The purchase of Louisiana was a diplomatic triumph of the first
magnitude. No American negotiators have ever acquired so much for
so little; yet, oddly enough, neither Livingston nor Monroe had the
slightest notion of the vast extent of the domain which they had
purchased. They had bought Louisiana "with the same extent that it 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," but what its actual boundaries were
they did not know. Considerably disturbed that the treaty contained
no definition of boundaries, Livingston sought information from the
enigmatical Talleyrand. "What are the eastern bounds of Louisiana?"
he asked. "I do not know," replied Talleyrand; "you must take it as we
received it." "But what did you mean to take?" urged Livingston somewhat
naively. "I do not know," was the answer. "Then you mean that we shall
construe it in our own way?" "I can give you no direction," said the
astute Frenchman. "You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I
suppose you will make the most of it." And with these vague assurances
Livingston had to be satisfied.
The first impressions of Jefferson were not much more definite, for,
while he believed that the acquired territory more than doubled the area
of the United States, he could only describe it as including all the
waters of the Missouri and the Mississippi. He started at once, however,
to collect information about Louisiana. He prepared a list of queries
which he sent to reputable persons living in or near New Orleans.
The task was one in which he delighted: to accumulate and diffuse
information--a truly democratic mission gave him more real pleasure than
to reign in the Executive Mansion. His interest in the trans-Mississippi
country, indeed, was not of recent birth; he had nursed for years an
insatiable curiosity about the source and course of the Missouri; and in
this very year he had commissioned his secretary, Meriwether Lewis,
to explore the great river and its tributaries, to ascertain if they
afforded a direct and practicable water communication across the
continent.
The outcome of the President's questionnaire was a report submitted
to Congress in the fall of 1803, which contained much interesting
information and some entertaining misinformation. The statistical matter
we may put to one side, as contemporary readers doubtless did; certain
impressions are worth recording. New Orleans, the first and immediate
object of negotiations, contained, it would appear, only a small part of
the population of the province, which numbered some twenty or more
rural districts. On the river above the city were the plantations of the
so-called Upper Coast, inhabited mostly by slaves whose Creole masters
lived in town; then, as one journeyed upstream appeared the first and
second German Coasts, where dwelt the descendants of those Germans who
had been brought to the province by John Law's Mississippi Bubble, an
industrious folk making their livelihood as purveyors to the city. Every
Friday night they loaded their small craft with produce and held market
next day on the river front at New Orleans, adding another touch to the
picturesque groups which frequented the levees. Above the German Coasts
were the first and second Acadian Coasts, populated by the numerous
progeny of those unhappy refugees who were expelled from Nova Scotia in
1755. Acadian settlements were scattered also along the backwaters west
of the great river: Bayou Lafourche was lined with farms which were
already producing cotton; near Bayou Teche and Bayou Vermilion--the
Attakapas country--were cattle ranges; and to the north was the richer
grazing country known as Opelousas.
Passing beyond the Iberville River, which was indeed no river at all but
only an overflow of the Mississippi, the traveler up-stream saw on
his right hand "the government of Baton Rouge" with its scattered
settlements and mixed population of French, Spanish, and
Anglo-Americans; and still farther on, the Spanish parish of West
Feliciana, accounted a part of West Florida and described by President
Jefferson as the garden of the cotton-growing region. Beyond this point
the President's description of Louisiana became less confident, as
reliable sources of information failed him. His credulity, however, led
him to make one amazing statement, which provoked the ridicule of his
political opponents, always ready to pounce upon the slips of this
philosopher-president. "One extraordinary fact relative to salt must
not be omitted," he wrote in all seriousness. "There exists, about one
thousand miles up the Missouri, and not far from that river, a salt
mountain! The existence of such a mountain might well be questioned,
were it not for the testimony of several respectable and enterprising
traders who have visited it, and who have exhibited several bushels of
the salt to the curiosity of the people of St. Louis, where some of it
still remains. A specimen of the salt has been sent to Marietta. This
mountain is said to be 180 miles long and 45 in width, composed of solid
rock salt, without any trees or even shrubs on it." One Federalist wit
insisted that this salt mountain must be Lot's wife; another sent an
epigram to the United States Gazette which ran as follows:
Herostratus of old, to eternalize his name Sat the temple of Diana all
in a flame; But Jefferson lately of Bonaparte bought, To pickle his
fame, a mountain of salt.
Jefferson was too much of a philosopher to be disturbed by such gibes;
but he did have certain constitutional doubts concerning the treaty.
How, as a strict constructionist, was he to defend the purchase of
territory outside the limits of the United States, when the Constitution
did not specifically grant such power to the Federal Government? He had
fought the good fight of the year 1800 to oust Federalist administrators
who by a liberal interpretation were making waste paper of the
Constitution. Consistency demanded either that he should abandon the
treaty or that he should ask for the powers which had been denied to
the Federal Government. He chose the latter course and submitted to his
Cabinet and to his followers in Congress a draft of an amendment to the
Constitution conferring the desired powers. To his dismay they treated
his proposal with indifference, not to say coldness. He pressed his
point, redrafted his amendment, and urged its consideration once again.
Meantime letters from Livingston and Monroe warned him that delay was
hazardous; the First Consul might change his mind, as he was wont to do
on slight provocation. Privately Jefferson was deeply chagrined, but he
dared not risk the loss of Louisiana. With what grace he could summon,
he acquiesced in the advice of his Virginia friends who urged him to let
events take their course and to drop the amendment, but he continued to
believe that such a course if persisted in would make blank paper of
the Constitution. He could only trust, as he said in a letter, "that the
good sense of the country will correct the evil of construction when it
shall produce its ill effects."
The debates on the treaty in, Congress make interesting reading for
those who delight in legal subtleties, for many nice questions of
constitutional law were involved. Even granting that territory could be
acquired, there was the further question whether the treaty-making power
was competent irrespective of the House of Representatives. And what,
pray, was meant by incorporating this new province in the Union? Was
Louisiana to be admitted into the Union as a State by President and
Senate? Or was it to be governed as a dependency? And how could the
special privileges given to Spanish and French ships in the port of New
Orleans be reconciled with that provision of the Constitution which,
expressly forbade any preference to be given, by any regulation of
commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another?
The exigencies of politics played havoc with consistency, so that
Republicans supported the ratification of the treaty with erstwhile
Federalist arguments, while Federalists used the old arguments of the
Republicans. Yet the Senate advised the ratification by a decisive vote
and with surprising promptness; and Congress passed a provisional act
authorizing the President to take over and govern the territory of
Louisiana.
The vast province which Napoleon had tossed so carelessly into the lap
of the young Western Republic was, strangely enough, not yet formally in
his possession. The expeditionary force under General Victor which
was to have occupied Louisiana had never left port. M. Pierre Clement
Laussat, however, who was to have accompanied the expedition to assume
the duties of prefect in the province, had sailed alone in January,
1803, to receive the province from the Spanish authorities. If this
lonely Frenchman on mission possessed the imagination of his race,
he must have had some emotional thrills as he reflected that he was
following the sea trail of La Salle and Iberville through the warm
waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He could not have entered the Great River
and breasted its yellow current for a hundred miles, without seeing in
his mind's eye those phantom figures of French and Spanish adventurers
who had voyaged up and down its turbid waters in quest of gold or of
distant Cathay. As his vessel dropped anchor opposite the town which
Bienville had founded, Laussat must have felt that in some degree he was
"heir of all the ages"; yet he was in fact face to face with conditions
which, whatever their historic antecedents, were neither French nor
Spanish. On the water front of New Orleans, he counted "forty-five
Anglo-American ships to ten French." Subsequent experiences deepened
this first impression: it was not Spanish nor French influence which had
made this port important but those "three hundred thousand planters who
in twenty years have swarmed over the eastern plains of the Mississippi
and have cultivated them, and who have no other outlet than this river
and no other port than New Orleans."
The outward aspect of the city, however, was certainly not American.
From the masthead of his vessel Laussat might have seen over a thousand
dwellings of varied architecture: houses of adobe, houses of brick,
houses of stucco; some with bright colors, others with the harmonious
half tones produced by sun and rain. No American artisans constructed
the picturesque balconies, the verandas, and belvederes which suggested
the semitropical existence that Nature forced upon these city dwellers
for more than half the year. No American craftsmen wrought the artistic
ironwork of balconies, gateways, and window gratings. Here was an
atmosphere which suggested the Old World rather than the New. The
streets which ran at right angles were reminiscent of the old regime:
Conde, Conti, Dauphine, St. Louis, Chartres, Bourbon, Orleans--all
these names were to be found within the earthen rampart which formed the
defense of the city.
The inhabitants were a strange mixture: Spanish, French, American,
black, quadroon, and Creole. No adequate definition has ever been
formulated for "Creole," but no one familiar with the type could fail
to distinguish this caste from those descended from the first French
settlers or from the Acadians. A keen observer like Laussat discerned
speedily that the Creole had little place in the commercial life of
the city. He was your landed proprietor, who owned some of the choicest
parts of the city and its growing suburbs, and whose plantations lined
both banks of the Mississippi within easy reach from the city. At the
opposite end of the social scale were the quadroons--the demimonde of
this little capital--and the negro slaves. Between these extremes were
the French and, in ever-growing numbers, the Americans who plied
every trade, while the Spaniards constituted the governing class.
Deliberately, in the course of time, as befitted a Spanish gentleman and
officer, the Marquis de Casa Calvo, resplendent with regalia, arrived
from Havana to act with Governor Don Juan Manuel de Salcedo in
transferring the province. A season of gayety followed in which the
Spaniards did their best to conceal any chagrin they may have felt at
the relinquishment--happily, it might not be termed the surrender--of
Louisiana. And finally on the 30th of November, Governor Salcedo
delivered the keys of the city to Laussat, in the hall of the Cabildo,
while Marquis de Casa Calvo from the balcony absolved the people in
Place d'Armes below from their allegiance to his master, the King of
Spain.
For the brief term of twenty days Louisiana was again a province of
France. Within that time Laussat bestirred himself to gallicize
the colony, so far as forms could do so. He replaced the cabildo or
hereditary council by a municipal council; he restored the civil code;
he appointed French officers to civil and military posts. And all
this he did in the full consciousness that American commissioners were
already on their way to receive from him in turn the province which his
wayward master had sold. On December 20, 1803, young William Claiborne,
Governor of the Mississippi Territory, and General James Wilkinson, with
a few companies of soldiers, entered and received from Laussat the keys
of the city and the formal surrender of Lower Louisiana. On the Place
d'Armes, promptly at noon, the tricolor was hauled down and the American
Stars and Stripes took its place. Louisiana had been transferred for the
sixth and last time. But what were the metes and bounds of this
province which had been so often bought and sold? What had Laussat been
instructed to take and give? What, in short, was Louisiana?
The elation which Livingston and Monroe felt at acquiring unexpectedly
a vast territory beyond the Mississippi soon gave way to a disquieting
reflection. They had been instructed to offer ten million dollars for
New Orleans and the Floridas: they had pledged fifteen millions for
Louisiana without the Floridas. And they knew that it was precisely West
Florida, with the eastern bank of the Mississippi and the Gulf littoral,
that was most ardently desired by their countrymen of the West. But
might not Louisiana include West Florida? Had Talleyrand not professed
ignorance of the eastern boundary? And had he not intimated that
the Americans would make the most of their bargain? Within a month
Livingston had convinced himself that the United States could rightfully
claim West Florida to the Perdido River, and he soon won over Monroe to
his way of thinking. They then reported to Madison that "on a thorough
examination of the subject" they were persuaded that they had purchased
West Florida as a part of Louisiana.
By what process of reasoning had Livingston and Monroe reached this
satisfying conclusion? Their argument proceeded from carefully chosen
premises. France, it was said, had once held Louisiana and the Floridas
together as part of her colonial empire in America; in 1763 she had
ceded New Orleans and the territory west of the Mississippi to Spain,
and at the same time she had transferred the Floridas to Great Britain;
in 1783 Great Britain had returned the Floridas to Spain which were then
reunited to Louisiana as under French rule. Ergo, when Louisiana was
retro-ceded "with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain,
and that it had when France possessed it," it must have included West
Florida.
That Livingston was able to convince himself by this logic, does not
speak well for his candor or intelligence. He was well aware that
Bonaparte had failed to persuade Don Carlos to include the Floridas
in the retrocession; he had tried to insert in the treaty an article
pledging the First Consul to use his good offices to obtain the Floridas
for the United States; and in his midnight dispatch to Madison, with
the prospect of acquiring Louisiana before him, he had urged the
advisability of exchanging this province for the more desirable
Floridas. Livingston therefore could not, and did not, say that Spain
intended to cede the Floridas as a part of Louisiana, but that she
had inadvertently done so and that Bonaparte might have claimed West
Florida, if he had been shrewd enough to see his opportunity. The United
States was in no way prevented from pressing this claim because the
First Consul had not done so. The fact that France had in 1763 actually
dismembered her colonial empire and that Louisiana as ceded to Spain
extended only to the Iberville, was given no weight in Livingston's
deductions.
Having the will to believe, Jefferson and Madison became converts
to Livingston's faith. Madison wrote at once that in view of these
developments no proposal to exchange Louisiana for the Floridas should
be entertained; the President declared himself satisfied that "our right
to the Perdido is substantial and can be opposed by a quibble on form
only"; and John Randolph, duly coached by the Administration, flatly
declared in the House of Representatives that "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." From this
moment to the end of his administration, the acquisition of West Florida
became a sort of obsession with Jefferson. His pursuit of this phantom
claim involved American diplomats in strange adventures and at times
deflected the whole course of domestic politics.
The first luckless minister to engage in this baffling quest was James
Monroe, who had just been appointed Minister to the Court of St. James.
He was instructed to take up the threads of diplomacy at Madrid where
they were getting badly tangled in the hands of Charles Pinckney, who
was a better politician than a diplomat. "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." Before leaving Paris on this mission, Monroe made
an effort to secure the good offices of the Emperor, but he found
Talleyrand cold and cynical as ever. He was given to understand that it
was all a question of money; if the United States were willing to pay
the price, the Emperor could doubtless have the negotiations transferred
to Paris and put the deal through. A loan of seventy million livres to
Spain, which would be passed over at once to France, would probably put
the United States into possession of the coveted territory. As an honest
man Monroe shrank from this sort of jobbery; besides, he could hardly
offer to buy a territory which his Government asserted it had already
bought with Louisiana. With the knowledge that he was defying Napoleon,
or at least his ministers, he started for Madrid to play a lone hand in
what he must have known was a desperate game.
The conduct of the Administration during the next few months was hardly
calculated to smooth Monroe's path. In the following February (1804)
President Jefferson put his signature to an act which was designed
to give effect to the laws of the United States in the newly acquired
territory. The fourth section of this so-called Mobile Act included
explicitly within the revenue district of Mississippi all the navigable
waters lying within the United States and emptying into the Gulf east
of the Mississippi--an extraordinary provision indeed, since unless the
Floridas were a part of the United States there were no rivers within
the limits of the United States emptying into the Gulf east of the
Mississippi. The eleventh section was even more remarkable since it gave
the President authority to erect Mobile Bay and River into a separate
revenue district and to designate a port of entry.
This cool appropriation of Spanish territory was too much for the
excitable Spanish Minister, Don Carlos Martinez Yrujo, who burst into
Madison's office one morning with a copy of the act in his hand and with
angry protests on his lips. He had been on excellent terms with Madison
and had enjoyed Jefferson's friendship and hospitality at Monticello;
but he was the accredited representative of His Catholic Majesty and
bound to defend his sovereignty. He fairly overwhelmed the timid Madison
with reproaches that could never be forgiven or forgotten; and from this
moment he was persona non grata in the Department of State.
Madison doubtless took Yrujo's reproaches more to heart just because
he felt himself in a false position. The Administration had allowed the
transfer of Louisiana to be made in the full knowledge that Laussat had
been instructed to claim Louisiana as far as the Rio Bravo on the
west but only as far as the Iberville on the east. Laussat had finally
admitted as much confidentially to the American commissioners. Yet
the Administration had not protested. And now it was acting on the
assumption that it might dispose of the Gulf littoral, the West Florida
coast, as it pleased. Madison was bound to admit in his heart of hearts
that Yrujo had reason to be angry. A few weeks later the President
relieved the tense situation, though at the price of an obvious evasion,
by issuing a proclamation which declared all the shores and waters
"lying _Within the Boundaries of The United States_" * to be a revenue
district with Fort Stoddert as the port of entry. But the mischief had
been done and no constructive interpretation of the act by the President
could efface the impression first made upon the mind of Yrujo. Congress
had meant to appropriate West Florida and the President had suffered the
bill to become law.
* The italics are President Jefferson's.
Nor was Pinckney's conduct at Madrid likely to make Monroe's mission
easier. Two years before, in 1802, he had negotiated a convention by
which Spain agreed to pay indemnity for depredations committed by her
cruisers in the late war between France and the United States. This
convention had been ratified somewhat tardily by the Senate and
now waited on the pleasure of the Spanish Government. Pinckney was
instructed to press for the ratification by Spain, which was taken for
granted; but he was explicitly warned to leave the matter of the Florida
claims to Monroe. When he presented the demands of his Government to
Cevallos, the Foreign Minister, he was met in turn with a demand for
explanations. What, pray, did his Government mean by this act? To
Pinckney's astonishment, he was confronted with a copy of the Mobile
Act, which Yrujo had forwarded. The South Carolinian replied, in a tone
that was not calculated to soothe ruffled feelings, that he had already
been advised that West Florida was included in the Louisiana purchase
and had so reported to Cevallos. He urged that the two subjects be kept
separate and begged His Excellency to have confidence in the honor and
justice of the United States. Delays followed until Cevallos finally,
declared sharply that the treaty would be ratified only on several
conditions, one of which was that the Mobile Act should be revoked.
Pinckney then threw discretion to the winds and announced that he would
ask for his passports; but his bluster did not change Spanish policy,
and he dared not carry out his threat.
It was under these circumstances that Monroe arrived in Madrid on his
difficult mission. He was charged with the delicate task of persuading
a Government whose pride had been touched to the quick to ratify the
claims convention, to agree to a commission to adjudicate other claims
which it had refused to recognize, to yield West Florida as a part of
the Louisiana purchase, and to accept two million dollars for the rest
of Florida east of the Perdido River. In preparing these extraordinary
instructions, the Secretary of State labored under the hallucination
that Spain, on the verge of war with England, would pay handsomely for
the friendship of the United States, quite forgetting that the real
master of Spain was at Paris.
The story of Monroe's five weary months in Spain may be briefly told. He
was in the unstrategic position of one who asks for everything and can
concede nothing. Only one consideration could probably have forced the
Spanish Government to yield, and that was fear. Spain had now declared
war upon England and might reasonably be supposed to prefer a solid
accommodation with the United States, as Madison intimated, rather than
add to the number of her foes. But Cevallos exhibited no signs of fear;
on the contrary he professed an amiable willingness to discuss every
point at great length. Every effort on the part of the American to reach
a conclusion was adroitly eluded. It was a game in which the Spaniard
had no equal. At last, when indubitable assurances came to Monroe
from Paris that Napoleon would not suffer Spain to make the slightest
concession either in the matter of spoliation claims or any other
claims, and that, in the event of a break between the United States and
Spain, he would surely take the part of Spain, Monroe abandoned the game
and asked for his passports. Late in May he returned to Paris, where he
joined with General Armstrong, who had succeeded Livingston, in urging
upon the Administration the advisability of seizing Texas, leaving West
Florida alone for the present.
Months of vacillation followed the failure of Monroe's mission. The
President could not shake off his obsession, and yet he lacked the
resolution to employ force to take either Texas, which he did not want
but was entitled to, or West Florida which he ardently desired but whose
title was in dispute. It was not until November of the following year
(1805) that the Administration determined on a definite policy. In a
meeting of the Cabinet "I proposed," Jefferson recorded in a memorandum,
"we should address ourselves to France, informing her it was a last
effort at amicable settlement with Spain and offer to her, or through
her," a sum not to exceed five million dollars for the Floridas. The
chief obstacle in the way of this programme was the uncertain mood of
Congress, for a vote of credit was necessary and Congress might not take
kindly to Napoleon as intermediary. Jefferson then set to work to draft
a message which would "alarm the fears of Spain by a vigorous language,
in order to induce her to join us in appealing to the interference of
the Emperor."
The message sent to Congress alluded briefly to the negotiations with
Spain and pointed out the unsatisfactory relations which still obtained.
Spain had shown herself unwilling to adjust claims or the boundaries
of Louisiana; her depredations on American commerce had been renewed;
arbitrary duties and vexatious searches continued to obstruct American
shipping on the Mobile; inroads had been made on American territory;
Spanish officers and soldiers had seized the property of American
citizens. It was hoped that Spain would view these injuries in
their proper light; if not, then the United States "must join in the
unprofitable contest of trying which party can do the other the most
harm. Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a peaceable remedy. Where
that is competent, it is always the most desirable. But some of them are
of a nature to be met by force only, and all of them may lead to it."
Coming from the pen of a President who had declared that peace was his
passion, these belligerent words caused some bewilderment but, on the
whole, very considerable satisfaction in Republican circles, where the
possibility of rupture had been freely discussed. The people of the
Southwest took the President at his word and looked forward with
enthusiasm to a war which would surely overthrow Spanish rule in the
Floridas and yield the coveted lands along the Gulf of Mexico. The
country awaited with eagerness those further details which the President
had promised to set forth in another message. These were felt to be
historic moments full of dramatic possibilities.
Three days later, behind closed doors, Congress listened to the special
message which was to put the nation to the supreme test. Alas for those
who had expected a trumpet call to battle. Never was a state paper
better calculated to wither martial spirit. In dull fashion it recounted
the events of Monroe's unlucky mission and announced the advance of
Spanish forces in the Southwest, which, however, the President had not
repelled, conceiving that "Congress alone is constitutionally invested
with the power of changing our condition from peace to war." He had
"barely instructed" our forces "to patrol the borders actually delivered
to us." It soon dawned upon the dullest intelligence that the President
had not the slightest intention to recommend a declaration of war. On
the contrary, he was at pains to point out the path to peace. There
was reason to believe that France was now disposed to lend her aid in
effecting a settlement with Spain, and "not a moment should be lost
in availing ourselves of it." "Formal war is not necessary, it is not
probable it will follow; but the protection of our citizens, the spirit
and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to
a certain degree. It will probably contribute to advance the object of
peace."
After the warlike tone of the first message, this sounded like a
retreat. It outraged the feelings of the war party. It was, to their
minds, an anticlimax, a pusillanimous surrender. None was angrier than
John Randolph of Virginia, hitherto the leader of the forces of the
Administration in the House. He did not hesitate to express his disgust
with "this double set of opinions and principles"; and his anger mounted
when he learned that as Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means
he was expected to propose and carry through an appropriation of two
million dollars for the purchase of Florida. Further interviews with the
President and the Secretary of State did not mollify him, for, according
to his version of these conversations, he was informed that France would
not permit Spain to adjust her differences with the United States, which
had, therefore, the alternative of paying France handsomely or of facing
a war with both France and Spain. Then Randolph broke loose from
all restraint and swore by all his gods that he would not assume
responsibility for "delivering the public purse to the first cut-throat
that demanded it."
Randolph's opposition to the Florida programme was more than an
unpleasant episode in Jefferson's administration; it proved to be the
beginning of a revolt which was fatal to the President's diplomacy, for
Randolph passed rapidly from passive to active opposition and fought
the two-million dollar bill to the bitter end. When the House finally
outvoted him and his faction, soon to be known as the "Quids," and the
Senate had concurred, precious weeks had been lost. Yet Madison must
bear some share of blame for the delay since, for some reason, never
adequately explained, he did not send instructions to Armstrong until
four weeks after the action of Congress. It was then too late to
bait the master of Europe. Just what had happened Armstrong could not
ascertain; but when Napoleon set out in October, 1806, on that fateful
campaign which crushed Prussia at Jena and Auerstadt, the chance of
acquiring Florida had passed.