solemnly that
I would sanction no measure which contemplated a payment of
money to Spain in any transaction we might have with her in the
affair,--by which was meant, by creation of stock or otherwise
which took the money from our people; that neither the state of
things between the parties, the example of France in a similar
case, or my instructions, permitted it. These conversations were
with a person who possessed the confidence of certain persons in
power, as well as my own, though they were not of a nature to
compromit either party. That circumstance enabled me to speak
with the utmost freedom, and perhaps to say things which it
might have been difficult to press directly in the same manner
to the parties themselves.”
In thus defying France, Monroe, if he resembled European diplomatists,
must have aimed at giving his Government an opportunity to break with
the Emperor and to proceed against Florida by means of force. That he
should have still hoped for success in negotiating at Madrid was hardly
possible. Armstrong thought his chance desperate.[223]
“Mr. Monroe has no doubt communicated to you,” he wrote to the
Secretary of State, “the motives which induced him to leave
England in prosecution of his mission to Spain, and while here
to attempt to draw from this Government some new declaration
in support of our construction of the late treaty. With this
view a note was prepared and transmitted through Livingston,
the receipt of which was acknowledged by Mr. Talleyrand with a
promise that ‘an answer should be given to it as soon as the
Emperor should have signified his will on the subject.’ Having
waited nearly a month, and no answer being given, having some
reason to believe that any declaration from this Court now would
be less favorable than those already made, and fearful lest
something might be lost at Madrid, while nothing could be gained
here, he set out on the 8th instant for Spain. I have but little
hope, however, that he will be able to do more than fulfil the
forms of his mission.”
Armstrong preferred, as he expressed it, “an effort (which cannot fail)
to do the business at home.” He had already discovered that the Emperor
was personally irritated with the Americans, that he took no pains to
conceal it, and that this irritation was a cause of his reserve.
“I have employed every means in my power to ascertain the cause
of this cause, and have learned from a person sufficiently
near him to know the fact, that this temper originated in
representations made by Leclerc and others from St. Domingo;
that it has since been kept alive by the incident of the war in
that country, the trade carried on between it and the United
States, the freedom with which he is treated in our press, the
matrimonial connection of Jerome, and, above all, the support
which principles he wishes to extinguish in France receive from
the progressing prosperity of the United States.”
With Napoleon in this frame of mind; with Godoy and Cevallos in a
humor far worse; and with Talleyrand in such a temper as not to allow
of his treating Monroe with civility,--the American plenipotentiary
departed to Madrid, hoping that something might occur to overcome his
difficulties. During his journey, Charles IV. declared war against
England. This long-foreseen event, which should have brought Spain to
terms with the United States, in fact threw her only at the feet of
Napoleon. Henceforward every offence to Spain was an offence to France,
which the Emperor was the more bound to resent because by treaty he
must regard a war upon Charles IV. as a war upon himself.
Talleyrand was not vindictive, but he had been twice mortified by the
failure of his policy toward America. If his callous cheek could burn,
it was still red with the blow which the last President of the United
States had struck it; and no waters of oblivion could drown in his
memory the cry of distress with which he had then begged for mercy. He
had been again overthrown by the present President, and obliged to sell
Louisiana, turn his back on the traditions of France, and shut up his
far-reaching mind within the limit of his master’s artillery politics.
Day by day he saw more clearly that soldiership, and not statecraft,
was to guide the destinies of France, and that the new _régime_
was but revolution without ideas. He had probably begun already to
feel that the presence of his coldly silent face was becoming irksome
to a will which revolted at the memory of a remonstrance. Talleyrand
was corrupt,--perhaps he thought himself more corrupt than he was; but
his political instincts were sounder than his private morality. He was
incarnate conservatism; but he was wider-minded and more elevated in
purpose than Napoleon. He had no faith in Napoleon’s methods, and was
particularly hostile to his projects against Spain; but in respect to
Monroe and his mission, Talleyrand’s ideas coincided with those of
the Emperor; and when two such men marked out a victim, his chance of
escape was small.
Talleyrand was not to blame that Monroe’s note remained unanswered
before Monroe left Paris. About ten days after receiving it Talleyrand
made to the Emperor a report on the subject, so cool and clear as to
read like a mathematical demonstration.[224]
“The United States,” he began, “who wish to negotiate at Madrid
under the auspices of France for the acquisition of Florida,
have acquired little title to the good offices of the Emperor by
the sharpness of tone and the want of civility (_égards_)
with which they have conducted themselves toward Spain.”
After enumerating the threats and aggressions of the United States
government against Spain during the last three years, the report
disposed of the American claims, one by one, in few words. First, the
spoliations, which had been formally abandoned by treaty; second, the
claim for losses rising from the interruption of _entrepôt_ at New
Orleans, which “should be terminated by the treaty of cession,--the
acquisition of an immense country might throw out of view some anterior
losses;” finally, the claim to West Florida,--a species of attack on
the Emperor’s dignity and good faith which merited some expression of
his displeasure. To support this view, Talleyrand related the history
of the French negotiation for West Florida and its failure, commenting
on the manner in which the Americans had fabricated their claim, and
coming at last to a conclusion studiously moderate, and evidently in
harmony with the views of Hauterive as expressed to Monroe. Talleyrand
rarely wrote such papers with his own hand; probably they were drawn
up under his directions by Hauterive, or some other subordinate of the
Office, in the form of suggestions rather than advice.
“According to such evidence, no one can suppose the United
States to be convinced of the justice of their rights; and we
are warranted in thinking that the Federal government, as a
result of confidence in its own strength, of its ambition, and
its ascendency in America, raises pretensions to a part of
Florida in order to show itself afterward more exacting toward
Spain. The Emperor will feel that justice requires him not to
recognize such pretensions. If he should assist by his good
offices an arrangement between the United States and Spain, he
would wish good faith and impartiality for its base.
Only in case the United States should desist from their
unjust pretensions to West Florida, and return to the forms
of civility and decorum,--from which in their relations with
each other governments should never depart,--could the Emperor
allow himself to second at the Court of Madrid the project of
acquisition of the two Floridas. Then perhaps the Emperor might
think that this country is less suited to Spain now that it is
separated from her other colonies, and that it is better suited
to the United States because a part of their Western rivers
cross the Floridas before flowing into the Gulf of Mexico; and
finally, that Spain may see in her actual situation, and in the
expenses entailed on her by the war, some motives for listening
to the offers of the Federal government.”
Talleyrand had great need to insist on “the forms of civility and
decorum from which governments should never depart”! Perhaps Talleyrand
already foresaw the scene, said to have occurred some two years later,
when Napoleon violently denounced him to his face as “a silk stocking
stuffed with filth,” and the minister coldly retaliated by the famous
phrase, “Pity that so great a man should be so ill brought up!” The
task of teaching manners to Jefferson was not Napoleon’s view of his
own functions in the world. He probably gave more attention to the
concluding lines of the report, which suggested that he should decide
whether a Spanish colony, made worthless by an arbitrary act of his
own, could be usefully employed in sustaining his wars.
This report, dated Nov. 19, 1804, lay some weeks in the Emperor’s
hands. Monroe left Paris for Madrid December 8, and still no answer had
been sent to his note. He wrote from Bordeaux, December 16, a long and
interesting letter to Madison, and resumed his journey. He could hardly
have crossed the Bidassoa when Armstrong received from Talleyrand,
December 21, the long-expected answer,[225] which by declaring the
claim to West Florida emphatically unfounded struck the ground from
under Monroe’s feet, and left him to repent at leisure his defiance of
Talleyrand’s advice. Under the forms of perfect courtesy, this letter
contained both sarcasm and menace. Talleyrand expressed curiosity to
learn the result of Monroe’s negotiation:--
“This result his Imperial Majesty will learn with real interest.
He saw with pain the United States commence their difficulties
with Spain in an unusual manner, and conduct themselves toward
the Floridas by acts of violence which, not being founded in
right, could have no other effect but to injure the lawful
owner. Such an aggression gave the more surprise to his Majesty
because the United States seemed in this measure to avail
themselves of their treaty with France as an authority for their
proceedings, and because he could scarcely reconcile with the
just opinion which he entertains of the wisdom and fidelity of
the Federal government a course of proceedings which nothing
can authorize toward a Power which has long occupied, and still
occupies, one of the first ranks in Europe.”
Madison and Monroe, as well as Jefferson, in the course of their
diplomacy had many mortifications to suffer; but they rarely received
a reprimand more keen than this. Yet its sharpness was so delicately
covered by the habitual forms of Talleyrand’s diplomacy that Americans,
who were accustomed to hear and to use strong language, hardly felt the
wound it was intended to inflict. After hearing Yrujo denounce an act
of their government as an “atrocious libel,” they were not shocked to
hear Talleyrand denounce the same act as one of violence which nothing
could authorize. The force of Talleyrand’s language was more apparent
to Godoy than to Madison, for it bore out every expression of Yrujo
and Cevallos. The Prince of Peace received a copy of Talleyrand’s
note at the moment when Monroe, after almost a month of weary winter
travel, joined Pinckney, who had for six months been employed only in
writing letter after letter begging for succor and support. Don Pedro
Cevallos, with this public pledge in his hand, and with secret French
pledges covering every point of the negotiation in his desk, could
afford to meet with good humor the first visit of the new American
plenipotentiary.
Pinckney’s humiliation was extreme. After breaking off relations with
Cevallos and pledging himself to demand his passports and to leave
Spain, he had been reduced to admit that his Government disavowed him;
and not only was he obliged to remain at Madrid, but also to sue for
permission to resume relations with Cevallos. The Spanish government
good-naturedly and somewhat contemptuously permitted him to do so; and
he was only distressed by the fear that Monroe might refuse to let him
take part in the new negotiation, for he was with reason confident
that Monroe would be obliged to follow in his own footsteps,--that the
United States could save its dignity and influence only by war.
At the beginning of the new year, Jan. 2, 1805, Monroe entered Madrid
to snatch Florida from the grasp of Spain and France. The negotiation
fell chiefly within Jefferson’s second term, upon which it had serious
results. But while Monroe, busy at Madrid with a quarrel which could
lead only to disappointment or war, thus left the legation at London
for eight months to take care of itself, events were occurring which
warned President Jefferson that the supreme test of his principles was
near at hand, and that a storm was threatening from the shores of Great
Britain compared with which all other dangers were trivial.
CHAPTER XIV.
For eighteen years after 1783 William Pitt guided England through peace
and war with authority almost as absolute as that of Don Carlos IV. or
Napoleon himself. From him and from his country President Jefferson
had much to fear and nothing to gain beyond a continuance of the good
relations which President Washington, with extreme difficulty, had
succeeded in establishing between the two peoples. So far as England
was concerned, this understanding had been the work of Pitt and Lord
Grenville, who rather imposed it on their party than accepted it as the
result of any public will. The extreme perils in which England then
stood inspired caution; and of this caution the treaty of 1794 was one
happy result. So long as the British government remained in a cautious
spirit, America was safe; but should Pitt or his successors throw off
the self-imposed restraints on England’s power, America could at the
utmost, even by a successful war, gain nothing materially better than a
return to the arrangements of 1794.
The War of Independence, which ended in the definitive treaty of 1783,
naturally left the English people in a state of irritation and disgust
toward America; and the long interregnum of the Confederation, from
1783 to 1789, allowed this disgust to ripen into contempt. When at
length the Constitution of 1789 restored order in the American chaos,
England felt little faith in the success of the experiment. She waited
for time to throw light on her interests.
This delay was natural; for American independence had shattered
into fragments the commercial system of Great Britain, and powerful
interests were combined to resist further concession. Before 1776 the
colonies of England stretched from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi,
and across the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of South America, mutually
supporting and strengthening each other. Jamaica and the other British
islands of the West Indies drew their most necessary supplies from the
Delaware and the Hudson. Boston and New York were in some respects
more important to them than London itself. The timber, live-stock, and
provisions which came from the neighboring continent were essential to
the existence of the West Indian planters and negroes. When war cut off
these supplies, famine and pestilence followed. After the peace of 1783
even the most conservative English statesmen were obliged to admit that
the strictness of their old colonial system could not be maintained,
and that the United States, though independent, must be admitted to
some of the privileges of a British colony. The government unwillingly
conceded what could not be refused, and the West Indian colonists
compelled Parliament to relax the colonial system so far as to allow
a restricted intercourse between their islands and the ports of the
United States. The relaxation was not a favor to the United States,--it
was a condition of existence to the West Indies; not a boon, but a
right which the colonists claimed and an Act of Parliament defined.[226]
The right was dearly paid for. The islands might buy American timber
and grain, but they were allowed to make return only in molasses and
rum. Payment in sugar would have been cheaper for the colonists, and
the planters wished for nothing more earnestly than to be allowed this
privilege; but as often as they raised the prayer, English shipowners
cried that the navigation laws were in peril, and a chorus of familiar
phrases filled the air, all carrying a deep meaning to the English
people. “Nursery of seamen” was one favorite expression; “Neutral
frauds” another; and all agreed in assuming that at whatever cost, and
by means however extravagant, the navy must be fed and strengthened.
Under the cover of supporting the navy any absurdity could be defended;
and in the case of the West Indian trade, the British shipowner enjoyed
the right to absurdities sanctioned by a century and a half of law and
custom. The freight on British sugars belonged of right to British
shippers, who could not be expected to surrender of their own accord,
in obedience to any laws of political economy, a property which was the
source of their incomes. The colonists asked permission to refine their
own sugar; but their request not only roused strong opposition from
the shipowners who wanted the bulkier freight, but started the home
sugar-refiners to their feet, who proved by Acts of Parliament that
sugar-refining was a British and not a colonial right. The colonist
then begged a reduction of the heavy duty on sugar; but English country
gentlemen cried against a measure which might lead to an increase of
the income-tax or the imposition of some new burden on agriculture. In
this dilemma the colonists frankly said that only their weakness, not
their will, prevented them from declaring themselves independent, like
their neighbors at Charleston and Philadelphia.
Even when the qualified right of trade was conceded, the colonists were
not satisfied; and the concession itself laid the foundation of more
serious changes. From the moment that American produce was admitted
to be a necessity for the colonists, it was clear that the Americans
must be allowed a voice in the British system. Discussion whether the
Americans had or had not a right to the colonial trade was already
a long step toward revolution. One British minister after another
resented the idea that the Americans had any rights in the matter;
yet when they came to practical arrangements the British statesmen
were obliged to concede that they were mistaken. From the necessity of
the case, the Americans had rights which never could be successfully
denied. Parliament struggled to prevent the rebel Americans from
sharing in the advantages of the colonial system from which they had
rebelled; but unreasonable as it was that the United States should be
rewarded for rebellion by retaining the privileges of subjects, this
was the inevitable result. Geography and Nature were stronger than
Parliament and the British navy.
At first Pitt hoped that the concession to the colonists might entail
no concession to the United States; while admitting a certain hiatus
in the colonial system, he tried to maintain the navigation laws in
their integrity. The admission of American produce into the West
Indies was no doubt an infraction of the protectionist principle on
which all the civilized world, except America, founded its economical
ideas; but in itself it was not serious. To allow the flour, potatoes,
tobacco, timber, and horses of the American continent to enter the
harbors of Barbadoes and Jamaica; to allow in turn the molasses and
rum of the islands to be sent directly to New York and Boston,--harmed
no one, and was advantageous to all parties, so long as British ships
were employed to carry on the trade. At first this was the case. The
Act of Parliament allowed only British subjects, in British-built
ships, to enter colonial ports with American produce. Whether the
United States government would long tolerate such legislation without
countervailing measures was a question which remained open for a time,
while the system itself had a chance to prove its own weakness. The
British shipping did not answer colonial objects. Again and again the
colonists found themselves on the verge of starvation; and always
in this emergency the colonial governors threw open their ports
by proclamation to American shipping, while with equal regularity
Parliament protected the governors by Acts of Indemnity. To this extent
the navigation system suffered together with the colonial system, but
in theory it was intact. Ministry, Parliament, and people clung to the
navigation laws as their ark of safety; and even the colonists conceded
that although they had a right to eat American wheat and potatoes,
they had no right to eat those which came to them in the hold of a
Marblehead schooner.
Such a principle, however convenient to Great Britain, was not suited
to the interests of New England shippers. In peace their chances were
comparatively few, and the chief diplomatic difficulties between
European governments and the United States had their source in the
American attempt to obtain legal recognition of trade which America
wished to maintain with the colonies; but in war the situation changed,
and more serious disputes occurred. Then the French and Spanish West
Indian ports were necessarily thrown open to neutral commerce, because
their own ships were driven from the ocean by the superiority of the
British navy. Besides the standing controversy about the admission
of American produce to British islands, the British government found
itself harassed by doubts to what extent it might safely admit the
Americans into the French or Spanish West Indies, and allow them to
carry French property, as though their flag were competent to protect
whatever was under it. Granting that an article like French sugar
might be carried in a neutral vessel, there were still other articles,
called contraband, which ought not to be made objects of neutral
commerce; and England was obliged to define the nature of contraband.
She was also forced to make free use of the right of blockade. These
delicate questions were embittered by another and more serious quarrel.
The European belligerents claimed the right to the military service of
their subjects, and there was no doubt that their right was perfect.
In pursuance of the claim they insisted upon taking their seamen from
American merchant-vessels wherever met on the high seas. So far as
France was concerned, the annoyance was slight; but the identity of
race made the practice extremely troublesome as concerned England.
At the outbreak of the French wars, Nov. 6, 1793, the British
government issued instructions directing all British armed vessels to
seize every neutral ship they should meet, loaded with the produce of
a French colony or carrying supplies for its use.[227] These orders
were kept secret for several weeks, until the whole American commerce
with the Antilles, and all American ships found on the ocean, laden in
whole or in part with articles of French colonial produce or for French
colonial use, were surprised and swept into British harbors, where they
were condemned by British admiralty courts, on the ground known as the
“Rule of the War of 1756,”--that because trade between the French
colonies and the United States was illegal in peace, it was illegal in
war. From the point of view in which European Powers regarded their
colonies, much could be said in support of this rule. A colony was
almost as much the property of its home government as a dockyard or a
military station. France and Spain could hardly complain if England
chose to treat the commerce of such governmentstations as contraband;
but a rule which might perhaps be applied by European governments to
each other worked with great injustice when applied to the United
States, who had no colonies, and made no attempt to build up a navy
or support an army by such means. Taken in its broadest sense, the
European colonial system might be defined by the description which the
best of British commentators gave to that of England,[228]--a “policy
pursued for rendering the foreign trade of the whole world subservient
to the increase of her shipping and navigation.” American Independence
was a protest against this practice; and the first great task of the
United States was to overthrow and destroy the principle, in order to
substitute freedom of trade. America naturally objected to becoming a
martyr to the rules of a system which she was trying to revolutionize.
When these British instructions of Nov. 26, 1793, became known in
the United States, the Government of President Washington imposed an
embargo, threatened retaliation, and sent Chief-Justice Jay to London
as a last chance of maintaining peace. On arriving there, Jay found
that Pitt had already voluntarily retreated from his ground, and that
new Orders, dated Jan. 8, 1794, had been issued, exempting from seizure
American vessels engaged in the direct trade from the United States to
the French West Indies. In the end, the British government paid the
value of the confiscated vessels. The trade from the United States to
Europe was not interfered with; and thus American ships were allowed
to carry French colonial produce through an American port to France,
while Russian or Danish ships were forbidden by England to carry such
produce to Europe at all, although their flags and harbors were as
neutral as those of the United States. America became suddenly a much
favored nation, and the enemies of England attributed this unexpected
kindness to fear. In truth it was due to a natural mistake. The British
Treasury calculated that the expense and trouble of carrying sugar and
coffee from Martinique or St. Domingo to Boston, of landing it, paying
duties, re-embarking it, receiving the drawback, and then carrying it
to Bordeaux or Brest, would be such as to give ample advantages to
English vessels which could transship more conveniently at London. The
mistake soon became apparent. The Americans quickly proved that they
could under these restrictions carry West Indian produce to Europe
not only more cheaply than British ships could do it, but almost as
quickly; while it was a positive advantage on the return voyage to make
double freight by stopping at an American port. The consequence of
this discovery was seen in the sudden increase of American shipping,
and was largely due to the aid of British seamen, who found in the
new service better pay, food, and treatment than in their own, and
comparative safety from the press-gang and the lash. At the close of
the century the British flag seemed in danger of complete exclusion
from the harbors of the United States. In 1790 more than 550 British
ships, with a capacity of more than 115,000 tons, had entered inward
and outward, representing about half that number of actual vessels;
in 1799 the custom-house returns showed not 100 entries, and in 1800
about 140, representing a capacity of 40,000 tons. In the three years
1790–1792, the returns showed an average of some 280 outward and inward
entries of American ships with a capacity of 54,000 tons; in 1800 the
entries were 1,057, with a capacity of 236,000 tons. The Americans were
not only beginning to engross the direct trade between their own ports
and Europe, but were also rapidly obtaining the indirect carrying-trade
between the West Indies and the European continent, and even between
one European country and another. The British government began to
feel seriously uneasy. At a frightful cost the people of England were
striving to crush the navies and commerce of France and Spain, only to
build up the power of a dangerous rival beyond the ocean.
Doubtless the British government would have taken measures to correct
its mistake, if the political situation had not hampered its energies.
Chief-Justice Jay, in 1794, negotiated a treaty with Lord Grenville
which was in some respects very hard upon the United States, but was
inestimably valuable to them, because it tied Pitt’s hands and gave
time for the new American Constitution to acquire strength. Ten years
of steady progress were well worth any temporary concessions, even
though these concessions exasperated France, and roused irritation
between her and the United States which in 1798 became actual
hostility. The prospect that the United States would become the ally
of England was so fair that Pitt dared not disturb it. His government
was in a manner forced to give American interests free play, and to
let American shipping gain a sudden and unnatural enlargement. His
liberality was well paid. For a moment France drove the United States
to reprisals; and as the immediate consequence, St. Domingo became
practically independent, owing to the support given by the United
States to Toussaint. Even the reconciliation of France with America
effected by Bonaparte and Talleyrand in 1800 did not at first redress
the balance. Not till the Peace of Amiens, in 1802, did France recover
her colonies; and not till a year later did Bonaparte succeed, by the
sacrifice of Louisiana, in bringing the United States back to their old
attitude of jealousy toward England.
Nevertheless, indications had not been wanting that England was aware
of the advantage she had given to American commerce, and still better
of the advantages which had been given it by Nature. All the Acts
of Parliament on the statute-book could not prevent the West Indies
from being largely dependent on the United States; yet the United
States need not be allowed the right to carry West Indian produce to
France,--a right which depended only on so-called international law,
and was worthless unless supported by the stronger force. A new Order
was issued, Jan. 25, 1798, which admitted European neutrals to enemies’
colonies, and allowed them to bring French colonial produce to England
or to their own ports. This Order was looked upon as a side-blow at
American shipping, which was not allowed the same privilege of sailing
direct from the Antilles to Europe. The new Order was justified on the
ground that the old rule discriminated in favor of American merchants,
whose competition might be injurious to the commercial interests of
England.[229]
Further than this the British government did not then go; on the
contrary, it officially confirmed the existing arrangement. The British
courts of admiralty conformed closely to the rules of their political
chiefs. Sir William Scott, better known as Lord Stowell, whose great
reputation as a judge was due to the remarkable series of judgments
in which he created a new system of admiralty law, announced with his
usual clearness the rules by which he meant to be guided. In the case
of the “Emmanuel,” in November, 1799, he explained the principle on
which the law permitted neutrals to carry French produce from their
own country to France. “By importation,” he said, “the produce became
part of the national stock of the neutral country; the inconveniences
of aggravated delay and expense were a safeguard against this right
becoming a special convenience to France or a serious abridgement of
belligerent rights.” Soon afterward, in the case of the “Polly,” April
29, 1800, he took occasion to define what he meant by importation into
a neutral country. He said it was not his business to decide what was
universally the test of a _bona fide_ importation; but he was
strongly disposed to hold that it would be sufficient if the goods were
proved to have been landed and the duties paid; and he did accordingly
rule that such proof was sufficient to answer the fair demands of his
court.
Rufus King, then American minister in London, succeeded in obtaining
from Pitt an express acceptance of this rule as binding on the
government. On the strength of a report[230] from the King’s Advocate,
dated March 16, 1801, the British Secretary of State notified the
American minister that what Great Britain considered as the general
principle of colonial trade had been relaxed in a certain degree in
consideration of the present state of commerce. Neutrals might import
French colonial produce, and convey it by re-exportation to France.
Landing the goods and paying the duties in America legalized the trade,
even though these goods were at once re-shipped and forwarded to
France on account of the same owners.
With this double guaranty Jefferson began his administration, and the
American merchants continued their profitable business. Not only did
they build and buy large numbers of vessels, and borrow all the capital
they could obtain, but doubtless some French and Spanish merchants,
besides a much greater number of English, made use of the convenient
American flag. The Yankees exulted loudly over the decline of British
shipping in their harbors; the British masters groaned to see
themselves sacrificed by their own government; and the British admirals
complained bitterly that their prize-money was cut off, and that they
were wearing out their lives in the hardest service, in order to foster
a commerce of smugglers and perjurers, whose only protection was the
flag of a country that had not a single line-of-battle ship to fly it.
Yet President Jefferson had reason to weigh long and soberly the
pointed remark with which the King’s Advocate began his report,--that
the general principle with respect to the colonial trade had been to
a certain extent relaxed in consideration of the present state of
commerce. No doubt the British pretension, as a matter of international
law, was outrageous. The so-called rule of 1756 was neither more nor
less than a rule of force; but when was international law itself
anything more than a law of force? The moment a nation found itself
unable to show some kind of physical defence for its protection, the
wisdom of Grotius and Bynkershoek could not prevent it from being
plundered; and how could President Jefferson complain merely because
American ships were forbidden by England to carry French sugars to
France, when he looked on without a protest while England and France
committed much greater outrages on every other country within their
reach?
President Jefferson believed that the United States had ample means
to resist any British pretension. As his letters to Paine and Logan
showed, he felt that European Powers could be controlled through the
interests of commerce.[231] He was the more firmly convinced by the
extraordinary concessions which Pitt had made, and by the steady
encouragement he gave to the American merchant. Jefferson felt sure
that England could not afford to sacrifice a trade of some forty
million dollars, and that her colonies could not exist without access
to the American market. What need to spend millions on a navy, when
Congress, as Jefferson believed, already grasped England by the throat,
and could suffocate her by a mere turn of the wrist!
This reasoning had much in its favor. To Pitt the value of the American
trade at a time of war with France and Spain was immense; and when
taken in connection with the dependence of the West Indian colonies on
America, it made a combination of British interests centring in the
United States which much exceeded the entire value of all England’s
other branches of foreign commerce. Its prospective value was still
greater if things should remain as they were, and if England should
continue to undersell all rivals in articles of general manufacture.
England could well afford to lose great sums of money in the form of
neutral freights rather than drive Congress to a protective system
which should create manufactures of cotton, woollen, and iron. These
were motives which had their share in the civility with which England
treated America; and year by year their influence should naturally have
increased.
Of all British markets the American was the most valuable; but next
to the American market was that of the West Indies. In some respects
the West Indian was of the two the better worth preserving. From head
to foot the planters and their half-million negroes were always clad
in cottons or linens made by the clothiers of Yorkshire, Wiltshire,
or Belfast. Every cask and hoop, every implement and utensil, was
supplied from the British Islands. The sailing of a West Indian convoy
was “an epoch in the diary of every shop and warehouse throughout
the Kingdom.”[232] The West Indian colonies employed, including the
fisheries, above a thousand sail of shipping and twenty-five thousand
seamen. While America might, and one day certainly would, manufacture
for herself, the West Indies could not even dream of it; there the
only profitable or practicable industry was cultivation of the
soil, and the chief article of cultivation was the sugar-cane. Rival
industries to those of Great Britain were impossible; the only danger
that threatened British control was the loss of naval supremacy or the
revolt of the negroes.
A great majority of British electors would certainly have felt no
hesitation in deciding, as between the markets of the United States and
of the West Indies, that if a choice must be made, good policy required
the government to save at all hazards the West Indies. Both as a
permanent market for manufactures and as a steady support for shipping,
the West Indian commerce held the first place in British interests.
This fact needed to be taken into account by the United States
government before relying with certainty on the extent to which Great
Britain could be controlled by the interests involved in the American
trade. At the most critical moment all Jefferson’s calculations might
be upset by the growth of a conviction in England that the colonial
system was in serious danger; and to make this chance stronger, another
anxiety was so closely connected with it as to cause incessant alarm in
the British mind.
The carrying-trade between the French West Indies and Europe which
had thus fallen into American hands, added to the natural increase
of national exports and imports, required a large amount of
additional shipping; and what was more directly hostile to English
interests, it drew great numbers of British sailors into the American
merchant-service. The desertion of British seamen and the systematic
encouragement offered to deserters in every seaport of the Union were
serious annoyances, which the American government was unable to excuse
or correct. Between 1793 and 1801 they reached the proportions of a
grave danger to the British service. Every British government packet
which entered the port of New York during the winter before Jefferson’s
accession to power lost almost every seaman in its crew; and neither
people nor magistrates often lent help to recover them. At Norfolk
the crew of a British ship deserted to an American sloop-of-war,
whose commander, while admitting the fact, refused to restore the
men, alleging his construction of official orders in his excuse.[233]
In most American harbors such protection as the British shipmaster
obtained sprang from the personal good-will of magistrates, who without
strict legal authority consented to apply, for the benefit of the
foreign master, the merchant-shipping law of the United States; but
in one serious case even this voluntary assistance was stopped by the
authority of a State government.
This interference was due to the once famous dispute over Jonathan
Robbins, which convulsed party politics in America during the heated
election of 1800. Thomas Nash, a boatswain on the British frigate
“Hermione,” having been ringleader in conspiracy and murder on the high
seas, was afterward identified in the United States under the name
and with the papers of Jonathan Robbins of Danbury, in Connecticut.
On a requisition from the British minister, dated June 3, 1799, he
was delivered under the extradition clause of Jay’s treaty, and was
hung. The Republican party, then in opposition, declared that Robbins,
or Nash, was in their belief an American citizen whose surrender was
an act of base subservience to Great Britain. An effigy of Robbins
hanging to a gibbet was a favorite electioneering device at public
meetings. The State of Virginia, having a similar grievance of its own,
went so far as to enact a law[234] which forbade, under the severest
penalties, any magistrate who acted under authority of the State to
be instrumental in transporting any person out of its jurisdiction.
As citizens of the Union, sworn to support the Constitution, such
magistrates were equally bound with the Federal judges to grant
warrants of commitment, under the Twenty-seventh Article of Jay’s
treaty, against persons accused of specified crimes. The Virginia
Act directly contravened the treaty; while indirectly it prevented
magistrates from granting warrants against deserters and holding them
in custody, so that every English vessel which entered a Virginia port
was at once abandoned by her crew, who hastened to enter the public or
private ships of the United States.[235]
The captain of any British frigate which might happen to run into the
harbor of New York, if he went ashore, was likely to meet on his return
to the wharf some of his boat’s crew strolling about the town, every
man supplied with papers of American citizenship. This was the more
annoying, because American agents in British ports habitually claimed
and received the benefit of the British law; while so far as American
papers were concerned, no pretence was made of concealing the fraud,
but they were issued in any required quantity, and were transferred for
a few dollars from hand to hand.
Not only had the encouragement to desertion a share in the decline
of British shipping in American harbors, but it also warranted, and
seemed almost to render necessary, the only countervailing measure
the British government could employ. Whatever happened to the
merchant-service, the British navy could not be allowed to suffer.
England knew no conscription for her armies, because for centuries she
had felt no need of general military service; but at any moment she
might compel her subjects to bear arms, if circumstances required it.
Her necessities were greater on the ocean. There, from time immemorial,
a barbarous sort of conscription, known as impressment, had been
the ordinary means of supplying the royal navy in emergencies; and
every seafaring man was liable to be dragged at any moment from his
beer-cellar or coasting-vessel to man the guns of a frigate on its way
to a three-years’ cruise in the West Indies or the Mediterranean. Mere
engagement in a foreign merchant-service did not release the British
sailor from his duty. When the captain of a British frigate overhauled
an American merchant-vessel for enemy’s property or contraband of
war, he sent an officer on board who mustered the crew, and took
out any seamen whom he believed to be British. The measure, as the
British navy regarded it, was one of self-protection. If the American
government could not or would not discourage desertion, the naval
commander would recover his men in the only way he could. Thus a circle
of grievances was established on each side. Pitt’s concessions to the
United States irritated the British navy and merchant-marine, while
they gave great profits to American shipping; the growth of American
shipping stimulated desertions from the British service to the extent
of injuring its efficiency; and these desertions in their turn led to
a rigorous exercise of the right of impressment. To find some point
at which this vicious circle could be broken was a matter of serious
consequence to both countries, but most so to the one which avowed that
it did not mean to protect its interests by force.
Great Britain could have broken the circle by increasing the pay
and improving the condition of her seamen; but she was excessively
conservative, and the burdens already imposed on her commerce were so
great that she could afford to risk nothing. In the face of a combined
navy like that of Spain and France, her control of the seas at any
given point, such as the West Indies, was still doubtful; and in the
face of American competition, her huge convoys suffered under great
disadvantage. Conscious of her own power, she thought that the United
States should be first to give way. Had the American government been
willing to perform its neutral obligations strictly, the circle might
have been broken without much trouble; but the United States wished to
retain their advantage, and preferred to risk whatever England might
do rather than discourage desertion, or enact and enforce a strict
naturalization law, or punish fraud. The national government was too
weak to compel the States to respect neutral obligations, even if it
had been disposed to make the attempt.
The practice of impressment brought the two governments to a deadlock
on an issue of law. No one denied that every government had the right
to command the services of its native subjects, and as yet no one
ventured to maintain that a merchant-ship on the high seas could
lawfully resist the exercise of this right; but the law had done
nothing to define the rights of naturalized subjects or citizens. The
British government might, no doubt, impress its own subjects; but
almost every British sailor in the American service carried papers of
American citizenship, and although some of these were fraudulent, many
were genuine. The law of England, as declared from time out of mind by
every generation of her judges, held that the allegiance of a subject
was indefeasible, and therefore that naturalization was worthless.
The law of the United States, as declared by Chief-Justice Ellsworth
in 1799, was in effect the same;[236] he held that no citizen could
dissolve the compact of protection and defence between himself and
society without the consent or default of the community. On both sides
the law was emphatic to the point that naturalization could not bind
the government which did not consent to it; and the United States could
hardly require England to respect naturalization papers which the
Supreme Court of the United States declared itself unable to respect in
a similar case. Nevertheless, while courts and judges declare what the
law is or ought to be, they bind only themselves, and their decisions
have no necessary effect on the co-ordinate branches of government.
While the judges laid down one doctrine in Westminster Hall, Parliament
laid down another in St. Stephen’s chapel; and no one could say whether
the law or the statute was final. The British statute-book contained
Acts of Parliament as old as the reign of Queen Anne[237] to encourage
the admission of foreign seamen into the British navy, offering them
naturalization as an inducement. American legislation went not quite
so far, but by making naturalization easy it produced worse results.
A little perjury, in no wise unsafe, was alone required in order to
transform British seamen into American citizens; and perjury was the
commonest commodity in a seaport. The British government was forced
to decide whether papers so easily obtained and transferred should be
allowed to bar its claims on the services of its subjects, and whether
it could afford to become a party to the destruction of its own marine,
even though the United States should join with France and carry on
endless war.
That there were some points which not even the loss of American
trade would bring England to concede was well known to Jefferson;
and on these points he did not mean to insist. Setting the matter of
impressment aside, the relations between England and America had never
been better than when the new President took office March 4, 1801.
The British government seemed earnest in conciliation, and lost no
opportunity of showing its good-will. Under the Sixth Article of Jay’s
treaty, a commission had been appointed to settle long-standing debts
due to British subjects, but held in abeyance by State legislation in
contravention of the treaty of 1783. After long delays the commission
met at Philadelphia and set to work, but had made little progress
when the two American commissioners, with the President’s approval,
in the teeth of the treaty which created the Board, refused to accept
its decisions, and seceded. This violent measure was not taken by
the Administration without uneasiness, for England might reasonably
have resented it; but after some further delay the British government
consented to negotiate again, and at last accepted a round sum of three
million dollars in full discharge of the British claim. This was a
case in which England was the aggrieved party; she behaved equally
well in other cases where the United States were aggrieved. Rufus King
complained that her admiralty courts in the West Indies and at Halifax
were a scandal; in deference to his remonstrances these courts were
thoroughly reformed by Act of Parliament. The vice-admiralty court at
Nassau condemned the American brigantine “Leopard,” engaged in carrying
Malaga wine from the United States to the Spanish West Indies. The
American minister complained of the decision, and within three days
the King’s Advocate reported in his favor.[238] The report was itself
founded on Sir William Scott’s favorable decision in the case of the
“Polly.” Soon afterward the American minister complained that Captain
Pellew, of the “Cleopatra,” and Admiral Parker had not effectually
restrained their subordinates on the American station; both officers
were promptly recalled. Although the Ministry had not yet consented to
make any arrangement on the practice of impressment, Rufus King felt
much hope that they might consent even to this reform; meanwhile Lord
Grenville checked the practice, and professed a strong wish to find
some expedient that should take its place.
There was no reason to doubt the sincerity of the British Foreign
Office in wishing friendship. Its policy was well expressed in a
despatch written from Philadelphia by Robert Liston, the British
minister, shortly before he left the United States to return
home:[239]--
“The advantages to be ultimately reaped from a perseverance in
the line of conduct which Great Britain has adopted for the last
four years appear to my mind to be infallible and of infinite
magnitude; the profitable consequences of a state of hostility,
small and uncertain. I have been pleasing my imagination with
looking forward to the distant spectacle of all the northern
continent of America covered with friendly though not subject
States, consuming our manufactures, speaking our language,
proud of their parent State, attached to her prosperity. War
must bring with it extensive damage to our navigation, the
probable loss of Canada, and the _world_ behind it, the
propagation of enmity and prejudices which it may be impossible
to eradicate. The system of the American government does not
strike me, with the near view I have of it, as being in so
perilous a situation as is imagined in Europe. I am willing to
avoid political prophecies, but I confess I think it will get on
well enough if the country remains in peace; and if they go to
war, the fabric may acquire strength. God forbid that it should
be to our detriment, and to the triumph of our enemies!”
CHAPTER XV.
FEBRUARY 4, 1801, one month before the inauguration of President
Jefferson, Pitt suddenly retired from office, and was succeeded by
a weak ministry, in which Mr. Addington, afterward Lord Sidmouth,
took the post vacated by Pitt. No event could have been happier for
the prospects of President Jefferson, who might fairly count upon
Addington’s weakness to prevent his interference in American affairs.
Knowing himself to be universally regarded as the friend and admirer
of France, Jefferson was the more anxious not to be classed by the
British government among the enemies of England. Even before he was
inaugurated, he took occasion to request Edward Thornton, the British
_chargé_,--
“With great earnestness, to assure his Majesty’s government
that it should experience during his administration as cordial
and sincere acts of friendship as had ever been received under
that of his predecessors. I am aware,” said the President elect,
“that I have been represented as hostile to Great Britain; but
this has been done only for electioneering purposes, and I hope
henceforward such language will be used no longer. I can appeal
to all my past conduct that in everything in which I have
been engaged relatively to England, I have always been guided
by a liberal policy. I wish to be at the head of affairs no
longer than while I am influenced by such sentiments of equal
liberality toward all nations. There is nothing to which I have
a greater repugnance than to establish distinctions in favor of
one nation against another.”
The day after his inauguration he returned to the subject:--
“There is nothing I have more, or I may say so much, at heart as
to adjust happily all differences between us, and to cultivate
the most cordial harmony and good understanding. The English
government is too just, I am persuaded, to regard newspaper
trash, and the assertions contained in them that I am a creature
of France and an enemy of Great Britain. For _republican_
France I may have felt some interest; but that is long over; and
there is assuredly nothing in the present government of that
country which could naturally incline me to show the smallest
undue partiality to it at the expense of Great Britain, or
indeed of any other country.”[240]
Thornton felt no great confidence in the new President’s protests, and
thought it possible that Jefferson had “on this, as he seems to have
done on many late public occasions, taxed his imagination to supply
the deficiency of his feelings.” All Englishmen were attached to the
Federalist and New England interest; they could not understand that
Virginia should be a safer friend than Massachusetts. Yet in truth
Jefferson never was more serious than when he made these professions.
The Southern republicans had nothing to gain from a quarrel with
England; they neither wished for Canada, nor aspired to create shipping
or manufactures: their chief antagonist was not England, but Spain. The
only Power which could seriously injure them was Great Britain; and the
only injury they could inflict in return was by conquering Canada for
the benefit of Northern influence, or by building up manufactures which
they disliked, or by cutting off their own markets for tobacco and
cotton. Nothing warranted a belief that men like Jefferson, Madison,
and Gallatin would ever seek a quarrel with England.
The British Ministry soon laid aside any doubts they might have felt on
the subject. Lord Grenville, who retired with Pitt, was succeeded as
Foreign Secretary by Lord Hawkesbury, afterward better known as Lord
Liverpool. The new Ministry negotiated for peace with Bonaparte. Oct.
1, 1801, the preliminaries were signed, and the world found itself
again in a sort of repose, broken only by the bloody doings at St.
Domingo and Guadeloupe. England returned, like France and Spain, to the
rigor of the colonial system. The customs entries of New York, Boston,
and Philadelphia rapidly diminished in number; American shipping
declined; but Madison was relieved from the burden of belligerent
disputes, which had been the chief anxiety of his predecessors in the
State Department.
Yet peace did not put an end to all difficulties. Rufus King continued
to negotiate in London in regard to the outstanding British debts,
twice recognized by treaty, yet still unpaid by the United States;
in regard to the boundary of Maine and that of the extreme northwest
territory at the source of the Mississippi; and finally, in regard to
impressments; while Edward Thornton at Washington complained that, in
spite of peace and the decline of American shipping, encouragement was
still offered to the desertion of British seamen in every port of the
United States,--in fact that this means was systematically used to
prevent British shipping from entering American ports in competition
with the shipping of America. When Madison alleged that the national
government had no share in such unfriendly conduct, Thornton thrust
under his eyes the law of Virginia,--a law enacted by President
Jefferson’s political friends in his political interests,--which
forbade, under penalty of death, any magistrate of Virginia to be
instrumental in surrendering deserters or criminals, even in cases
where they were bound by treaty to do so. Madison could not deny that
this legislation was contrary to a treaty right which the United
States government was bound to enforce. He admitted that American
shipmasters and consuls in British ports habitually asked the benefit
of the British law, and received it; but he could hold out only a
remote hope that mutual legislation might solve the difficulty by
applying the merchant-seamen laws of the two countries reciprocally.
In conversation with Thornton he lamented, with every appearance of
sincerity and candor, the deficiency of the existing laws, and did not
dispute that Great Britain could hardly be blamed for refusing the
surrender of seamen on her side; but when Thornton asked him to order
the return of a man who under aggravated circumstances had deserted
from the British ship-of-war “Andromache” in the port of Norfolk, and
had been immediately engaged on the United States revenue cutter there,
Madison replied in a note coldly reiterating the fact, with which both
parties were already acquainted, that neither the law of nations nor
the provisions of any treaty enjoined the mutual restitution of seamen.
This recognized formula, under which governments commonly express a
refusal to act, was understood by Thornton as equivalent to an avowal
that the new Administration, controlled by Virginians, would not
venture, even in the future emergency of a demand for extradition under
treaty, to risk the displeasure of Virginia.[241] Desertion, therefore,
received no discouragement from the United States government; on the
contrary, deserters, known to be such, were received at once into the
national service, and their surrender refused. Under such circumstances
the British government was not likely to be more accommodating than the
American.
As the summer of 1802 approached, President Jefferson drew into closer
and more confidential relations with Thornton. During the Federalist
rule the two countries were never on more affectionate terms. At
London Rufus King and Christopher Gore received courteous attention
from Lord Hawkesbury. At Washington, Thornton’s intimacy at the
White House roused the jealousy and alarm of Pichon. As Bonaparte’s
projects against Louisiana disclosed themselves, and as Leclerc’s
first successes at St. Domingo opened the French path to New Orleans,
Jefferson began to pay sudden and almost eager court to Thornton,
who was a little embarrassed by the freedom with which the President
denounced the First Consul. The preliminary articles of peace between
France and England had been signed Oct. 1, 1801; but the treaty of
Amiens, which made these articles definitive, was signed only March
25, 1802. Addington was naturally anxious that the peace should be
maintained; indeed, no one could doubt that the existence of his
Ministry depended on maintaining it. Thornton had no instructions which
warranted him in intriguing against the First Consul, or in making
preparations for a new war; and yet hardly was the treaty of Amiens
made public, when President Jefferson began to talk as though England
were still at war, and it were only a question of time when the United
States must become her ally. The Louisiana question excited him. In
April he wrote his letters to Dupont and Livingston. At about the same
time he took Thornton into his confidence.
“I have had many occasions since it was first started,” wrote
Thornton,[242] “of conversing freely with Mr. Jefferson on this
topic, which is indeed peculiarly interesting to him, and his
reflections on which he utters with perhaps too little caution
to persons who are not disposed to think very favorably of any
change of sentiments with respect to France. He not only regards
the cession of Louisiana and New Orleans as a certain cause of
future war between the two countries, but makes no scruple to
say that if the force of the United States should be unable to
expel the French from those settlements, they must have recourse
to the assistance of other Powers, meaning unquestionably Great
Britain. With regard to France and the person who is at the
head of its government, whether in consequence of the projected
cession of Louisiana or of the little account which seems to
be made of the United States as well at Paris as by French
officers in other parts of the world, Mr. Jefferson speaks in
very unqualified terms of the usurpation of Bonaparte, of the
arbitrary nature and spirit of his government, of his love of
flattery and vain pomp,--features, according to Mr. Jefferson,
which indicate the frivolous character of his mind rather than
a condescension to the taste of the French people. The presses
in America devoted to the President’s Administration make use of
the same language; and without pretending to say that this party
is cured of its bitterness against Great Britain, I can safely
venture to assure your Lordship that its predilection for France
scarcely exists even in name.”
After the stoppage of the _entrepôt_ at New Orleans, when public
opinion seemed intent on driving Jefferson into the war with France
which he had predicted, Thornton found himself and his government in
favor at Washington. The Republicans were even better disposed than
the Federalists. Jefferson was willing to abolish between England and
America the discriminating duties on shipping which the New England
Federalists had imposed, and which they still wished to maintain for
use in the disputed West Indian trade. He told Thornton that he could
no doubt carry the repeal of these countervailing duties through
Congress over the heads of the opposition,[243] “but he wished it to
be adopted in consequence of their own conviction, rather than by a
contrary conduct to afford them the least ground for asserting that
the Southern States were carrying into execution their scheme of
ruin against the navigation and commerce of their Eastern brethren.”
Jefferson was rapidly becoming the friend and confidant of England.
Thornton, naturally delighted with his own success, and with the
mortifications and anxieties of Yrujo and Pichon, went so far as to
urge his government to help the views of the United States against
Louisiana:[244]--
“I should hope, my Lord, that by having some share in the
delivery of this Island of New Orleans to the United States,
which it will be impossible to keep from them whenever they
choose to employ force, his Majesty’s government may hereafter
attach still more this country to our interests, and derive all
the advantage possible from the intercourse with that important
part of the world. A very great change has gradually taken
place in the opinions of all ranks in this government in favor
of Great Britain, which has struck observers more likely to
be impartial than myself. A sense of a common interest has a
great share in the change; but the conduct of France in all her
relations has not failed to produce its full effect; and I find
men, formerly the most vehement in their politics, asserting in
the most unqualified terms the necessity of a union among all
the members of the civilized world to check her encroachments
and to assure the general tranquillity.”
A few days later the President nominated Monroe to act with Livingston
and Pinckney in an attempt to purchase New Orleans. This step, which
was openly avowed to be the alternative and perhaps the antecedent
of war with France, brought Thornton into still more confidential
relations with the Government. Finding that the Secretary of State
was as cautious as the President was talkative, Thornton carried on
an active intercourse with the latter. He first offered to detain the
British government packet for Monroe’s use; but it was found that a
month or two of delay would be necessary. Then, without instructions
from his Government, Thornton took a bolder step:[245]--
“This state of things has naturally excited a sentiment of
common interest, and has encouraged me to enter with more
freedom into the subject, as well with the President as with
Mr. Madison, than I should otherwise have thought right,
without being acquainted with the views of his Majesty’s
government. Under this impression, I ventured, immediately after
the nomination and before the first arrival of Mr. Monroe,
to inquire of the President whether it was his intention to
let him pass over to England, and hold any conversation with
his Majesty’s ministers upon the general question of the
free navigation of the Mississippi. The inquiry was somewhat
premature, and I made it with some apology. Mr. Jefferson
replied, however, unaffectedly, that at so early a stage of the
business he had scarcely thought himself what it might be proper
to do; ... that, on the whole, he thought it very probable that
Mr. Monroe might cross the Channel.... Some time after Mr.
Monroe’s arrival, actuated by the same view, I mentioned to Mr.
Jefferson that it would give me pleasure to furnish the former
with an introduction to his Majesty’s ambassador at Paris,
as it would afford me the occasion of making Lord Whitworth
acquainted with the nature of the object in dispute between this
country, France, and Spain, and would give to Mr. Monroe, if he
were disposed of himself, or were instructed by his Government
to seek it, a more ready pretext for opening himself to his
Lordship, and of keeping him apprised of the progress and turn
of the negotiation. Mr. Jefferson seemed pleased with this
offer, and said he was sure Mr. Monroe would accept it with
great thankfulness.”
Madison talked less freely than his chief, and contented himself
with explaining to the British representative that the views of the
Government in sending Monroe to France were limited to the hope of
inducing the First Consul by money, or other means of persuasion, to
cede in Louisiana a place of deposit over which the United States
might have absolute jurisdiction. He did not tell Thornton of the
decision made by the Cabinet, and the instructions given to Monroe,
April 18, 1803, to offer terms of alliance with England in case the
First Consul should make war;[246] but the tone of cordiality in
Government and people, both in public and private, in New York, Boston,
and Philadelphia, as in the South and West, was gratifying to British
pride, and would have been still more so had not the community somewhat
too openly avowed the intention of leaving England, if possible, to
fight alone. At the first news of the approaching rupture between
France and England, this wish began to appear so plainly that Thornton
was staggered by it. The Americans took no trouble to conceal the hope
that England would have to fight their battles for them.[247]
“The manifest advantage that such a state of things is
calculated to give to their negotiation with France, and which
is already sensibly felt in the altered tone and conduct of
the French government, ... will sufficiently account for their
wishes and for this belief. But possessing the same opinion of
the encroachments of France, and of the barrier which Great
Britain alone places between her and the United States, and
actuated, as I really believe they are, by sincere wishes for
our success, I am afraid they begin to see more clearly that
in a state of war we are effectually fighting their battles,
without the necessity of their active interference; and they
recur once more to the flattering prospect of peace and a
lucrative neutrality.”
In this state of doubt President Jefferson continued his intimate
relations with Thornton.
“He expressed himself very freely,” wrote Thornton, May 30,
1803, “on the contemptible and frivolous conduct, as he
termed it, of a Government that could alter its language so
entirely on the prospect of an approaching rupture with another
nation,--which he acknowledged instantly, on my mention of it,
had been the case toward Mr. Livingston.”
Jefferson attributed Bonaparte’s returning courtesy to fear rather than
to foresight. Thornton himself began to feel the danger that Bonaparte,
after all, might outwit him. He revised his opinion about Louisiana.
England, he saw, had the strongest motives for wishing France to keep
that province.
“The most desirable state of things,” he wrote, “seems to be
that France should become mistress of Louisiana, because her
influence in the United States would be by that event lost
forever, and she could only be dispossessed by a concert between
Great Britain and America in a common cause, which would
produce an indissoluble bond of union and amity between the two
countries.”
This cordiality between England and the United States lasted without
interruption until midsummer. Pichon complained, as has been shown,
of the attentions paid to Thornton by the President.[248] “I remarked
at table that he redoubled his courtesies and attentions toward the
British _chargé_.” The dinner was in the month of January; in the
following June Pichon wrote that the President had begun to accept the
idea of seeing the British at New Orleans:[249]--
“Mr. Jefferson told me a few days ago that he was engaged in
letting that Power know that her presence there would be seen
with regret; but I perceive that, little by little, people are
familiarizing themselves with this eventuality, as their fears
increase in regard to us. They are so convinced that England
sees more and more her true interests in relation to the United
States, and is resolved to conciliate them, that they have no
doubt of her lending herself to some arrangement. What they
fear most is that, as the price of this accommodation, she
may require the United States to take an active part in the
indispensable war; and this is what they ardently wish to avoid.”
Until July 3, 1803, the relations between President Jefferson’s
government and that of Great Britain were so cordial as to raise
a doubt whether the United States could avoid becoming an ally of
England, and taking part in the war with France. Suddenly came the new
convulsion of Europe.
“It was on the third of this month,” wrote Pichon July 7,
1803, “the eve of the anniversary of Independence, that we
received two pieces of news of the deepest interest for this
country,--that of the rupture between France and England,
proclaimed by the latter on May 16, and that of the cession of
Louisiana and New Orleans, made by us on April 30.”[250]
The next day, when Pichon attended the usual reception at the White
House, he found himself received in a manner very different from that
to which he had been of late accustomed.
The two events, thus coming together, were sure to affect seriously the
attitude of the United States toward England. Not only did Jefferson no
longer need British aid, but he found himself in a position where he
could afford with comparative freedom to insist upon his own terms of
neutrality. He had always felt that Great Britain did not sufficiently
respect this neutrality; he never failed to speak of Jay’s treaty
in terms of vehement dislike; and he freely avowed his intention of
allowing all commercial treaties to expire. The relation between these
treaties and the rights of neutrality was simple. Jefferson wanted no
treaties which would prevent him from using commercial weapons against
nations that violated American neutrality; and therefore he reserved to
Congress the right to direct commerce in whatever paths the Government
might prefer.
“On the subject of treaties,” he wrote,[251] “our system is to
have none with any nation, as far as can be avoided. The treaty
with England has therefore not been renewed, and all overtures
for treaty with other nations have been declined. We believe
that with nations, as with individuals, dealings may be carried
on as advantageously, perhaps more so, while their continuance
depends on a voluntary good treatment, as if fixed by a
contract, which, when it becomes injurious to either, is made
by forced constructions to mean what suits them, and becomes a
cause of war instead of a bond of peace.”
Such a system was best suited to the strongest nations, and to
those which could control their dealings to most advantage. The
Administration believed that the United States stood in this position.
The President and Secretary Madison were inclined to assert authority
in their relations with foreign Powers. Even so early as the preceding
February, before Monroe sailed for Europe, Madison told Pichon of
this intention.[252] “He added,” wrote Pichon to Talleyrand, “that if
war should be renewed, as seemed probable, the United States would be
disposed to take a higher tone than heretofore, that Europe had put
their spirit of moderation to proofs that would be no longer endured.”
Immediately after hearing of the Louisiana cession, Pichon wrote that
the same spirit continued to animate the Government.[253] “It is
certain that they propose to cause the neutrality of the United States
to be more exactly respected by the belligerent Powers than in the last
war. The Government has often shown its intentions in this respect,
from the time when everything pointed to an infallible rupture between
us and England.” President Jefferson, while avowing a pacific policy,
explained that his hopes of peace were founded on his power to affect
the interests of the belligerents. At the same moment when Pichon wrote
thus to Talleyrand, the President wrote to the Earl of Buchan:[254]--
“My hope of preserving peace for our country is not founded in
the Quaker principle of non-resistance under every wrong, but
in the belief that a just and friendly conduct on our part will
procure justice and friendship from others. In the existing
contest, each of the combatants will find an interest in our
friendship.”
He was confident that he could control France and England:[255] “I
do not believe we shall have as much to swallow from them as our
predecessors had.”
The Louisiana question being settled, the field was clear for the
United States to take high ground in behalf of neutral rights; and
inevitably the first step must be taken against England. No one denied
that thus far the administration of Addington had behaved well toward
the United States. Rufus King brought to America at the same time
with news of the Louisiana treaty, or had sent shortly before, two
conventions by which long-standing differences were settled. One of
these conventions disposed of the old subject of British debts,--the
British government accepting a round sum of six hundred thousand pounds
on behalf of the creditors.[256] The other created two commissions for
running the boundary line between Maine and Nova Scotia, and between
the Lake of the Woods and the Mississippi River.[257] King went so
far as to express the opinion that had he not been on the eve of his
departure, he might have succeeded in making some arrangement about
impressments; and he assured Gallatin that the actual Administration
in England was the most favorable that had existed or could exist
for the interests of the United States; its only misfortune was its
weakness.[258] The conduct of the British government in regard to
Louisiana proved the truth of King’s assertion. Not only did it offer
no opposition to the sale, but it lent every possible assistance to the
transfer; and under its eye, with its consent, Alexander Baring made
the financial arrangements which were to furnish Bonaparte with ten
million American dollars to pay the preliminary expenses of an invasion
of England.
Nevertheless, if the United States government intended to take a high
tone in regard to neutral rights, it must do so from the beginning
of the war. Aware that success in regard to England, as in regard
to Spain, depended on asserting at the outset, and maintaining with
obstinacy, the principles intended to be established, the President
and Secretary Madison lost no time in causing their attitude to be
clearly understood. An opportunity of asserting this authoritative tone
was given by the appearance of a new British minister at Washington;
and thus it happened that at the time when the Secretary of State was
preparing for his collision with the Marquis of Casa Yrujo and the
Spanish empire, he took on his hands the more serious task of curbing
the pretensions of Anthony Merry and the King of England.
CHAPTER XVI.
ONE of Addington’s friendly acts was the appointment of Anthony Merry
as British minister to the United States. For this selection Rufus
King was directly responsible. Two names were mentioned to him by the
Foreign Office as those of the persons entitled to claim the place; one
was that of Merry, the other was that of Francis James Jackson.
“As I have had the opportunity of knowing both these gentlemen
during my residence here,” wrote Minister King to Secretary
Madison,[259] “it was not without some regret that I heard of
the intention to appoint Mr. Jackson in lieu of Mr. Merry.
From this information I have been led to make further inquiry
concerning their reputations, and the result has proved rather
to increase than to lessen my solicitude. Mr. Jackson is said to
be positive, vain, and intolerant. He is moreover filled with
English prejudices in respect to all other countries, and as far
as his opinions concerning the United States are known, seems
more likely to disserve than to benefit a liberal intercourse
between them and his own country. On the other hand, Mr. Merry
appears to be a plain, unassuming, and amiable man, who having
lived for many years in Spain is in almost every point of
character the reverse of Mr. Jackson, who were he to go to
America would go for the sake of present employment and with
the hope of leaving it as soon as he could receive a similar
appointment in Europe; while Mr. Merry wishes for the mission
with the view of obtaining what he believes will prove to be an
agreeable and permanent residence.”
In deference to Rufus King’s wishes or for some other reason Merry
received the appointment. Doubtless he came to America in the hope
of finding a “permanent residence,” as King remarked; but it could
hardly be agreeable, as he hoped. He was a thorough Englishman, with a
wife more English than himself. He was not prepared for the isolation
of the so-called Federal City, and he did not expect to arrive at a
moment when the United States government, pleased with having curbed
Bonaparte, was preparing to chasten Spain and to discipline England.
Landing at Norfolk from a ship of war Nov. 4, 1803, Merry was obliged
to hire a vessel to carry himself and his belongings to Washington,
where, after a tempestuous voyage, he at last arrived, November 26.
Possibly Mr. and Mrs. Merry, like other travellers, would have grumbled
even though Washington had supplied them with Aladdin’s palace and
Aladdin’s lamp to furnish it; but the truth was not to be denied that
the Federal City offered few conveniences, and was better suited for
members of Congress, who lived without wives in boarding-houses, than
for foreign ministers, with complaining wives, who were required to
set up large establishments and to entertain on a European scale.
“I cannot describe to you,” wrote Merry privately,[260] “the
difficulty and expense which I have to encounter in fixing
myself in a habitation. By dint of money I have just secured two
small houses on the common which is meant to become in time the
city of Washington. They are mere shells of houses, with bare
walls and without fixtures of any kind, even without a pump or
well, all which I must provide at my own cost. Provisions of
any kind, especially vegetables, are frequently hardly to be
obtained at any price. So miserable is our situation.”
Had these been the worst trials that awaited the new British minister,
he might have been glad to meet them; for when once surmounted, they
favored him by preventing social rivalry. Unfortunately he met more
serious annoyances. Until his arrival, Yrujo was the only minister
of full rank in the United States; and Yrujo’s intimate relations at
the White House had given him family privileges. For this reason the
Spanish minister made no struggle to maintain etiquette, but living
mostly in Philadelphia disregarded the want of what he considered good
manners at Washington, according to which he was placed on the same
social footing with his own secretary of legation. Yet Yrujo, American
in many respects, belonged to the school of Spanish diplomacy which
had for centuries studied points of honor. He might well have made
with his own mouth the celebrated retort which one of his predecessors
made to Philip II., who reproached him with sacrificing an interest to
a ceremony: “How a ceremony? Your Majesty’s self is but a ceremony!”
Although Yrujo submitted to Jefferson, he quarrelled with Pichon on
this point, for Pichon was only a secretary in charge of the French
legation. In November, 1803, Yrujo’s friendship for Jefferson was
cooling, and he waited the arrival of Merry in the hope of finding a
champion of diplomatic rights. Jefferson, on the other hand, waited
Merry’s arrival in order to establish, once for all, a new social code;
and that there might be no misunderstanding, he drafted with his own
hand the rules which were to control Executive society,--rules intended
to correct a tendency toward monarchical habits introduced by President
Washington.
In 1801 on coming into power Jefferson announced that he would admit
not the smallest distinction that might separate him from the mass
of his fellow-citizens. He dispensed with the habit of setting apart
certain days and hours for receiving visits of business or curiosity,
announcing that he would on any day and at any hour receive in a
friendly and hospitable manner those who should call upon him.[261] He
evidently wished to place the White House on the footing of easy and
generous hospitality which was the pride of every Virginia gentleman.
No man should be turned away from its doors; its table, liberal and
excellent, should be filled with equal guests, whose self-respect
should be hurt by no artificial rules of precedence. Such hospitality
cost both time and money; but Washington was a petty village, society
was very small, and Jefferson was a poor economist. He entertained
freely and handsomely.
“Yesterday I dined with the President,” wrote Senator Plumer of
New Hampshire, Dec. 25, 1802.[262] “His rule is to have about
ten members of Congress at a time. We sat down to the table at
four, rose at six, and walked immediately into another room
and drank coffee. We had a very good dinner, with a profusion
of fruits and sweetmeats. The wine was the best I ever drank,
particularly the champagne, which was indeed delicious. I wish
his French politics were as good as his French wines.”
So long as this manner of life concerned only the few Americans who
were then residents or visitors at Washington, Jefferson found no great
difficulty in mixing his company and disregarding precedence. Guests
accommodated themselves to the ways of the house, took care of their
own comfort, went to table without special request, and sat wherever
they found a vacant chair; but foreigners could hardly be expected
at first to understand what Jefferson called the rule of pell-mell.
Thornton and Pichon, being only secretaries of legation, rather gained
than lost by it; but Yrujo resented it in secret; and all eyes were
turned to see how the new British minister would conduct himself in the
scramble.
Either before or soon after Merry’s arrival the President wrote the
rules, which he called “Canons of Etiquette to be observed by the
Executive;”[263] and these canons ultimately received the approval
of the Cabinet. Foreign ministers, he said, were to pay the first
visit to the “ministers of the nation;” their wives were to receive
the first visit from the wives of “national ministers.” No grades
among diplomatic members were to give precedence; “all are perfectly
equal, whether foreign or domestic, titled or untitled, in or out
of office.” Finally, “to maintain the principle of equality, or of
_pêle-mêle_, and prevent the growth of precedence out of courtesy,
the members of the Executive will practise at their own houses, and
recommend an adherence to, the ancient usage of the country,--of
gentlemen in mass giving precedence to the ladies in mass in passing
from one apartment where they are assembled into another.” Such,
according to Rufus King, whose aid was invoked on this occasion, was
the usage in London.
Merry duly arrived in Washington, and was told by Madison that the
President would receive his letter of credence Nov. 29, according to
the usual formality. At the appointed hour the British minister, in
diplomatic uniform, as was required in the absence of any hint to the
contrary, called upon Madison, and was taken to the White House, where
he was received by the President. Jefferson’s manner of receiving
guests was well known, although this was the first occasion on which he
had given audience to a new foreign minister. Among several accounts
of his appearance at such times, that of Senator Plumer was one of the
best.
“In a few moments after our arrival,” said the senator, writing
two years before Merry’s mishap,[264] “a tall, high-boned man
came into the room. He was dressed, or rather undressed, in an
old brown coat, red waistcoat, old corduroy small-clothes much
soiled, woollen hose, and slippers without heels. I thought him
a servant, when General Varnum surprised me by announcing that
it was the President.”
The “Evening Post,” about a year later, described him as habitually
appearing in public “dressed in long boots with tops turned down
about the ankles like a Virginia buck; overalls of corduroy faded, by
frequent immersions in soap suds, from yellow to a dull white; a red
single-breasted waistcoat; a light brown coat with brass buttons, both
coat and waistcoat quite threadbare; linen very considerably soiled;
hair uncombed and beard unshaven.” In truth the Virginia republicans
cared little for dress. “You know that the Virginians have some pride
in appearing in simple habiliments,” wrote Joseph Story in regard to
Jefferson, “and are willing to rest their claim to attention upon their
force of mind and suavity of manners.” Indeed, “Virginia carelessness”
was almost a proverb.[265]
On the occasion of Merry’s reception, the President’s chief offence
in etiquette consisted in the slippers without heels. No law of the
United States or treaty stipulation forbade Jefferson to receive Merry
in heelless slippers, or for that matter in bare feet, if he thought
proper to do so. Yet Virginia gentlemen did not intentionally mortify
their guests; and perhaps Madison would have done better to relieve
the President of such a suspicion by notifying Merry beforehand that
he would not be expected to wear full dress. In that case the British
minister might have complimented Jefferson by himself appearing in
slippers without heels.
A card of invitation was next sent, asking Mr. and Mrs. Merry to dine
at the White House, December 2. Such an invitation was in diplomatic
usage equivalent to a command, and Merry at once accepted it. The new
minister was then told that he must call on the heads of departments.
He remonstrated, saying that Liston, his predecessor, had been required
to make the first visit only to the Secretary of State; but he was
told, in effect, that what had been done under the last Administration
was no rule for the present one. Merry acquiesced, and made his
calls. These pin-thrusts irritated him; but he was more seriously
inconvenienced by the sudden withdrawal of diplomatic privileges by the
Senate, although Vice-President Burr took occasion to explain that the
Senate’s action was quite unconnected with the President’s “canons of
etiquette,” and was in truth due to some indiscretion of Yrujo in the
House of Representatives.
Meanwhile the President took an unusual step. When two countries
were at war, neutral governments commonly refrained from inviting
the representative of one belligerent to meet the representative of
the other, unless on formal occasions where the entire diplomatic
body was invited, or in crowds where contact was not necessary. Still
more rarely were such incongruous guests invited to an entertainment
supposed to be given in honor of either individual. No one knew
this rule better than Jefferson, who had been himself four years in
diplomatic service at Paris, besides being three years Secretary
of State to President Washington at Philadelphia. He knew that the
last person whom Merry would care to meet was Pichon, the French
_chargé_; yet he not only invited Pichon, but pressed him to
attend. The Frenchman, aware that Merry was to be mortified by the
etiquette of the dinner, and watching with delight the process by which
Jefferson, day after day, took a higher tone toward England, wrote an
account of the affair to Talleyrand.[266] He said:--
“I was invited to this dinner. I had learned from the President
what was the matter (_ce qui en était_), when I went to
tell him that I was going for some days to Baltimore, where I
was called by the affairs of the frigate ‘La Poursuivante.’
The President was so obliging as to urge my return in order
to be present with Mme. Pichon at the dinner (_Le Président
eut l’honnêteté de me presser de revenir pour être au
diner_). I came back here, although business required a
longer stay at Baltimore. Apart from the reason of respect due
to the President, I had that of witnessing what might happen
(_j’avais celle de connaître ce qui se passerait_).”
Pichon accordingly hurried back from Baltimore, especially at the
President’s request, in order to have the pleasure of seeing Jefferson
humiliate his own guest in his own house.
Pichon was gratified by the result. At four o’clock on the afternoon of
Dec. 2, 1803, this curious party assembled at the White House,--Mr. and
Mrs. Merry, the Marquis Yrujo and his American wife, M. Pichon and his
American wife, Mr. and Mrs. Madison, and some other persons whose names
were not mentioned. When dinner was announced, the President offered
his hand to Mrs. Madison and took her to table, placing her on his
right. Mme. Yrujo took her seat on his left.
“Mrs. Merry was placed by Mr. Madison below the Spanish
minister, who sat next to Mrs. Madison. With respect to
me,” continued the British minister in his account of the
affair,[267] “I was proceeding to place myself, though without
invitation, next to the wife of the Spanish minister, when a
member of the House of Representatives passed quickly by me
and took the seat, without Mr. Jefferson’s using any means
to prevent it, or taking any care that I might be otherwise
placed....
“I will beg leave to intrude a moment longer on your Lordship’s
time,” continued Merry’s report, “by adding to this narrative
that among the persons (none of those who were of this country
were the principal officers of the government except Mr.
Madison) whom the President selected for a dinner which was
understood to be given to me, was M. Pichon the French _chargé
d’affaires_. I use the word _selected_, because it could
not be considered as a diplomatic dinner, since he omitted to
invite to it the Danish _chargé d’affaires_, who, with the
Spanish minister, form the whole body.”
Merry’s report was brief; but Yrujo, who also made an official report
to his Government, after mentioning the neglect shown to Merry before
dinner, added a remark that explained the situation more exactly:[268]--
“I observed immediately the impression that such a proceeding
of the President must have on Mr. and Mrs. Merry; and their
resentment could not but be increased at seeing the manifest,
and in my opinion studied, preference given by the President
throughout to me and my wife over him and Mrs. Merry.”
There the matter might have rested, had not Madison carried the new
“canons” beyond the point of endurance. December 6, four days after
the dinner at the White House, the British minister was to dine with
the Secretary of State. Pichon and Yrujo were again present, and all
the Cabinet with their wives. Yrujo’s report described the scene that
followed.
“I should observe,” said he, “that until then my wife and I
had enjoyed in the houses of Cabinet ministers the precedence
of which we had been deprived in the President’s house; but on
this day the Secretary of State too altered his custom, without
informing us beforehand of his resolution, and took to table
the wife of the Secretary of the Treasury. This unexpected
conduct produced at first some confusion, during which the wife
of the British minister was left without any one giving her his
hand, until her husband advanced, with visible indignation, and
himself took her to table.”
Even Pichon, though pleased to see the British minister humbled, felt
his diplomatic pride a little scandalized at this proceeding. He
admitted that it was an innovation, and added,--
“There is no doubt that Mr. Madison in this instance wished to
establish in his house the same formality as at the President’s,
in order to make Mr. Merry feel more keenly the scandal he had
made; but this incident increased it.”
The scandal which Merry had made consisted in saying that he believed
his treatment at the White House was a premeditated insult against his
country. Madison’s course took away any remaining doubt on the subject
in his mind. Merry became bitter. He wrote home informally:[269]--
“On this occasion, also, the _pas_ and the preference in
every respect was taken by, and given to, the wives of the
Secretaries of the Departments (a set of beings as little
without the manners as without the appearance of gentlewomen),
the foreign ministers and their wives being left to take care
of themselves. In short the latter are now placed here in a
situation so degrading to the countries they represent, and so
personally disagreeable to themselves, as to have become almost
intolerable. The case yesterday was so marked and so irritating
that I determined to hand Mrs. Merry myself to the table, and to
place ourselves wherever we might conveniently find seats.”
Merry then received an official explanation that Jefferson invariably
gave precedence to the wives of his Cabinet ministers, and that
he made no exceptions in favor of foreigners in his rule of
_pêle-mêle_.[270] Merry notified Lord Hawkesbury to that effect.
He did not fail to point out the signs which indicated to him that
these proceedings were but part of a general plan intended to press on
the British government. In truth, the whole issue lay in the question
whether that intent influenced Jefferson’s behavior.
A sort of civil war ensued in the little society of Washington, in
which the women took prominent part, and Mrs. Merry gave back with
interest the insults she considered herself to have received. The
first serious evil was an alliance between Merry and Yrujo, the two men
whom Jefferson had most interest in keeping apart. Pichon wrote home a
lively account of the hostilities that followed.[271]
“M. Yrujo, who is vanity itself, blew the flame more vigorously
than ever.... He concerted reprisals with Mr. Merry, and it
was agreed that whenever they should entertain the secretaries
and their wives, they should take none of them to table, but
should give their hands to their own wives. This resolution was
carried out at a dinner given some days afterward by M. Yrujo.
Mr. and Mrs. Merry were next invited by the Secretary of the
Navy. Mrs. Merry refused; yet this minister, a very well-bred
man (_homme fort poli_), had so arranged things as to give
her his hand. Apparently what had taken place at Mr. Madison’s
was thought harsh (_dur_), and it was wished to bring Mr.
and Mrs. Merry back to a reconciliation. The Cabinet took up the
question, as reported in the newspaper of which I sent you an
extract, and it was resolved that hereafter the President should
give his hand to the lady who might happen to be nearest him,
and that there should be no precedence. Mr. Merry was invited
to a tea by the Secretary of War and by the Secretary of the
Treasury. To avoid all discussion he wholly refused the first,
and after accepting the second he did not come. Finally, New
Year’s Day gave another occasion for scandal. On this day, as on
the Fourth of July, it is the custom to call upon the President;
and even the ladies go there. This year neither Mme. Yrujo nor
Mrs. Merry went, and the Marquis took care to answer every one
who inquired after his wife’s health, that she was perfectly
well. Since then Washington society is turned upside down; all
the women are to the last degree exasperated against Mrs. Merry;
the Federal newspapers have taken up the matter, and increased
the irritation by sarcasms on the Administration and by making
a burlesque of the facts which the Government has not thought
proper to correct. The arrival of M. Bonaparte with his wife in
the midst of all this explosion has furnished Mr. Merry with new
griefs. The President asked M. and Mme. Bonaparte to dinner, and
gave his hand to Madame. There was, however, this difference
between the two cases,--the President had invited on this day,
besides myself and Mme. Pichon, only the two Messrs. Smith and
their wives, who are of Mme. Bonaparte’s family. But when Mr.
Merry heard of it, he remarked that Mme. Bonaparte had on this
occasion taken precedence of the wife of the Secretary of the
Navy.... I am aware,” continued the delighted Pichon, “that with
tact on the part of Mr. Jefferson he might have avoided all
these scandals.”
The British minister wrote to Lord Hawkesbury a brief account of his
reception, closing with the remark:[272]--
“Under these circumstances, my Lord, I have thought it advisable
to avoid all occasions where I and my wife might be exposed to
a repetition of the same want of distinction toward us until I
shall have received authority from you to acquiesce in it, by a
signification of his Majesty’s pleasure to that effect.”
Accordingly, when the President invited the two ministers to dine
at the White House without their wives, they replied that they
could not accept the invitation until after receiving instructions
from their Governments. Jefferson regarded this concerted answer
as an insult.[273] He too lost his temper so far as to indulge in
sharp comments, and thought the matter important enough to call for
explanation. In a private letter to Monroe, dated Jan. 8, 1804, he
wrote:[274]--
“Mr. Merry is with us, and we believe him to be personally as
desirable a character as could have been sent us; but he is
unluckily associated with one of an opposite character in every
point. She has already disturbed our harmony extremely. He began
by claiming the first visit from the national ministers. He
corrected himself in this; but a pretension to take precedence
at dinner, etc., over all others is persevered in. We have told
him that the principle of society as well as of government with
us is the equality of the individuals composing it; that no
man here would come to a dinner where he was to be marked with
inferiority to any other; that we might as well attempt to force
our principle of equality at St. James’s as he his principle of
precedence here. I had been in the habit when I invited female
company (having no lady in my family) to ask one of the ladies
of the four Secretaries to come and take care of my company,
and as she was to do the honors of the table I handed her to
dinner myself. That Mr. Merry might not construe this as giving
them a precedence over Mrs. Merry I have discontinued it,
and here as in private houses the _pêle-mêle_ practice
is adhered to. They have got Yrujo to take a zealous part in
the claim of precedence. It has excited generally emotions of
great contempt and indignation (in which the members of the
Legislature participate sensibly) that the agents of foreign
nations should assume to dictate to us what shall be the laws
of our society. The consequence will be that Mr. and Mrs. Merry
will put themselves into Coventry, and that he will lose the
best half of his usefulness to his nation,--that derived from a
perfectly familiar and private intercourse with the Secretaries
and myself. The latter, be assured, is a virago, and in the
short course of a few weeks has established a degree of dislike
among all classes which one would have thought impossible in so
short a time.... With respect to Merry, he appears so reasonable
and good a man that I should be sorry to lose him as long as
there remains a possibility of reclaiming him to the exercise of
his own dispositions. If his wife perseveres she must eat her
soup at home, and we shall endeavor to draw him into society as
if she did not exist.”
Of all American hospitality none was so justly famous as that of
Virginia. In this State there was probably not a white man, or even a
negro slave, but would have resented the charge that he was capable
of asking a stranger, a foreigner, a woman, under his roof, with the
knowledge that he was about to inflict what the guest would feel as a
humiliation. Still less would he have selected his guest’s only enemy,
and urged him to be present for the purpose of witnessing the slight.
Reasons of state sometimes gave occasion for such practices, but
under the most favorable conditions the tactics were unsafe. Napoleon
in the height of his power insulted queens, browbeat ambassadors,
trampled on his ministers, and made his wife and servants tremble; but
although these manners could at his slightest hint be imitated by a
million soldiers, until Europe, from Cadiz to Moscow, cowered under
his multiplied brutality, the insults and outrages recoiled upon him
in the end. Jefferson could not afford to adopt Napoleonic habits. His
soldiers were three thousand in number, and his own training had not
been that of a successful general; he had seven frigates, and was eager
to lay them up in a single dry-dock. Peace was his passion.
To complicate this civil war in the little society of Washington,
Jerome Bonaparte appeared there, and brought with him his young wife,
Elizabeth Patterson, of Baltimore. Jerome married this beautiful girl
against the remonstrances of Pichon; but after the marriage took place,
not only Pichon, but also Yrujo and Jefferson, showed proper attention
to the First Consul’s brother, who had selected for his wife a niece of
the Secretary of the Navy, and of so influential a senator as General
Smith. Yet nothing irritated Napoleon more than Jerome’s marriage.
In some respects it was even more objectionable to him than that of
Lucien, which gave rise to a family feud. Pichon suspected what would
be the First Consul’s feelings, and wrote letter after letter to clear
himself of blame. In doing so he could not but excite Napoleon’s anger
against American society, and especially against the family of his new
sister-in-law.
“It appears, Citizen Minister,” wrote Pichon to Talleyrand,[275]
“that General Smith, who in spite of the contrary assurances he
has given me, has always had this alliance much at heart, has
thrown his eyes on the mission to Paris as a means of appeasing
(_ramener_) the First Consul. He has long since aimed
at the diplomatic career, for which he is little qualified;
this motive and the near return of Mr. Livingston have decided
his taste. For some time there has been much question of this
nomination among the friends of General Smith. There is also
question of promoting, on the part of the First Consul, for
minister to this country, a selection which should be connected
with the other. It is thought that the appointment of M. Jerome
Bonaparte would be an honorable mode of leaving the First
Consul’s brother time to have his fault forgotten, and of
preparing his return to favor.”
Such readiness among Jefferson’s advisers to court the favors of the
young First Consul was sure not to escape the eyes of the embittered
Federalists. Pichon’s account, although sharp in allusions to General
Smith’s “vanity,” was mild compared with the scorn of the New
Englanders. Apparently the new matrimonial alliance was taken seriously
by prominent Republican leaders. One of the Massachusetts senators
mentioned in his diary[276] a “curious conversation between S. Smith,
Breckenridge, Armstrong, and Baldwin, about ‘Smith’s nephew, the
First Consul’s brother.’ Smith swells upon it to very extraordinary
dimensions.” Pichon openly spoke of the whole family connection,
including both Robert and Samuel Smith, and even Wilson Cary Nicholas,
as possessed with “an inconceivable infatuation” for the match; “it was
really the young man who was seduced.” Nothing that Pichon could say
affected them. Senator J. Q. Adams remarked: “the Smiths are so elated
with their supposed elevation by this adventure, that one step more
would fit them for the discipline of Dr. Willis,”--the famous English
expert in mental diseases.[277]
The President and his friends might not know enough of Napoleon’s
character to foresee the irritation which such reports would create in
his mind, but they were aware of the contrast between their treatment
of Jerome Bonaparte and their slights to Anthony Merry. Had they felt
any doubt upon the subject, the free comments of the British minister
and his wife would have opened their eyes. In truth, no doubt existed.
Washington society was in a manner ordered to proscribe the Merrys and
Yrujo, and pay court to Jerome and the Smiths.
Had this been all, the matter would have ended in a personal quarrel
between the two envoys and the two Virginians, with which the public
would have had no concern. Jefferson’s “canons of etiquette” would in
such a case have had no further importance than as an anecdote of his
social habits. The seriousness of Jefferson’s experiments in etiquette
consisted in the belief that they were part of a political system
which involved a sudden change of policy toward two great Powers. The
“canons” were but the social expression of an altered feeling which
found its political expression in acts marked by equal disregard of
usage. The Spanish minister had already reason to know what he might
expect; for six weeks before Merry’s dinners John Randolph proclaimed
in the House that West Florida belonged to the United States, and
within the week that preceded Merry’s reception, he brought in the
Bill which authorized the President to annex Mobile. After such a
proceeding, no diplomatist would have doubted what meaning to put upon
the new code of Republican society. Merry’s arrival, at the instant of
this aggression upon Spain, was the signal for taking toward England a
higher tone.
Merry could not fail to see what lay before him. From the President,
notwithstanding heelless slippers and “canons of etiquette,” the
British minister heard none but friendly words. After the formal
ceremony of delivering the letter of credence was over,--
“He desired me to sit down,” wrote Merry,[278] “when we
conversed for some time on general affairs. The sentiments
which he expressed respecting those of Europe appeared very
properly to be by no means favorable to the spirit of ambition
and aggrandizement of the present ruler in France, or to the
personal character in any respect of the First Consul, and still
less so to his conduct toward all nations.”
From this subject the President passed to Spanish affairs and to the
Spanish protest against the Louisiana cession, founded on Bonaparte’s
pledge never to alienate that province.
“This circumstance,” continued Merry, “as well as the resistance
altogether which Spain had unexpectedly brought forward in
words, Mr. Jefferson considered as highly ridiculous, and as
showing a very pitiful conduct on her part, since she did
not appear to have taken any measures to support it either
by preparation of defence on the spot, or by sending there a
force to endeavor to prevent the occupation of the country by
the troops of the United States. He concluded by saying that
possession of it would, at all events, be taken.”
If Merry did not contrive, after his dinner at the White House, to
impart this conversation to his colleagues Yrujo and Pichon, he must
have been a man remarkably free from malice. Meanwhile he had his own
affairs to manage, and Madison was not so forbearing as the President.
Merry’s first despatch announced to his Government that Madison had
already raised his tone. Without delay the matter of impressments was
brought into prominence. The “pretended” blockade of Martinique and
Guadeloupe was also strongly characterized.
“It is proper for me to notice,” said Merry in his report of
these remonstrances,[279] “that Mr. Madison gave great weight to
them by renewing them on every occasion of my seeing him, and by
his expressing that they were matters upon which this Government
could not possibly be silent until a proper remedy for the evil
should be applied by his Majesty’s government. His observations
were, however, made with great temper, and accompanied with the
strongest assurances of the disposition of this Government to
conciliate, and to concur in whatever means could be devised
which should not be absolutely derogatory to their independence
and interests, to establish principles and rules which should be
satisfactory to both parties.... But, my Lord, while it is my
duty to do justice to Mr. Madison’s temperate and conciliatory
language, I must not omit to observe that it indicated strongly
a design on the part of this Government to avail themselves
of the present conjuncture by persisting steadily in their
demands of redress of their pretended grievances, in the hope of
obtaining a greater respect to their flag, and of establishing a
more convenient system of neutral navigation than the interests
of the British empire have hitherto allowed his Majesty to
concur in.”
The British government was aware that its so-called right of
impressment and its doctrine of blockade rested on force, and could not
be maintained against superior force; but this consciousness rendered
England only the more sensitive in regard to dangers that threatened
her supremacy. Knowing that the United States would be justified in
declaring war at any moment, Great Britain looked uneasily for the
first symptoms of retaliation. When Madison took so earnest a tone,
Merry might reasonably expect that his words would be followed by acts.
These shocks were not all that the new British minister was obliged to
meet at the threshold of his residence in Washington. At the moment
when he was, as he thought, socially maltreated, and when he was
told by Madison that America meant to insist on her neutral rights,
he learned that the Government did not intend to ratify Rufus King’s
boundary convention. The Senate held that the stipulations of its fifth
article respecting the Mississippi might embarrass the new territory
west of the river. King knew of the Louisiana cession when he signed
the treaty; but the Senate had its own views on the subject, and
under the lead of General Smith[280] preferred to follow them, as it
had done in regard to the second article of the treaty with France,
Sept. 30, 1800, and as it was about to do in regard to Pinckney’s
claims convention, Aug. 11, 1802, with Spain. Merry was surprised to
find that Madison, instead of explaining the grounds of the Senate’s
hesitation, or entering into discussion of the precise geographical
difficulty, contented himself with a bald statement of the fact. The
British minister thought that this was not the most courteous way
of dealing with a treaty negotiated after a full acquaintance with
all the circumstances, and he wrote to his Government to be on its
guard:[281]--
“Notwithstanding Mr. Madison’s assurances to the contrary, I
have some reason to suspect that ideas of encroachment on his
Majesty’s just rights are entertained by some persons who have a
voice in deciding upon the question of the ratification of this
convention, not to say that I have much occasion to observe,
from circumstances in general, that there exists here a strong
impression of the consequence which this country is supposed to
have acquired by the recent additions to the territory of the
United States, as well as by the actual situation of affairs in
Europe.”
In view of the Mobile Act, introduced into Congress by Randolph on
behalf of the government a week before this letter was written,
Merry’s suspicions could hardly be called unreasonable. A like stretch
of authority applied to the northwest territory would have produced
startling results.
Merry’s suspicions that some assault was to be made upon England were
strengthened when Madison, December 5, in pursuance of a call from the
Senate, sent a list of impressments reported to the Department during
the last year. According to this paper the whole number of impressments
was forty-six,--three of which were made by France and her allies;
while of the forty-three made by Great Britain twenty-seven of the
seamen were not American citizens. Of the entire number, twelve were
stated to have had American papers; and of the twelve, nearly half
were impressed on land within British jurisdiction. The grievance,
serious as it was, had not as yet reached proportions greater than
before the Peace of Amiens. Merry drew the inference that Jefferson’s
administration meant to adopt stronger measures than had hitherto been
thought necessary. He soon began to see the scope which the new policy
was to take.
Dec. 22, 1803, Madison opened in a formal conference the diplomatic
scheme which was the outcome of these preliminary movements.[282]
Beginning with a repetition of complaints in regard to impressments,
and dwelling upon the great irritation created by such arbitrary acts,
the secretary next remonstrated against the extent given to the law
of blockade by British cruisers in the West Indies, and at length
announced that the frequent repetition of these grievances had rendered
it necessary for the United States to take immediate steps to find a
remedy for them. Instructions would therefore be shortly sent to Monroe
at London to negotiate a new convention on these subjects. The American
government would wish that its flag should give complete protection to
whatever persons might be under it, excepting only military enemies of
the belligerent. Further, it would propose that the right of visiting
ships at sea should be restrained; that the right of blockade should be
more strictly defined, and American ships be allowed, in consideration
of the distance, to clear for blockaded ports on the chance of the
blockade being removed before they arrived; and finally that the direct
trade between the West Indies and Europe should be thrown open to
American commerce without requiring it to pass through a port of the
United States.
In return Madison offered to the British government the unconditional
surrender of deserters by sea and land, together with certain
precautions against the smuggling of articles contraband of war.
Although Madison pressed the necessity of an immediate understanding
on these points, he did so in his usual temperate and conciliatory
manner; while Merry frankly avowed that he could give no hopes of such
propositions being listened to. He did this the more decisively because
Congress seemed about to take the matter of impressments into its own
hands, and was already debating a Bill for the protection of seamen by
measures which tended to hostilities. Madison disavowed responsibility
for the legislation, although he defended it in principle.[283] Merry
contented himself for the time by saying that if the United States
government sought their remedy in municipal law, the matter would
immediately cease to be a subject of negotiation.
Thus, in one short month, the two governments were brought to what
the British minister supposed to be the verge of rupture. That any
government should take so well-considered a position without meaning
to support it by acts, was not probable. Acts of some kind, more or
less hostile in their nature, were certainly intended by the United
States government in case Great Britain should persist in contempt for
neutral rights; the sudden change of tone at Washington left no doubt
on this point. Edward Thornton, who had not yet been transferred to
another post, wrote in consternation to the Foreign Office, fearing
that blame might be attached to his own conduct while in charge of the
legation:[284]--
“When I compare the complexion of Mr. Merry’s correspondence
with that of my own, particularly during the course of the
last summer, before the intelligence of the Louisiana purchase
reached this country, I can scarcely credit the testimony of my
own senses in examining the turn which affairs have taken, and
the manifest ill-will discovered toward us by the Government
at the present moment.... I believe that the simple truth of
the case is, after all, the circumstance ... that a real change
has taken place in the views of this Government, which may be
dated from the first arrival of the intelligence relative to
the Louisiana purchase, and which has since derived additional
force and acrimony from the opinion that Great Britain cannot
resist, under her present pressure, the new claims of the United
States, and now, from the necessity they are under of recurring
to the influence of France in order to support their demands
against Spain.... The cession of Louisiana, notwithstanding
that the circumstances under which it was made ought to
convince the vainest of men that he was not the sole agent in
the transaction, has elevated the President beyond imagination
in his own opinion; and I have no doubt that he thinks of
securing himself at the next election by having to boast of
concessions and advantages derived from us, similar to those he
has gained from France,--that is, great in appearance, and at a
comparatively insignificant expense.”
From such premises, the conclusion, so far as concerned England, was
inevitable; and Thornton agreed with Merry in affirming it without
reserve:--
“Everything, as it relates to this government, now depends on
our firmness. If we yield an iota without a real and perfect
equivalent (not such imaginary equivalents as Mr. Madison
mentions to Mr. Merry), we are lost.”
CHAPTER XVII.
Whatever objects the President and the Secretary of State may have
expected to gain by their change of tone in the winter of 1803–1804
toward Spain and England, they must have been strangely free from human
passions if they were unconscious of making at least two personal
enemies upon whose ill-will they might count. If they were unaware
of giving their victims cause for bitterness,--or if, as seemed
more probable, they were indifferent to it,--the frequent chances
of retaliation which the two ministers enjoyed soon showed that in
diplomacy revenge was not only sweet but easy. Even the vehement
Spanish hatred felt by Yrujo for Madison fell short of the patient
Anglo-Saxon antipathy rooted in the minds of the British minister and
his wife. When Yrujo, in March, 1804, burst into the State Department
with the Mobile Act in his hand and denounced Madison to his face as
party to an “infamous libel,” he succeeded in greatly annoying the
secretary without violating Jefferson’s “canons of etiquette.” Under
the code of republican manners which the President and his secretary
had introduced, they could not fairly object to anything which Yrujo
might choose to say or do. Absolute equality and “the rule of
_pêle-mêle_” reached their natural conclusion between such hosts
and guests in freedom of language and vehemence of passion. What might
have been Merry’s feelings or conduct had he met with more cordiality
and courtesy was uncertain; but the mortifications of his first month
at Washington embittered his temper, and left distinct marks of
acrimony in the diplomacy of America and England, until war wiped out
the memory of reciprocal annoyances. The Spaniard’s enmity was already
a peril to Madison’s ambition, and one which became more threatening
every day; but the Englishman’s steady resentment was perhaps more
mischievous, if less noisy. The first effect of Jefferson’s tactics
was to ally the British minister with Yrujo; the second bound him
to Senator Pickering and Representative Griswold; the third united
his fortunes with those of Aaron Burr. Merry entered the path of
secret conspiracy; he became the confidant of all the intriguers in
Washington, and gave to their intrigues the support of his official
influence.
The Federalists worked mischievously to widen the breach between the
British minister and the President. They encouraged Merry’s resentment.
Late in January, nearly two months after the first _pêle-mêle_,
Madison officially informed Merry for the first time that the President
meant to recognize no precedence between foreign ministers, but that
all, even including secretaries of legation in charge, were to be
treated with perfect equality, or what Madison termed “a complete
pell-mell,” and would be received, even at their first audience, with
no more ceremony than was practised toward any other individual. Merry
replied that this notice should have been given to him on his arrival,
and that he could not acquiesce in it without instructions. He then
wrote to his Government,[285]--
“I have now but too much reason to fear, what I did not at
first suspect, that the marked inattention toward me of the
present Administration of this country has been a part of their
unfriendly disposition toward his Majesty and toward the nation
which I have the honor to represent.”
At the same moment, in January and February, 1804, Pickering and
Griswold were plotting their New England confederacy. Merry was taken
by them into the secret, and gave them aid. The Senate, February
9, voted to strike out the fifth article of Rufus King’s boundary
convention, and to approve the other articles, which provided for
fixing the disputed boundary-line of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
Merry wrote to his Government that the object of cancelling the fifth
article was to deprive Great Britain of her treaty-right to navigate
the Mississippi:[286]--
“It is hardly necessary for me to point out to your Lordship
that the other articles of the convention are of great
importance to the Eastern States of America, which are much
interested in the immediate settlement of the eastern boundary.
I am led to believe from the language of some of the members of
this State [Massachusetts] that their anxiety on this head is so
great that the rejection of those articles by his Majesty would,
as having been occasioned by the exclusion on the part of this
government of the fifth article, prove to be a great exciting
cause to them to go forward rapidly in the steps which they have
already commenced toward a separation from the Southern part of
the Union. The members of the Senate have availed themselves of
the opportunity of their being collected here to hold private
meetings on this subject, and I learn from them that their
plans and calculations respecting the event have been long
seriously resolved. They think that whenever it shall take place
it will happen suddenly, yet with quietness and the universal
concurrence of the people. Although it does not appear to be
their opinion that any external secret agency would accelerate
the moment, they naturally look forward to Great Britain for
support and assistance whenever the occasion shall arrive.”
As the summer of 1804 came on, Merry’s despatches grew more sombre.
He reported that at Norfolk twelve British ships were detained at one
time in consequence of the desertion of their seamen, several of whom
had entered the United States service on the frigates which were under
orders for Tripoli. Six British seamen having deserted at Charleston
and re-enlisted in the same way, Merry remonstrated. He was told that
the seamen, having voluntarily enlisted in the United States service,
could not be restored, because the British government never restored
American seamen who had voluntarily enlisted. Merry could only reply
that the British government did not knowingly enlist deserters. On the
other hand, Madison remonstrated in “high language,” “accompanied even
with some degree of menace,” against the conduct of Captain Bradley
of the frigate “Cambrian,” one of the British squadron cruising off
Sandy Hook, for taking a British seaman out of a British vessel within
American jurisdiction. Merry added that in contrast to this strictness
toward England the authorities had allowed the officers of the French
frigate “La Poursuivante,” at Baltimore, to send armed parties on shore
at night for the purpose of seizing French seamen, one of whom they had
actually taken by force from a Spanish vessel lying at the wharf.
“From this government having brought into such serious
discussion objects which would certainly have passed unnoticed
had they occurred in relation to the King’s enemies, his
Majesty’s ministers may be led to suspect that such a resolution
has been dictated by some hostile design,” wrote Merry, with
increasing solemnity; “but it is proper for me to observe that
... I cannot persuade myself that they will dare to provoke
hostilities with his Majesty, at least before Mr. Jefferson’s
re-election to the Presidency shall have taken place.”[287]
Merry made a representation to Madison on impressments; but his
arguments did not satisfy the secretary. “This specimen of Merry shows
him to be a mere diplomatic pettifogger,” wrote Madison privately to
the President.[288]
Merry’s temper was in this stage of ever-increasing irritability, when
an event occurred which gave him, as it seemed, a chance to gratify his
resentments. After the adjournment of Congress in March the British
minister heard nothing from Pickering and Griswold. Early in June he
wrote home that the democrats were carrying all the elections:[289]--
“In addition to this triumph of the reigning party, there
have lately appeared in the prints of this country, which
are generally made the instruments of the measures of all
parties, publications of the discovery that has been made of
secret meetings held at this place by some of the Federal
members during the last sitting of Congress for the purpose of
consulting upon the important point of the separation of the
Eastern from the Southern States, which publications seem to
have imposed a complete silence upon the Federal adherents.”
A few weeks afterward, July 11, occurred the duel between Burr
and Hamilton. Merry had no relations with Hamilton, and felt no
peculiar interest in his fate; but he had become intimate with Burr
at Washington, and watched his career with the curiosity which was
the natural result of their common hatred of Jefferson. July 21 Burr
fled from New York, and a few days afterward reached Philadelphia,
where Merry was passing the summer. While there, Burr sent one of
his friends--an Englishman named Williamson--to the British minister
with a startling message, which Merry immediately transmitted to his
Government:[290]--
“I have just received an offer from Mr. Burr, the actual
Vice-President of the United States (which situation he is
about to resign), to lend his assistance to his Majesty’s
government in any manner in which they may think fit to employ
him, particularly in endeavoring to effect a separation of the
western part of the United States from that which lies between
the Atlantic and the mountains, in its whole extent. His
proposition on this and other subjects will be fully detailed to
your Lordship by Colonel Williamson, who has been the bearer of
them to me, and who will embark for England in a few days. It
is therefore only necessary for me to add that if after what is
generally known of the profligacy of Mr. Burr’s character, his
Majesty’s minister should think proper to listen to his offer,
his present situation in this country, where he is now cast off
as much by the democratic as by the Federal party, and where he
still preserves connections with some people of influence, added
to his great ambition and spirit of revenge against the present
Administration, may possibly induce him to exert the talents and
activity which he possesses with fidelity to his employers.”
Meanwhile a change of ministry occurred in England. Pitt returned
to power, representing a state of feeling toward America very
different from that which prevailed under the mild rule of Addington.
Subordinates were quick to feel such changes in the temper of their
superiors. Every British officer knew that henceforth he had behind him
an energetic government, which required vigorous action in maintaining
what it claimed as British rights. Merry felt the new impulse like the
rest; but Pitt’s return acted most seriously on the naval service.
After the renewal of the war in May, 1803, a small British squadron
cruised off Sandy Hook, keeping a sharp look-out for French frigates
in New York Harbor, and searching every merchant-vessel for enemy’s
property. During the summer of 1804 this annoyance became steadily
greater, until the port of New York was almost blockaded, and every
vessel that sailed out or in was liable not only to be stopped and
searched, but to lose some part of its crew by impressment. The British
ministry did indeed instantly recall Captain Bradley of the “Cambrian”
for violating American jurisdiction, and gave strict orders for the
lenient exercise of belligerent rights; but all the more it showed the
intention of insisting upon the submission of America to such rules as
England should prescribe. The President, already in trouble with Spain,
began to feel the double peril; but Congress pressed him forward, and
even while busy with the trial of Judge Chase it found time for two
measures which greatly disturbed the British envoy.
The first of these measures was an “Act for the more effectual
preservation of peace in the ports and harbors of the United States.”
Under this law any United States marshal, on the warrant of any
United States judge, was bound to board any British or other foreign
ship-of-war lying in American waters, and seize every person charged
with having violated the peace. If the marshal should be resisted, or
if surrender was not made, he must call in the military power, and
compel surrender by force of arms. If death should ensue, he should
be held blameless; but the resisting party should be punished as for
felonious homicide. Further, the President was authorized to interdict
at will the ports of the United States to all or any armed vessels of a
foreign nation; and to arrest and indict any foreign officer who should
come within the jurisdiction after committing on the high seas “any
trespass or tort, or any spoliation, on board any vessel of the United
States, or any unlawful interruption or vexation of trading-vessels
actually coming to or going from the United States.”
Such laws were commonly understood in diplomacy as removing the
subject in question from the field of negotiation, preliminary to
reprisals and war. The Act was passed with little debate in the last
hours of the session, in the midst of the confusion which followed the
acquittal of Judge Chase. Merry immediately called on the Secretary of
State, and asked him for some assurance that might serve to quiet the
apprehensions which his Government would feel on reading the Act.[291]
Madison could give none, except that the President would probably not
exercise for the present his discretionary powers. As for the words,
“any trespass or tort,” Madison frankly avowed “he could not but
confess they were meant to imply the impressment of any individual
whatsoever from on board an American vessel, the exercise of which
pretended right on the part of his Majesty’s officers was a matter,
he said, which the sense of the people at large would never allow the
government of this country to acquiesce in.”
To this announcement Merry replied in substance that the right was
one which would certainly never be abandoned by his Government; and
there the matter rested at the close of Jefferson’s first term.
Madison assured the British minister that the authority granted to the
President by Congress over foreign ships of war in American waters
would not at present be enforced. He went even a step further toward
conciliation. The Legislature of Virginia was induced quietly to
modify the Act which had hitherto offered so much encouragement to the
desertion of British seamen.[292]
The second threatening measure was a Resolution of the Senate, March 2,
1805, calling upon the Secretary of State for such Acts of the British
Parliament as imposed heavier duties on the exportation of merchandise
to the United States than on similar goods exported to the nations of
Europe. Such an export duty upon merchandise for the United States and
the West Indies had in fact been imposed by Parliament some two years
before; and this Resolution foreshadowed some commercial retaliation by
Congress.
While sending to his Government these warnings to expect from
Jefferson’s second administration a degree of hostility more active
than from the first, Merry suggested means of giving the United States
occupation that should induce them to leave England alone. A new
element of conspiracy disclosed itself to the British minister.
Under the Louisiana treaty of cession, the United States government
had promised that “the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be
incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as
possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to
the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens
of the United States.” This pledge had been broken. The usual display
of casuistry had been made to prove that the infraction of treaty was
no infraction at all; but the more outspoken Republicans avowed, as has
been already shown, that the people of Louisiana could not be trusted,
or in the commoner phrase that they were unfit for self-government, and
must be treated as a conquered race until they learned to consider
themselves American citizens.
The people of New Orleans finding themselves in a position of
dependence, which, owing chiefly to their hatred of Governor Claiborne,
seemed more irritating than their old Spanish servitude, sent three
representatives to Washington to urge upon Congress the duty of
executing the treaty. Messieurs Sauvé, Derbigny, and Destréhan
accordingly appeared at Washington, and in December, 1804, presented
a remonstrance so strong that Government was greatly embarrassed to
deal with it.[293] Any reply that should repudiate either the treaty
obligation or the principles of American liberty and self-government
was out of the question; any reply that should affirm either the one or
the other was fatal to the system established by Congress in Louisiana.
John Randolph, on whose shoulders the duty fell, made a report on the
subject. “It is only under the torture,” said he, “that this article
of the treaty of Paris can be made to speak the language ascribed to
it by the memorialists;” but after explaining in his own way what the
article did not mean, he surprised his audience by admitting in effect
that the law of the last session was repugnant to the Constitution,
and that the people of Louisiana had a right to self-government.[294]
Senator Giles said in private that Randolph’s report was “a perfect
transcript of Randolph’s own character; it began by setting the claims
of the Louisianians at defiance, and concluded with a proposal to give
them more than they asked.”[295]
Under these influences the three delegates from the creole society
succeeded in getting, not what they asked, but a general admission that
the people of Louisiana had political rights, which Congress recognized
by an Act, approved March 2, 1805, to the extent of allowing them
to elect a General Assembly of twenty-five representatives, and of
promising them admission into the Union whenever their free inhabitants
should reach the number of sixty thousand. Considering that the people
of Louisiana were supposed to be entitled to “_all_ the rights,
advantages, and immunities of citizens,” Messieurs Sauvé, Derbigny, and
Destréhan thought the concession too small, and expressed themselves
strongly on the subject. Naturally the British minister, as well as
other ill-affected persons at Washington, listened eagerly to the
discontent which promised to breed hostility to the Union.
“The deputies above mentioned,” wrote Merry to his
Government,[296] “who while they had any hopes of obtaining the
redress of their grievances had carefully avoided giving any
umbrage or jealousy to the Government by visiting or holding any
intercourse with the agents of foreign Powers at this place,
when they found that their fate was decided, although the law
had not as yet passed, no longer abstained from communicating
with those agents, nor from expressing very publicly the great
dissatisfaction which the law would occasion among their
constituents,--going even so far as to say that it would not be
tolerated, and that they would be obliged to seek redress from
some other quarter; while they observed that the opportunity
they had had of obtaining a correct knowledge of the state
of things in this country, and of witnessing the proceedings
of Congress, afforded them no confidence in the stability of
the Union, and furnished them with such strong motives to be
dissatisfied with the form and mode of government as to make
them regret extremely the connection which they had been forced
into with it. These sentiments they continued to express till
the moment of their departure from hence, which took place the
day after the close of the session.”
Another man watched the attitude of the three delegates with extreme
interest. Aaron Burr, March 4, 1805, ceased to hold the office of
Vice-president. Since the previous August he had awaited the report
of his friend Colonel Williamson, who entered into conferences with
members of the British ministry, hoping to gain their support for
Burr’s plan of creating a Western Confederacy in the Valley of the
Ohio. No sooner was Burr out of office than he went to Merry with new
communications, which Merry hastened to send to his Government in a
despatch marked “Most secret” in triplicate.[297]
“Mr. Burr (with whom I know that the deputies became very
intimate during their residence here) has mentioned to me
that the inhabitants of Louisiana seem determined to render
themselves independent of the United States, and that the
execution of their design is only delayed by the difficulty of
obtaining previously an assurance of protection and assistance
from some foreign Power, and of concerting and connecting their
independence with that of the inhabitants of the western parts
of the United States, who must always have a command over them
by the rivers which communicate with the Mississippi. It is
clear that Mr. Burr (although he has not as yet confided to me
the exact nature and extent of his plan) means to endeavor to be
the instrument of effecting such a connection.”
For this purpose Burr asked the aid of the British government, and
defined the nature of the assistance he should need,--a British
squadron at the mouth of the Mississippi, and a loan of half a million
dollars.
“I have only to add that if a strict confidence could be placed
in him, he certainly possesses, perhaps in a much greater degree
than any other individual in this country, all the talents,
energy, intrepidity, and firmness which are required for such an
enterprise.”
Pending an answer to this proposal, Burr was to visit New Orleans and
make himself the head of creole disaffection.
Merry was launched into the full tide of conspiracy. At the close of
Jefferson’s first term he saw reason to hope that he might soon repay
with interest the debt of personal and political annoyance which he
owed. While Yrujo was actively engaged in bringing upon Madison the
anger of Spain and France, Merry endeavored to draw his Government into
a system of open and secret reprisals upon the President.
That the new French minister was little better disposed than Merry
and Yrujo has been already shown; but his causes for ill-will were
of a different and less personal nature. Before Turreau’s arrival at
Washington in November, 1804, Pichon in one of his last despatches
declared that Jefferson had already alienated every foreign Power whose
enmity could be dangerous to the United States.
“The state of foreign relations offers a perspective which
must put Mr. Jefferson’s character to proof,” Pichon wrote to
Talleyrand in September, 1804.[298] “The United States find
themselves compromised and at odds with France, England, and
Spain at the same time. This state of things is in great part
due to the indecision of the President, and to the policy
which leads him to sacrifice everything for the sake of his
popularity.”
The complaint was common to all French ministers in the United States,
and meant little more than that all Presidents and policies displeased
them by stopping short of war on England, which was the object of
French diplomacy; but this letter also showed that in Pichon’s eyes the
President had no friends. When Turreau arrived, a few weeks afterward,
he quickly intimated that the President need expect from him not even
such sentimental sympathy as had been so kindly given by Pichon.
At the same moment it was noticed that Jefferson changed his style of
dress. “He has improved much in the article of dress,” wrote Senator
Plumer in December, 1804;[299] “he has laid aside the old slippers,
red waistcoat, and soiled corduroy small-clothes, and was dressed
all in black, with clean linen and powdered hair.” Apparently the
President had profited by the criticisms of the British minister, and
was willing to avoid similar comments from the new French envoy; but he
supposed that the Frenchman would show equal civility, and assume an
equally republican style. He was mistaken. November 23, undisturbed by
Merry’s experience, Turreau presented himself at his first audience in
full regimentals, and with so much gold lace that Jefferson was half
inclined to resent it as an impertinence.[300] Turreau next refused to
meet Merry at dinner. He followed up these demonstrations by embracing
the cause of Yrujo, and ridiculing Madison to his face. He began by
warning his Government that “these people have been thoroughly spoiled;
it is time to put them back into their place.”[301]
Turreau became intimate with the deputies from Louisiana, and notified
Talleyrand that a separation of the western country from the Union was
universally expected. Already, within three months of his arrival, he
put his finger on the men who were to accomplish it.[302] Destréhan, he
said, was a man of high merit; “but being only moderately ambitious,
and head of a numerous family,--having acquired, too, a great personal
esteem,--he is not likely to become the principal mover in innovations
which are always dangerous without a combination of evidently favorable
chances. It is still less likely that he will ever be the instrument
of strangers who should seek to excite troubles for their personal
advantage.” As for Sauvé, much inferior to his colleague in abilities,
he would be guided by Destréhan’s influence. Derbigny was different.
“Young still, with wit, ready expression, and French manners, I believe
him to be greedy of fortune and fame; I suspect that every _rôle_
will suit him, in order to acquire the one or the other; but there are
men of more importance whom circumstances are taking to Louisiana.”
Then Turreau, for the information of Talleyrand, drew a portrait of the
military commander of Upper Louisiana, who had his headquarters at St.
Louis, and whose influence on future events was to be watched.
“General Wilkinson is forty-eight years of age. He has an
amiable exterior. Though said to be well-informed in civil and
political matters, his military capacity is small. Ambitious
and easily dazzled, fond of show and appearances, he complains
rather indiscreetly, and especially after dinner, of the
form of his government, which leaves officers few chances of
fortune, advancement, and glory, and which does not pay its
military chiefs enough to support a proper style. He listened
with pleasure, or rather with enthusiasm, to the details which
I gave him in regard to the organization, the dress, and the
force of the French army. My uniform, the order with which I am
decorated, are objects of envy to him; and he seems to hold to
the American service only because he can do no better. General
Wilkinson is the most intimate friend, or rather the most
devoted creature, of Colonel Burr.”
Talleyrand had become acquainted with Burr in the United States,
and needed no warnings against him; but Turreau showed himself
well-informed:
“Mr. Burr’s career is generally looked upon as finished; but he
is far from sharing that opinion, and I believe he would rather
sacrifice the interests of his country than renounce celebrity
and fortune. Although Louisiana is still only a Territory,
it has obtained the right of sending a delegate to Congress.
Louisiana is therefore to become the theatre of Mr. Burr’s
new intrigues; he is going there under the ægis of General
Wilkinson.”
Perhaps Turreau received this information from Derbigny, which might
account for his estimate of the young man. Certainly Derbigny knew all
that Turreau reported, for in an affidavit[303] two years afterward he
admitted his knowledge.
“In the winter of 1804–1805,” Derbigny made oath, “being
then at Washington City in the capacity of a deputy from the
inhabitants of Louisiana to Congress, jointly with Messrs.
Destréhan and Sauvé, he was introduced to Colonel Burr, then
Vice-president of the United States, by General Wilkinson,
who strongly recommended to this deponent, and as he believes
to his colleagues, to cultivate the acquaintance of Colonel
Burr,--whom he used to call ‘the first gentleman in America,’
telling them that he was a man of the most eminent talents both
as a politician and as a military character; and ... General
Wilkinson told him several times that Colonel Burr, so soon as
his Vice-presidency would be at an end, would go to Louisiana,
where he had certain projects, adding that he was such a man as
to succeed in anything he would undertake, and inviting this
deponent to give him all the information in his power respecting
that country; which mysterious hints appeared to this deponent
very extraordinary, though he could not then understand them.”
What Derbigny in 1807 professed not to have understood, seemed
in 1804 clear to Turreau and Merry as well as to others. Turreau
closed his catalogue by the significant remark: “I am not the only
person who thinks that the assemblage of such men in a country
already discontented is enough to give rise to serious troubles
there.” The treasonable plans of Burr and Wilkinson were a matter
of common notoriety, and roused anxious comment even in the mind of
John Randolph, who was nursing at home the mortification of Judge
Chase’s acquittal.[304] Randolph complained of “the easy credulity
of Mr. Jefferson’s temper,” which made the President a fit material
for intriguers to work upon. Certainly at the close of his first
administration Jefferson seemed surrounded by enemies. The New England
Federalists, the Louisiana creoles, Burr and his crew of adventurers
in every part of the Union, joined hands with the ministers of England
and Spain to make a hostile circle round the President; while the
minister of France looked on without a wish to save the government
whose friendship Bonaparte had sought to obtain at the cost of the
most valuable province and the most splendid traditions of the French
people.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AFTER aiding to negotiate the Louisiana treaty at Paris, in
April and May, 1803, Monroe, as the story has already told, being
forbidden by Bonaparte to pursue his journey to Madrid, followed
his alternative instructions, to take the post which Rufus King was
vacating in London. King left England in the middle of May, 1803;
Monroe arrived in London July 18, when the war between England and
France was already two months old.
The mild Addington ministry was still in power, and nothing had yet
happened to excite Monroe’s alarm in regard to British policy in the
United States. On the contrary, the ministry aided the Louisiana
purchase with readiness that might reasonably have surprised an
American minister, while the friendliest spirit was shown by Lord
Hawkesbury in all matters of detail. Except the standing dispute about
impressments, every old point of collision had been successfully
removed by King, whose two conventions,--the one for discharging
British debts recognized by treaty, the other for settling the
boundaries of New England and of the northwest territory,--seemed to
free the countries for the first time from the annoying inheritance
of disputes entailed by the definitive treaty which closed the
Revolutionary War in 1783. The calm which seemed to prevail throughout
England in regard to her relations with America contrasted sharply with
the excitement shown by the English people in all their allusions to
the Corsican demon, as they thought him, whose regiments, gathering at
Boulogne, they might expect to see at any moment encamped at Hastings,
where no hostile camp-fire had burned since the night, seven hundred
years before, when the body of an English king, hedged about with the
dead bodies of a whole English aristocracy, lay stiff and stark on the
bloody hillside, victims of another French adventurer. England was
intent on her own imminent dangers; and under the strain which the
renewal of her painful efforts brought with it, she was glad to leave
America alone.
Yet calm as the atmosphere appeared to be, signs of future storm were
not wholly wanting. Had Monroe been naturally anxious, he might,
without seeking far, have found cause for anxiety serious enough to
take away all appetite for Spanish travel, and to hold him close to his
post until some one should consent to relieve him from an ungrateful
and unpromising duty. The American minister at London in 1804 could
hope to gain nothing either for his country or for himself, and he
stood always on the verge of disaster; but when he was required to
take a “high tone” in the face of a nation almost insane with anxiety,
he challenged more chances of mortification than any but a desperate
politician would have cared to risk.
Monroe had at first nothing to do but to watch the course of public
opinion in England. During the autumn of 1803, while President
Jefferson and Secretary Madison at Washington received Merry with a
changed policy, and all through the winter, while Washington was torn
by “canons of etiquette” and by contests of strength between Jefferson,
Madison, Casa Yrujo, and Merry, the United States minister in London
was left at peace to study the political problems which bore on his
own fortunes and on those of his friends at home, as well as on the
interests of the Union.
Beneath the calm of general society mutterings of discontent from
powerful interests could be heard,--occasional outbursts of jealousy,
revivals of old and virulent passions, inveterate prejudices, which
made as yet but little noise in the Press or in Parliament, but which
rankled in the breasts of individuals. One of the earlier symptoms
of trouble came in a familiar shape. For twenty years, whenever a
question had arisen of hostility to American trade or of prejudice
against American character, the first of Englishmen to stimulate it,
and the loudest to proclaim the dangers of Great Britain, had been
John Baker Holroyd, Earl of Sheffield, whose memory might have been
lost under the weight of his pamphlets had it not been embalmed in the
autobiography of Gibbon. Lord Sheffield felt such devotion to the
British navigation laws as could be likened only to the idolatry which
a savage felt toward his fetich; one might almost have supposed that to
him the State, the Church, and the liberties of England, the privileges
of her nobility, and even the person of her sovereign, were sacred
chiefly because they guaranteed the safety of her maritime system. This
fanaticism of an honest mind led to results so extravagant as to become
at times ridiculous. The existence of the United States was a protest
against Lord Sheffield’s political religion; and therefore in his eyes
the United States were no better than a nation of criminals, capable of
betraying their God for pieces of silver. The independence of America
had shattered the navigation system of England into fragments; but Lord
Sheffield clung the more desperately to his broken idol. Among the
portions which had been saved were the West Indian colonies. If at that
day the navigation laws had one object more important than another,
it was to foster the prosperity of these islands, in order that their
sugar and molasses, coffee and rum, might give freight to British
shippers and employment to British seamen; but to Lord Sheffield the
islands were only a degree less obnoxious than the revolted United
States, for they were American at heart, complaining because they were
forbidden to trade freely with New York and Boston, and even asserting
that when the navigation laws were strictly enforced their slaves
died of starvation and disease. Lord Sheffield seriously thought them
ungrateful to murmur, and held it their duty to perish in silence
rather than ask a relaxation of the law.
The rupture of the Peace of Amiens, in May, 1803, set Lord Sheffield
again at work; and unfortunately the material lay ready to his hand.
The whole subject of his discourse related to a single fact; but
this fact was full of alarm to the English people. The extraordinary
decrease of British tonnage in the American trade, the corresponding
increase of American shipping, and the loud exultation of the Yankees
over the British shipmasters were proofs of the danger which menaced
England, whose existence depended on maritime strength. In the month of
February, 1804, Lord Sheffield published a pamphlet,[305] which dwelt
on these calamities as due to the wanton relaxation of the navigation
laws and the senseless clamor of the colonies. He was answered in a
pamphlet[306] written by one of the colonial agents; and the answer was
convincing, so far as Lord Sheffield’s argument was concerned, but his
array of statistics remained to disturb the British mind.
Monroe might therefore count on having, some day, to meet whatever
mischief the shipping interest of Great Britain could cause. No
argument was needed to prove that the navy would support with zeal
whatever demands should be made by the mercantile marine. There
remained the immense influence of the West Indian colonies to
consider; and if this should be brought into active sympathy with the
shipowners and the royal marine against American trade, no minister in
England--not even Pitt himself at the height of his power--would be
strong enough to resist the combination.
The staple product of the West Indian islands was sugar, and owing to
several causes the profits of the planters had until 1798 been large.
The insurrection of the Haytian negroes in 1792 annihilated for the
time the supply of sugar from St. Domingo; prices rose in consequence,
and a great increase in the number of sugar plantations naturally
followed. Several of the Dutch and French islands fell into the hands
of England, and adventurers flocked to them, eager to invest British
capital in new sugar-fields. Under this impulse the supply again
increased. Cuba, Porto Rico, Guadeloupe, and at last St. Domingo itself
under Toussaint’s rule poured sugar into the market. American ships
carried French and Spanish sugar to Europe until it became a drug. The
high price lasted till 1798; in that year Pitt even imposed a heavy
additional duty upon it as a sure source of revenue. In 1799 the effect
of over-production first became apparent. During the next few years
the price of sugar fell, until great suffering began to prevail in the
islands, and the planters wrote piteous letters of distress to England.
Their agents wrote back that the English market was flooded with
colonial produce: “Send no more sugar home; give it away rather!” was
their advice,--and the colonists, without the means of purchasing even
the necessaries of life, supplicated government to let them send their
sugar to the United States, to be exchanged for American produce.[307]
This the government dared not do, for the shipping interest must in
such a case be sacrificed. Debarred from this outlet for their produce,
the colonists looked about them for some other resource; and since they
were not allowed to act independently of the shipmasters, they saw no
other course than to join hands with the shipping interest, and to
invoke the aid of the navigation laws. The glut of the European market
was caused by American neutrals, who were allowed to carry French and
Spanish sugars from the West Indies to Europe. If this neutral trade
could be stopped, the supply of French and Spanish sugar would be left
to rot in Cuba and Guadeloupe, while British colonial produce would
enjoy a monopoly throughout Europe.
Even before the Peace of Amiens this policy gained many adherents, and
the Peace tended to strengthen their influence. The Addington ministry
was not only weak in character, but timid in policy; and by a natural
reaction it threw restless and ambitious younger statesmen into an
attitude of protest. A new departure was felt to be necessary; and
the nervous energy of England, strained almost to insanity by the
anxieties of ten years’ desperate danger, exhausted itself in the cry
for one great commanding spirit, who should meet Bonaparte with his own
weapons on his own field.
This cry produced George Canning. Of him and his qualities much will
be said hereafter, when his rise to power shall have made him a more
prominent figure; here need be noticed only the forces which sought
assertion through him, and the nature of the passions which he was
peculiarly qualified to express. At all times nations have been most
imperilled by the violence of disappointed or terrified interests; but
the danger was never so great as when these interests joined to a greed
for selfish gain the cry for an unscrupulous chief. Every American
schoolboy once knew by heart the famous outburst of Canning, which
began, “Away with the cant of ‘measures, not men’!” but of the millions
of persons who read or heard this favorite extract few understood its
meaning to American interests and feelings. This celebrated speech,
made Dec. 8, 1802, at a time when Addington’s cautious ministry still
held office, was intended to dwarf Addington and elevate Pitt,--to
ridicule caution and extol violence. “Sir,” cried Canning, “to meet,
to check, to resist, to stand up against Bonaparte, we want arms of
the same kind. I vote for the large military establishments with all
my heart; but for the purpose of coping with Bonaparte, one great,
commanding spirit is worth them all.”
“Arms of the same kind” were, speaking generally, irresponsible
violence and disregard of morality. The great, commanding spirit of the
moment was Mr. Pitt; but between the lines of this speech, by the light
of its author’s whole career, the secret was easily read that in his
opinion the man of the future who could best meet Bonaparte on his own
ground with his own weapons was not William Pitt, but George Canning.
After many months of warfare against Addington, Canning was gratified.
In May, 1804, Addington retired from office, carrying into the House
of Lords the new title of Lord Sidmouth, while Pitt returned to
power. No one of note returned with him. His old colleague, Lord
Grenville, refused to join his Administration, and Charles James Fox
was personally excluded by King George. To fill the Foreign Office
Pitt could find no better man than Lord Harrowby,--a personage of
very second-rate importance in politics. With a Cabinet so weak as to
command little respect, and reactionary as was required to suit the
King’s growing prejudices, Pitt was obliged to disguise his feebleness
by the vigor of his measures. While creating, by expenditure of money,
a new coalition against Napoleon, he was unable to disregard the great
moneyed and social interests which were clamoring for a spirited policy
against neutrals and especially against America. In private he avowed
his determination to re-establish the old system, and his regret that
he should ever have been, most reluctantly, induced to relax the
maritime rights of Britain.[308]
That Monroe should have been the last person in London to know the
secret thoughts of Pitt was not surprising. The Board of Trade commonly
exerted more influence than the Foreign Office over the relations of
England with the United States; and George Rose, Vice-President of the
Board of Trade, Pitt’s devoted friend and a Tory after Lord Sheffield’s
heart, would never have chosen Monroe as a confidant of schemes under
discussion in his department. Lord Harrowby was but the mouthpiece of
other men. From him Monroe could expect to hear only what had already
been decided. Nevertheless a little study of the mercantile interests
of the city, and a careful inquiry into the private opinions of men
like Rose and Canning, might have thrown some light on the future, and
would naturally have roused anxiety in the mind of Monroe.
Pitt’s return to power, with the intention of changing the American
policy which had been pursued since the negotiation of Jay’s treaty,
happened very nearly to coincide with the arrival at the Foreign Office
of Merry’s most alarming despatches, announcing that Madison required
the total abandonment of impressments, the restriction of blockades
and the right of search, and complete freedom in the colonial trade,
as the conditions on which the friendship of the United States could
be preserved. The announcement of President Jefferson’s high tone
was accompanied by the British minister’s account of his own social
mortifications by the President and the Secretary of State; of the
Senate’s refusal to approve the fifth article of Rufus King’s boundary
convention, in order to attack the British right of navigating the
Mississippi; and by drafts of bills pending in Congress, under which
any British admiral, even though it were Nelson himself, who should
ever have taken a seaman out of an American vessel, was to be arrested
in the streets of the first American port where he might go ashore,
and to suffer indefinite imprisonment among thieves and felons in the
calaboose.
May 30, 1804, Monroe had his first interview with Lord Harrowby. In
such cases the new secretary, about to receive a foreign minister,
commonly sent for the late correspondence, in order to learn something
about the subjects on which he was to have an opinion. Beyond a doubt
Lord Harrowby had on his table the despatches of Merry, written between
November and April, which he probably finished reading at about the
moment when Monroe was announced at the door.
Under such circumstances, Monroe reported to his Government that Lord
Harrowby’s manners were designedly unfriendly; his reception was
rough, his comments on the Senate’s habit of mutilating treaties were
harsh, his conduct throughout the interview was calculated to wound
and to irritate.[309] After this unpromising experience, two months
were allowed to pass without further demonstration on either side.
Then Lord Harrowby called Monroe’s attention to the twelfth article
of Jay’s treaty, which regulated the commercial relations between the
British West Indies and the United States, and which had expired by
limitation. He suggested its renewal, according to its old terms, until
two years after the next general peace. To this offer Monroe replied,
with the utmost frankness, “that the President wished to postpone this
matter until he could include impressment and neutral rights in the
treaty; that we must begin _de novo_; that America was a young and
thriving country; that in 1794 she had had little experience, since
then she understood her interests better; and that a new treaty should
omit certain things from that of 1794, and include others. The most
urgent part was that which respected our seamen.”[310]
An approaching contact of opposite forces always interests men’s
imagination. On one side, Pitt and Lord Harrowby stood meditating the
details of measures, which they had decided in principle, for taking
from the United States most of the commercial advantages hitherto
enjoyed by them; on the other side stood Monroe and Jefferson, equally
confident, telling the Englishmen that very much greater advantages
must be conceded. That one or the other of these forces must very soon
give way was evident; and if ever an American minister in London needed
to be on the alert, with every faculty strained to its utmost, the
autumn of 1804 was such a moment. Monroe, aware of his danger, gave
full warning to the President. Even as early as June 3, after his first
interview with Lord Harrowby, he wrote that a change of policy was
imminent. “My most earnest advice is to look to the possibility of such
a change.”[311]
Lord Harrowby also gave every reasonable warning. His reply to Monroe’s
demands for further negotiation was simple,--nothing need be expected
from him. He refused to do any business at all, on the plea of other
occupations incident to the formation of a new ministry.[312] Monroe
sent him the draft of the comprehensive treaty which Madison had
forwarded, but Lord Harrowby declined for the present to discuss it.
Then Monroe came to the conclusion that his presence in London was no
longer necessary; and accordingly, Oct. 8, 1804, he started for Paris
and Madrid. Until July 23, 1805, the legation at London was left in
charge of a secretary.
A month after his departure, Lord Harrowby wrote a letter of
instructions[313] to Merry in reply to the series of despatches
received from Washington.
“His Majesty’s government,” he said, “have perceived
with considerable concern, from some of your most recent
despatches, the increasing acrimony which appears to pervade
the representations that have been made to you by the American
Secretary of State on the subject of the impressment of seamen
from on board of American ships. The pretension advanced by Mr.
Madison that the American flag should protect every individual
sailing under it on board of a merchant-ship is too extravagant
to require any serious refutation. In the exercise of the right,
which has been asserted by his Majesty and his predecessors for
ages, of reclaiming from a foreign service the subjects of Great
Britain, whether they are found on the high seas or in the ports
of his own dominions, irregularities must undoubtedly frequently
occur; but the utmost solicitude has been uniformly manifested
by his Majesty’s government to prevent them as far as may be
possible, and to repress them whenever they have actually taken
place.”
Intending to pursue the same course in the future, the Government would
without delay give the strictest orders to its naval officers “to
observe the utmost lenity in visiting ships on the high seas, and to
abstain from impressments in the ports of the United States.”
In regard to commercial questions, Lord Harrowby offered to consider
the treaty of 1794 as in force until some new arrangement could be
formed. Until the decision of the President should be known, it was
“intended to propose to Parliament to lodge the power of regulating
the commerce with America in the King in Council, in the same manner
as before the treaty of 1794.” The offer of considering the treaty
as in force “must be regarded as a boon to America; and it was made
merely under the persuasion that if accepted it would be accepted with
a view to maintain a friendly relation between the two countries, and
to avoid in the interval everything which could lead to interrupt it.
If this system is followed in America, it will be followed here in
every respect with an anxious desire for the continuance of harmony and
cordiality.”
The same conditional and semi-threatening disposition toward good-will
ran through the rest of these instructions. In regard to the boundary
convention, his Majesty’s government would at all times be ready
to reopen the whole subject; “but they can never acquiesce in the
precedent which in this as well as in a former instance the American
government has endeavored to establish, of agreeing to ratify such
parts of a convention as they may select, and of rejecting other
stipulations of it, formally agreed upon by a minister invested with
full powers for the purpose.”
Finally, Merry was to “avoid, as far as possible, any language which
might be conceived to be of a menacing or hostile tendency, or which
might be construed into an indication of a desire on the part of his
Majesty’s government to decline any discussion of the several points
now pending between the two countries.” Lord Harrowby clearly wished to
encourage discussion to the utmost. He left the “canons of etiquette”
unnoticed, and offered not even a hint at any change of policy
meditated by his Government.
So matters remained in England during the last months of President
Jefferson’s first term. On both sides new movements were intended; but
while those of the United States government were foreseen and announced
in advance by Merry, those of the British ministry were hidden under a
veil of secrecy, which might perhaps have been no more penetrable to
Monroe had he remained in London to watch them than they were to him in
his retreat at Aranjuez.
To the world at large nothing in the relations of the United States
with England, France, or Spain seemed alarming. The world knew little
of what was taking place. Only men who stood between these forces could
understand their movements and predict the moment of collision; but
if these men, like Merry, Turreau, and Yrujo, had been asked March 3,
1805, to point out the brightest part of Jefferson’s political horizon,
they would probably have agreed with one voice that everything in
Europe threatened disaster, and that the only glimpse of blue sky was
to be seen on the shores of Africa. The greatest triumph to be then
hoped from Jefferson’s peace policy was the brilliant close of his only
war.
During the year 1804 the little American fleet in the Mediterranean
made famous some names which within ten years were to become more
famous still. With the “Constitution,” the only heavy frigate on the
station after the loss of the “Philadelphia,” and with half-a-dozen
small brigs and schooners, Preble worked manfully at his task of
annoying the Pacha of Tripoli. Three years’ experience showed that
a mere blockade answered no other purpose than to protect in part
American commerce. It had not shaken the Pacha in the demand of
black-mail as his condition of peace. Bainbridge, still held a prisoner
in the town, believed that Jefferson must choose between paying what
the Pacha asked, or sending eight or ten thousand men to attack him
in his castle. Black-mail was the life of the small pirate rulers,
and they could not abandon it without making a precedent fatal to
themselves, and inviting insurrection from their subjects. Preble
could only strike the coast with fear; and during the summer of 1804
he began a series of dashing assaults with the “Constitution,” helped
by four new craft,--the “Argus” and “Syren,” fine sixteen-gun brigs;
the “Nautilus” and “Vixen,” fourteen-gun schooners; the “Enterprise,”
of twelve guns, and a captured Tripolitan brig of sixteen guns,
re-named the “Scourge,”--all supported by eight small gunboats
borrowed from the King of Naples who was also at war with Tripoli.
Thus commanding a force of about one hundred and fifty guns, and more
than a thousand men, August 3, carrying his flag-ship into the harbor,
Preble engaged the Tripolitan batteries at very short range for two
hours. Fortunately, the Mussulmans could not or did not depress their
guns enough to injure the frigate, and after throwing many broadsides
into the batteries and town, Preble retired without losing a man. His
gunboat flotilla was equally daring, but not so lucky. One division
was commanded by Lieutenant Somers, the other by Stephen Decatur. They
attacked the Tripolitan gunboats and captured three, besides sinking
more; but James Decatur was killed. A few days afterward, August 7,
the attack was repeated, and some five hundred 24-lb. shot were thrown
into the batteries and town. August 24 a third bombardment took place
within the month; and although Preble knew that Barron was near at hand
with a strong reinforcement, August 29 he carried his flotilla a fourth
time into the harbor, and again threw several hundred solid shot into
the town. A fifth bombardment, the heaviest of all, took place early
in September. In these affairs, so poor was the Tripolitan gunnery or
courage that the Americans suffered almost no loss beyond that of a few
spars. The only serious disaster, besides the death of James Decatur,
was never explained. Preble, wishing to try the effect of a fireship,
on the night of September 4 sent one of his best officers, Lieutenant
Somers, into the harbor with the ketch “Intrepid” filled with powder,
bombs, and shell. The “Argus,” “Vixen,” and “Nautilus” escorted Somers
to shoal water, and waited for him to rejoin them in his boats. They
saw the batteries fire upon him; then they heard a sudden and premature
explosion. All night the three cruisers waited anxiously outside, but
Somers never returned. He and his men vanished; no vestige or tidings
of them could ever be found.
Considering Preble’s narrow means, the economy of the Department, and
the condition of his small vessels, nothing in American naval history
was more creditable than the vigor of his blockade in the summer of
1804; but he could not confidently assert that any number of such
attacks would force the Pacha to make peace. A week after the loss of
Somers in the “Intrepid” Commodore Samuel Barron arrived, bringing with
him nearly the whole available navy of the United States, and relieved
Preble from the command. Preble returned home, and was rewarded for his
services by a gold medal from Congress. Two years afterward he died of
consumption.
Barron had with him such a force as the United States never before or
since sent in hostile array across the ocean,--two forty-fours, the
“Constitution” and the “President;” two thirty-eight gun frigates,
the “Constellation” and the “Congress;” the “Essex,” of thirty-two
guns; the new brigs, “Hornet” of eighteen, and the “Syren” and
“Argus” of sixteen; the twelve-gun schooners “Vixen,” “Nautilus,”
and “Enterprise;” ten new, well-built American gunboats; and two
bomb-vessels. With the exception of the frigates “Chesapeake” and
“United States,” hardly a sea-going vessel was left at home. Commanded
by young officers like John Rodgers and Stephen Decatur, Chauncey,
Stewart, and Isaac Hull, such a squadron reflected credit on Robert
Smith’s administration of the navy.
Nevertheless the Pacha did not yield, and Barron was obliged by the
season to abandon hope of making his strength immediately felt. Six
months later the commodore, owing to ill-health, yielded the command
to John Rodgers, while the Pacha was still uninjured by the squadron.
As the summer of 1805 approached, fear of Rodgers’s impending attack
possibly helped to turn the Pacha’s mind toward concession; but his
pacific temper was also much affected by events on land, in which
appeared so striking a combination of qualities,--enterprise and daring
so romantic and even Quixotic that for at least half a century every
boy in America listened to the story with the same delight with which
he read the Arabian Nights.
A Connecticut Yankee, William Eaton, was the hero of the adventure.
Born in 1764, Eaton had led a checkered career. At nineteen he was
a sergeant in the Revolutionary army. After the peace he persisted,
against harassing difficulties, in obtaining what was then thought
a classical education; in his twenty-seventh year he took a degree
at Dartmouth. He next opened a school in Windsor, Vermont, and was
chosen clerk to the Vermont legislature. Senator Bradley, in 1792,
procured for him a captain’s commission in the United States army.
His career in the service was varied by insubordination, disobedience
to orders, charges, counter-charges, a court-martial, and a sentence
of suspension not confirmed by the Secretary of War. In 1797 he was
sent as consul to Tunis, where he remained until the outbreak of the
war with Tripoli in 1801. Tunis was the nearest neighbor to Tripoli,
about four hundred miles away; and the consul held a position of much
delicacy and importance. In the year 1801 an elder brother of the
reigning Pacha of Tripoli resided in Tunis, and to him Eaton turned in
the hope of using his services. This man, Hamet Caramelli, the rightful
Pacha of Tripoli, had been driven into exile some eight or nine years
before by a rebellion which placed his younger brother Yusuf on the
throne. Eaton conceived the idea of restoring Hamet, and by this act of
strength impressing all the Mahometan Powers with terror of the United
States. In pursuit of this plan he spent more than twenty thousand
dollars, embroiled himself with the Bey of Tunis, quarrelled with the
naval commanders, and in 1803 returned to America to lay his case
before the President and Congress.
Although no one could be surprised that the President and his
Cabinet hesitated to put themselves without reserve in the hands of
an adventurer, Eaton’s anger was extreme at finding the Government
earnest for peace rather than war. Himself a Connecticut Federalist,
a close friend of Timothy Pickering, he expressed his feelings in his
private letters with the bitterness as well as with the humor of his
class.[314]
“I waited on the President and the Attorney-General. One of
them was civil, and the other grave.... I endeavored to enforce
conviction on the mind of Mr. Lincoln of the necessity of
meeting the aggressions of Barbary by retaliation. He waived
the subject, and amused me with predictions of a political
millennium which was about to happen in the United States.
The millennium was to usher in upon us as the irresistible
consequence of the goodness of heart, integrity of mind, and
correctness of disposition of Mr. Jefferson. All nations, even
pirates and savages, were to be moved by the influence of his
persuasive virtue and masterly skill in diplomacy.”
Eaton’s interviews probably took place at the moment when the Louisiana
treaty confirmed the Cabinet in its peace policy and in reliance
on diplomacy. In March, 1804, Eaton succeeded in returning to the
Mediterranean as naval agent, but without special powers for the
purpose he had in mind.
“The President becomes reserved; the Secretary of War ‘believes
we had better pay tribute,’--he said this to me in his own
office. Gallatin, like a cowardly Jew, shrinks behind the
counter. Mr. Madison ‘leaves everything to the Secretary of
the Navy Department.’ And I am ordered on the expedition by
Secretary Smith,--who, by the by, is as much of a gentleman
and a soldier as his relation with the Administration will
suffer,--without any special instructions to regulate my
conduct.”
With no other authority to act as a military officer than a vague
recommendation from the President as a man who was likely to be
extremely useful to Barron, Eaton returned with Barron’s large
squadron. He felt himself ill-treated, for he was irritable and
self-asserting by nature, and was haunted by a fixed idea too
unreasonable for the President to adopt; but he chose to act without
authority rather than not act at all, for he was born an adventurer,
and difficulties which seemed to cooler heads insurmountable were
nothing in his eyes. Sept. 5, 1804, he arrived at Malta, and thence
sailed to Alexandria; for in the meanwhile Hamet had been driven to
take refuge in Egypt, and Eaton on reaching Cairo, Dec. 8, 1804, found
that the object of his search was shut up in Minyeh on the Nile with
some rebellious Mamelukes, besieged by the viceroy’s troops. After
infinite exertions and at no little personal danger, Eaton brought
Hamet to Alexandria, where they collected some five hundred men, of
whom one hundred were Christians recruited on the spot. Eaton made a
convention with Hamet, arranged a plan of joint operations with Barron,
and then at about the time when President Jefferson was delivering his
second Inaugural Address, the navy agent led his little army into the
desert with the courage of Alexander the Great, to conquer an African
kingdom.
So motley a horde of Americans, Greeks, Tripolitans, and Arab
camel-drivers had never before been seen on the soil of Egypt. Without
discipline, cohesion, or sources of supply, even without water for
days, their march of five hundred miles was a sort of miracle. Eaton’s
indomitable obstinacy barely escaped ending in his massacre by the
Arabs, or by their desertion in a mass with Hamet at their head;
yet in about six weeks they succeeded, April 17, 1805, in reaching
Bomba, where to Eaton’s consternation and despair he found no American
ships.[315]
“Nothing could prevail on our Arabs to believe that any had been
there. They abused us as impostors and infidels, and said we
had drawn them into that situation with treacherous views. All
began now to think of the means of individual safety; and the
Arabs came to a resolution to separate from us the next morning.
I recommended an attempt to get into Derne. This was thought
impracticable. I went off with my Christians, and kept up fires
upon a high mountain in our rear all night. At eight the next
morning, at the instant when our camp was about breaking up, the
Pacha’s casnadar, Zaid, who had ascended the mountain for a last
look-out, discovered _a sail_! It was the ‘Argus;’ Captain
Hull had seen our smokes, and stood in. Language is too poor
to paint the joy and exultation which this messenger of life
excited in every breast.”
Drawing supplies from the brig the little army rested a few days;
and then, April 25, moved against Derne, where they found the town
held by a garrison of eight hundred men who had thrown up earthworks
and loopholed the terraces and houses for musketry. Eaton sent to
the governor a flag of truce, which was sent back with the Eastern
message,--“My head, or yours!” Three cruisers, the “Nautilus,” “Argus,”
and “Hornet,” acted in concert with Eaton, and a vigorous combined
attack, April 27, drove the governor and his garrison from the town.
Eaton received a ball through the left wrist, but could not afford to
be disabled, for on the news of his arrival a large force was sent
from Tripoli to dislodge him; and he was obliged to fight another
little battle, May 13, which would have been a massacre had not the
ships’ guns held the Tripolitans in awe. Skirmishing continued another
month without further results. Eaton had not the force to advance upon
Tripoli, which was nearly seven hundred miles to the westward, and
Hamet found no such popular support at Derne as he had hoped.
What influence Eaton’s success at Derne had on the Pacha at Tripoli was
never perfectly understood; but the Pacha knew that Rodgers was making
ready for an assault, beside which the hottest of Preble’s bombardments
would seem gentle; Eaton at Derne with Hamet was an incessant and
indefinite threat; his own subjects were suffering, and might at any
moment break into violence; a change of ruler was so common a matter,
as Yusuf had reason to remember, that in the alternative of losing
his throne and head in one way or the other, he decided that peace
was less hazardous than war. Immediately upon hearing that his troops
had failed to retake Derne, he entered into negotiations with Tobias
Lear, the American Consul-General at Algiers, who had come to Tripoli
for the purpose; and on this occasion the Pacha negotiated with all
the rapidity that could be wished. June 3, 1805, he submitted to the
disgrace of making peace without being expressly paid for it, and Lear
on his side consented to ransom the crew of the “Philadelphia” for
sixty thousand dollars.
When Eaton learned what Lear had done, his anger was great and not
unreasonable. That Lear should have made a treaty which sacrificed
Eaton’s Mahometan allies, and paid sixty thousand dollars for the
imprisoned seamen at a moment when Eaton held Derne, and could, as
he thought, with two hundred marines on shore and an immense fleet
at sea drive the Pacha out of his dominions within six weeks, was
astonishing. Lear’s only excuse was the fear of causing a massacre of
the “Philadelphia’s” crew,--a reason which Eaton thought unfounded and
insufficient, and which was certainly, from a military point of view,
inadmissible. The treaty left the Mahometan allies at Derne to be
massacred, and threw Hamet on Eaton’s hands. Deposited at Syracuse with
a suite of thirty persons without means of support, Caramelli became
a suppliant for alms to the United States Congress. Eaton declared
the treaty disgraceful, and thenceforth his grievances against the
government took an acute form. The settlement of his accounts was slow
and difficult. He returned to America and received great attentions,
which made him none the less loud in complaint, until at last he died
in 1811 a victim to drink and to craving for excitement. Eaton was
beyond question a man of extraordinary energies and genius; he had even
the rare courage to displease his own Federalist friends in 1807,
because of defending Jefferson who had done nothing for him, but who at
a critical moment represented in his eyes the Union.
Meanwhile peace with Tripoli was obtained without tribute, but at the
cost of sixty thousand dollars, and at the expense of Eaton and his
desperate band of followers at Derne. Hamet Caramelli received at last
a small sum of money from Congress, and through American influence was
some years afterward made governor of Derne. Thus after four years of
unceasing effort the episode of the Tripolitan war came to a triumphant
end. Its chief result was to improve the navy and give it a firmer
hold on popular sympathy. If the once famous battles of Truxton and
the older seamen were ignored by the Republicans, Preble and Rodgers,
Decatur and Hull, became brilliant names; the midnight death of Somers
was told in every farmhouse; the hand-to-hand struggles of Decatur
against thrice his numbers inflamed the imagination of school-boys who
had never heard that Jefferson and his party once declaimed against a
navy. Even the blindest could see that one more step would bring the
people to the point so much dreaded by Jefferson, of wishing to match
their forty-fours against some enemy better worthy of their powers than
the pirates of Tripoli.
There was strong reason to think that this wish might soon be
gratified; for on the same day when Lear, in the “Essex,” appeared
off Tripoli and began his negotiation for peace, Monroe’s
travelling-carriage rumbled through the gates of Madrid and began
its dusty journey across the plains of Castile, bearing an angry and
disappointed diplomatist from one humiliation to another.
INDEX TO VOLS. I. AND II.
Abolition Society, an early, i. 128.
Acts of Congress, of Sept. 24, 1789, to establish the Judiciary, i,
259, 260, 275, 276;
of June 13, 1798, to suspend intercourse with France, 383;
of June 25, 1798, concerning aliens, 140, 141, 206, 207, 259,
286;
of July 14, 1798, concerning sedition, 140, 141, 206, 207, 259,
261, 286;
of Feb. 9, 1799, further to suspend intercourse with France, 384;
of Feb. 13, 1801, to provide for the more convenient organization
of the courts, 274–276, 278, 280, 288, 293, 297;
of Jan. 14, 1802, for the apportionment of representatives, 301;
of March 8, 1802, to repeal the Judiciary Act of 1801, 280, 281,
284–298;
of March 16, 1802, fixing the military peace establishment, 301;
of April 6, 1802, to repeal the internal taxes, 272;
of April 29, 1802, for the redemption of the public debt, 272;
of April 29, 1802, to amend the judicial system, 298;
of April 30, 1802, to enable Ohio to form a State government,
302;
of Feb. 28, 1803, for building four sloops-of-war and fifteen
gunboats, ii. 77;
of Oct. 31, 1803, to take possession of Louisiana, 119, 120;
of Feb. 24, 1804, for collecting duties within the territories
ceded to the United States, 257, 260–263, 291, 293, 304, 380;
of March 25, 1804, to establish the Mediterranean Fund, 141;
of March 26, 1804, for the temporary government of Louisiana,
120–129;
of Jan. 19, 1805, to erect a dam from Mason’s island, 209;
of March 2, 1805, further providing for the government of Orleans
Territory, 401;
of March 3, 1805, for the more effectual preservation of peace in
the ports and harbors of the United States, 397, 398.
Acts of Parliament, on navigation, ii. 319, 320, 327;
on naturalization, 338, 413, 414;
on merchant-shipping, 345.
Adams, John Quincy, senator from Massachusetts, ii. 110, 117, 184,
379;
proposes draft of Constitutional amendment, 118, 160, 164.
Addington ministry, ii. 358, 416.
Addington, Henry (Lord Sidmouth), succeeds Pitt, ii. 342, 347;
retires from office, 418.
Addison, Judge, impeached, ii. 195.
Admiralty courts in the West Indies, ii. 340.
Albany in 1800, i. 3.
Alien and sedition laws, i. 140, 206, 259.
(See Acts of Congress.)
Allston, Washington, i. 149.
Alquier, French minister at Madrid, i. 363, 368.
Alsop, Richard, i. 102.
Amendment to the Constitution, the twelfth, ii. 132.
“American Citizen,” the, i. 331.
Ames, Fisher, i. 82, 83;
his opinion of democracy, 84;
in conversation, 86;
speech of, on the British treaty, 88, 93;
his language toward opponents, 119; ii. 164.
Amiens, peace of, i. 370; ii. 59, 290, 326, 347, 385.
(See Treaties.)
Amusements in 1800, in New England, i. 50;
in Virginia, 51.
Anderson, Joseph, senator from Tennessee, ii. 157.
“Aristides.” Pamphlet by W. P. Van Ness, ii. 73, 172.
Armstrong, General John, senator from New York, i. 108, 113, 230,
234, 281; ii. 157;
succeeds Livingston at Paris, 291, 308.
Army, chaste reformation of, i. 238;
peace establishment in 1801, 242, 261, 272, 301.
Ashe, an English traveller, i. 43, 52, 53, 54.
Astor, John Jacob, i. 28.
“Aurora” newspaper, i. 118, 121.
Bailey, Theodorus, i. 231, 266, 296.
Bainbridge, Captain, ii. 137, 426.
Baldwin, Abraham, senator from Georgia, i. 305.
Ballston Spa, i. 92.
Baltimore in 1800, i. 29, 131.
Banks, in Boston in 1800, i. 22;
in New York, 25;
in the South, 31;
hostility to, 65.
Baptists in New England, i. 89.
Barbary Powers, war with the, i. 244 _et seq._; ii. 425 _et seq._
Baring, Alexander, ii. 358.
Barlow, Joel, i. 69, 99;
his “Columbiad,” 103 _et seq._, 106, 182.
Barron, Commodore Samuel, at Tripoli, ii. 428;
yields the command to Rodgers, 429.
Bartram, William, i. 124.
Bayard, James A., member of Congress from Delaware, i. 269, 271;
his reply to Giles, 291 _et seq._;
beaten by Cæsar A. Rodney, retires to the Senate, ii. 76;
re-elected to the House, 201;
moves the form of question in the Chase impeachment, 237, 241.
Beaujour, Felix de, quoted, i. 46, 165.
Belknap, Jeremy, i. 93.
Bernadotte, General, appointed minister at Washington, ii. 10;
Talleyrand’s instructions to, 11.
Berthier, General, Napoleon’s agent for the retrocession of
Louisiana, i. 366.
Beurnonville, French ambassador at Madrid, ii. 59, 277.
Bishop, Abraham, collector of New Haven, i. 226.
Blockade, law of, ii. 385;
of Martinique and Guadeloupe, 381;
of New York, 396.
Bonaparte. (See Napoleon.)
Bonaparte, Jerome, his marriage to Miss Patterson and his
reception by the President, ii. 377 _et seq._
Bonaparte, Joseph, negotiates treaty of Morfontaine, i. 360, 362;
scene of, with Napoleon, ii. 35 _et seq._
Bonaparte, Lucien, appointed ambassador at Madrid, i. 371, 373;
opposes the cession of Louisiana, ii. 34;
scene of, with Napoleon, 35 _et seq._
Boston, population and appearance of, in 1800, i. 20;
business, 21;
an intellectual centre in 1800, 75;
sentiment of, 87;
social customs of, in 1800, 91;
a summer watering-place, 92.
Bowditch, Nathaniel, i. 93.
Boyle, John, ii. 228.
Brackenridge, H. H., author of “Modern Chivalry,” i. 124; ii. 195.
Bradley, Captain, of the “Cambrian,” ii. 393, 396.
Bradley, Stephen R., senator from Vermont, ii. 157, 218, 238, 259.
Breckenridge, John, senator from Kentucky, i. 269;
moves the repeal of the Judiciary Act, 278, 280; ii. 85, 94;
on the admission of Louisiana to the Union, 108;
his bill for the territorial government of Louisiana, 120.
British claims, ii. 339.
Brown, Charles Brockden, i. 123.
Brown, James, secretary of the Louisiana Territory, ii. 220.
Bryant, William Cullen, i. 110, 133.
Buckminster, Joseph, i. 81.
Buckminster, Joseph Stevens, i. 90, 162.
Bülow, Heinrich Wilhelm, i. 41, 48.
Burr, Aaron, Vice-President, i. 65, 93, 109, 112;
his character, 195;
centre of intrigue, 229 _et seq._;
his hatred of Virginia, 279;
his toast at the Federalist dinner, 282;
attacked by the “American Citizen” and “Aurora,” 283; ii. 154;
invoked by Pickering and Griswold, 171;
his defence by “Aristides,” 172;
his interview with Jefferson, 175;
nominated for governor of New York, 177;
confers with Griswold, 183;
defeated, 185;
his hostility to Hamilton, 185;
his duel with Hamilton, 187 _et seq._;
presides at the Chase impeachment, 227, 238, 368;
communicates with Merry, 395;
his plan of creating a western confederacy, 402;
asks the aid of the British government, 403;
Turreau’s opinion of, 407;
his plan, 408.
Butler, Pierce, ii. 95.
Cabot, George, his opinion of democracy, i. 84, 86 _et seq._;
letter of, opposing Pickering’s scheme, ii. 164;
inclines to Burr, 182.
Calhoun, John C., i. 154.
Callender, James T., his libels on Jefferson, i. 322 _et seq_.
Calvinism, popular reaction against, in New England, i. 82.
Campbell, George W., member of Congress from Tennessee, ii. 123;
impeachment of Judge Chase, 224, 228, 230.
Campbell, Justice, on the Louisiana case, ii. 127.
Campbell, Thomas, borrows from Freneau, i. 126.
Canals in 1800, i. 8–10, 26, 29, 38, 94.
Canning, George, rise of, ii. 417.
“Canons of Etiquette,” the, ii. 365.
Capitol at Washington in 1800, i. 30, 198;
designed by Dr. Thornton, 111.
Caramelli, Hamet, ii. 430, 436.
Cevallos, Don Pedro de, i. 371; ii. 23;
remonstrates against the sale of Louisiana, 58;
refuses to pay for French spoliations, 276, 279;
his conditions on ratification of Spanish claims convention, 280;
his comments on the Americans, 282, 283;
alarmed, 284;
complains of Pinckney’s conduct, 294.
Channing, William Ellery, i. 90;
his impressions of Virginia manners, 132, 171.
Charles IV. of Spain, his character, i. 341;
refuses papal territory, 354;
his delight at the offer of Tuscany, 369;
refuses to sell Florida, 401;
delivers Louisiana to Napoleon, 401;
distressed by Napoleon, ii. 56;
his demands on Napoleon, 59;
withdraws protest against the sale of Louisiana, 277;
declares war on England, 309.
Charleston, S. C., in 1800, i. 37 _et seq._, 92, 149.
Chase, Justice Samuel, his charge to the Baltimore grand jury, ii.
147;
his impeachment, 149 _et seq._, 158;
scene of impeachment, 227;
his counsel, 229;
the managers of his impeachment, 229;
articles of impeachment, 229;
the trial, 230 _et seq._;
votes on the articles, 238;
his acquittal, 239.
Chauncey, Isaac, at Tripoli, ii. 428.
Cheetham, editor of the “American Citizen and Watchtower,” i. 121;
attacks Burr, 331.
Chillicothe in 1800, i. 2.
Christophe, i. 416.
Cincinnati in 1800, i. 2.
Claiborne, William Charles Cole, appointed governor of Mississippi
Territory, i. 295, 403;
receives possession of Louisiana, ii. 256;
governor of Orleans Territory, 400.
Claims, American, on France. (See French spoliations.)
Claims, American, on Spain. (See Pinckney.)
Clark, Christopher, ii. 228.
Clay, Henry, i. 133.
Cleveland in 1800, i. 3.
Clifton, William, i. 98.
Clinton, De Witt, i. 112, 228, 233;
resigns his senatorship to become mayor of New York, 266, 281;
attacks Burr through Cheetham, 331;
his duel with Swartwout, 332; ii. 206.
Clinton, George, i. 114;
governor of New York, 228; ii. 173;
nominated for Vice-President, 180.
Cobbett, William, i. 46;
in Philadelphia, 118.
Cocke, William, senator from Tennessee, ii. 113;
censures Randolph, 240.
Coleman, William, editor of the New York “Evening Post,” i. 119.
Colonial System of the European Powers, ii. 323.
Colonial trade, ii. 319, 322, 327–329;
direct and indirect, 324, 325;
West Indian, value of, 331, 332.
Columbia College, i. 101.
“Columbiad,” the, of Joel Barlow, i. 103 _et seq._
Commerce, foreign and domestic, in 1800, i. 5, 14.
Congregational clergy, i. 79.
Congress, the Seventh, first session of, i. 264–307;
second session, 427–433; ii. 74–77;
the Eighth, first session of, 92, 96–159;
second session, 206–242, 396.
(See Acts of Congress.)
Connecticut, i. 105.
“Constitution,” the, ii. 426.
Cooper, Dr. Charles D., ii. 178;
letter, 186.
Cooper, James Fenimore, i. 110;
quotation from “Chainbearer,” 43.
Dallas, Alexander James, i. 127, 281; ii. 198;
letter of, to Gallatin, 198.
Dana, Samuel, member of Congress from Connecticut, i. 269, 271.
Davis, John, an English traveller, i. 122;
his account of Jefferson’s inauguration, 197.
Davis, Matthew L., i. 231 _et seq._, 296.
Dayton, Jonathan, senator from New Jersey, i. 280; ii. 105.
Dearborn, Henry, appointed Secretary of War, i. 219; ii. 2, 431.
Debt, public. (See Finances.)
Decatur, James, killed at Tripoli, ii. 427.
Decatur, Stephen, burns the “Philadelphia,” ii. 139;
at Tripoli, 427.
Decrès, Napoleon’s Minister of Marine, instructions of, to
Richepanse and Leclerc, re-establishing slavery, i. 397;
defining the boundaries of Louisiana and its administration,
ii. 5.
Democrats, denounced by New England clergy, i. 79 _et seq._;
social inferiority, 92;
the Northern, 264.
Dennie, Joseph, on democracy, i. 85;
editor of the “Portfolio,” 119, 121.
Deposit at New Orleans, the right of, granted by treaty, i. 349;
taken away, 418;
restored, ii. 3.
Derbigny, Pierre, ii. 401, 406, 408.
Desertion of British Seamen, ii. 333–335, 345, 346, 392.
Dessalines, i. 416.
Destréhan, Jean Noel, ii. 401, 406.
Dexter, Samuel, i. 93, 192, 219.
Dickens, Charles, i. 56.
“Diomed,” stallion, i. 51.
Drayton, Governor, of South Carolina, i. 151.
Dry-dock, Jefferson’s plan of, i. 428; ii. 77.
Duane, William, editor of the “Aurora,” i. 118;
his influence in Pennsylvania, ii. 194.
Duponceau, Peter S., i. 127; ii. 259.
Dupont de Nemours, commissioned by Jefferson to treat unofficially
with Bonaparte, i. 411;
letter to, ii. 254.
Dwight, Theodore, i. 101;
his attack on democracy, 225.
Dwight, President Timothy, quoted, i. 21, 23;
his travels, 41;
describes popular amusements, 49, 56;
lack of roads in Rhode Island, 64;
his poem, “The Conquest of Canaan” cited, 96 _et seq._;
his “Greenfield Hill,” 98;
value of his Travels, 100, 310.
Early, Peter, member of Congress from Georgia, ii. 228, 230.
Eaton, William, his character and career, ii. 429 _et seq._;
his interviews with Jefferson and the Cabinet, 430;
attacks Derne, 433.
Education in New England, i. 76, 77;
in New York, 110;
in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 129;
in Virginia, 136.
Election of 1800, i. 152, 163;
of 1801, 294; ii. 202;
of 1802, 308, 329, 330;
of 1803, 76;
of 1804, 163, 176, 185, 197, 201, 202, 204.
Embargo imposed by Washington, ii. 323.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, i. 171.
“Emmanuel,” case of, ii. 327.
England, colonial policy of, ii. 317;
cordiality with, 347;
change of tone toward, 356, 387.
“Enterprise,” United States schooner, captures Tripolitan corsair,
i. 245.
Eppes, John W., member of Congress from Virginia, ii. 95.
Erie Canal, the, i. 112.
Essex Junto, the, i. 89, 314.
Etiquette at Washington, ii. 362 _et seq._, 380.
Eustis, Dr. William, member of Congress from Boston, i. 93, 281.
Evans, Oliver, his inventions, i. 68, 71, 182.
“Evening Post,” the New York, i. 119, 120; ii. 366.
“Experiment,” sloop, i. 6.
Federalists. (See Party.)
Fight, the “rough-and-tumble,” in the South, i. 52 _et seq._
Finances in 1801, i. 239 _et seq._, 253, 270, 272;
in 1802, ii. 75, 77;
in 1803, 135, 136, 141;
in 1804, 206.
Fitch, John, his inventions, i. 66 _et seq._, 181.
Florida restored by England to Spain, i. 353;
Bonaparte’s demand for, refused by Charles IV., 369;
Bonaparte’s attempts to secure, 401;
Livingston’s attempt to secure, ii. 44.
Florida, West, ii. 7;
claimed by Livingston as part of the Louisiana purchase, 68;
Jefferson’s anxiety to secure, 245;
scheme for seizing, 255;
claim to, 273, 311, 312;
claim adopted by the President, 302.
Foster, Augustus, his description of Jefferson, i. 186;
of Madison, 190.
Fox, Charles James, ii. 418.
Franklin, Benjamin, i. 60 _et seq._, 181;
citation from Poor Richard, 44.
French Revolution, i. 82.
French spoliations, i. 350, 361-363; ii. 30, 31, 40–42, 46–50, 61.
Freneau, Philip, i. 125.
Frere, John Hookham, i. 402.
Fugitive-Slave Bill, i. 300.
Fulton, Robert, i. 69, 71, 182.
Gaillard, John, senator from South Carolina, ii. 238.
Gallatin, Albert, his opinion of the Connecticut River district,
i. 19;
on Indian corn, 58;
his political doctrines, 72, 115 _et seq._, 163, 177;
personal characteristics of, 190;
appointed Secretary of the Treasury, 218;
supports M. L. Davis, 232;
opposes removals from office, 235; ii. 194;
his financial measures, i. 239;
his financial schemes adopted, 272;
inserts school and road contract into the Ohio Constitution, 302;
the Yazoo sale, 304;
underestimates the product of the taxes, ii. 75;
his opinion on the acquisition of territory, 79, 131;
success of the Treasury Department under, 135;
asks Congress for a special tax for the Barbary war, 141, 261;
attacked by Duane, 194, 196;
by Eaton, 431.
Gelston, Daniel, i. 231.
George III., character of, i. 342.
Georgia, state of, in 1800, i. 4, 39;
surrenders territory to the United States, 303;
land speculation in, 303;
Rescinding Act, 304.
Gerry, Elbridge, i. 358.
Giles, William B., member of Congress from Virginia, i. 209, 261,
267;
his political career, 284 _et seq._;
debate on the Judiciary Bill, 286 _et seq._, 299; ii. 142;
supports the impeachment of Judge Chase, 221;
his view of impeachment, 223, 235, 237, 238, 241.
Goddard, Calvin, member of Congress from Connecticut, ii. 160.
Godoy, Don Manuel, Prince of Peace, i. 346 _et seq._;
treaty of 1795 negotiated by, 348, 369, 371;
baffles Bonaparte, 374;
attempts to conciliate the United States, ii. 21;
protests against the sale of Louisiana, 57;
conciliates Napoleon, 277.
Goodrich, Elizur, i. 226.
Gore, Christopher, ii. 347.
Granger, Gideon, appointed Postmaster-General, i. 308;
an active politician, ii. 192;
agent for the Yazoo claims, 212;
attacked by Randolph, 213.
Graydon, Alexander, i. 127.
Gregg, Andrew, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, ii. 123.
Grégoire, Abbé, i. 105.
Grenville, Lord, ii. 316, 418.
Griswold, Gaylord, member of Congress from New York, ii. 96.
Griswold, Roger, member of Congress from Connecticut, i. 269, 299;
ii. 99, 101, 133, 142, 160;
his letters to Oliver Wolcott, 162, 169, 180;
conference of, with Burr, 183, 390, 391.
Hamilton, Alexander, i. 85, 86, 108, 277;
Talleyrand’s remark concerning, 352; ii. 168;
opposes Burr for governor, 176;
not in favor of disunion, 177;
projects, 184;
his opposition to Burr, 185 _et seq._;
his duel with Burr, 186 _et seq._;
mourned by the Federalists, 190.
Harper, Robert G., ii. 154, 228, 232.
Harrowby, Lord, British Foreign Secretary, ii. 418;
receives Monroe, 420;
instructions as to impressments and the boundary convention,
423 _et seq._
“Hartford wits,” i. 101.
Harvard College, i. 77, 78, 90.
Hastings, Warren, trial of, ii. 226.
Hawkesbury, Lord, British Foreign Secretary, ii. 344, 410.
Henry, Patrick, i. 143.
Higginson, Stephen, ii. 164.
Hillhouse, James, senator from Connecticut, ii. 160.
Hopkins, Lemuel, i. 102.
Hopkinson, Joseph, ii. 228, 231.
Horses and horse-racing in New England, i. 50;
in New York and Virginia, 51.
Hosack, Dr. David, i. 111.
Hospitals and asylums in 1800, i. 128.
Hull, Isaac, at Tripoli, ii. 428.
Hunt, Samuel, member of Congress from New Hampshire, ii. 160.
Impeachment. (See Pickering and Chase.)
Impeachment, a scarecrow, ii. 243.
Impressment of seamen, ii. 335 _et seq._, 358, 384, 393, 394, 421,
423;
Act of Congress punishing, ii. 397, 420.
Indian corn, i. 58.
Indian tribes in 1800, i. 4.
Ingersoll, C. J., i. 123.
Ingersoll, Jared, ii. 259.
Inns of New England and New York, i. 21.
Inquisitiveness, American, i. 55.
Insane, the, treatment of, in 1800, i. 128.
Irving, Peter, editor of the “Morning Chronicle,” i. 121.
Irving, Washington, i. 110.
Jackson, Andrew, i. 54.
Jackson, Francis James, his reputation, ii. 360.
Jackson, James, senator from Georgia, and the Yazoo sale, i. 305;
ii. 95, 238.
Jackson, John G., member of Congress from Virginia, ii. 211;
replies to Randolph’s attack on Madison, 215.
Jackson, Mr., editor of the “Political Register,” ii. 265;
discloses Yrujo’s attempt to use him, 266.
Jacmel, siege of, i. 385.
Jay, Chief-Justice, i. 108;
sent to England by Washington, ii. 323;
negotiates treaty with Lord Grenville, 326.
Jay’s treaty. (See Treaties.)
Jefferson, Thomas, i. 13, 32, 59, 65, 67, 72, 73;
Federalist opinion of, 80 _et seq._, 83, 112, 114;
opposed to manufactures, 138;
chief author of the Kentucky Resolutions, 140 _et seq._;
leader of the Virginia school, 143;
characteristics of, 144 _et seq._;
his political doctrines, 146 _et seq._, 156;
Thomas Moore’s verses on, 167;
visionary, 170;
his ideas of progress, 178, 179;
personal characteristics, 185 _et seq._;
his dress, 187;
social pre-eminence, 188;
his inauguration, 191;
his antipathy to Marshall, 192, 194;
purity of his life, 196;
his inaugural address, 199 _et seq._;
his conception of government, 210 _et seq._;
his foreign policy, 214 _et seq._;
his Cabinet, 218 _et seq._;
his plans for the navy, 222 _et seq._;
his treatment of patronage, 224, 294;
his New Haven letter, 226;
his first annual message, 248;
his course with regard to the Judiciary, 255 _et seq._;
his abnegation of power, 262;
his power, 266;
his theory of internal politics, 272;
contradictions in his character, 277;
his hopefulness, 307 _et seq._;
as a man of science, 310;
his dislike for New Englanders, 310 _et seq._;
his letter to Paine, 316;
attacked by Callender, 322;
sensitiveness of, 324;
his relations with Callender, 325 _et seq._;
sends Lear to St. Domingo, 389;
ignorant of Bonaparte’s schemes, 403 _et seq._;
his eyes opened, 409;
his letter to Dupont de Nemours, 410;
writes to Livingston defining his position with respect to France
and Spain, 424;
his annual message, 1802, 427;
ignores the war party, 428;
replies to their demand for papers touching the right of deposit
at New Orleans, 430;
quiets the West, 432;
attempts the purchase of New Orleans, 432 _et seq._;
his language to Thornton, 436;
prefers Natchez to New Orleans as a seat of trade, 443;
his apparent inconsistency, 443 _et seq._;
the essence of his statesmanship, 445;
proposes alliance with England, ii. 1, 78;
instructs Pinckney to offer a consideration to Spain for New
Orleans and Florida, 22;
writes a defence of his use of patronage for the Boston
“Chronicle,” 82;
his amendment to the Constitution regarding Louisiana, 83;
his letter to Breckenridge on the subject, 84;
to Paine, 86;
draws up a new amendment, 86;
his reply to W. C. Nicholas, 89;
his message, Oct. 7, 1803, 92;
his bill for the administration of Louisiana, 119;
his view of the Louisian treaty and legislation, 130;
requests Congress to enlarge the Mediterranean force, 140;
interview with Burr, 175;
declines to appoint Burr to an executive office, 176;
his knowledge of Federalist schemes, 192;
his confidence in his popularity, 202;
receives the electoral votes of Massachusetts and New Hampshire,
204;
his message, November, 1804, 206;
his disappointment at the acquittal of Justice Chase, 243;
his authority in foreign affairs, 245;
desires to obtain West Florida, 245;
explains to Senator Breckenridge his course toward Spain, 248;
his plan to obtain West Florida, 249;
instructs Monroe with regard to the Spanish claims, 250;
the harvest season of his life, 252;
sends troops to Natchez, 254;
makes no demand for West Florida when Louisiana is delivered,
256;
declares Mobile within the United States, 263;
entertains Yrujo at Monticello, 266;
his conviction of the power of American commercial interests,
330;
anxious for friendship with England, 342;
his intimacy with Thornton, 347;
his opinion of Bonaparte, 347, 353, 381;
decides to maintain the neutral rights of the United States more
strictly, 356;
his social habits, 363;
establishes a new social code, 365;
receives Merry, 366;
invites him to dinner with Pichon, 369;
sends list of impressments to the Senate, 384;
improves his style of dress, 405;
his enemies, 409.
Judiciary Act, the, i. 274 _et seq._;
repeal of, moved, 278 _et seq._, 284 _et seq._;
repealed, 298.
Judiciary system, the, Jefferson’s recommendations concerning,
i. 255.
Kentucky in 1800, i. 2, 43;
Resolutions of 1798, 140 _et seq._, 205.
Key, Philip Barton, ii. 228.
King, Rufus, American minister in London, i. 109;
sends the treaty of the retrocession of Louisiana to Jefferson,
409; ii. 23, 178 _et seq._;
obtains from Pitt a definition of neutral importation, 328, 340;
his negotiations with the British government, 345, 347;
returns with favorable conventions, 358;
opinion of F. J. Jackson and Anthony Merry, 361;
leaves England, 410.
Langdon, John, i. 220.
Latrobe, Benjamin H., report on steam-engines, i. 68, 70, 112;
letter of, to Volney, 130.
Laussat, prefect in Louisiana, ii. 5;
arrives at New Orleans, 10, 13;
defines the boundaries of the Louisiana purchase, 255;
declares the Rio Bravo the western limit of Louisiana, 298.
Lea, Thomas, i. 257.
Lear, Tobias, consul to St. Domingo, i. 389;
quits St. Domingo, 407;
negotiates a treaty with the Pacha of Tripoli, ii. 434.
Leclerc, General, in command of the expedition against Louverture,
i. 378;
seizes Toussaint Louverture, 396;
insults American shipmasters, 407;
reports French losses, 414;
blamed by Napoleon, 416;
his death, 418; ii. 13.
Lee, Charles, ii. 228.
Leib, Michael, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, i. 298; ii.
123, 194, 196 _et seq._
Lewis, Morgan, i. 108.
Lewis, William, i. 127.
Liancourt, Duc de, describes Philadelphia, i. 28, 117;
on the Virginians, 33;
on life in Pennsylvania, 42, 45, 52;
on Virginia culture, 133, 157, 165.
Libraries, i. 61, 63, 129, 152.
Lincoln, Abraham, i. 171.
Lincoln, Levi, Attorney-General, i. 219, 304; ii. 2;
on the acquisition of new territory by the United States, 78.
Linn, James, member of Congress from New Jersey, i. 295.
Linn, John Blair, i. 123.
Liston, Robert, British minister, ii. 340, 367.
Literature, American, in 1800, i. 41, 75 _et seq._, 93.
Livingston, Edward, district-attorney and mayor of New York, i.
233, 295; ii. 259.
Livingston, Robert R., Chancellor, i. 69, 108, 112, 219;
appointed minister to France, 233, 295, 404;
discusses the price of Louisiana, ii. 31;
his claims convention, 46;
his estimate of the importance of the cession of Louisiana, 67;
claims West Florida, 68 _et seq._;
his plan of gaining West Florida, 246, 275;
his situation after the treaty, 289;
distrusts Napoleon, 290.
Logan’s Act, ii. 259.
Longstreet, Judge, author of “Georgia Scenes,” i. 52.
Louisiana, loss of, regretted by France, i. 353;
retrocession by Spain to France, 363;
Talleyrand’s _projet_ of treaty, 368;
treaty of retrocession signed, 370;
Bonaparte plans an expedition to occupy, 399;
boundaries fixed by Decrès, ii. 5;
commercial relations and sentiments prescribed toward the United
States, 8;
treaty of cession to the United States signed, 42;
price of, 45;
importance of cession, 49;
Napoleon’s reasons for selling, 53;
Talleyrand’s explanation of, 55;
treble invalidity of sale, 56;
Constitutional question debated in Congress, 96 _et seq._;
plans with regard to the status of, 116;
admitted without an amendment, 118;
bill for temporary government of, 120;
Breckenridge’s bill defining boundaries and government, 120
_et seq._;
bill defining territorial government of, 125, 130;
Spain protests against sale of, 252 _et seq._;
people regarded as unfit for self-government, 399;
they urge the execution of the treaty, 400;
report of Randolph upon their claims, 400.
“Louisianacide,” Napoleon’s, ii. 37.
Louverture, Toussaint, i. 354;
story of, 378 _et seq._;
champion of Republican principles, 392;
seized and sent to France, 396;
his dependence on the United States for supplies, 406, 416;
his death, ii. 20.
Lowndes, William, i. 151.
Luisa, Queen of Spain, i. 345 _et seq._
Lyman, Theodore, ii. 169.
Lyon, Matthew, member of Congress from Vermont, i. 295;
from Kentucky, his attack on Randolph, ii. 123, 216.
McKean, Thomas, Governor of Pennsylvania, i. 228;
declines to remove Judge Brackenridge, ii. 196, 259.
Maclay, William, senator from Pennsylvania, his description of
Jefferson, i. 185.
Macon, Nathaniel, of North Carolina, i. 149, 261;
chosen Speaker of the House, 267; ii. 95, 123;
opposed to the impeachment of Judge Chase, 150.
Madison, Bishop, of Virginia, i. 136.
Madison, James, and the Virginia Resolutions, i. 140 _et seq._,
148, 177;
personal characteristics of, 188 _et seq._;
appointed Secretary of State, 218;
makes no removals in the Department of State, 236;
distrust of, 248, 261;
a commissioner in the Yazoo sale, 304, 322, 332;
instructions of, respecting the retrocession of Louisiana, 405;
asks Pichon to remonstrate with Leclerc, 408;
writes to Livingston, 423, 426;
his orders to Pinckney, 427, 432;
invokes Pichon’s aid, 438, 439, 441;
writes instructions for Livingston and Monroe, ii. 2;
conversation with J. Q. Adams respecting the Louisiana treaty,
117;
favors Yazoo compromise, 211;
instructs Monroe to bargain with Spain for West Florida, 248,
251;
explains the failure to demand West Florida, 256;
sends the ratified claims convention to Madrid, 260, 278, 279;
hopes to be relieved of Yrujo, 267;
communicates with Livingston respecting West Florida and Yrujo,
262;
attempts to cajole Turreau, 273;
Turreau’s description of him, 274;
compromised by Pinckney, 276;
recalls Pinckney and hurries Monroe to Spain, 286;
denies that the Government aids desertion of seamen, 345;
communications to Thornton, 362;
proposes a convention with regard to impressments and the
blockade, 385;
remonstrates with Merry respecting impressments, 393.
Mail routes in 1800, i. 15.
Maine, convention for fixing the boundary between, and Nova Scotia,
ii. 358, 383.
Maitland, General, at St. Domingo, i. 385.
Malbone, Edward G., i. 149.
Manhattan Company of New York city, i. 65, 70.
Manners and morals, American, in 1800, i. 48 _et seq._
Manufactures in New England in 1800, i. 22.
Marbois, Barbé, favors the cession of Louisiana, ii. 26.
Marbury against Madison, case of, ii. 145 _et seq._
Marietta, Ohio, in 1800, i. 2.
Marshall, Chief-Justice, i. 133;
Jefferson’s antipathy to, 192;
personal characteristics of, 193;
detests Jefferson, 194;
his views of the Constitution, 260, 275, 290;
opinion of, respecting the powers of Government in the Louisiana
case, ii. 125;
appointment of, obnoxious to Jefferson, 145;
his decision in the Marbury case, 146;
his decision in the Yazoo case, 214.
Martin, Luther, his view of impeachment, ii. 223, 227, 231.
Mason, George, i. 133.
Massachusetts society in 1800, i. 76.
Meade, Bishop, of Virginia, i. 193.
Mediterranean Fund, the, ii. 141.
Merry, Anthony, appointed British minister to the United States,
ii. 360;
his arrival and reception by Jefferson, 361 _et seq._, 380, 381,
390;
dines at the White House, 369;
considers himself affronted and declines the President’s
invitations, 375;
union of, with Burr, 390;
writes to his Government, 392;
remonstrates with Madison respecting the enlistment of deserters,
393;
receives a message from Burr, 395;
communicates Burr’s plan to his Government, 403.
“Messenger,” stallion, i. 51.
Milledge, Governor, and the Yazoo sale, i. 305.
Mint, opposition to, i. 299; ii. 77.
Mississippi, district of, created, ii. 257.
Mitchill, Dr. Samuel L., i. 69, 93, 110; ii. 153, 218, 238.
Mobile treated as a part of the United States, ii. 255, 257,
260–263, 291, 293, 304, 380.
“Modern Chivalry,” i. 125.
Monroe, James, and the Callender scandal, i. 325;
nominated minister extraordinary to France and Spain, 433;
his instructions, 442;
sails for France, ii. 1;
his arrival in France, 26;
illness of, in Paris, 39;
his draft of claims convention, 41;
his share in the negotiation, 50;
under the influence of other men, 67;
commissioned to negotiate with Spain for West Florida, 248;
takes Rufus King’s place in London, 275, 288, 410;
his distrust of Livingston, 289;
returns to Paris, 292, 301;
is instructed to insist upon the right to West Florida, 301;
writes to Talleyrand, 304;
starts for Madrid, 307, 422;
receives answer from Talleyrand, 313;
in ignorance of Pitt’s schemes, 419;
interview with Lord Harrowby, 420;
warns the President to expect a change in British policy, 422.
Moore, Thomas, i. 48;
lines of, on the Philadelphia _literati_, 122;
his verses on Jefferson, 167.
Morfontaine, treaty of, i. 362, 370, 388; ii. 21, 42, 46, 47, 293,
296, 297, 383.
(See Treaties.)
Morocco, ii. 137.
Morris, Commodore, dismissed, ii. 137.
Morris, Gouverneur, i. 93, 279;
assails the Government, 435; ii. 99, 101, 283.
Morse, Jedediah, i. 78, 93.
Napoleon, i. 334;
and Talleyrand, 359;
restores peace in Europe, 360;
obtains retrocession of Louisiana, 363–370;
his anger with Godoy, 373–375;
makes peace with England, 374;
attacks Louverture, 390;
fears a war with the United States, ii. 2;
abandons his colonial system, 14 _et seq._;
scene with Lord Whitworth, 19;
reveals his determination to cede Louisiana, 25;
angry scene with his brothers, 34 _et seq._;
his _projet_ of a secret convention respecting Louisiana, 40;
objects to the payment of claims, 51;
his inducement to sell Louisiana, 52;
his conduct toward Spain, 56;
his avowal as to the sale of Louisiana, 61;
his reasons for betraying Charles IV., 63;
for selling Louisiana, 63 _et seq._;
repudiates drafts on the public Treasury, 270;
his irritation at Jerome’s marriage, 379.
Nash, Thomas, ii. 333.
Natchez delivered to the United States, i. 355.
“National Intelligencer,” i. 121.
Naturalization law adopted, i. 301.
Naturalization, the law of, in England and America, ii. 337
_et seq._
Navigation laws, British, ii. 318, 321, 413.
Navy, Jefferson’s opinion of, i. 222, 223, 238;
Gallatin’s views on, 222, 240, 252;
Giles’s views on, 287;
Leib’s proposal to abolish, 299;
condition in 1801, 242–245;
economies in, 272;
four sloops-of-war and fifteen gunboats built in 1803, ii. 77;
cost and estimates, 77, 136;
at Tripoli, 137–141, 425–436.
Nelson, Roger, ii. 229.
New England in 1800, i. 18;
school-houses, 19;
population, 20;
poverty, 21;
commerce and manufactures, 21 _et seq._;
social system, 76;
schools, 76;
society, organization of, 108.
New Haven, i. 75.
Newspapers, American, in 1800, i. 41, 120.
New York city in 1800, tax valuation of, i. 23;
behind New England, 23;
population, 24;
like a foreign seaport, 24;
expenses and sanitary condition, 25;
business, 25 _et seq._;
society of, 113.
New York State in 1800, i. 3, 6, 23, 108–114.
Nicholas, Wilson Cary, i. 221;
dissuades the President from raising Constitutional question,
ii. 88, 94, 111, 221.
Nicholson, Joseph H., i. 261, 268, 433; ii. 95, 100, 124, 144;
and the attack upon Judge Chase, 149, 225, 228;
offers an amendment to the Constitution, 240.
North Carolina in 1800, i. 36;
cotton planting, 37, 148.
Offices, Jefferson’s removals from, i. 230 _et seq._
Ohio, admitted, i. 302.
Ohio River settlements in 1800, i. 2.
Ohio, Territory of, ii. 121.
Olcott, Simeon, senator from New Hampshire, ii. 160.
Orleans, Territory of, ii. 121.
Osgood, Samuel, i. 108.
Otis, Harrison Gray, ii. 163.
Paine, Robert Treat, i. 330.
Paine, Thomas, Jefferson’s letter to, i. 316, 327.
“Palladium,” the, i. 314.
Parker, Admiral, ii. 340.
Parliament. (See Acts of.)
Parma, Duchy of, i. 363, 371.
Parsons, Chief-Justice Theophilus, i. 48, 87, 89, 93; ii. 164.
Party, the Federalist, in New England, i. 76, 82–89, 329; ii. 160,
170, 202;
in New York, i. 109; ii. 171, 191;
views on government, i. 252;
on the Judiciary, 273–275, 279, 290, 297;
on the treaty-making power, ii. 99–100, 105, 110, 111.
Party, the Republican, in New England, i. 76, 329, 330; ii. 81,
201, 202;
in New York, i. 108, 109, 113, 229–236, 331; ii. 171–191;
in Pennsylvania, i. 116, 194–200;
in Virginia, 138–143, 145–148, 179;
in North Carolina, 148;
in South Carolina, 152–154;
political principles of, 199–217, 238–243, 247, 251, 272, 287;
ii. 77, 78, 130, 134, 142, 203, 205, 254–262;
leaders of, in Congress, i. 264–269;
views of, on the Judiciary, 275, 276, 288–290, 297; ii. 143–159,
221–244;
on the treaty-making power, 78–80, 83–91, 94–99, 100–104,
106–112;
on the power of Congress over territories, 116–129;
on exclusive privileges, 208–210;
on British relations, 349, 355, 356;
success in 1803, 74–77;
in 1804, 201.
Patronage, public, Jefferson’s course regarding, i. 224, 294.
Patterson, Elizabeth, ii. 377.
Paulus Hook, i. 11.
Peace, Prince of. (See Godoy.)
_Pêle-Mêle_, ii. 365, 372, 390.
Pellew, Captain, of the “Cleopatra,” ii. 340.
Pennsylvania in 1800, i. 29, 114, 115;
schism, the, ii. 194 _et seq._
Perkins, Jacob, i. 182.
Philadelphia in 1800, i. 28, 29;
library company, 61;
intellectual centre in 1800, 117.
“Philadelphia,” the frigate, captured, ii. 138.
Physick, Dr., i. 127.
Pichon, French _chargé d’affaires_, remonstrates with Leclerc and
is superseded, i. 408; ii. 268;
complains to Talleyrand of the attitude of the United States,
437, 439;
observes Jefferson’s close relations with Thornton, 354;
invited by Jefferson to meet Merry at dinner, 369.
Pickering, Judge John, impeachment of, ii. 143 _et seq._;
trial of, 153 _et seq._;
irregularity of trial, 158.
Pickering, Senator Timothy, i. 88;
and Yrujo, 425;
on the admission of Louisiana to the Union, ii. 105, 110
_et seq._, 160;
his letter to George Cabot on the impending dangers, 161, 164;
receives Cabot’s reply, 166 _et seq._;
letter of, to Rufus King on Burr’s candidacy for the
governorship, 179, 390, 391.
Pinckney, Charles, i. 152;
appointed minister to Madrid, 294, 427;
obtains a convention for Spanish depredations, ii. 249 _et seq._;
indiscretions of, at Madrid, 275;
compromises Madison, 276;
adopts a high tone with Cevallos, 279;
sends him a threatening letter, 280;
excuse for his conduct, 281;
in an awkward situation, 284;
his recall asked for, 286;
asks the Spanish government to be permitted to resume relations,
315.
Pitt, William, ii. 316, 320, 324, 326, 328, 330, 336, 342;
restored to power, 396, 418;
determined to re-establish the former navigation laws, 419.
Pittsburgh in 1800, i. 2.
Plumer, William, senator from New Hampshire, ii. 160, 364, 405.
“Polly,” case of the, ii. 328, 340.
Population of the United States in 1800, i. 1;
centre of, near Baltimore, 1;
west of the Alleghanies in 1800, 3;
of cities, 59.
“Portfolio,” the, i. 85, 119, 121.
Postal system of the United States in 1800, i. 61.
Pozzo di Borgo, ii. 66.
Preble, Commodore Edward, appointed in command of the Mediterranean
squadron, ii. 137;
at Tripoli, 426.
Prevost, J. B., ii. 220.
Priestley, Dr. Joseph, i. 157.
Prince of Peace. (See Godoy.)
Princeton College in 1800, i. 129.
Prisons in 1800, i. 128.
Ramsay, David, i. 151.
Randolph, John, i. 143, 209;
in favor of anti-Federal declarations, 260, 267, 296, 338;
demands papers relating to the right of deposit at New Orleans,
429; ii. 95;
defends the President in Congress, 97, 120, 124, 133, 142, 144;
impeaches Judge Chase, 151;
opposes remission of duties on school-books, 208;
decline of his influence, 210;
on the Yazoo claims, 210;
his violent temper, 213;
supported by the Administration, 220;
opens the trial of Judge Chase, 229;
his closing speech, 236;
his amendment to the Constitution, 240, 241;
asserts title to West Florida, 255;
complains of Jefferson’s credulity, 409.
Randolph, Thomas Mann, ii. 95, 124.
Rawle, William, i. 127; ii. 259.
Reeve, Judge Tapping, ii. 168.
Representation, ratio of Congressional, fixed, i. 301.
Republicans. (See Party.)
Retaliation acts, ii. 397 _et seq._
Rhode Island, roads in, i. 64.
Rigaud, i. 384, 386.
Roads in 1800, i. 2, 5, 11 _et seq._, 14, 63, 64;
over the Alleghanies in 1800, 2.
Robbins, Jonathan, case of, ii. 333.
Rochambeau, General, succeeds Leclerc at St. Domingo, ii. 15.
Rodgers, John, at Tripoli, ii. 429.
Rodney, Cæsar A., elected to Congress in place of James A. Bayard,
ii. 76, 95;
a Republican leader, 100;
defends the Louisiana treaty, 102;
reports Jefferson’s bill for administering Louisiana, 119;
shares in the trial of Judge Chase, 219, 228, 234.
Rose, George, vice-president of the board of trade, ii. 419.
Roume, Citizen, French agent in St. Domingo, i. 384, 387.
Rule of the war of 1756, ii. 322, 323, 329.
Rutledge, John, i. 269, 271.
Sailors, British, their desertion to American service, ii. 332
_et seq._
St. Cyr, General, pledges France never to alienate Louisiana, i.
400; ii. 61.
St. Domingo ceded to France, i. 354, 378 _et seq._;
destruction of the French army in, 414;
relations of United States to, ii. 326.
Saratoga, i. 92.
Sauvé, Pierre, ii. 401, 406.
Scott, Dred, case of, ii. 126, 129.
Scott, Walter, i. 126.
Scott, Sir William, his judgments in admiralty cases, ii. 327.
Schuylers of New York, the, i. 108.
Search, right of, ii. 322.
Senate, as a court of impeachment, ii. 223.
Sheffield, Earl of, his devotion to the British navigation laws,
ii. 413.
Shippers, British, ii. 318, 320.
Shipping, character of, in 1800, i. 6;
American, increase of, ii. 325.
Sidmouth, Lord. (See Addington.)
Silliman, Professor Benjamin, i. 310.
Skipwith, Fulwar, U. S. consul, attacks Livingston, ii. 289.
Slave-trade, restrictions of, in Louisiana, ii. 122.
Slavery, i. 134–136, 150, 154.
Smith, Senator Israel, of Vermont, ii. 218.
Smith, John Cotton, i. 269.
Smith, Senator John, of New York, ii. 153.
Smith, Senator John, of Ohio, ii. 218.
Smith, Robert, appointed Secretary of the Navy, i. 220 _et seq._,
373, 431.
Smith, Samuel, member of Congress from Maryland, appointed
temporarily Secretary of the Navy, i. 219;
his character, 267;
moves to purchase Louisiana, 433;
his vote on Chase’s impeachment, ii. 238;
his wish to be minister to Paris, 378.
Smiths, the, of Baltimore, i. 93.
Somers, Lieutenant, at Tripoli, ii. 427.
South Carolina in 1800, i. 37;
brilliant prospects of, 39, 149 _et seq._;
contrast in the character of its people, 153 _et seq._
Spain, relations of, with the United States, i. 337 _et seq._;
clumsiness of her colonial system, 419;
declares war with England, ii. 303.
Spanish claims convention, ii. 249;
defeated in the Senate, 250;
ratified, 278;
conditions on ratification imposed by Spain, 280.
Spanish depredations claim. (See Pinckney.)
Spencer, Ambrose, i. 109, 112, 228, 233.
Stage-coaches, travel by, i. 11 _et seq._
State-rights, asserted by Virginia, i. 138–140;
by Kentucky, 140–143;
by Georgia, 304; ii. 215;
affected by Jefferson’s acts, i. 203, 205, 254, 255, 260, 263,
298; ii. 78, 85, 90, 114, 118, 125, 130, 203, 205, 210;
Gallatin’s attitude toward, i. 116; ii. 79, 80;
Bayard on, i. 292;
Randolph on, ii. 97, 98, 104, 120, 209, 211;
Nicholson on, 102, 209;
Rodney on, 103, 119;
Pickering on, 105;
John Taylor of Caroline on, 105–107;
Breckenridge on, 109, 121;
W. C. Nicholas on, 111–113;
Chief-Justice Taney on, 127;
Justice Campbell on, 127–129.
Steam-engines in America in 1800, i. 66, 68, 70.
Stevens, Edward, consul-general at St. Domingo, i. 385 _et seq._,
389.
Stevens, John, i. 69, 182.
Stewart, Charles, at Tripoli, ii. 428.
Stoddert, Benjamin, i. 192, 219.
Story, Joseph, his description of Fulton’s discouragements, i. 71;
of Marshall, 193, 260;
of Jefferson’s dress, ii. 366.
Stone, Senator David, of North Carolina, ii. 95, 157.
Stowell, Lord. (See Sir William Scott.)
Stuart, Gilbert, i. 127.
Sugar, stimulated production of, and subsequent glut in the West
Indies, ii. 415.
Supreme Court, the, i. 274;
sessions suspended for a year by Congress, ii. 143.
Sutcliffe, Robert, i. 34.
Swartwout, John, i. 109, 230;
his duel with De Witt Clinton, 332.
Talleyrand, i. 335;
his colonial schemes, 352 _et seq._;
becomes French minister of foreign affairs, 353;
his negotiations with the American commissioners, 355;
his instructions for Guillemardet, 355;
his mistakes, 357;
obliged by the X. Y. Z. affair to retire, 358;
restored by Bonaparte, 359, 412;
his letter with regard to Louisiana, 400;
denies the retrocession of Louisiana, 409;
his instructions to Bernadotte, ii. 11;
opposes the cession of Louisiana, 25;
proposes it to Livingston, 27;
explanation of the sale of Louisiana, 55;
assures Cevallos of Napoleon’s opposition to the American claims,
293;
his instructions to Turreau, 295;
reassures Cevallos, 297;
his attitude toward the United States, 309;
report to the Emperor on Monroe’s note, 310;
answer to Monroe, 313.
Taney, Chief-Justice, opinion of, respecting governmental powers in
the Louisiana case, ii. 126, 128.
Taxes, abolition of, i. 240, 270, 272.
Taylor, John, of Caroline, i. 143, 146, 263, 338; ii. 94;
his remarks on the Louisiana purchase, 105.
Taylor, Judge, ii. 177.
Temperance in United States in 1800, i. 47.
Tennessee, population of, in 1800, i. 2.
Terry, Eli, i. 181.
Texas, a part of the Louisiana purchase, ii. 256.
Theatre in New England in 1800, i. 49.
Theatres in Boston, i. 90.
Thompson, Smith, i. 108.
Thornton, Edward, his description of the inauguration of Jefferson,
i. 198, 436, 440;
letter to Hammond, ii. 342, 388;
complains that desertion of seamen is encouraged, 345;
Jefferson’s confidential relations with, 347;
proposals with regard to Monroe’s mission, 351;
on change on tone in 1804, 387, 388.
Thornton, Dr. William, i. 111.
Ticknor, George, i. 63, 94.
Tracy, Senator Uriah, of Connecticut, his reply to John Taylor of
Caroline, ii. 107, 238.
Travel in America, difficulties of, in 1800, i. 11 _et seq._
Treaty, preliminary between Great Britain, France, and Spain,
Nov. 3, 1762, i. 353; ii. 7, 70;
definitive between the same, Feb. 10, 1763, i. 353; ii. 6;
definitive between Great Britain and Spain, Sept. 3, 1783, i.
353;
definitive between the United States and Great Britain, Sept. 3,
1783, ii. 90, 411;
Jay’s, between the United States and Great Britain, Nov. 19,
1794, i. 348; ii. 316, 334, 339, 355, 421, 424;
of Basle, between Spain and France, July 22, 1795, i. 354;
Pinckney’s, between the United States and Spain, Oct. 27, 1795,
348, 349; ii. 246;
between Toussaint and Maitland, June 13, 1799, i. 385;
of Morfontaine, between the United States and France, Sept. 30,
1800, 362, 388; ii. 21, 42, 46, 47, 293, 296, 297, 383;
Berthier’s, between Spain and France, retroceding Louisiana, Oct.
1, 1800, i. 370, 401, 403; ii. 43, 58, 70, 254;
of Lunéville between France and Austria, Feb. 9, 1801, i. 370;
of Lucien Bonaparte between Spain and France, March 21, 1801,
372, 406, 409; ii. 299;
of Badajos between Spain and Portugal, June 5, 1801, i. 372;
preliminary, between Great Britain and France, Oct. 1, 1801, 374;
ii. 344;
settling British debts between Great Britain and the United
States, Jan. 8. 1802, 358, 410;
of Amiens between Great Britain and France, March 25, 1802, 59,
290, 326, 347, 385, 414, 416;
of claims between the United States and Spain, Aug. 11, 1802, 21,
250, 259, 278, 280, 293, 296, 297, 383;
between France and the United States, ceding Louisiana and
settling claims, 39–49, 51, 67, 85, 88, 92, 97, 100, 102,
105, 107, 108, 111, 245, 275, 289, 302, 308, 355, 399–401;
between the United States and Great Britain for settling
boundaries, May 12, 1803, 358, 383, 384, 391, 392, 410, 420,
424;
between the United States and Tripoli, Nov. 4, 1796, i. 244;
June 4, 1805, ii. 434, 436.
Treaty-making power, defined by W. C. Nicholas, ii. 87, 88, 112;
by Jefferson, 89, 90;
by Gaylord Griswold, 96, 97;
by Randolph, 98, 99;
by Gouverneur Morris, 100;
by Nicholson, 101;
by Rodney, 102, 103;
by Pickering, 105;
by John Taylor of Caroline, 106, 107;
by Tracy, 108;
by Breckenridge, 109;
by J. Q. Adams, 111;
by Cocke, 113;
summary of opinions on, 114, 115.
Tripoli, the war with, ii. 137, 426 _et seq._;
Pacha of, 430;
peace with, 436.
Trumbull, John, i. 101.
Turnpikes, prejudice against, i. 64 _et seq._
Turreau, Louis Marie, appointed minister to the United States by
Napoleon, ii. 268;
his domestic quarrels, 269;
complains of the discredit of France, 271;
embarrassments of, 272;
his description of Madison, 274;
receives instructions from Talleyrand, 296;
presented to Jefferson, 405;
describes General Wilkinson, 406.
Unitarians in New England, i. 89.
United States, banking capital of, in 1800, i. 26;
credit and trade of, 27;
monetary valuation of, in 1800, and distribution of wealth, 40;
popular characteristics of the people of, in 1800, 41 _et seq._;
standard of comfort, 42.
Urquijo, Don Mariano Luis de, i. 355, 365, 368.
Utica in 1800, i. 3.
Van Ness, William P., i. 109;
author of pamphlet by “Aristides,” ii. 73, 171;
carries Burr’s demand to Hamilton, 186.
Vanderbilt, Cornelius, i. 28.
Varnum, Joseph B., member of Congress from Massachusetts, ii. 123.
Victor, Marshal, to command the forces in Louisiana, ii. 5.
Vincent, Colonel, i. 382.
Virginia in 1800, i. 32;
farming in, 33, 131 _et seq._;
horse-racing, 51;
Washington’s views on the value of land in, 135;
Church and State in, 136;
adoption of the Constitution by, 139;
Resolutions, 140 _et seq._;
law to prevent extradition, ii. 334, 345, 398.
Virginians, i. 133 _et seq._;
of the middle and lower classes, 137;
agriculture their sole resource, 138.
Volney describes the American habits of diet, i. 44.
Voltaire, i. 161.
Wagner, Jacob, i. 236.
Ware, Henry, i. 311.
Warren, Dr. J. C., his description of Boston customs in 1800, i.
91.
Washington city in 1800, i. 30.
Washington, President, opinion of American farming-lands, i. 35;
his support of a national bank, 65;
on emancipation in Pennsylvania and its effects, 135;
establishes the precedent of addressing Congress in a speech,
247;
his personal authority, 262, 320.
Water communication in 1800, i. 8.
Waterhouse, Dr., i. 93.
Webster, Noah, i. 62, 105.
Weld, Rev. Abijah, of Attleborough, i. 21.
Weld, Isaac, Jr., an English traveller, describes condition of inns
in America, i. 46, 52;
describes Princeton, 129;
quoted, 136;
at Wilmington, 182.
West, Benjamin, i. 127.
West Indian trade, English policy toward, ii. 318;
value of, to England, 331, 413, 415.
West Point Military Academy established, i. 301.
Whitney, Eli, i. 181.
Whittemore, Asa, i. 182.
Whitworth, Lord, British minister at Paris, Napoleon’s announcement
to, ii. 19.
Wilkinson, James, Brigadier-General and governor of the Louisiana
Territory, ii. 220;
portrayed by Turreau, 406;
his relations with Burr, 408.
William and Mary, college of, i. 136.
Wilson, Alexander, describes New England in 1808, i. 19;
on North Carolina, 36, 57, 124.
Wilson, Judge, i. 127.
Wistar, Dr. Caspar, i. 127.
Wordsworth, i. 94;
his lines on America, 169, 172.
Wythe, George, i. 133.
X. Y. Z. affair, i. 355, 358, 359.
Yale College, i. 106.
Yazoo Act, i. 304.
Yazoo Compromise, ii. 210;
Madison’s measure, 211;
vote upon, 217.
(See Georgia.)
Yrujo, Don Carlos Martinez, Spanish minister, his intimate
relations with Jefferson, i. 425;
writes to Morales with respect to the right of deposit, 427;
announces the restoration of the right of deposit, ii. 3;
protests against the sale of Louisiana, 92, 252 _et seq._;
his anger, 258, 389;
obtains from American lawyers an opinion, 259;
attacks Madison, 260;
his affair with Jackson, 265;
visits Jefferson at Monticello, 266;
publishes his counter statement as to his affair with Jackson,
268;
relations of, with White House, 362;
indiscretion, 368;
at the White House, 369;
concerts reprisals with Merry, 373.
END OF VOL. II.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cabinet Memoranda of Mr. Jefferson, April 8, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[2] Madison to Livingston and Monroe, April 18 and 20, 1803; State
Papers, ii. 555.
[3] Livingston to Madison, Nov. 11, 1802; State Papers, ii. 526.
[4] State Papers, ii. 556.
[5] Yrujo to Madison, Notes of April 19 and 20, 1803; MSS. State
Department Archives.
[6] Bonaparte to Decrès, 6 Fructidor, An x. (Aug. 24, 1802);
Correspondance, viii. 4.
[7] Instructions secrètes pour le Capitaine-Général de la Louisiane,
approuvées par le Premier Consul le 5 Frimaire, An xi. (Nov. 26, 1802);
Archives de la Marine, MSS.
[8] Livingston to Madison, Feb. 18, 1803; State Papers, ii. 533.
[9] Talleyrand to Bernadotte, 24 Nivôse, An xi. (Jan. 14, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[10] Correspondance, viii. 145; Bonaparte to Decrès, 28 Frimaire, An
xi. (Dec. 19, 1802).
[11] Correspondance, viii. 146; Bonaparte to Victor, 25 Frimaire, An
xi. (Dec. 16, 1802).
[12] Livingston to Madison, Dec. 20, 1802; State Papers, ii. 528.
[13] Rochambeau to Decrès, 16 Frimaire, An xi. (Dec. 7, 1802); Archives
de la Marine, MSS.
[14] Correspondance, viii. 201; Bonaparte to Decrès, 16 Pluviôse, An
xi. (Feb. 5, 1803).
[15] Lucien Bonaparte et ses Mémoires, Th. Jung, ii. 165, _n._;
Lanfrey’s Napoleon, ii. 495.
[16] Livingston to Madison, Feb. 18, 1803; State Papers, ii. 533.
[17] Beurnonville to Talleyrand, 15 Ventôse, An xi. (March 6, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[18] Cevallos to Beurnonville, March 10, 1803; Archives des Aff. Étr.,
MSS.
[19] Livingston to Madison, March 12, 1803; State Papers, ii. 547.
[20] Amiot to Decrès, 19 Germinal, An xi. (April 9, 1803); Archives de
la Marine, MSS.
[21] Claims Convention, Aug. 11, 1802; State Papers, ii. 476.
[22] Madison to Pinckney, May 11, 1802; State Papers, ii. 517.
[23] Cevallos to Pinckney, May 4, 1803; State Papers, ii. 557.
[24] Rufus King to Madison, April 2, 1803; State Papers, ii. 551.
[25] History of Louisiana, Barbé Marbois, p. 277.
[26] History of Louisiana, Barbé Marbois, p. 263.
[27] Marbois’s Louisiana, p. 274.
[28] Livingston to Madison, April 11, 1803; State Papers, ii. 552.
[29] Livingston to Talleyrand, Jan. 10, 1803; Livingston to Bonaparte,
Feb. 27, 1803; State Papers, ii. 531, 539.
[30] Memoir of James Monroe, 1828; Colonel Mercer’s Journal, p. 55.
[31] Livingston to Madison, April 13, 1803; State Papers, ii. 552.
[32] Livingston to Madison, April 13, 1803; State Papers, ii. 552, 544.
[33] Livingston to Madison, April 17, 1803; State Papers, ii. 554.
[34] Lucien Bonaparte et ses Mémoires, Th. Jung, ii. 121–192.
[35] Correspondence, viii. 289.
[36] Monroe’s Memoranda, Monroe MSS., State Department Archives.
[37] Livingston to Madison, May 3, 1804; MSS. State Department Archives.
[38] Monroe’s Memoranda, Monroe MSS., State Department Archives.
[39] Draft of Convention in Monroe’s writing, Monroe MSS., State
Department Archives.
[40] State Papers, ii. 507–509.
[41] Marbois, Louisiana, pp. 283, 286.
[42] Livingston to Madison, April 13, 1803; State Papers, ii. 552.
[43] Monroe to Madison, April 19, 1803; State Department Archives.
[44] Madison to Livingston and Monroe, March 2, 1803; State Papers, ii.
540.
[45] Livingston to Madison, May 3, 1804; View of the Claims, etc., by a
Citizen of Baltimore, p. 75.
[46] View of the Claims, etc., by a Citizen of Baltimore. 1829.
[47] Livingston to Madison, Nov. 15, 1803; State Papers, ii. 573. Diary
of John Quincy Adams, v. 433. Memoir of James Monroe, 1828.
[48] Marbois’s Louisiana, pp. 311, 312.
[49] Marbois’s Louisiana, p. 276.
[50] Talleyrand to Decrès, 4 Prairial, An xi. (May 24, 1803); Archives
des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[51] D’Azara to Talleyrand, June 6, 1803; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[52] Beurnonville to Talleyrand, 24 Prairial, An xi. (June 13, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[53] Talleyrand to Beurnonville, 3 Messidor, An xi. (June 22, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[54] Madison to Livingston and Monroe, March 2, 1803; State Papers, ii.
543.
[55] Jefferson to Monroe, Jan. 13, 1803; Works, iv. 455.
[56] Livingston to Madison, April 11, 1803; State Papers, ii. 552.
[57] Ibid., July 30, 1802; State Papers, ii. 519.
[58] Ibid., May 12, 1803; State Papers, ii. 557.
[59] Ibid., May 20, 1803; State Papers, ii. 561.
[60] Livingston and Monroe to Madison, June 7, 1803; State Papers, ii.
563–565.
[61] Livingston to Madison, May 20, 1803; Nov. 15, 1803; State Papers,
ii. 561, 573.
[62] Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, Nov. 29, 1802; Works, iv. 452.
[63] Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, Dec. 16, 1802. Annals of
Congress, 1802–1803, 1276.
[64] Lincoln to Jefferson, Jan. 10, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[65] Gallatin to Jefferson, Jan. 13, 1803; Gallatin’s Works, i. 112.
[66] Jefferson to Governor McKean, Feb. 19, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[67] Jefferson to Colonel Hawkins, Feb. 18, 1803; Works, iv. 565.
[68] Jefferson to Levi Lincoln, June 8, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[69] Amendment to the Constitution; Jefferson MSS.
[70] Gallatin to Jefferson, July 9, 1803; Works, i. 127.
[71] Robert Smith to Jefferson, July 9, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[72] Jefferson to Breckenridge, Aug. 12, 1803; Works, iv. 498.
[73] Jefferson to Paine, Aug. 18, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[74] Jefferson to Madison, Aug. 18, 1803; to R. Smith, Aug. 23;
Jefferson MSS.
[75] Jefferson to Madison, Aug. 25; to Lincoln, Aug. 30, 1803; Works,
iv. 501–505; to Gallatin, Aug. 23, 1803; Gallatin’s Works, i. 144.
[76] W. C. Nicholas to Jefferson, Sept. 3, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[77] Jefferson to W. C. Nicholas, Sept. 7, 1803; Works, iv. 505.
[78] Yrujo to Madison, Sept. 4, Sept. 27, Oct. 12, 1803; State Papers,
ii. 569, 570.
[79] Morris to H. W. Livingston, Nov. 25, 1803. Writings of Gouverneur
Morris, iii. 185.
[80] Documents relating to New England Federalism, pp. 156, 157; Diary
of J. Q. Adams, i. 267.
[81] Examination of the Decision of the Supreme Court in the case of
Dred Scott. By Thomas H. Benton, p. 55.
[82] Annals of Congress, 1803–1804, p. 514.
[83] Act of October 31, 1803. Annals of Congress, 1803–1804. App. p.
1245.
[84] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Jan. 10, 1804), i. 287.
[85] American Insurance Company and Others _v._ Canter (January
Term, 1828), 1 Peters’s Reports, 511–546.
[86] Jefferson to Gallatin, Dec. 13, 1803; Works, iv. 518.
[87] Pichon to Talleyrand, 16 Fructidor, An xii. (Sept. 3, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[88] Dec. 8, 1803; Annals of Congress, 1803–1804, p. 751.
[89] Remarks on the Message, Gallatin’s Writings, i. 156; Gallatin to
Jefferson, Oct. 6, 1803; ibid., i. 162.
[90] Jefferson to R. Smith, Oct. 10, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[91] Speech of John Randolph, March 22, 1804; Annals of Congress,
1803–1804, p. 1221.
[92] Message of Feb. 3, 1803; Annals of Congress, 1802–1803, p. 460.
[93] Jefferson to General Knox, March 27, 1801; Works, iv. 386.
[94] Cranch’s Reports, i. 153.
[95] Annals of Congress, 1804–1805, pp. 673–676.
[96] Jefferson to Nicholson, May 13, 1803; Works, iv. 486.
[97] Macon to Nicholson, Aug. 6, 1803; Nicholson MSS.
[98] Jan. 5, 1804; Annals of Congress, 1803–1804, p. 805.
[99] Diary of J. Q. Adams, i. 299.
[100] Ibid., i. 301–302. Pickering to George Cabot, Jan. 29, 1804;
Pickering to Theodore Lyman, Feb. 11, 1804; New England Federalism, pp.
340, 344.
[101] New England Federalism, pp. 106, 146, 342, 352; Plumer’s Life of
Plumer, pp. 284–311.
[102] Pickering to George Cabot, Jan. 29, 1804; Lodge’s Cabot, p. 337.
[103] Roger Griswold to Oliver Wolcott, March 11, 1804; Hamilton’s
History of the Republic, vii. 781; New England Federalism, p. 354.
[104] Cabot to Pickering, March 7, 1804; New England Federalism, p. 353.
[105] Cabot to Pickering, Feb. 14, 1804; Lodge’s Cabot, p. 341.
[106] Tapping Reeve to Uriah Tracy, Feb. 7, 1804; Lodge’s Cabot, p. 442.
[107] Theodore Lyman to Pickering, Feb. 29, 1804; Lodge’s Cabot, p. 446.
[108] An Examination of the various Charges against Aaron Burr, by
Aristides. December, 1803.
[109] De Witt Clinton to Jefferson, Nov. 26, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[110] Jefferson to De Witt Clinton, Dec. 2, 1803; Jefferson MSS.
[111] Jefferson to Governor Clinton, Dec. 31, 1803; Works, iv. 520.
[112] The Anas, Jan. 26, 1804; Works, ix. 204.
[113] Hamilton’s Works, vii. 851.
[114] Pickering to Rufus King, March 4, 1804; Lodge’s Cabot, p. 447.
[115] Rufus King to Pickering, March 9, 1804; Lodge’s Cabot, p. 450.
[116] Roger Griswold to Oliver Wolcott, March 11, 1804; Hamilton’s
History, vii. 781; New England Federalism, p. 354.
[117] George Cabot to Rufus King, March 17, 1804; Lodge’s Cabot, p. 345.
[118] Hamilton’s History, vii. 787.
[119] New England Federalism, p. 148.
[120] Life of Plumer, p. 299.
[121] Hamilton’s History, vii. 806.
[122] Hamilton’s History, vii. pp. 816–819.
[123] Hamilton to Sedgwick, July 10, 1804; Works, vi. 567.
[124] Jefferson to Granger, March 9, 1814; Works, vi. 329.
[125] Jefferson to Granger, April 16, 1804; Works, iv. 542.
[126] Gallatin to Badollet, Oct. 25, 1805; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 331.
[127] Dallas to Gallatin, Oct. 16, 1804; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 326.
[128] Jefferson to Dr. Logan, May 11, 1805; Works, iv. 575.
[129] A. J. Dallas to Gallatin, Jan. 16, 1805; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 327.
[130] Jefferson to Dr. Logan, May 11, 1805; Works, iv. 575.
[131] Dallas to Gallatin, April 4, 1805; April 21, 1811; Adams’s
Gallatin, pp. 333, 439.
[132] Jefferson to Volney, Feb. 8, 1805; Works, iv. 573.
[133] Jefferson to J. F. Mercer, Oct. 9, 1804; Works, iv. 563.
[134] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Jan. 11, 1805), i. 331.
[135] See vol. i. p. 305.
[136] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Feb. 1, 1805), i. 343.
[137] Jefferson to General Smith, May 4, 1806; Works, v. 13.
[138] Life of Plumer, p. 330.
[139] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Nov. 29, 30, 1804), i. 318.
[140] Boston Centinel, Jan. 9, 1805.
[141] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Dec. 21, 1804), i. 322.
[142] Ibid. (Dec. 24, 1804), i. 324, 325.
[143] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Feb. 27, 1805), i. 359.
[144] Ibid., i. 361, 362.
[145] Diary of J. Q. Adams (March 1, 1805), i. 364.
[146] Randolph to Nicholson, April 30, 1805; Adams’s Randolph, p. 157.
[147] Diary of J. Q. Adams (March 2, 1805), i. 367.
[148] Jefferson to Thomas Ritchie, Dec. 25, 1820; Works, vii. 192.
[149] Livingston to Madison, Nov. 15, 1803; State Papers, ii. 573, 574.
[150] Jefferson to Breckenridge, Aug. 12, 1803; Works, iv. 498.
[151] Madison to Pinckney, July 29, 1803; State Papers, ii. 614.
[152] Madison to Monroe, July 29, 1803; State Papers, ii. 626.
[153] Jefferson to Madison, Aug. 25, 1803; Works, iv. 501.
[154] Pinckney to Madison, Aug. 15, 1802; State Papers, ii. 482.
[155] Madison to Monroe, July 29, 1803; State Papers, ii. 626.
[156] Yrujo to Madison, Sept. 4 and 27, 1803; State Papers, ii. 569.
[157] Yrujo to Cevallos, Aug. 3, 1803; MSS. Spanish Archives.
[158] Yrujo to Cevallos, Sept. 12, 1803; MSS. Spanish Archives.
[159] Yrujo to Cevallos, Nov. 5, 1803; MSS. Spanish Archives.
[160] Jefferson to Dupont, Nov. 1, 1803; Works, iv. 508.
[161] Annals of Congress, 1803–1804, p. 415.
[162] Annals of Congress, 1803–1804, p. 440.
[163] Jefferson to William Dunbar, March 13, 1804; Works, iv. 537.
[164] Madison to Livingston, Jan. 31, 1804; State Papers, ii. 574.
[165] Madison to Livingston, March 31, 1804; State Papers, ii. 575.
[166] Journal of Executive Sessions, Jan. 9, 1804.
[167] Madison to Pinckney, Jan. 31, 1804; State Papers, ii. 614.
[168] Madison to Pinckney, Feb. 6, 1804; State Papers, ii. 615.
[169] Yrujo to Madison, March 7, 1804; MSS. State Department Archives.
[170] Gallatin to Jefferson, October, 1804; Gallatin’s Works, i. 211.
[171] Madison to Livingston, March 31, 1804; State Papers, ii. 575.
[172] Proclamation of May 30, 1804; State Papers, ii. 583.
[173] Message of Nov. 8, 1804. Annals of Congress, 1804–1805, p. 11.
[174] Pichon to Talleyrand, 18 Brumaire, An xiii. (Nov. 9, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[175] Madison to Jefferson, Oct. 2, 1804; Jefferson MSS.
[176] Note du Premier Consul, 2 Floréal, An xi. (April 22, 1803);
Correspondance, viii. 288.
[177] Turreau to Talleyrand, 23 Floréal, An xiii. (May 13, 1805);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[178] Turreau to Talleyrand, 6 Pluviôse, An xii. (Jan. 27, 1805);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[179] Madison to Monroe, July 29, 1803; State Papers, ii. 626. Madison
to Pinckney, July 29, 1803; State Papers, ii. 614.
[180] Madison to Pinckney, Oct. 12, 1803; State Papers, ii. 570.
[181] Madison to Jefferson, April 9, 1804; Jefferson MSS.
[182] Pinckney to Madison, Aug. 2, 1803; State Papers, ii. 597.
[183] Cevallos to Pinckney, Aug. 23, 1803; State Papers, ii. 604.
[184] Beurnonville to Talleyrand, 18 Nivôse, An xii. (Jan. 9, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[185] Talleyrand to D’Hervas, 12 Nivôse, An xii. (Jan. 3, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[186] Beurnonville to Talleyrand, 21 Nivôse, An xii. (Jan. 12, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[187] Cevallos to Pinckney, Feb. 10, 1804; State Papers, ii. 583.
[188] Yrujo to Madison, May 15, 1804; State Papers, ii. 583.
[189] Pinckney to Cevallos, June 1, 1804; State Papers, ii. 618.
[190] Beurnonville to Talleyrand, 18 Prairial, An xii. (June 7, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[191] Cevallos to Pinckney, July 2, 1804; State Papers, ii. 619.
[192] Pinckney to Cevallos, July 5, 1804; State Papers, ii. 620.
[193] Cevallos to Pinckney, July 8, 1804; State Papers, ii. 620.
[194] Pinckney to Cevallos, July 14, 1804; State Papers, ii. 621.
[195] Pinckney to Madison, July 20, 1804; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[196] Pinckney to Madison, July 20, 1804; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[197] Vandeul to Talleyrand, 7 Thermidor, An xii. (July 26, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[198] Vandeul to Talleyrand, 18 Thermidor, An xii. (Aug. 6, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[199] Yrujo to Madison, Oct. 13, 1804; State Papers, ii. 624.
[200] Madison to Yrujo, Oct. 15, 1804; State Papers, ii. 625.
[201] Madison to Monroe, Oct. 26, 1804; State Papers, ii. 631.
[202] Madison to Monroe, Nov. 9, 1804; Works, ii. 208.
[203] Madison to Monroe, Nov. 9, 1804; Works, ii. 208.
[204] Monroe to Madison, July 20, 1803; MSS. State Department Archives.
[205] Monroe’s Memoranda, Monroe MSS., State Department Archives.
[206] Skipwith to Madison, Feb. 21, 1804; State Department Archives.
[207] Gouverneur Morris to Livingston, Nov. 28, 1803; Sparks’s Morris,
iii. 188.
[208] Vandeul to Talleyrand, July 26 and Aug. 6, 1804; Archives des
Aff. Étr., MSS.
[209] Gravina to Talleyrand, July 24, 1804; Archives des Aff. Étr.,
MSS. Cevallos to Monroe and Pinckney, 16 Feb. 1805; State Papers, ii.
643.
[210] Talleyrand to Turreau (No. 99), 20 Thermidor, An xii. (Aug. 8,
1804); Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[211] Talleyrand to Turreau (No. 101), 27 Thermidor, An xii. (Aug. 15,
1804); Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[212] Instructions secrètes pour le Capitaine-Général de la Louisiane,
approuvées par le Premier Consul le 5 Frimaire, An xi. (Nov. 26, 1802),
Archives de la Marine, MSS.
[213] Madison to Livingston, March 31, 1804; State Papers, ii. 575.
[214] Cf. Memoir upon the Negotiations between Spain and the United
States of America. By Don Luis de Onis, Madrid, 1820, Washington, 1821;
pp. 146, 147.
[215] Talleyrand to Gravina, 12 Fructidor, An xii. (Aug. 30, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[216] Jefferson to Madison, July 5, 1804; Works, iv. 550.
[217] Madison to Monroe, April 15, 1804; State Papers, ii. 627. Madison
to Monroe and Pinckney, July 8, 1804; State Papers, ii. 630.
[218] Monroe to Talleyrand, Nov. 8, 1804; State Papers, ii. 634.
[219] Monroe to Madison, Dec. 16, 1804; MSS. State Department Archives.
[220] Armstrong to Madison, Dec. 24, 1804; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[221] Diary at Aranjuez, April 22, 1805; MSS. State Department Archives.
[222] Monroe to Madison, Dec. 16, 1804; MSS. State Department Archives.
[223] Armstrong to Madison, Dec. 24, 1804; MSS. State Department
Archives.
[224] Rapport à l’Empereur, 28 Brumaire, An xii. (Nov. 19, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[225] Talleyrand to Armstrong, Dec. 21, 1804; State Papers, ii. 635.
[226] 28 George III. c. 6.
[227] Additional Instructions of Nov. 6, 1793; State Papers, i. 430.
[228] Reeves’s Law of Shipping and Navigation, part ii. chap. iii.
[229] Appendix to 4 Robinson, 6.
[230] Advocate-General’s Report, March 16, 1801; State Papers, ii. 491.
[231] See vol. i. p. 214.
[232] Thoughts on Commerce and Colonies, by Charles Bosanquet.
[233] Thornton to Grenville, March 7, 1801; MSS. British Archives.
[234] Act of Jan. 21, 1801, Statutes at Large of Virginia, New Series,
ii. 302.
[235] Thornton to Grenville, June 1, 1802; MSS. British Archives.
[236] Trial of Isaac Williams, Hartford, 1799; Wharton’s State Trials,
653. Shanks _v._ Dupont, 3 Peters, 242.
[237] 6 Anne, c. 20.
[238] Rufus King to Madison, April 12, 1801; State Papers, ii. 490.
[239] Liston to Grenville (private), May 7, 1800; MSS British Archives.
[240] Thornton to Grenville, March 7, 1801; MSS. British Archives.
[241] Thornton to Hawkesbury, Oct. 25 and Nov. 26, 1802: MSS. British
Archives.
[242] Thornton to Hawkesbury, July 3, 1802; MSS. British Archives.
[243] Thornton to Hawkesbury, Dec. 31, 1802; MSS. British Archives.
[244] Thornton to Hawkesbury, Jan. 3, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[245] Thornton to Hawkesbury, Jan. 31, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[246] See p. 2.
[247] Thornton to Hawkesbury, May 30, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[248] Pichon to Talleyrand, 8 Pluviôse, An xi. (Jan. 28, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[249] Pichon to Talleyrand, 14 Prairial, An xii. (June 3, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[250] Pichon to Talleyrand, 18 Messidor, An xii. (July 7, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[251] Jefferson to Mazzei, July 18, 1804; Works, iv. 552.
[252] Pichon to Talleyrand, 1 Ventôse, An xi. (Feb. 20, 1803); Archives
des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[253] Pichon to Talleyrand, 18 Messidor, An xii. (July 7, 1803);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[254] Jefferson to Earl of Buchan, July 10, 1803; Works, iv. 493.
[255] Jefferson to General Gates, July 11, 1803; Works, iv. 494.
[256] State Papers, ii. 382.
[257] State Papers, ii. 584.
[258] Gallatin to Jefferson, Aug. 18, 1803; Gallatin’s Works, i. 140.
[259] King to Madison, April 10, 1802; MSS. State Department Archives.
[260] Merry to Hammond, Dec. 7, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[261] Thornton to Hawkesbury, Dec. 9, 1801; MSS. British Archives.
[262] Life of William Plumer, p. 245.
[263] Jefferson’s Works, ix. 454.
[264] Life of William Plumer, p. 242.
[265] Life of Joseph Story, pp. 151, 158.
[266] Pichon to Talleyrand, 15 Pluviôse, An xii. (Feb. 5, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[267] Merry to Hawkesbury, Dec. 6, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[268] Yrujo to Cevallos, Feb. 7, 1804; MSS. Spanish Archives.
[269] Merry to Hammond, Dec. 7, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[270] Madison to Monroe, 19 Jan., 1804. Madison MSS., State Department
Archives. Merry to Hawkesbury, 30 Jan., 1801. MSS. British Archives.
[271] Pichon to Talleyrand, 15 Pluviôse, An xii. (Feb. 5, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[272] Merry to Hawkesbury, Dec. 31, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[273] Pichon to Talleyrand, 27 Pluviôse, An xii. (Feb. 13, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[274] Jefferson to Monroe, Jan. 8, 1804; Monroe MSS., State Department
Archives. Cf. Madison to Monroe, 16 Feb. 1804. Madison’s Works, ii.
195–199.
[275] Pichon to Talleyrand, 30 Pluviôse, An xii. (Feb. 16, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[276] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Jan. 7, 1804), i. 284.
[277] Ibid.
[278] Merry to Hawkesbury, Dec. 6, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[279] Merry to Hawkesbury, Dec. 6, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[280] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Oct. 31, 1803), i. 269.
[281] Merry to Hawkesbury, Dec. 6, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[282] Merry to Hawkesbury, Dec. 31, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
[283] Merry to Hawkesbury, Jan. 20, 1804; Jan. 30, 1804; MSS. British
Archives.
[284] Thornton to Hammond, Jan. 29, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
[285] Merry to Hawkesbury, Jan. 30, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
[286] Merry to Hawkesbury, March 1, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
[287] Merry to Harrowby, July 18, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
[288] Madison to Jefferson, Aug. 28, 1804; Jefferson MSS.
[289] Merry to Hawkesbury, June 2, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
[290] Merry to Harrowby, Aug. 6, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
[291] Merry to Harrowby, March 4, 1805; MSS. British Archives.
[292] Merry to Harrowby, March 29, 1805; MSS. British Archives.
[293] Remonstrance of the People of Louisiana, Dec. 31, 1804; Annals of
Congress, 1804–1805, Appendix, p. 1597.
[294] Report of Committee, Jan. 25, 1805; Annals of Congress,
1804–1805, p. 1014.
[295] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Feb. 1, 1805), i. 342.
[296] Merry to Harrowby, (No. 14), March 29, 1805; MSS. British
Archives.
[297] Merry to Harrowby, (No. 15), most secret, March 29, 1805.
[298] Pichon to Talleyrand, 16 Fructidor, An xii. (Sept. 3, 1804);
Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[299] Life of Plumer, p. 326.
[300] Diary of J. Q. Adams (Nov. 23, 1804), i. 316.
[301] Turreau to Talleyrand, 27 Janvier, 1805; Archives des Aff. Étr.,
MSS.
[302] Turreau to Talleyrand, 9 Mars, 1805; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
[303] Affidavit of Peter Derbigny, Aug. 27, 1807. Clark’s Proofs
against Wilkinson; Note 18. App. p. 38.
[304] Adams’s Randolph, p. 157.
[305] Strictures, etc., on the Navigation and Colonial System of Great
Britain. London, 1804.
[306] Claims of the British West Indian Colonists. By G. W. Jordan.
London, 1804.
[307] Lowe’s Enquiry, 4th edition, 1808.
[308] Anti-Jacobin Review, August, 1807, p. 368; Introduction to
Reports, etc., on Navigation, p. 22; Atcheson’s American Encroachments,
London, 1808, p. lxxvii; Baring’s Inquiry, London, 1808, p. 73.
[309] Monroe to Madison, June 3, 1804; State Papers, iii. 92.
[310] Monroe to Madison, Aug. 7, 1804; State Papers, iii. 94.
[311] Monroe to Madison, June 3, 1804; State Papers, iii. 92.
[312] Monroe to Madison, Sept. 8, 1804; MSS. State Department Archives.
[313] Harrowby to Merry, Nov. 7, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
[314] Life of General William Eaton, Brookfield, 1813, p. 262.
[315] Life of Eaton, p. 328.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
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