Congress had been called for October 17, to ratify the treaty; but

before that date, Jefferson sent letters and questionnaires all around

in order to gather any possible information on the limits, geography,

resources and condition of the inhabitants of the newly acquired

territory. In a letter to Breckenridge (August 12, 1803), he expressed

himself more freely than to any other correspondent. First of all he

admitted that he was somewhat disappointed at having being unable to

secure the Floridas. But it was only a delayed opportunity; sooner or

later Spain would engage in some war, and the realistic politician

added: "If we push them strongly with one hand, holding out a price in

the other, we shall certainly obtain the Floridas, and all in good

time." For the present, the United States, without claiming possession

of the Spanish territories, would act pretty freely: "In the meantime,

without waiting for permission, we shall enter into the exercise of the

natural right we have always insisted on with having a right of innocent

passage through them to the ocean. We shall prepare her to see us

practice on this, and she will not oppose it by force."

He had already heard many objections to the treaty; of all of them he

disposed summarily. He did not take seriously the danger mentioned by

the Federalists of seeing a fringe of States, different in interest from

the original States, form along the Mississippi and threaten the

homogeneity of the Union. If it came to the worst, it would be better

for the United States to have as neighbors along the western border a

Federation of States inhabited by a people of the same blood than a

Spanish or French dominion. Then Jefferson prophetically outlined the

development of the West as he foresaw it. The inhabited part of

Louisiana was to become a new State as soon as possible. Above Pointe

Coupee, the best procedure was probably to move the Indians across the

river and to fill the vacant territories with white colonists. "When we

shall be full on this side, we may lay off a range of States on the

western bank from the head to the mouth, and so, range after range,

advancing compactly as we multiply."

As to the constitutionality of the purchase, he admitted there was no

article of the Constitution authorizing the holding of foreign

territory, and still less contemplating the incorporation of foreign

nations into the Union. "The executives, in seizing the fugitive

occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done

an act beyond the Constitution." They were justified in doing it,

however, just as much as a guardian has the right to invest money for

his ward in purchasing an adjacent territory and saying to him when of

age: "I did this for your good; I pretend to no right to bind you; you

may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can: I thought it

my duty to risk myself for you." This is another instance when

Jefferson the lawyer discarded what he called "metaphysical subtleties"

to look squarely at the facts and to do his duty as he saw it, "as a

faithful servant."

The third annual message of the President was read before Congress on

October 17. Written in simple language like all the State papers of

Jefferson, it contained a graceful word for "the enlightened government

of France", and pointed out soberly the advantages that would accrue to

the United States from the purchase:

While the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi and its waters

secure an independent outlet for the produce of the western States,

and an uncontrolled navigation through their whole course, free from

collision with other powers and the dangers to our peace from that

source, the fertility of the country, its climate and extent, promise

in due season important aids to our treasury, an ample provision for

our posterity, and a wide-spread field for the blessings of freedom

and equal laws.

The President avoided any specific recommendation on the measures to be

adopted to incorporate into the Union the recently acquired territories,

resting on the wisdom of Congress to determine the "measures which may

be necessary for the immediate occupation and temporary government of

the country; 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." The Senate ratified the treaty after a

two-day discussion, the members voting strictly on party lines. It came

before the House on the twenty-second. The discussion was hot and more

prolonged; doubts as to the French title to the purchase were raised;

doubts as to the constitutionality of the measure. The treaty proper was

ratified on October 25, and on November 3 acts were passed authorizing

the issue of bonds in order to pay France.

A letter of Jefferson to Livingston contains the epilogue of the

negotiations. It is another very interesting instance of the way

Jefferson knew how to handle men. Pichon, the French minister, had been

instructed by his Government to secure a clause to the ratification

providing "against any failure in time or other circumstances of

execution on the part of the United States." Jefferson took the matter

in hand himself and demonstrated to Pichon that in case the French

Government insisted upon such a proviso, the United States would insert

a similar clause of protestation "leaving the matter where it stood

before." He insisted that it was to throw on the good faith of both

nations a doubt most unpleasant to an honest man to entertain, and

concluded that he had "more confidence in the word of the First Consul

than in all the parchment we could sign." What could the Frenchman do

except to bow politely and acquiesce, and "like an able and honest

minister (which he is in the highest degree) he undertook to do what he

knew his employers would do themselves, were they spectators of all

existing circumstances, and exchange the ratifications purely and

simply." "So," concluded Jefferson, "this instrument goes to the world

as an evidence of the candor and confidence of the nations in each

other, which will have the best effects."

A last point remained to be settled. It was suspected that Spain had

entered a formal protest against the whole transaction, "since the First

Consul had broken a solemn promise not to alienate the country to any

nation." On that point Jefferson refused to express any opinion: "We

answered that these were questions between France and Spain which they

must settle together; that we derived our title from the First Consul

and did not doubt his guarantee of it." Meanwhile measures were provided

to take formal possession from Laussat after he should have received the

territory from Spain. "If he is not so disposed _we_ shall take

possession and it will rest with the Government of France, by adopting

the act as their own, then to settle the latter with Spain."[446] In

order to provide for any eventuality, the governor of the Mississippi

was ordered to move down with General Wilkinson all his troops at hand

to take formal possession.

Thus the transaction fraught with so many dangers came to what Jefferson

called in a letter to Priestley (January 29, 1804) "a happy denouement",

thanks "to a friendly and frank development of causes and effects in our

part and good sense enough in Bonaparte to see that the train was

unavoidable and would change the face of the world."

If Jefferson took liberties with the Constitution in the matter of the

purchase, he was equally broad-minded in his construction of the treaty.

One of the articles provided that the inhabitants of the territories

ceded by France "will be incorporated into the Union and admitted as

soon as possible according to the principles of the Federal Constitution

to the enjoyment of all the advantages and immunities of the citizens of

the United States" (Article III). This was precisely what Jefferson was

firmly resolved not to do. Theoretically, and according to his often

expressed views on self-government, he should have taken steps to admit

immediately the newly acquired territory into the Union and to allow the

inhabitants to decide on a constitution. Practically, he considered that

they were unfitted for self-government and, although he did not formally

declare it at the time, he was convinced that self-government could not

succeed with a population mainly French and Spanish. The letter he wrote

on the subject to Du Pont de Nemours is almost disarming in its naivete:

We are preparing a form of government for the Territory of Louisiana.

We shall make it as mild and free, as they are able to bear, all

persons residing there concurring in the information that they were

neither gratified, nor willing to exercise the rights of an elective

government. The immense swarm flocking thither of Americans used to

that exercise, will soon prepare them to receive the necessary

change.[447]

It was impossible to state more clearly that representative government

could not be granted to Louisiana as long as the inhabitants remained

essentially French. Only when checked and controlled by the "immense

swarm" of American pioneers and colonists spreading all over the

territory could they be admitted to the immunities and advantages of

American citizens. This attitude of Jefferson, which seems in flagrant

contradiction with his theories, can astonish only those who see in him

a world prophet of the democratic faith; while his only ambition was to

build an American democracy, on strictly American principles, for the

sole benefit of American citizens, true heirs and continuators of the

old Anglo-Saxon principles.

But his vision of a greater America extended even beyond the limits of

the Louisiana Purchase. In January, 1803, just one week before Monroe's

appointment as special envoy to Paris, he had sent a message to Congress

to recommend that a sum of twenty-five hundred dollars be appropriated

to send "an intelligent officer with a party of 10 or 12 men to explore

even to the Western Ocean and to bring back all possible information on

the Indian tribes, the fauna and flora of the region." The intelligent

officer was Merriwether Lewis, private secretary to the President, who

was to engage in this "literary pursuit" in a region claimed by Spain.

It was calmly assumed, however, that "the expiring state of Spain's

interests there" would render such a voyage a matter of indifference to

this nation. Jefferson made the expedition his own concern; he drew up

the most detailed instructions for the mission. He even wrote for Lewis

"a letter of general credit" in his own hand and signed with his name,

by which the captain was authorized to draw on "the Secretaries of

State, the Treasury of War, and of the Navy of the United States

according as he might find his draughts would be most negotiable, for

the purpose of obtaining money or necessaries for himself and men."[448]

Practically unlimited resources were placed at the disposal of the

expedition. Jefferson kept his former secretary minutely informed of the

new possibilities opened up by the negotiations with France, writing him

on July 4, 11, 15, November 16 and January 13. On January 22, he sent

new instructions: the United States had "now become sovereigns of the

country" Lewis was going to explore; it was no longer necessary to keep

up the pretense of a "literary pursuit", and the President felt

authorized in proposing to the Indians the establishment of official

connections, and in declaring frankly to them that "they will find in us

faithful friends and protectors." So Jefferson was no longer thinking of

the Mississippi as the ultimate frontier of the United States. He

already foresaw the time when the Empire would extend from the Atlantic

to the Pacific.

Besides providing the United States with almost unlimited possibilities

of growth, the Louisiana Purchase had eliminated the immediate danger of

a conflict with France, and the chances of remaining at peace with

Europe had considerably increased. "I now see nothing which need

interrupt the friendship between France and this country," wrote

Jefferson to Cabanis. "We do not despair of being always a peaceable

nation. We think that peaceable means may be devised of keeping nations

in the path of justice towards us, by making justice their interest, and

injuries to react on themselves. Our distance enables us to pursue a

course which the crowded situation of Europe renders perhaps

impracticable there."[449]

There remained, however, a danger point in the policies of the British

navy with regard to contraband. The United States had now to make a

strenuous effort to bring the British to abandon their "right" to search

neutral vessels on the high seas in order to impress British sailors

found on those vessels, and to use American ports as cruising stations.

Not only was this attitude of Great Britain contrary to justice but it

was also contrary to these natural laws on which rested Jefferson's

system of Americanism; above all, they were most obnoxious and

detrimental to American commerce, for "Thornton says they watch our

trade to prevent contraband. We say it is to plunder under pretext of

contraband."[450]

Meanwhile the President was receiving the most pessimistic accounts from

Monroe, lost in the maze of European intrigues, and almost losing faith

in the future security of the United States. One of his letters of the

spring of 1804 had mentioned the possibility of a dark plot against

America. France and England might forget their old differences and

operate a reconciliation at the expense of the United States; they would

form a combination to divide between them the North American continent,

France repossessing Louisiana, while England would reannex the United

States to the British dominions. A mad scheme if ever there was one, and

it is very much to be doubted that it was ever contemplated by any

responsible Frenchman. Jefferson's confidence in the remoteness of the

American continent was not disturbed for a minute by these alarming

reports. He excused Monroe on the ground that a person placed in Europe

was very apt to believe the old nations endowed with limitless resources

and power. Everything was possible, even a return of the Bourbons; but

"that they and England joined, could recover us to British dominion, is

impossible. If things are not so, then human reason is of no aid in

conjecturing the conduct of nations." Still the policy of watchful

waiting was more than ever in order. Every point of friction was to be

eliminated, one of the first measures being to accept the "Louisianais"

to full citizenship and thus bring to an end the patronage of France.

Another step was to enforce strictly the rule against British cruisers

in American harbors, so that "each may see unequivocally what is

unquestionably true, that we may be very possibly driven into her scale

by unjust conduct in the other."[451]

Thus was fixed not in theory but in practice a policy of neutrality

fraught with risks. The most apparent danger was that both belligerents

might turn against the United States. But of that Jefferson was not

afraid, as an alliance between the two hereditary enemies seemed

inconceivable. In the meantime proper preparations were to be made to

insure the security of the American flag.

The message of October 17, 1803, contained an earnest appeal to

"complete neutrality." Neutrality of fact the Government was decided to

observe, and most of all to view in a disinterested way the carnage in

Europe.

How desirable it must be, in a government like ours, to see its

citizens adopt individually the views, the interests and the conduct

which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those

passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and

to embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe.

Then came a passage which sounds strangely familiar to those of us who

have lived through the last fourteen years:

Confident, fellow citizens, that you will duly estimate the

importance of neutral dispositions toward the observance of neutral

conduct, that you will be sensible how much it is our duty to look on

the bloody arena spread before us with commiseration indeed, but with

no other wish than to see it closed, I am persuaded you will

cordially cherish these dispositions in all communications with your

constituents.

A nation neutral in speech and neutral in thought, willing to intervene

only to help the victims of the war or as an arbiter between the

belligerents, such was at that time the ideal of Jefferson as it was to

be for several years the ideal of Woodrow Wilson, and to a large degree

the permanent ideal of the United States during their whole history.

CHAPTER III

"SELF-PRESERVATION IS PARAMOUNT TO ALL LAW"

When, on the fourth of March, 1805, Jefferson began his second term, he

had a right to review with some complacency the achievements of his

first administration. To foreign affairs he scarcely granted a short

paragraph, but he pointed out with great details the suppression of

unnecessary offices, the reduction of taxes, the fact that the Federal

Government was almost entirely supported by duties levied on

importations, so that "it may be the pleasure and pride of an American

to ask, what farmer, what mechanic, what laborer, ever sees a

tax-gatherer of the United States?" The Louisiana Purchase had increased

enormously the potential riches of the country and removed a very

dangerous source of conflict. The right bank of the Mississippi was to

be settled by "our own brethren and children" and not by "strangers of

another family."

Of great interest was the long passage given to Indian affairs.

Jefferson's sympathy for the red men dated from the early days of his

youth, when he had seen the chiefs stop at the house of his father on

their way to Williamsburg. He had handsomely stood in defense of them in

the "Notes on Virginia." Now he was regarding them with the

commiseration their history began to inspire:

Endowed with the faculties and the rights of men, breathing an ardent

love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left

them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing

population directed itself on these shores, without power to divert,

or habits to contend against, they have been overwhelmed by the

current, or driven before it.

This was certainly a very regrettable situation, but the idea of

questioning the right of an overflowing population to occupy scarcely

populated territories did not for a moment enter Jefferson's mind. To

deny such a right would have been not only detrimental to the very

existence of the United States, but also a denial of the "right" of "our

Saxons ancestors" to settle in England. Furthermore, the President was

confronted with a certain set of facts and not with a theory. The

territory of which the Indians had so long enjoyed undisturbed

possession was growing narrower every day. With the recent acquisition

of Louisiana, it was to be foreseen that they would not be able to roam

freely much longer in the vast territories extending west of the

Mississippi. They were now "reduced within limits too narrow for the

hunter's state." The only thing they could do was to submit to new

economic conditions, to settle down and become farmers, and it was the

duty of the government "to encourage them to that industry which alone

can enable them to maintain their place in existence, and to prepare

them in time for that state of society, which to bodily comforts adds

the improvement of mind and morals."

The President had no patience with

... the interested and crafty individuals among them who inculcate a

sanctimonious reverence for the customs of their ancestors; that

whatsoever they did, must be done through all time; that reason is a

false guide, and to advance under its counsel, in their physical,

moral, or political condition, is a perilous innovation; that their

duty is to remain as their Creator made them.

The attitude of these reactionaries among the Indians gave Jefferson an

opportunity to hit at one stroke the medicine men and the clergymen who

were attacking him fiercely.

In short, my friends, among them is seen the action and

counter-action of good sense and bigotry; they, too, have their

anti-philosophers, who find an interest in keeping things in their

present state, who dread reformation, and exert all their faculties

to maintain the ascendency of habit over the duty of improving our

reason, and obeying its mandates.

The New England and New York clergymen who had stood with the

Federalists knew exactly where they belonged.

But if the President was unwilling to let the attacks to which he had

been subjected pass entirely unnoticed, he maintained at the same time

that no official steps must be taken to repress in any way freedom of

speech and freedom of the press. In more emphatic terms than ever

before, he reasserted the fundamental doctrine he had defended against

all comers for more than twenty-five years:

During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the

artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with

whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of

an institution so important to freedom and science, are deeply to be

regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness, and to sap

its safety; they might, indeed, have been corrected by the wholesome

punishments reserved and provided by the laws of the several States

against falsehood and defamation; but public duties, more urgent

press on the time of public servants, and the offenders have

therefore been left to find their punishment in the public

indignation.

Thus were the Callender and the Federalist pamphleteers handed over to

the public to be dealt with, according to the merits of their cases.

The address ended with a new appeal to harmony, with the hope that

truth, reason and well-understood self-interest might enlighten the last

opponents of true republicanism. It ended also with a sort of prayer

which may or may not have expressed the religious beliefs of Jefferson

at the time:

I shall need the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led

our forefathers, as Israel of old, from their native land, and

planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and

comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with his providence,

and our riper years with his wisdom and power, and to whose goodness

I ask you to join me in supplications.

Jefferson had not forgotten that twenty years before he had proposed

that the seal of the United States should represent the Children of

Israel led by a pillar of light. As much as the Puritans he was

convinced that the American people was a chosen people, that they have

been gifted with superior wisdom and strength, and this belief was just

as much part of his creed of Americanism as it was the more openly

expressed doctrine of more recent presidents of the United States.

With these brilliant and reassuring prospects before his eyes, Jefferson

entered his second term. Little did he believe at that time that the

four years before him were to be the most agitated and most distressing

of his long career. The man whose fondest hope was to "secure peace,

friendship and approbation of all nations" was to begin a series of

police operations against the Barbary pirates of the Mediterranean and

was confronted, at a time, with the possibility of a war with Spain, a

war with England and a war with France. His philosophical toga was torn

to shreds by the thorns strewn along the tortuous paths of international

relations. At home he had to use all his ingenuity and resourcefulness

to keep together disaffected elements in the Republican Party, to

withstand the attacks launched in Congress by John Randolph of Roanoke,

the impulsive, erratic and dangerous leader of the discontented

Republicans. The man who had framed the Kentucky resolutions and had

stood as the advocate of States rights was reproached with using his

influence with Congress to pass the Embargo Act, "more arbitrary, more

confiscatory" than any measure ever proposed by the Federalists. The man

who had protested against the sedition bills had to repress the

seditious attempts of the former Vice President of the United States. It

seemed as if an evil genius had taken a malicious pleasure in making

every effort to test the President in every possible way, and to

confront him with the necessity of renouncing his most cherished

principles. Jefferson did not come out of the ordeal without scars and

deep wounds; but whatever may have been his deficiencies and his faults,

whatever sins he may have committed, he kept his faith in the ultimate

wisdom of public opinion and never tried to suppress by coercion the

criticism to which he was subjected.

As a matter of fact, the roseate view of the situation presented by

Jefferson in his second Inaugural Address was hardly warranted by facts.

Even before the close of the first term, Randolph, who had been the

standard bearer of the Republicans in the House, had shown signs of

discontent. He had supported the "Remonstrance of the people of

Louisiana", protesting that one of the essential provisions had been

violated and that they should be admitted at once to "all the rights,

advantages and immunities of citizens." On the other hand, Aaron Burr,

even while remaining in office, had already paved the way for the dark

and romantic machinations which were to culminate with his trial before

Marshall at Richmond.

The story of Burr's conspiracy deserves a special place among American

"_causes celebres_." It has been told many times, and very vividly, but

only the pen of Alexandre Dumas could do justice to it. Many efforts

have been made to whitewash the memory of the chief conspirator, to

throw most of the odium on Wilkinson and on Jefferson who, according to

his enemies, would have gone out of his way to obtain the condemnation

of a man who could not be proved guilty of any overt act, although there

is no doubt that he had originated some of the most reprehensible

schemes against the safety of his country. But Americans always had a

foible for soldiers of fortune, for adventurers who dreamed of

conquering new empires; for in them they see the magnification of the

frontier spirit which for so long constituted one of the "pillars" of

American civilization.

By an extraordinary trick of heredity, this adventurer, who should have

been a Spanish conquistador, this arch plotter who had the insinuating

ways of the Florentine, the tortuous and complicated mind so often

considered as a privilege of the Europeans, was the great-grandson of

Jonathan Edwards and of pure New England descent. He had fought bravely

and enthusiastically in the Revolutionary War, he was a lawyer of no

mean achievement; but his thirst for popularity, applause and success

was beyond imagination, and this Machiavellic politician lacked in an

extraordinary degree common sense and political vision. Had he withdrawn

from the run for the presidency in time, had he gracefully accepted the

second rank in December, 1800, he would have had a great political

career before him. But to the last minute he refused to say the word

that was expected from him; he accepted without protest the votes of the

Federalists and was considered as a traitor to his party even before he

took office. As early as January, 1804, he had gone to Jefferson and,

after complaining that the President did not show him the same

friendship as before, he had offered to resign at once if he were

appointed to some foreign embassy. After Burr had left without obtaining

any definite answer, Jefferson put down on paper a complete account of

the conversation and dryly concluded:

I should here notice, that Colonel Burr must have thought that I

could swallow strong things in my own favor, when he founded his

acquiescence in the nomination as Vice-President, to his desire of

promoting my honor, the being with me; whose company and conversation

had always been fascinating with him etc.[452]

Disappointed in this respect, Aaron Burr turned his eyes towards New

York, where he had worked so successfully during the preceding election.

The post of governor happened to be vacant, and in February Burr was

chosen by the discontented Republicans of the State to run for

governor. It seems quite certain that, if he had been elected, the

movement for secession already strong in New England would have received

a new impetus and that a desperate effort would have been made to shake

off "the rule of Virginia." When, after a savage campaign marked by

invectives, brawls and riots, Burr was finally defeated, he could and

did rightly attribute his failure to Hamilton who, from the very

beginning, opposed his candidacy. A personal encounter was decided and

the two adversaries met on the bank of the Hudson, pistol in hand, in a

duel to the death. It has always been said that Hamilton did not take

aim and fired first. Burr fired deliberately and Hamilton, fatally

wounded, fell to the ground, to die the next day.

Found guilty of murder by a grand jury, and in fact already a fugitive

from justice, Burr hid at first in Georgia and there concocted the most

extraordinary plan to effect a separation of the western part of the

United States with the help and financial assistance of England.

Although evidence was not procurable at the time of his trial, there is

no doubt that he thought the scheme feasible; that back in Washington,

and when he was presiding over the impeachment proceedings of Judge

Chase, the Vice President of the United States was prudently sounding

the delegates of the western States, ingratiating himself to them and

that the wildest dreams of empire were haunting his feverish

imagination.

As soon as the session was over, Colonel Burr started out for a tour of

the western States and, on an island of the Ohio, met by chance the

philosopher-planter Blennerhasset, the innocent victim of his plots.

Leaving Blennerhasset, Burr went to Cincinnati, Frankfort, Nashville. He

met Andrew Jackson, the uncouth son of the frontier, and Wilkinson, the

general in charge of the western territory. After a visit to New

Orleans, where he was greatly elated by the discontent of the

population, he went back to Saint Louis to discuss the situation with

Wilkinson. Whether he still adhered to the original plan of separating

the western from the eastern States is to a considerable degree

doubtful. His immediate object seems rather to have been to lead an

expedition of adventurers against Mexico, in case the war that was

threatening between the United States and Spain should break out. It

must be admitted that the plan in itself was not particularly

objectionable to the Government, but it soon appeared that this scheme

too had to be given up. After vainly attempting to secure assistance

from the British Government, Burr, changing from conqueror to farmer,

undertook to buy, with Blennerhasset, a grant of several hundred

thousand acres on the Washita River, in Northern Louisiana, in order to

establish there a model colony.

The rest of the story is well known. Rumors of a conspiracy grew in the

West without disturbing at first the security of the Federal Government.

Burr, summoned to appear before the district attorney of Frankfort,

surrendered himself, but was twice discharged and continued his

preparations for the settlement of Washita. Jefferson did not move until

he received from Wilkinson a confidential message purporting to be the

transcription of a ciphered letter sent by Burr. The President was so

alarmed that he issued at once a proclamation, warning the people that a

conspiracy had been discovered and directing the arrests of the

conspirators and the seizure of "all vessels, arms and military stores."

Wilkinson, eager to show his loyalty to the Government, arrested

"without warrant" several emissaries of Burr. One of them was released,

but two, Bollman and Swartwout, were sent out by sea to Baltimore and

thence to Washington, where they were kept in the military barracks. In

a special message to Congress, Jefferson apprised the Senate and the

House of the facts "touching an illegal combination of private

individuals against the peace and safety of the Union, and a military

expedition planned by them against the territories of a power in amity

with the United States, with the measures pursued for suppressing the

same." (January 22, 1807)

Shortly after Marshall, in Washington, had refused to indict Bollman and

Swartwout on the count of "levying war" against the United States, Burr

was finally arrested and taken under military escort to Richmond, there

to be delivered to the civil authorities after Marshall had signed a

special warrant (March 26, 1807). After long skirmishes between the

prosecution and the defense, legal moves and countermoves, Burr was

indicted under two counts,--treason and high misdemeanor. On the first

charge the jury rendered a verdict to the effect that "We of the jury

say that Aaron Burr is not proved guilty under this indictment by any

evidence submitted to us; we therefore find him not guilty."

This was a most unusual and illegal form of rendering a verdict and the

jury evidently intended to emphasize the fact that the evidence

submitted did not warrant a conviction, although they reserved their

opinion as to the real guilt of Colonel Burr. Marshall overruled

objections to the form of the verdict which threatened a reopening of

the case and decided that it would be recorded as "not guilty." Burr was

soon recommitted on the second count and declared not guilty by a second

jury. Upon which a third charge was brought in by the prosecution and

Burr summoned to appear at the session of the Circuit Court of the

United States to be held at Chillicothe in January, 1808. He never

appeared and his bond was forfeited; it is more than doubtful that he

would have been convicted.

A serious discussion of the merits of the case would necessitate a

minute analysis of all the evidence placed before the jury and cannot be

undertaken here. Several attempts have been made to rehabilitate Aaron

Burr's memory, although certain facts are so patent that they cannot be

overlooked by the most indulgent biographers. It is a curious bend of

the popular mind that the greatness of the conspiracy seems an excuse

and attenuation of the most evident guilt. There was something

apparently heroic in the ambition of that man who wanted to carve for

himself an empire in the wilderness and to plunder the treasures of the

mysterious Southwest. Then, by contrast, the obstinacy of Jefferson in

using every means in his power and in the power of the Federal

Government in order to obtain a conviction, has been represented as a

display of pettiness unworthy of the chief of a great nation. Nor is

this tendency restricted to the impulsive and emotional masses; it

creeps into the accounts of the trial given by the most judicial

historians, and I am not certain that it is entirely absent from

Beveridge's treatment of the Richmond proceedings.

Legally speaking, it is difficult to find fault with the findings of

Marshall, with the definitions he gave of "treason" and "overt act",

with his sifting of the evidence and, except in one or two cases, with

his behavior during the trial. On the other hand, Jefferson has been

accused of having unduly interfered by sending detailed instructions to

the district attorney, by coaching him on several occasions, and by

attempting directly and indirectly to arouse public opinion against a

man who was on trial for his life, but who finally could not be

convicted on any count. After such an interval of time, it is easy to

find fault with the conduct of the Executive, and it cannot be denied

that he acted in a very high-handed manner, condoned acts which were

technically illegal and maintained without sufficient proofs of Burr's

guilt that there was not "a candid man in the United States who did not

believe some one, if not all, of these overt acts to have taken

place."[453]

On the other hand, if we try to place ourselves in the atmosphere of the

time, it is equally easy to find explanations that to a large extent

justify Jefferson's attitude. It must be remembered that the President

was not unaware of Burr's intention "to form a coalition of the five

eastern States, with New York and New Jersey, under the new appellation

of the Seven Eastern States."[454] If Burr's machination with the

English minister to effect a separation of the western States were still

unknown, there was little doubt about his plans. All of Burr's ambitious

schemes failed miserably, but it is perfectly natural that the

Government should have been seriously alarmed at the time. They did not

know of Wilkinson's shameful deals with Spain, but they had every reason

to believe that a man who had already plotted a secession of the western

territory and happened to be in charge of that territory and in command

of the Federal army was scarcely to be depended upon in an emergency.

For years the West had been very restive, New Orleans was full of

discontented Creoles, and if war had not been officially declared with

both England and Spain, it was felt that it could break out at any time.

None of these considerations could be brought out before the jury, but

they amply warranted some action of the Executive. The first step taken

by Jefferson was to warn the people of the existence of a conspiracy. If

we remember again that Aaron Burr was at that time roaming at will in a

part of the country sparsely settled, where he counted many friends,

where communications with Washington were slow and rare, it is difficult

to see how the President could have done less.

After the conspirators were arrested the situation changed entirely.

They had been delivered to the civil authorities, they were to appear

before a regular court and given trial by jury; they no longer

constituted a public danger. It must be admitted that Jefferson himself

declared to his French friends, Lafayette and Du Pont de Nemours, that

Burr never had a chance to succeed and "that the man who could expect to

effect this, with American material must be a fit subject for

Bedlam."[455] This is hard to reconcile with the statement which comes

immediately after, that "the seriousness of the crime demands more

serious punishment", and particularly with the instructions sent to

George Hay. One may suspect that Jefferson saw in the trial of Burr an

opportunity to test the loyalty of the Chief Justice to the Constitution

and to the Government and allowed himself to be carried away by

political preoccupations which had nothing to do with Colonel Burr. This

appears clearly in one of the letters to Giles:

If there has ever been an instance in this or the preceding

administrations, of federal judges so applying principles of law as

to condemn a federal or acquit a republican offender, I should have

judged them in the present case with some charity. All this, however,

will work well. The nation will judge both the offender and judges

for themselves.[456]

This was reiterated in the instructions sent to George Hay after the

first acquittal of Burr, that no witness should be permitted to depart

... until his testimony has been committed to writing, either as

delivered in court, or as taken by yourself in the presence of Burr's

counsel.... These whole proceedings will be laid before Congress,

that they may decide, whether the defect has been in the evidence of

guilt, or in the law, or in the application of the law, and that they

may provide the proper remedy for the past and the future.

The intention to scrutinize the documents to uncover any bias of

Marshall and use any such evidence against the Chief Justice is even

openly admitted: "I must pray you also to have an authentic copy of the

record made out (without saying for what) and to send it to me; if the

Judge's opinions make out a part of it, then I must ask a copy of them,

either under his hand, if he delivers one signed, or duly proved by

affidavit."[457] Who could deny after reading this that Jefferson's

intention was to push vigorously the attack against the judiciary, and

to institute impeachment proceedings against Marshall on the slightest

justification? Thus the trial of Burr became a test of strength between

the executive and the judiciary, between the President and the Chief

Justice; it was fought out in the courtroom the more fiercely as the two

antagonists were kinsmen and brought into it the obstinacy and animosity

of Southern feudists.

Marshall came out as the stanch and unshakable champion of legality, and

Jefferson did not refrain from using the arguments and reasonings

resorted to by the Federalists when the Sedition Act was passed. There

was little excuse for a man of his legal training in believing that Burr

could be convicted and punished for his "intentions" to commit a crime,

and the prosecution failed to bring in sufficient proof of Aaron Burr's

guilt. It would have been more dignified and more consistent with

Jefferson's theories if, after the conspirator was made powerless, the

President had remained silent. That, however, he could not do. Early in

October, he called back Attorney-general Robert Smith in order to

prepare a selection and digestion of the documents respecting Burr's

treason and, in his message to Congress, on October 27, if he did not

use the word treason, he still accused Burr of "enterprise against the

public peace." He assumed responsibility and claimed credit for the

measures that had permitted "to dissipate before their explosion plots

engendering on the Mississippi." He laid before Congress the proceedings

and evidence exhibited on the arraignment of the principal offenders.

Finally, he concluded that Burr's acquittal was evidence that there was

something wrong somewhere, and that the nation could not remain

defenceless against such dangers. "The framers of our constitution

certainly supposed they had guarded, as well their government against

destruction by treason, as their citizens against oppression, under

pretence of it; and if these ends are not attained, it is of importance

to inquire by what means more effectual they may be secured."

A year later, writing to Doctor James Brown about the measures of

repression taken by Wilkinson in New Orleans, Jefferson presented what

he considered a full justification of his conduct:

I do wish to see these people get what they deserved; and under the

maxim of the law itself, that _inter arma silent leges_, that in an

encampment expecting daily attack from a powerful enemy, self

preservation is paramount to all law. I expected that instead of

invoking the forms of the law, to cover traitors, all good citizens

would have concurred in securing them. Should we have ever gained our

Revolution, if we had bound our hands by manacles of the law, not

only in the beginning, but in any part of the revolutionary

conflict?[458]

This was exactly the sort of reasoning that Jefferson had opposed so

strenuously when advanced by his political opponents. Apparently he had

completely reversed his position after getting in the saddle, which was

very illogical and perhaps very damnable, but also very human. He was

now, to use the vivid expression of a French statesman, "on the other

side of the barricade", and he saw things in a different light. But if

this episode can serve to illustrate the inconsistency of the

philosopher, it constitutes also a most striking refutation of the

accusations of Jacobinism so often launched against Jefferson; for only

the Jacobin is perfectly consistent in all circumstances. More than

thirty years had elapsed since Jefferson had copied the old maxim _fiat

justifia ruat coelum_ in his "Memorandum book" and he was still wont

to repeat it, but it had taken him less than eight years of executive

responsibility to make him admit that democracy does not work in times

of emergency. It was a most dangerous admission, but one to be expected

from a man in whom still lived the ruthless spirit of the frontier.

Pioneer communities in which unrestricted and unlimited democracy

prevails are pitiless for the outlaw who endangers the life of the

group, and are not stopped by "legal subtleties." In Jefferson there was

more of the pioneer than he himself believed. For this very reason he

was probably more completely and intensely an average American than if

he had "acted up" to the letter of the law in every circumstance.

This was by far the most dramatic of the internal difficulties that

Jefferson had to face during his second term. Burr's conspiracy obscured

the attacks against Madison led by the former spokesman of Jefferson's

party, John Randolph of Roanoke. But already, when Burr's trial was held

in Richmond, "circumstances which seriously threatened the peace of the

country" had made it a duty to convene Congress at an earlier date than

usual. Once again, as under the administrations of Washington and Adams,

foreign policies were to dominate and direct domestic policies, and once

again America was to bear the penalty of all neutrals who try to keep

out of the war in a world conflagration.

CHAPTER IV

"PEACE AND COMMERCE WITH EVERY NATION"

War is not always an unmixed curse, at least for nations who manage to

remain neutral while the rest of the world is torn by calamitous

conflicts. Europe's misfortune had been to some extent America's good

fortune. With comparatively short intermissions, France and England were

engaged in a death struggle from 1793 to 1815, and although Britannia

ruled the sea, the belligerents had to resort to neutral shipping. The

exports of the United States, which were valued at only nineteen

millions in 1791, reached ninety-four millions in 1802, and one hundred

eight millions in 1807. The imports followed approximately the same

curve for the corresponding dates, jumping from nineteen millions to

seventy-five millions in 1802 and reaching over one hundred thirty-eight

millions in 1807. If the United States had been permitted to pursue the

policy outlined by Jefferson in his messages, "to cultivate the

friendship of the belligerent nations by every act of justice and of

incessant kindness" (October 17, 1803), "to carry a commercial

intercourse with every part of the dominions of a belligerent" (January

17, 1806), a sort of commercial millennium would have been attained and

the prosperity of the United States would have been boundless. But, at

least at the beginning of the nineteenth century, neither the rights of

neutrals nor international law were observed by the belligerents, and

neutrals were bound to suffer as well as to profit by their privileged

situation.

For his conduct of foreign affairs Jefferson has been severely taken to

task, not only by many of his contemporaries but by several historians,

one of the most formidable critics being Henry Adams. During his second

administration, America suffered deep humiliations which aroused the

national spirit. In many occasions war could have and perhaps should

have been declared; the navy, which had been reduced to a minimum under

Gallatin's policy of economy, could have been expanded so as to enable

the country to protect herself against foreign insults. On matters

concerning national honor and national pride Americans alone are

qualified to pass, and I can hold no brief for Jefferson in the matter.

Perhaps it would have soothed the wounds inflicted to the _amour-propre_

of the nation if war had been declared against France, or England, or

both, and if America had taken part in the "bloody conflicts" of Europe.

It must be said, however, that one fails to see what material advantages

would have resulted for the country; in this case, as in many others,

Jefferson's conduct seems to have been directed by enlightened

self-interest. He was most unwilling to favor and help in any way

Napoleon's ambitious schemes by declaring war against England; on the

other hand, the prospect of forming a _de facto_ alliance with a country

which on so many occasions had deliberately insulted the United States

and manifestly entertained feelings of scorn and distrust toward the

young republic was equally abhorrent to him. Finally, it must not be

forgotten that by keeping out of the deadly conflict in which Europe was

engaged, the United States were able to lay the solid foundations of an

unparalleled prosperity. While the young manhood of Europe perished on

the battlefields of Napoleon, the population of America grew by leaps

and bounds, passing from 5,300,000 in 1800 to 7,250,000 in 1810. While

the farms and the factories of the Old World were left abandoned,

immense territories were put under cultivation and new industries were

developed to satisfy the demands of consumers who could no longer import

manufactured products from England. The whole life of the nation was

quickened and the industrial revolution hastened.

When, after Waterloo, Europe resumed her peaceful pursuits, America had

freed herself of economic and financial dependence from the Old World.

She had become a rich, powerful and self-supporting nation. She appeared

to the impoverished peoples of the earth as an economic as well as a

political Eldorado. Whether the price she paid for it was too high is a

question which I may be permitted to leave for others to decide.

In his second inaugural address, the President found it unnecessary to

state again the directing principles of his policies, simply declaring

that he had "acted up" to the declaration contained in his first

inaugural. Of foreign affairs he had little to say, except to reiterate

his conviction that "with nations, as well as with individuals, our

interests soundly calculated, will ever be found inseparable from our

moral duties." Yet there was a passing reference to possible

difficulties. War sometimes could not be avoided: "it might be procured

by injustice by ourselves, or by others"; and provision ought to be made

in advance for such emergencies, so as "to meet all the expenses of any

given year, without encroaching on the rights of future generations, by

burdening them with the debts of the past." The President foresaw that,

with the rapid growth of the population and the corresponding increase

in revenue raised from import taxes, it would be possible

To extinguish the native right of soil within our limits, to extend

those limits, and to apply such a surplus to our public debts, as

places at a short day their final redemption, and that redemption

once effected, the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just

repartition among the states, and a corresponding amendement of the

constitution, be applied, _in time of peace_, to rivers, canals,

roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great objects within

each State.

One may wonder whether at that time Jefferson realized the possible

consequences of such a system. We have not to seek very far for the

exact "source" of these ideas; they were taken bodily from Hamilton's

report of manufactures. It was the same proposal to distribute subsidies

and bounties from the Federal treasury, to encourage commerce and

manufactures. Apparently what was damnable and criminal under a

Federalist administration became praiseworthy under a Republican regime.

As a matter of fact, even during Jefferson's first term, some of the

resources of the Federal treasury had to be spent in warlike activities.

Jefferson had never been able to forget the deep humiliation he had felt

when, as a minister to the Court of France, he had been forced to

negotiate with the Barbary pirates for the redemption of American

prisoners. He had been less than six months in office when he decided to

answer the new demands of the Barbary States by sending an American

fleet to protect American commerce in the Mediterranean. To this

incident he gave a large part of his first message (December 8, 1801),

and the activities of the small squadron kept in Europe for several

years, in order to blockade the pirates in their harbors, was regularly

mentioned in his subsequent messages. The tone of some passages is well

worth studying. His hope to reduce "the Barbarians of Tripoli to the

desire of peace on proper terms by the sufferings of war" (November 8,

1804); his determination to send to Europe additional forces, "to make

Tripoli sensible that they mistake their interest in choosing war with

us; and Tunis also, should she have declared war as we expect and almost

wish" (July 18, 1804)--all this reveals a warlike Jefferson very

different from the pacifist philosopher he is supposed to have been in

all circumstances.

It was irritating enough to bear the insults of British and French

vessels to the American flag in order to keep the United States out of a

European war. To yield to the demands of a band of pirates who could be

cowed by energetic action with a minimum of bloodshed and expenditure,

would have been an insufferable disgrace. The Barbarians had to be

beaten into submission, and the European powers who did not seem to be

willing to emancipate themselves from that degrading tribute could

perhaps understand at the same time that there were limits to the

forbearance of the United States.

With reference to England the situation was entirely different. The

United States had no fleet able to cope with the English fleet. The

American coasts were unprotected and the American harbors could be

bombarded from the sea without even being able to make a pretense of

resisting. A large navy could not be built in a day, and even if one had

been improvised, the odds would have been so uneven that many American

vessels would have gone down and many lives would have been lost under

the fire of the British frigates. Thus for practical reasons as well as

from philanthropic motives, Jefferson bent all his efforts to the

preservation of peace with the great countries of Europe.

Hardly three weeks after the signature of the treaty through which he

gave up Louisiana, Bonaparte declared war against England. When he

received the news, Jefferson wrote a long letter to Lord Buchan in which

he defined his policy:

My hope of preserving peace for our country is not founded in the

greater 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. I cannot say

we shall be unconcerned spectators of this combat. We feel for human

sufferings, and we wish the good of all. We shall look on, therefore,

with the sensations which these dispositions and the events of the

war will produce.[459]

Thus spoke Jefferson in July, 1803, and Woodrow Wilson, who borrowed

more than one page from the book of his predecessor, expressed himself

in almost the same words one hundred and eleven years later. Thus,

also, would probably speak any President of the United States should a

new conflagration break out to-morrow. This, to be sure, was no

proclamation of neutrality and none was needed at the time; but had

Jefferson written one, he could scarcely have expressed himself more

forcibly than he did in a letter sent two days later to General Horatio

Gates: "We are friendly, cordially and conscientiously friendly to

England. We are not hostile to France. We will be rigorously just and

sincerely friendly to both."

But this fine declaration did not make Jefferson forget the immediate

interests of the United States, for the preoccupation uppermost in his

mind at that time was to find out how the European situation could be

used to the best advantage of his own country.

In signing the treaty France had refused to give any guarantee as to the

extent of the territory ceded under the Louisiana Purchase. Whether the

cession included West Florida, on the occupation of which Jefferson had

been so intent, was a matter of doubt. This particular point had not

been pressed during the negotiations, France, according to the old maxim

_caveat emptor_, taking the position that the question lay between the

United States and Spain, while the United States had never abandoned the

hope that they would be able to induce Bonaparte to exert pressure on

Madrid so as to enable the American Government to make the most of the

transaction. Soon after the treaty was signed, the United States found

themselves enmeshed in one of the most complicated intrigues of European

diplomacy.

While Madison and Jefferson were negotiating in Washington with the

Spanish minister Yrujo, Pinkney and later Monroe negotiated in Madrid,

sometimes at cross purposes but without ever losing sight of the main

object. Jefferson had renewed his old contention that the United States

were entitled to "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." As Henry Adams remarked, this was

a most remarkable provision, as "no creeks, bays, or inlets lying within

the United States emptied into the Gulf."[460] But if Jefferson's

geography was faulty, his intent was perfectly clear, and every

opportunity was to be used to round out the perimeter of the United

States. When in October, 1804, Monroe reached Paris to push negotiations

more vigorously, the plans of the United States had crystallized. They

had a beautiful simplicity: to make Spain pay the claims resulting from

the shutting-up of the Mississippi by Morales, to take immediate

possession of Western Florida and to obtain the cession of Eastern

Florida.

With the details of the diplomatic maneuvers we are not concerned here,

but rather with the remarkable proposal made by Jefferson to Madison

during the summer of 1805. Spain having declared war against England,

the President, fearful of being "left without an ally", thought

immediately of proposing "a provisional alliance with England" (August

7, 1805). This alliance was to be conditional and would become effective

only in case the United States should have to declare war against France

or Spain. "In that event," wrote Jefferson, "we should make common

cause, and England should stipulate not to make peace without our

obtaining the objects for which we go to war, to wit, the acknowledgment

by Spain of the rightful boundaries of Louisiana (which we should reduce

to a minimum by a secret article) and 2, indemnification for spoliation,

for which purpose we should be allowed to make reprisal on the Floridas

and _retain them_ as an indemnification." Jefferson added that "as it

was the wish of every Englishman's heart to see the United States

fighting by their sides against France", the king and his ministers

could do no better than to enter into an alliance and the nation would

consider it "as the price and pledge of an indissoluble

friendship."[461] There is little doubt that if, at this juncture,

Monroe had maneuvered more skillfully, if England had showed less

arrogance in her treatment of the United States, she could have secured

at least the benevolent neutrality of America. But apparently England

did not care for a benevolent neutrality. After Trafalgar, she was left

undisputed mistress of the ocean, she could enforce her own regulations

as she pleased, and she proceeded to do so.

The presidential message of December 3, 1805, had to present very

"unpleasant views of violence and wrong." The coasts of America were

infested by "private armed vessels, some of them with commissions,

others without commissions", all of them committing enormities, sinking

American merchantmen, "maltreating the crews, abandoning them in boats

in the open seas or on desert shores." The same policy of "hovering on

the coast" was carried on by "public armed vessels." New principles,

too, had been "interloped into the law of nations, founded neither in

justice nor in the usage or acknowledgment of nations"; this was an

allusion to the decision of Judge Scott in the Essex case. With Spain

negotiations had not had a satisfactory issue, propositions for

adjusting amicably the boundaries of Louisiana had not been acceded to,

and spoliation claims formerly acknowledged had again been denied.

The President concluded that, although peace was still the ultimate

ideal of the United States, there were circumstances which admitted of

no peaceful remedy. Some evils were "of a nature to be met by force

only, and all of them may lead to it." Finally specific recommendations

were made to organize the national defense: furnishing the seaports with

heavy cannon, increasing the number of gunboats, classifying the militia

so as to have ready a competent number of men "for offence or defence in

any point where they may be wanted", prohibition of the exportations of

arms and ammunition,--such were the chief measures contemplated by the

President.

In the spring of 1806, he wrote a long letter to Alexander of Russia,

who had manifested a desire to have a copy of the Constitution of the

United States. This was an appeal to the Czar, insisting that special

articles defining the rights of neutrals in time of war be inserted in

the definitive treaty of peace sooner or later to be concluded between

the European belligerents. Having taken no part in the troubles of

Europe, "the United States would have no part in its pacification", but

it was to be hoped that some one would be found "who, looking beyond the

narrow bounds of an individual nation, will take under the cover of his

equity the rights of the absent and unrepresented."[462] Unfortunately,

more than ten years were to elapse before that pacification of Europe so

earnestly hoped for by Jefferson came about, and only a week before the

British ministry had again aggravated regulations against the neutrals

by issuing orders blockading the coast of the continent (April 8, 1806).

A few weeks later, Jefferson who, yielding to the pressure of Congress,

had agreed to appoint a special envoy to help Monroe negotiate a

commercial treaty with England, sent William Pinkney of Maryland to

London. "He has a just view of things, so far as known to him," wrote

Jefferson to Monroe, but he did not deem it desirable to trust him with

special instructions. For Monroe alone he reserved the complete

exposition of the plans then brooding in his mind. The death of Pitt

would probably mark a change in the attitude of Great Britain; the

President had more confidence in Mr. Fox than in any other man in

England and relied entirely on "his honesty and good sense." Then came

an outline of the reasoning to be put forward by Monroe: "No two

countries upon earth have so many points of common interests and

friendship; and their rulers must be great bunglers indeed, if, with

such dispositions, they break them asunder." England might check the

United States a little on the ocean; but she should realize that nothing

but her financial limitations prevented America from having a strong

navy. If France provided the money, so as to equip an American fleet,

the state of the ocean would be no longer problematical. If England, on

the contrary, made such a proposition, an alliance of the two largest

fleets "would make the world out of the continent of Europe our joint

monopoly." Then Jefferson added: "we wish for neither of these

scenes--We ask for peace and justice from all nations; and we will

remain uprightly neutral in fact, though leaning in belief to the

opinion that an English ascendency on the ocean is safer for us than

that of France."

Finally, at the end of the letter, came the most extraordinarily

imperialistic proposition ever made by any nation; it was the extension

of a pet theory of Jefferson to the Atlantic Ocean. As he had claimed

for the United States the free navigation of all the streams originating

on the territory of the United States, he was ready to claim that the

great current originating from the Gulf should not be considered

differently, and he wrote: "We begin to broach the idea that we consider

the whole Gulf Stream as of our waters, in which hostilities and

cruising are to be frowned on for the present, and prohibited so soon as

either consent or force will permit us."[463]

This might be thought a visionary scheme and merely a flight of

imagination, if Jefferson had not expressed the same idea in identical

terms in a conversation with the French minister concerning the treaty

negotiated in London by Monroe and Pinkney: "Perhaps we shall obtain the

right to extend our maritime jurisdiction, and to carry it as far as the

effect of the Gulph Stream makes itself felt,--which would be very

advantageous both to belligerents and neutrals."[464]

These being Jefferson's views, it would have taken a far more successful

negotiator than Monroe to make the British Government accept them. The

treaty finally signed by the American envoys on December 1, 1806, was

far from satisfactory. As a matter of fact, the American envoys had been

caught between the hammer and the anvil. To the Fox blockade of April,

1806, Napoleon had answered by the Berlin Decree at the end of November,

placing the British islands in a state of blockade, declaring all

merchandise coming from England subject to confiscation and refusing

admission into any French port to any vessel coming either from England

or her colonies. Forbidden by England to trade with France, by France to

trade with England, the neutrals were placed in a sorry plight. Yet not

only did Monroe in his treaty recognize the right of visit and of

impressing British seamen found on board American vessels, but he gave

up the American claims to indemnity for outrages committed on American

commerce in 1805, and accepted the most humiliating conditions

concerning American trade with the French and Spanish colonies. Finally,

before Monroe could obtain the signature of the British negotiators, he

had to agree to an additional article by which he promised not to

recognize the decree of Berlin. In less than three weeks Jefferson

received Napoleon's decree, the text of the Pinkney-Monroe treaty, and

the news of Lord Howick's retaliatory order requesting that no goods

should be carried to France unless they first touched at an English port

and paid a certain duty.

In spite of the pressing request of the Senate, Jefferson refused to

communicate the text of the treaty. The explanation publicly given by

the President was that Monroe had concluded the treaty before receiving

information as to the points to be insisted upon, and that a new effort

would be made to obtain the modification of some particularly

objectionable features. "This is the statement we have given out," he

wrote to Monroe, "and nothing more of the treaty has ever been made

known. But depend on it, my dear Sir, that it will be considered as a

hard treaty when it is known." If it appeared to Monroe that no

amendment was to be hoped for, he was authorized to come home, leaving

behind him Pinkney, who by procrastination would let it die and thus

would give America more time "the most precious of all things to

us."[465]

New instructions were sent accordingly to the American envoys at the end

of May, but the problem of the relations with England became suddenly

more acute during Aaron Burr's trial.

On June 22, the _Chesapeake_ of the American navy, bound for the

Mediterranean, was hauled up in view of Cape Henry by the _Leopard_ of

the British squadron, and summons were sent to Commodore Barron to

deliver some British deserters he was supposed to have on board. Upon

Barron's refusal, the _Leopard_ opened fire and for fifteen minutes sent

broadsides into the American ship, so unprepared and unready that only

one shot could be fired in answer. The American flag was hauled down,

British officers boarded the ship and took four deserters; after which

Captain Humphreys of the _Leopard_ declared to Barron that he could

proceed on his way. The _Chesapeake_ limped back into port, and on the

twenty-fifth, Jefferson called back to Washington Dearborn and Gallatin

to consider the emergency in a meeting of the Cabinet.

What his indignation over the outrage may have been is a matter of

surmise. He did not express it either privately or publicly. To Governor

William H. Cabell, who had sent him a special message and report, he

answered diplomatically that, after consulting the Cabinet he would

determine "the course which exigency and our constitutional powers call

for.--Whether the outrage is a proper cause of war, belonging

exclusively to Congress, it is our duty not to commit them by doing

anything which would have to be retracted." But it is certain that, even

at that time, he was not ready to recommend any radical step, for he

added:

This will leave Congress free to decide whether war is the most

efficacious mode of redress in our case, or whether, having taught so

many other useful lessons to Europe, we may not add that of showing

them that there are peaceable means of repressing injustice by making

it the interest of the aggressor to do what is just and abstain from

future wrong.[466]

It was scarcely necessary to call the Cabinet together; three days

before the special meeting the President had already decided on a policy

of forbearance and watchful waiting. The proclamation which was issued

was moderate in tone, but Jefferson expressed more clearly in a letter

to the Vice President, George Clinton, the reasons for his moderation.

The usage of nations requires that we shall give the offender an

opportunity of making reparation and avoiding war. That we would give

time to our merchants to get in their property and vessels and our

seamen now afloat; That the power of declaring war being with the

Legislature, the executive could do nothing necessarily committing

them to decide for war in preference of non-intercourse, which will

be preferred by a great many.[467]

In order to make even more certain that no precipitate step would be

taken, it was decided to issue, on August 24, a proclamation calling

Congress together, but not until the fourth Monday in October. It was

the manifest hope of the President that by that date some satisfaction

would be obtained from England with regard to the most flagrant

violations of the "_droit des gens_", and that extreme measures could be

avoided.

In the meantime new instructions had been sent to Monroe. "Reparation

for the past, and security for the future is our motto," wrote the

President to Du Pont de Nemours. Reparation for the past, at least as

far as the attack on the _Chesapeake_ was concerned, would have been

easy to obtain, but Canning refused persistently to make any promise for

the future, or to alter the policy of Great Britain with regard to visit

and impressment. For his firmness in refusing to settle the case of the

_Chesapeake_ independently, Jefferson has been most severely criticized

by Henry Adams, whose admiration for Perceval's and Canning's superior

minds is unbounded. Shall I confess that on this particular point, at

least, I should rather agree with the English biographer of Jefferson,

Mr. Hirst, who declares that "no second-rate lawyer was ever more obtuse

than Perceval, and the wit of Canning, his foreign secretary, seldom

issued in wisdom." On this occasion Great Britain was even more stupid

than she had been in 1776; she missed her great opportunity to operate a

reconciliation with the United States and to turn them against France,

without other compensation than the pleasure of outwitting the American

envoys and once more treating scornfully the younger country. The real

answer of England was given in the Orders in Council of November 11,

1807, prohibiting all neutral trade with the whole European seacoast

from Copenhagen to Trieste. No American vessel was to be allowed to

enter any port of Europe from which British vessels were excluded

without first going to England and abiding by regulations to be

determined later.

In the meantime, Jefferson was pushing fast his preparations for

defence. A detailed examination of his correspondence during the summer

and fall of that year would justify him amply from the criticism of

several American historians.[468] He still hoped for peace, or more

exactly peace remained his ideal, although he had very little hope that

Monroe would succeed in his negotiations. But nothing could be done as

long as American ships and sailors, "at least twenty thousand men",

were on the seas, an easy prey to British vessels in case war should be

declared at once. "The loss of these," wrote Jefferson quite correctly,

"would be worth to Great Britain many victories on the Nile and

Trafalgar."[469]

To judge of Jefferson's conduct at that time from our modern point of

view would be most unfair and dangerous. He could neither cable, nor

send radiograms, nor even steamships to warn American citizens in

distant ports, nor give instructions to agents of the United States all

over the world. It took months for news to cross the ocean and sometimes

a year or more to receive an answer to a letter. The geographical

isolation of the United States, their remoteness from Europe and the

slowness of communications were obvious factors of the situation, yet

they are too often neglected in judging the policy then followed by the

President. As the year advanced, Jefferson's hope of being able to

maintain peace grew fainter. There is a spirit of helplessness in a

letter he wrote to James Maury at the end of November:

The world as you justly observe, is truly in an awful state. Two

nations of overgrown power are endeavoring to establish, the one an

universal dominion by sea, the other by land.... We are now in hourly

expectation of hearing from our ministers in London by the return of

the "Revenge." Whether she will bring us war or peace, or the middle

state of non-intercourse, seems suspended in equal balance.[470]

The message to Congress, of October 27, contained no specific

recommendation. It was a dispassionate recital of the circumstances

which had necessitated new instructions to Monroe, a promise that

Congress would be informed of the result of the negotiations, news of

which was expected hourly, and an enumeration of the measures taken

towards the defense of the country. When the first news finally came,

the President had already decided upon the course to follow. On

December 18, 1807, he sent to Congress one of his shortest messages:

The communications now made, showing the great and increasing dangers

with which our vessels, our seamen, and merchandise, are threatened

on the high seas and elsewhere, from the belligerent powers of

Europe, and it being of great importance to keep in safety these

essential resources, I deem it my duty to recommend the subject to

the consideration of Congress, who will doubtless perceive all the

advantages which may be expected from an inhibition of the departure

of our vessels from the ports of the United States. Their wisdom will

also see the necessity of making every preparation for whatever

events may grow out of the present crisis.

The situation was much more clearly described in a letter to General

John Mason written approximately at the same time.

The sum of these mutual enterprises on our national rights--wrote the

President--is that France, and her allies, reserving for further

consideration the prohibiting our carrying anything to the British

territories, have virtually done it, by restraining our bringing a

return cargo from them; and that Great Britain, after prohibiting a

great proportion of our commerce with France and her allies, is now

believed to have prohibited the whole. The whole world is thus laid

under interdict by these two nations, and our vessels, their cargoes

and crews, are to be taken by the one or the other, for whatever

place they may be destined out of our own limits. If therefore, on

leaving our harbors we are certain to lose them, is it not better, as

to vessels, cargoes and seamen, to keep them at home? This is

submitted to the wisdom of Congress, who alone are competent to

provide a remedy.[471]

As in so many other instances the temptation is great to draw a parallel

between Jefferson's policies and the neutrality advocated by Woodrow

Wilson during his first term, and to repeat the worn-out and dangerous

adage "history repeats itself." As a matter of fact, the situation

faced by Jefferson in 1808 was entirely different from that which

confronted President Wilson from 1914 to 1917. America was not then a

rich and powerful country with unlimited resources. The people had just

emerged from a long and distressing financial crisis, for it took more

than one generation to heal the wounds of a war which had lasted six

years. The Federal Government was far from being as strong as it was

destined to become. The navy was ridiculously inadequate, not only to go

out and give battle to the English fleet, but even, to use Jefferson's

expression, to keep the seaports "_hors d'insulte_".

These facts must be kept in mind if one wishes to form a true estimate

of Jefferson's conduct and character during the calamitous years of his

second term. To criticize his policies is an easy feat for a modern

historian, for it is natural that an American of to-day should resent

Jefferson's attitude as unworthy of a great self-respecting nation.

Undoubtedly the President might have sent a warlike message to Congress

and war would have immediately followed, but on the whole the issue had

been taken out of his hands in December, 1807. The embargo, as he justly

pointed out, was no new policy and no new measure; it was simply a

recognition of a situation created by both France and Great Britain. The

only way out would have been a formal declaration of war, and one does

not quite see what this grand gesture would have accomplished. Certainly

the United States were no more in position to march into Canada in 1807

than they were in 1812, and if they had succeeded in taking possession

of the British colony, it is unlikely that Great Britain would have

accepted such a loss with equanimity. Furthermore, even if a formal

alliance had been concluded with France, the French fleet would have

been powerless to prevent the British navy from cruising on the American

coast and repeating, if they had wished, the outrages that had befallen

Copenhagen.

Another solution, favored by such a liberal historian of Jefferson as

Mr. A. J. Nock, would have been frankly to recognize the existing

situation and to leave the New England merchants free to send out their

vessels at their own risk. This would have relieved to a certain extent

the economic distress of the northern States, but whether it would have

been more honest or more dignified than the embargo is a matter of

opinion. Such a policy would have been neutral only in appearance; it

would have amounted to a tacit recognition of a British monopoly of the

American trade, since England was really the only country to which

American ships would have been permitted to go. Granting that the

embargo was "the most arbitrary, inquisitorial, and confiscatory measure

formulated in American legislation up to the period of the Civil

War",[472] I fail to see that the prestige of the United States would

have gained much by allowing their citizens to submit to the humiliating

Orders in Council of November 11, 1807. Of all policies this would have

been the most evasive, most vacillating and least dignified.

It must be furthermore remembered that though he was gifted with

remarkable foresight, Jefferson was in no position to guess that the

conflict between England and France would last for seven more years. He

believed, on the contrary, that the Titanic struggle would come, if not

to a definite close, at least to a pause, within a comparatively short

time: "Time may produce peace in Europe; peace in Europe removes all

causes of difference, till another European war; and by that time our

debt may be paid, our revenue clear, and our strength increased."[473]

This reasoning reappears in many letters written by Jefferson during the

last year of his administration. His correspondence during the months

that separated him from rest and philosophical meditation may be devoid

of dramatic interest, but a thorough perusal of it would demonstrate

that at no time during his long political career were his motives less

interested, less partisan and more truly patriotic.

At no time, either, was he more bitterly attacked. He suffered from "the

peltings of the storm" and cried out pathetically to Benjamin Rush: "Oh!

for the day when I shall be withdrawn from it; when I shall have leisure

to enjoy my family, my friends, my farm and books." But the defection of

the Republicans in Congress, the divergence of opinions in his Cabinet,

the threats of secession, the anonymous letters and the press campaign

launched against him had no power to shake his strong negative

resolution. Yet in all justice to him it may be seen that his policy was

not entirely negative.

First of all his letters show that he never considered the embargo as a

permanent cure. As early as March, 1808, writing to Charles Pinckney,

the former envoy to Spain, he declared that the effect of the embargo

would be "to postpone for this year the immediate danger of a rupture

with England." He admitted that a time would come "when war would be

preferable to a continuance of the embargo and that the question would

have to be decided at the next meeting of Congress unless peace

intervened in the meantime."[474] Under these circumstances the repeal

of the embargo voted by Congress to take effect after Jefferson's

retirement cannot be considered as a rebuke to the President. Moreover,

it appears that Jefferson had given some thought to three and not two

alternatives: 1, embargo; 2, war; 3, submission and tribute,--the third

being exactly that advocated by Mr. Nock. In Jefferson's opinion this

third solution was at once "to be put out by every American and the two

first considered."[475] Writing to Thomas Leib, earlier in the year, he

had already defined his position with regard to this solution,

recommended by the mercantile interests: "It is true, the time will

come when we must abandon it (the embargo). But if this is before the

repeal of the orders of council, we must abandon it only for a state of

war. The day is not distant, when that will be preferable to a longer

continuance of the embargo. But we can never remove that, and let our

vessels go out and be taken under these orders without making reprisal."

This is itself evidence, but it has apparently escaped many historians

as well as many contemporaries of Jefferson. If the embargo is

considered not as a permanent policy but as a political expedient and a

political experiment, the greater part of Henry Adams' arraignment of

Jefferson's political philosophy falls flat.[476] When, on the other

hand, the same writer admits that "the result was that the embargo saved

perhaps twenty millions of dollars a year and some thousands of lives

which the war would have consumed", we may be permitted to add that

Jefferson would not have granted the principle that "the strongest

objection to war was not its waste of money or even of life; for money

and life in political economy were worth no more than they could be made

to produce." If this is economic history, Heaven preserve us from

economic policies! As to the accusation that "Jefferson's system was

preaching the fear of war, of self-sacrifice, making many smugglers and

traitors, but not a single hero", I must humbly confess that one does

not see that America would have been much richer for engaging without

adequate preparation or even a fair chance to defend herself in a

useless and, in last analysis, probably inglorious war.

It is claimed, however, that the embargo caused an economic catastrophe:

As the order was carried along the seacoast, every artisan dropped

his tools, every merchant closed his doors, every ship was

dismantled. American produce--wheat, timber, cotton, tobacco,

rice--dropped in value or became unsalable; every imported article

rose in price; wages stopped, swarms of debtors became bankrupt;

thousands of sailors hung idle around the wharves.... A reign of

idleness began; and the men who were not already ruined felt that

their ruin was only a matter of time.[477]

A very pathetic picture this, made even more pitiful by the classic

quotation from the British traveler, Lambert, who visited New York in

1808 and described it as a place ravaged by pestilence. But why not

quote also from another traveler, John Mellish, who spoke of the impetus

given to manufactures and home industries?[478] Why forget to mention

Gallatin's report of 1810, pointing out that some basic industries had

been firmly established in the United States, such as iron, cotton,

flax, hats, paper, printing type, gunpowder, window glass, clocks, etc.

Who could deny, at any rate, that manufactures made enormous progress,

thanks to the embargo, and that goods formerly imported from England

began to be made in America? Even supposing that the picture drawn by H.

Adams were true, it would be necessary to admit that there was another

side to it and that a few artisans, at least, remained working steadily

at their benches.

The last annual message of Jefferson to Congress was noncommittal on the

measures to be taken. It presented first a dispassionate recital of the

negotiations carried on with France and England to bring them to rescind

the most offensive features of their orders and decrees. It recognized

that "this candid and liberal experiment had failed." It was left to

Congress to determine what course to follow:

Under a continuance of the belligerent measures which, in defiance of

laws which consecrate the rights of neutrals, overspread the ocean

with danger, it will rest with the wisdom of Congress to decide on

the course best adapted to such a state of things; and bringing with

them, as they do, from every part of the Union, the sentiments of our

constituants, my confidence is strengthened, that in forming this

decision they will, with an unerring regard to the essential rights

and interests of the nation weigh and compare the painful

alternatives out of which a choice is to be made.

This reserved attitude Jefferson intended to maintain during the rest of

his term. "I have thought it right to take no part myself in proposing

measures, the execution of which will devolve on my successor. I am

therefore chiefly an unmedling listener to what others say."[479] But to

Doctor William Eustis he protested that "while thus endeavoring to

secure, and preparing to vindicate that commerce, the absurd opinion has

been propagated, that this temporary and necessary arrangement was to be

a permanent system and was intended for its destruction."[480] And this

seems to indicate that he was quite definite in his own mind, even if he

refrained from expressing his opinion officially.

After more than a month's deliberation in Congress, Jefferson had come

to believe that "Congress had taken their ground firmly for continuing

the embargo till June, and then war." Quite suddenly, however, the

majority, frightened by threats of secession openly made by the New

England members, and fearful of the famous Essex Junto, rallied to a

compromise. Neither the people nor Congress were for war, and that fact

had been clearly realized very early both by the French and the British

ministers; at the same time it was felt that something must be done to

relieve to some extent the financial distress of the Virginia planters

and New England merchants. The result was that Congress decided to

remove the embargo on March 4, "non intercourse with France and Great

Britain, trade everywhere else, and continuing war preparations."[481]

On the first of March, three days before the inauguration of his

successor, Jefferson signed the bill, but not without serious

misgivings. The letters he wrote at that time contain even more

convincing evidence that he did not expect the embargo to last much

longer. To General Armstrong, the American representative in Paris, he

declared on March 5 that "War must follow if the edicts are not repealed

before the meeting of Congress in May." With Short, whom he had tried

without success to have appointed Minister to Russia, he was more

explicit if no less emphatic: "We have substituted for it (the embargo),

a non-intercourse with France and England and their dependencies, and a

trade to all other places. It is probable that the belligerents will

take our vessels under their edicts, in which case we shall probably

declare war against them."[482] Finally, to Madison himself, he wrote

after reaching Monticello:

It is to be desired that war may be avoided, if circumstances will

admit. Nor in the present maniac state of Europe, should I estimate

the point of honor by the ordinary scale. I believe we shall, on the

contrary, have credit with the world, for having made the avoidance

of being engaged in the present unexampled war, our first object.

War, however, may become a less losing business than unresisted

depredation.[483]

Whatever may have been the opposition to the embargo and the opposition

to Jefferson of disaffected Republicans, it is remarkable that he was

able to keep his party in hand to the last minute and to choose his

successor. Early at the beginning of his second term, he had expressed

his irrevocable intention not to become a candidate for a third term. He

was longing for his farm, his books, for the comforts of family life and

he was not in the best of health.

Not only had he been troubled by rheumatism, but "periodical headaches"

recurring at frequent intervals left him for days unable to write and

hardly able "to compose his thoughts."

The Republicans had to make a choice between three possible candidates:

George Clinton, Monroe, and Madison. The strongest argument that could

be advanced in favor of the first was that, according to a precedent

already apparently established, the Vice President was the logical

successor, the "heir apparent", as Adams had termed it, to a retiring

President. Moreover, Clinton could count on the support of the New York

Republicans and had aroused no strong antagonism against himself. It

soon became obvious, however, that the contest lay between the two

Virginians and that the Virginia dynasty would not be broken as yet.

Monroe was not without support in his native State and his candidacy had

been upheld by a Republican caucus held by Randolph and his friends at

Richmond; but another caucus of the Assembly had given a decisive

majority to Madison. On January 23, 1808, a congressional caucus held in

Washington pronounced decisively for Madison as President and George

Clinton as Vice President. But Randolph held aloof and with his friends

published a protest against the candidacy of Madison, who had

"moderation when energy was needed", whose theories of government were

tainted with federalism, "when the country was asking for consistency

and loathing and abhorrence from any compromise." The danger of a split

in the Republican Party was indeed serious, and while Jefferson

reasserted his wish not to participate in any way in the campaign, he

wrote to Monroe a long letter, deploring the situation and making an

obvious appeal to his party loyalty. He warned him particularly against

the passions that could not fail to be aroused in such a contest, and

conjured him to keep clear "of the toils in which his friends would

endeavor to interlace him."

That Monroe's _amour-propre_ was deeply wounded appears in the letter he

wrote in answer to his "chief." He complained lengthily and bitterly of

having been handicapped by the sending of Pinkney and of the criticism

to which he had been subjected on account of the treaty. Once again

Jefferson had to soothe the discontent of his friend and "_eleve_",

which to a certain extent he succeeded in doing. It soon appeared,

however, that the question would solve itself, that neither Monroe nor

Clinton was strong enough to control the Republican majority. When the

results came in, the Republicans had suffered the loss of all New

England except Vermont, but Madison carried the election by one hundred

and twenty-two votes, against forty-seven to C. C. Pinckney and six for

Clinton. True enough, in several states the electors had been selected

before the full pressure of the embargo was felt, but with such a

substantial majority it is difficult to accept unreservedly Henry Adams'

view that "no one could fail to see that if nine months of embargo had

so shattered Jefferson's power, another such year would shake the Union

itself."

BOOK SIX

_The Sage of Monticello_

CHAPTER I

"AMERICA HAS A HEMISPHERE TO ITSELF"

When, after a long and fatiguing journey, Thomas Jefferson reached

Monticello in the spring of 1809, he was in his sixty-third year and had

well earned his "quadragena stipendia." But the Republic did not serve

any pension to retired Presidents. For more than twelve years he had

perforce neglected his domain, and his son-in-law, who had been in

charge of the estate for some time, was scarcely a man to be intrusted

with the administration of complicated financial interests. A large part

of Jefferson's time was necessarily spent in setting things to rights;

but the times were against him, and the embargo had proved more

detrimental to the great landowners of the South than to the New England

manufacturers. A planter whose sole revenue consisted in his crops had

the utmost difficulty in providing for a large family of dependants, and

a considerable number of slaves who had to be fed and clad, and most of

all in keeping up appearances. Jefferson was hardly freed from public

responsibilities when he had to labor under domestic difficulties which

worried him even to his death bed.

Under his direction, however, Monticello became more than ever a

self-supporting community; the slaves were taught all the necessary

trades and when, thanks to the merino sheep brought over by Du Pont de

Nemours, woolen goods of fine quality were made at Monticello, the

master of the house was proud to wear clothes of homespun which, in his

opinion, could rival the best produce of the English manufactures. Whole

books could be written, and several have been written, on Jefferson the

agriculturist, the surveyor, the civil engineer, the inventor and the

architect. There is, however, another aspect of his last years which

deserves more attention than it usually receives.

[Illustration: THOMAS JEFFERSON

_From the portrait by Kosciuszko_]

For thirty years Jefferson had lived almost constantly under the

scrutiny of the public. His utterances had been pounced upon by eager

enemies of the "cannibal press"; letters intended solely for friends had

been printed, several times in a garbled form, and during his presidency

he had been unable to communicate freely with his European friends for

fear of having his letters intercepted. At last, he could express

himself freely. He was no longer the spokesman of the country who had to

ascertain the state of public opinion before writing a message or

sending a communication to a foreign government. He could speak for

himself, without being hindered by the ever-present danger of political

repercussions, and if he did not speak much, he wrote several thousand

letters, many of which are still unpublished--an overwhelming treasure

for historians of the period. His physical strength was somewhat

impaired, but his intellectual powers were in no way diminished; never

had his mind been keener, his perception of realities clearer and his

extraordinary gift of political prophecy more accurate than during the

last fifteen years of his life. This is the period to study in order to

understand more fully his conception of Americanism, his vision of

democracy and the practical wisdom which permeated his philosophy of old

age.

His valedictory letter to Madison, written from Monticello on March 17,

1809, contained a very curious admission of the inability of the United

States to carry out war successfully with their present organization; "I

know of no Government," he wrote, "which would be so embarrassing in war

as ours. This would proceed very much from the lying and licentious

character of our papers; but also, from the wonderful credulity of the

members of Congress in the floating lies of the day."[484]

This was no passing whim of his, but a very definite and categorical

understanding of the functions devolving upon the Executive in times of

emergency. He had not forgotten his experience as Governor of Virginia,

when he had to coax necessary measures from a reluctant Assembly; his

eight years as Chief Executive of the country had only strengthened him

in the opinion that "In times of peace, the people look most to their

representatives, but in war to the Executive solely." He found a

confirmation of this theory in the state of public opinion, when he

wrote to Rodney, early in 1810: "It is visible that their confidence is

now veering in that direction: that they are looking to the executive to

give the proper direction to their affairs, with a confidence as

auspicious as it is well founded."[485]

A few months later, writing to J. B. Colvin, he took up again the same

question: "In what circumstances is it permitted for the man in charge

to assume authority beyond the law?" That he was personally interested

in the matter was evident, since he had exceeded his constitutional

powers very recently, during the Burr conspiracy. It is nevertheless

remarkable to see the champion of legality and democracy declare that:

A strict observance of the written law is doubtless _one_ of the high

duties of a good citizen, but it is not the _highest_. The laws of

necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger

are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous

adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life,

liberty, property and all those enjoying them with us; thus absurdly

sacrificing the end to the means.[486]

To a certain extent this was a plea _pro domo sua_. If we remember that,

during the World War, the motto of America was, for more than two years,

"Stand by the President", it will be seen that Jefferson was as good a

prophet as an intelligent observer. This admission of his may seem

undemocratic, but it simply shows that the former President had a clear

perception of the permanent tendencies that direct American

consciousness; for no people are more disciplined and more ready to

follow their chosen executive than the Americans, at least on critical

occasions, and more particularly when confronted with foreign

aggression.

War was still to be avoided and considered only as the _ultima ratio rei

publicae_. On this point also, Jefferson was perfectly consistent, and,

having shed the responsibility, he did not suddenly change his attitude.

The "point of honor" was not to be estimated by the ordinary scale in

the present maniac state of Europe. But America must realize at the same

time that no ordinary treaty could insure her safety. A treaty with

England could not even be thought of; for "the British never made an

equal treaty with any nation."

With regard to France the situation was somewhat different. Some

compensation was due to America for forcing Great Britain to revoke her

orders in council. But what compensation? The acquiescence of Bonaparte

to the annexation of the Floridas? That was no price; for "they are ours

in the first moment of the first war; and until a war they are of no

particular necessity." The only territory that the United States might

covet was Cuba. "That would be a price, and I would immediately erect a

column on the southernmost limit of Cuba, and inscribe on it a _ne plus

ultra_ to us in that direction.... Cuba can be defended by us without a

navy, and this develops the principle which ought to limit our views.

Nothing should ever be accepted which would require a navy to defend

it."[487]

In the meantime, Jefferson did not miss any opportunity to justify the

embargo. Even after its repeal, he insisted that "enough of the

non-importation laws should be preserved 1st, to pinch them into a

relinquishment of impressments, and 2nd, to support those manufacturing

establishments, which their orders, and our interests, forced us to

make."[488]

To Du Pont de Nemours he wrote a long letter, stating in detail the

advantages accrued to America from the embargo, and this point is well

worth keeping in mind by those who insist on considering Jefferson as a

hundred per cent. agrarian:

The barefaced attempts of England to make us accessories and

tributaries to her usurpations on the high seas--he wrote to the old

Physiocrat--have generated in this country an universal spirit for

manufacturing for ourselves, and of reducing to a minimum the number

of articles for which we are dependent on her. The advantages too, of

lessening the occasions of risking our peace on the ocean, and of

planting the consumer on our own soil by the side of the grower of

produce, are so palpable, that no temporary suspension of injuries on

her part, or agreements founded on that, will now prevent our

continuing in what we have begun.[489]

So wrote the supposed agrarian to the founder of physiocracy, and this

is a _prima facie_ evidence that Jefferson was not a Physiocrat of the

first water. As a matter of fact, on this point as on so many others, he

had strong negative principles. As we have already pointed out on

several occasions, Jefferson was not so much opposed to manufactures and

industries as to mercantilism, and particularly to English mercantilism.

This corrective ought to be taken into consideration in any estimate of

the Jeffersonian democracy, and one may wonder whether some continuators

of Mr. Beard are sufficiently aware of this capital distinction.

It soon appeared to Jefferson that there was no possible way out except

war. Contrary to all expectations, the convulsions of Europe continued

and no hope of a permanent peace was in sight. The death of Bonaparte

"would remove the first and chiefest apostle of the desolation of men

and morals and might withdraw the scourge of the land. But what is to

restore order and safety on the ocean. The death of George III? Not at

all.... The principle that force is right, is become the principle of

the nation itself."[490]

As a matter of fact, Bonaparte was little to be feared. He still had the

whole world to conquer before turning his eyes towards America.

England on the contrary is an ever-present danger not to be relied

upon as an ally for she would make a separate peace and leave us in

the lurch. Her good faith? The faith of a nation of merchants. The

_Punica fides_ of modern Carthage. Of the friend of the protectress

of Copenhagen. Of the nation who never admitted a chapter of morality

into her political code.

Then follows a formidable indictment of the treacherous policies of

England with a curious and most interesting discrimination at the end,

for Jefferson observes that "it presents the singular phenomenon of a

nation, the individuals of which are as faithful to their private

engagements and duties, as honorable, as worthy, as those of any nation

on earth, and whose government is yet the most unprincipled at this day

known."[491]

All told, both nations could be tarred with the same brush "for," said

Jefferson, "I should respect just as much the rules of conduct which

governed Cartouche or Blackbeard as those now acted on by France or

England."[492] The only difference was that France was not in a position

to cause as much damage to American interests as her hereditary enemy

whose claim to "dominion of the ocean and to levy tribute on every flag

traversing that, as lately attempted and not relinquished, every nation

must contest, even _ad internecionem_."[493]

This detestation of English policies and English rulers did not,

however, extend to individuals. Even when war was to be declared

Jefferson took care to establish what he considered as a very necessary

distinction in a fine letter sent to James Maury, his "dear and ancient

friend and classmate":

Our two countries are at war, but not you and I. And why should our

two countries be at war, when by peace we can be so much more useful

to one another. Surely the world will acquit our government from

having sought it.... We consider the overwhelming power of England on

the ocean, and of France on the land, as destructive of the

prosperity and happiness of the world, and wish both to be reduced

only to the necessity of observing moral duties. I believe no more in

Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberty of the seas, than in

Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind.... We resist

the enterprises of England first, because they first come vitally

home to us. And our feelings repel the logic of bearing the lash of

George III, for fear of that of Bonaparte at some future day. When

the wrongs of France shall reach us with equal effect, we shall

resist them also. But one at a time is enough; and having offered a

choice to the champions, England first takes up the gauntlet.[494]

Since war was declared, the only thing to keep in mind was to make it as

advantageous as possible to the United States. Thanks to the Louisiana

Purchase, France had been eliminated forever from the American

continent, but the existence of a large British province on the northern

border constituted an ever-present source of anxiety and danger for the

Union. The first war aim of the United States was consequently to expel

Great Britain from the North American continent, for as long as England

could use her continental dominion as "a fulcrum for her Machiavellian

levers" there would be no safety for the United States. On the other

hand, the war could not be carried out to a successful conclusion if

during the hostilities America were kept unable to export the surplus

of her produce. Jefferson therefore recommended that neutral vessels be

used "and even enemy vessels under neutral flag, which I should wink

at", wrote Jefferson to the President.[495]

This last recommendation may seem surprising and almost treasonable, but

Jefferson lived in close contact with farmers and planters, and he still

remembered their attitude during the Revolutionary War and knew that "to

keep the war popular we must keep open the markets. As long as good

prices can be had, the people will support the war cheerfully."

Later in the year he was able to report to the President:

Our farmers are cheerful in the expectation of a good price for wheat

in Autumn. Their pulse will be regulated by this, and not by the

successes or disasters of the war. To keep open sufficient markets is

the very first object towards maintaining the popularity of the war,

which is as great at present as could be desired.[496]

To be correctly understood, this attitude of Jefferson advocating trade

with the enemy requires some further elucidation. As a matter of fact,

the issue was not so clear-cut as it would seem. While England was to be

considered as America's enemy on the continent, she was "fighting

America's battles" in Europe, for the ultimate triumph of Bonaparte

would have been pregnant with dangers for the Union. He consequently

advocated the exportation of grain to Great Britain:

If she is to be fed at all events, why may not we have the benefit of

it as well as others. I would not indeed, feed her armies landed on

our territory, because the difficulty of inland communication

subsistence is what will prevent their ever penetrating far into the

country.... But this would be my only exception, and as to feeding

her armies in the Peninsular, she is fighting our battles there, as

Bonaparte is on the Baltic.[497]

But it must also be admitted that Jefferson considered that in war all

is fair. He had not changed much since the remote days of the Revolution

when he urged Washington to permit him to use measures of retaliation on

the British prisoners. Once again he did not scruple to recommend

measures sometimes used but seldom so frankly advocated. He would not

have hesitated to bring the war home to Great Britain and to resort to

retaliation. "Perhaps they will burn New York or Boston," he wrote to

Duane. "If they do, we must burn the city of London, not by expensive

fleets or congreve rockets, but by employing an hundred or two

Jack-the-painters, whom nakedness, famine, desperation and hardened

vice, will abundantly furnish among themselves."[498]

But the thing never to be lost sight of was the conquest of Canada and

"the final expulsion of England from the American continent." It was to

be a very simple expedition, "a mere matter of marching", and the

weakness of the enemy was to make "our errors innocent." All these

sanguine expectations were blasted to dust by the Hull disaster. Three

frigates taken by "our gallant little navy" could not balance "three

armies lost by treachery, cowardice, or incapacity of those to whom they

were entrusted." The mediation of Russia was the only hope left, but the

enemies were to remain "bedecked with the laurels of the land"--the

reverse of what was to be expected and perhaps what was to be

wished.[499]

Throughout the whole campaign Jefferson was unable to choose between

France and England, or rather between Bonaparte and England's corrupted

government. Strong as were his denunciations of English policies and

crimes, he almost foamed at the mouth when he mentioned the abominable

Corsican:

That Bonaparte is an unprincipled tyrant who is deluging the

continent of Europe with blood, there is not a human being, not even

the wife of his bosom, who does not see. There is no doubt as to the

line we ought to wish drawn between his successes and those of

Alexander. Surely none of us wish to see Bonaparte conquer Russia,

and lay thus at his feet the whole continent of Europe. This done,

England would be just a breakfast.[500]

The "true line of interest" of the United States was consequently that

Bonaparte should be able to effect the complete exclusion of England

from the whole continent of Europe, in order to make her renounce her

views of dominion over the ocean. As there was no longer any hope of

expelling England completely from the American continent, it remained

"the interest of the U. S. to wish Bonaparte a moderate success so as to

curb the ambition of Great Britain."[501]

From this and many other similar passages it would follow that Jefferson

was one of the first exponents of the famous policy of the balance of

power. Although at war with England, America could not wish for a

complete defeat of her enemy which would enable the monster to pursue

his dreams of world domination. But hateful as the Corsican was, no one

could wish for an English victory which would leave Great Britain the

undisputed ruler of the ocean. Incidents of the war did wring from

Jefferson impassioned outbursts which expressed a temporary anger, but

whenever he took time to weigh the different factors in his mind, the

realistic politician emerged every time.

This appears clearly in his correspondence with Madame de Stael, who had

urged him on several occasions to make every effort to decide his fellow

countrymen to join in the battle against the oppressors of liberty. It

appears also quite significantly in his correspondence with Madison,

following the burning of the White House and the destruction by the

English soldiers of the first Congressional Library. His indignation

ran high when he learned "through the paper" that "the vandalism of our

enemy has triumphed at Washington over science as well as the arts, with

the destruction of the public library with the noble edifice in which it

was deposited." "Of that transaction, as that of Copenhagen, the world

will entertain but one sentiment," he wrote to Samuel H. Smith.[502] But

it was characteristic of the man that he thought at once of the means of

restoring the library. Books could not be procured easily from abroad

and there was no other private library in the country comparable to the

collection of books he had systematically accumulated for over forty

years. He placed his books at the disposal of Congress "to be valued by

persons named by the Library Committee, and the payment made convenient

to the public." This was not a piece of business in order to retrieve

his fortune, nor a disguised request for financial help, but simply the

act of a public-spirited citizen unable to make an outright gift and yet

unwilling to make any profit on the public treasury.

The end of the war was in sight--a war which could be considered as a

draw, in which both sides had lost heavily and neither had gained

anything:

It is a deplorable misfortune to us. It has arrested the course of

the most remarkable tide of prosperity any nation ever experienced,

and has closed such prospects of future improvements as were never

before in the view of any people. Farewell all hopes of extinguishing

public debt! Farewell all visions of applying surpluses of revenue to

the improvement of peace, rather than the ravages of war. Our enemy

has indeed the consolation of Satan on removing our first parents

from Paradise; from a peaceable and agricultural nation, he makes us

a military and manufacturing one....[503]

It could truly be said that the war had failed. The best that could be

expected was the _status ante bellum_. "Indemnity for the past and

security for the future which was our motto at the beginning of this

war, must be adjourned to another, when, disarmed and bankrupt our enemy

shall be less able to insult and plunder the world with impunity."[504]

The news that peace had been signed did not cause him any elation, it

was "in fact but an armistice", and even when he wrote again to his dear

and ancient friend James Maury, Jefferson was careful to note that

America would never peacefully accept again England's practice of

impressment on the high seas. "On that point," he wrote, "we have thrown

away the scabbard and the moment an European war brings her back to this

practice, adds us again to her enemies."[505]

This was repeated in a letter to his old friend Du Pont de Nemours who

had asked him for his influence in order to send his grandson to the

Naval Academy:

For twenty years to come we should consider peace as the _summum

bonum_ of our country. At the end of that period we shall be twenty

millions in number, and forty in energy, when encountering the

starved and rickety paupers and dwarfs of English workshops. By that

time your grandson will have become one of our High-Admirals, and

bear distinguished part in retorting the wrongs of both his countries

on the most implacable and cruel of their enemies.[506]

Yet one would be mistaken in believing that Jefferson felt against

England any deep-seated animosity, and his resentment, however

justifiable, did not last long after the close of hostilities. The fine

friendly letters he wrote to Thomas Law and James Maury at the eve of

the war were more than mere gestures. He had many friends in England, he

was imbued with English philosophy, English ideas, English law and, if

he detested the rulers and the regime, he always maintained the same

sentimental and quite natural feelings of so many Americans for the

mother country as a whole:

Were they once under a government which should treat us with justice

and equity--he wrote to John Adams--I should myself feel with great

strength the ties that bind us together, of origin, language, laws

and manners; and I am persuaded the two people would become in future

as it was with the ancient Greeks, among whom it was reproachful for

Greek to be found fighting against Greek in a foreign army.[507]

On the same day he wrote to the Secretary of State, James Monroe, about

the proposed inscription to be engraved in a conspicuous place on the

restored Capitol, and he had suggested that if any inscription was

considered as necessary, it should simply state the bare facts, such as:

FOUNDED 1791. BURNT BY A BRITISH ARMY 1814. RESTORED BY CONGRESS

1817.

But a question of more importance was whether there should be any

inscription at all. "The barbarism of the conflagration will immortalize

that of the nation.... We have more reason to hate her than any nation

in earth. But she is not now an object of hatred.... It is for the

interest of all that she should be maintained nearly on a par with other

members of the republic of nations."[508]

With regard to France, his correspondence with Du Pont de Nemours and

Lafayette offers precious and significant testimony. Much as he loathed

Bonaparte, he deplored the return of the Bourbons and the reactionary

measures of the _Restauration_. His indignation ran high when he

received

... the new treaty of the allied powers, declaring that the French

nation shall not have Bonaparte and shall have Louis XVIII as their

ruler. They are all then as great rascals as Bonaparte himself.

While he was in the wrong, I wished him exactly as much success as

would answer our purpose, and no more. Now that they are wrong and he

in the right, he shall have all my prayers for success, and that he

may dethrone every man of them.[509]

Writing to Albert Gallatin he indulged in a "poetical effusion" which

shows how deeply his feelings were stirred:

I grieve for France ... and I trust they will finally establish for

themselves a government of rational and well tempered liberty. So

much science cannot be lost; so much light shed over them can never

fail to produce to them some good in the end. Till then, we may

ourselves fervently pray, with the liturgy a little parodied; Give

peace till that time, oh Lord, because there is none other that will

fight for us but only thee, oh God.[510]

When all was told, and it was realized that "the cannibals of Europe

were going to eating one another again and the pugnacious humor of

mankind seemed to be the law of his nature", the only course for the

United States to follow was to keep out of the fray as much as possible

and so to direct their policy as to give no pretext for the European

powers to intervene in the New World.

Already, in 1812, Jefferson had formulated his views in the most

unequivocal manner, when he wrote to Doctor John Crawford:

We specially ought to pray that the powers of Europe may be so poised

and counterpoised among themselves, that their own safety may require

the presence of all their force at home, leaving the other quarters

of the globe in undisturbed tranquillity. When our strength will

permit us to give the law to our hemisphere, it should be that the

meridian of the mid-Atlantic should be the line of demarkation

between war and peace, on this side of which no act of hostility

should be committed, and the lion and the lamb lie down in peace

together.[511]

The progress of the revolt of the Spanish colonies was at first to

strengthen him in the position he had already taken.

Jefferson received the news without any elation. For a long time he had

known that the link between the Spanish and Portuguese colonies was

growing weaker. He doubted very much, however, that the colonies were

ready for self-government. There might have been some hope for Mexico,

because of her proximity to the United States: "But the others, I fear,"

he wrote to Baron Alexander von Humboldt, "will end in military

despotisms. The different castes of their inhabitants, their mutual

hatred and jealousies, their profound ignorance and bigotry, will be

played off by cunning leaders, and each be made the instrument of

enslaving the others." The important point he made was in what followed,

and Jefferson here indulged in one of his curious political prophecies,

in which he so often hit the mark:

But in whatever government they will end, they will be _American_

governments, no longer to be involved in the never-ceasing broils of

Europe. The European nations constitute a separate division of the

globe; their localities make them part of a distinct system; they

have a set of interests of their own in which it is our business

never to engage ourselves. America has a hemisphere to itself. It

must have its separate system of interests; which must not be

subordinated to those of Europe. The insulated state in which nature

has placed the American continent, should so far avail it that no

spark of war kindled in the other quarters of the globe should be

wafted across the wide oceans which separate us from them and it will

be so. In fifty years more the United States alone will contain fifty

millions of inhabitants, and fifty years are soon gone over.... And

you will live to see the period ahead of us; and the numbers which

will then be spread over the other parts of the American hemisphere,

catching long before that the principles of our portion of it, and

concurring with us in the maintainance of the same system.[512]

For the present the situation was entirely different--and as he had done

during the Revolution with regard to France, he advocated prudence and

slowness. It was one thing for the American colonies to engage in a war

with the mother country in order to preserve the liberties they had

hitherto enjoyed, and again it was another entirely different thing for

people who had not the faintest experience of self-government to declare

their independence and suddenly to sever all connections with the past.

In addition he was fully aware that the new republics would be in no

condition to fight off foreign aggressors and thus would become an easy

prey for the unscrupulous and greedy nations of Europe. Unable to stand

on their own feet, the most natural course for South America was to fall

back on Spain. Jefferson did not visualize the "_foris familiation_" of

the colonies without a sort of moral protectorate of the mother country:

"if she extends to them her affection, her aid, her patronage in every

court and country, it will weave a bond of union indissoluble by

time."[513] At the time Jefferson did not go further, and as a matter of

fact he long held that this would have been the best solution for South

America. As late as January, 1821, he still maintained this opinion in a

letter to John Adams:

The safest road would be an accomodation to the mother country which

shall hold them together by the single link of the same chief

magistrate, leaving to him power enough to keep them in peace with

one another, and to themselves the essential power of self-government

and self-improvement, until they will be sufficiently trained by

education and habits of freedom to walk safely by themselves.

Representative government, native functionaries, a qualified negative

on their laws, with a previous security by compact for freedom of

commerce, freedom of the press, habeas corpus, and trial by jury,

would make a good beginning. This last would be the school in which

their people might begin to learn the exercise of civic duties as

well as rights. For freedom of religion they are not yet

prepared.[514]

This was the ideal solution, but "the question was not what we wish, but

what is practicable." If consequently the new republics refused such a

compromise, another alternative could be offered:

As their sincere friend and brother, I do believe the best thing for

them, would be for themselves to come to an accord with Spain, under

the guarantee of France, Russia, Holland, and the United States,

allowing to Spain a nominal supremacy, with authority only to keep

the peace among them, leaving them otherwise all the powers of

self-government, until their experience in them, their emancipation

from their priests, and advancement in information shall prepare them

for complete independence. I exclude England from this confederacy,

because her selfish principles render her incapable of honorable

patronage or disinterested co-operation; unless indeed, what seems

now probable, a revolution should restore to her an honest

government, one which will permit the world to live in peace.[515]

This is a capital passage for it contains in germ much more than the

so-called Monroe Doctrine. What Jefferson had in mind at the time was

evidently a society of nations, which the United States would have

joined in order to guarantee the territorial integrity of the South

American republics under a Spanish mandate. For Brazil alone he

contemplated a real and immediate independence, for "Brazil is more

populous, more wealthy, and as wise as Portugal."

But in Jefferson's mind this plan was only a temporary solution. He

was firmly convinced that a time would necessarily come when all the

American republics would be drawn together by their community of

interests and institutions and coalescing in an American system,

independent from and unconnected with that of Europe, would form a

world by themselves:

"The principles of society there and here, then, are radically

different and I hope no American patriot will ever lose sight of the

essential policy of interdicting in the seas and territories of both

Americas the ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe. I wish to

see this coalition begun."[516]

Such, according to Jefferson, was to be the cardinal principle of

American policies for all times to come; for, as he wrote to his friend

Correa who had come back to the United States as Minister from Portugal:

Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself from

the system of Europe, and establish one of her own--Our

circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct, the

principles of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with

that quarter of the globe should be avoided that peace and justice

shall be the polar stars of American societies.[517]

On the other hand, it was not advisable for the United States to

intervene directly in South America or to help the colonies to sever

their bonds from the metropolis. There is little doubt that the Spanish

colonies would never have thought of revolting if they had not had

constantly before their eyes the example of their northern neighbors.

Ill-conducted as they were, the revolutions of South America could trace

their origin directly to the American revolution and the Declaration of

Independence. It was so plain that Jefferson's French friends,

Lafayette, Du Pont de Nemours, and Destutt de Tracy expected him to

declare enthusiastically in favor of the South American republics and to

use whatever influence he still had to bring about an open intervention

of the United States in their favor. Their optimism only shows how

little they knew their American friend and how little they understood

his policy. To Destutt de Tracy he answered at the end of 1820:

We go with you all lengths in friendly affections to the independence

of S. America, but an immediate acknowledgement of it calls up other

considerations. We view Europe as covering at present a smothered

fire, which may shortly burst forth and produce general

conflagration. From this it is our duty to keep aloof. A formal

acknowledgement of the independence of her colonies, would involve us

with Spain certainly, and perhaps too with England, if she thinks

that a war would divert her internal troubles. Such a war would hurt

us more than it would help our brethren of the South; and our right

may be doubted of mortgaging posterity for the expenses of a war in

which they will have a right to say their interest was not

concerned.... In the meantime we receive and protect the flag of S.

America in it's commercial intercourse with us, on the acknowledged

principles of neutrality between two belligerent parties in a civil

war; and if we should not be the first, we shall certainly be the

second nation in acknowledging the entire independence of our new

friends.[518]

This Jefferson pressed again even more tersely in a letter written to

Monroe almost four years later. "We feel strongly for them, but our

first care must be for ourselves."[519]

Surveying the whole situation from the "mountain-top" of Monticello, the

philosopher wondered at times "whether all nations do not owe to one

another a bold declaration of their sympathy with the one party and

their detestation of the conduct of the other?" But he soon concluded:

"Farther than this we are not bound to go; and indeed, for the sake of

the world, we ought not to increase the jealousies or draw on ourselves

the power of this formidable confederacy." After the treaty of Ghent, at

the beginning of the "era of good feeling", the United States could

reasonably count on a long period of peace; all their difficulties with

Europe had been settled, and only one possible point of friction could

be discovered. "Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck of war to

us. Its possession by Great Britain would indeed be a great calamity to

the United States; but such calamity could only be temporary, for in

case of war on any account, Cuba would be naturally taken by the United

States, or the island would give itself to us when able to do so."

Thus Jefferson, once again, reasserted the cardinal principle of his

policy--the policy of the United States since the early days of the

Union:

I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States, never to

take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests

are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their

balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and

principles of government are all foreign to us. They are nations of

eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of

the labor, property, and lives of their peoples ... on our part,

never had a people so favorable a chance of trying the opposite

system, of peace and fraternity with mankind, and the direction of

our means and faculties to the purposes of improvement instead of

destruction.[520]

Thus, little by little, the famous doctrine took its final shape in the

minds of both Jefferson and Monroe. Jefferson contributed to it its

historical background, the weight of his experience and authority, and

the long conversations he had with Monroe on the matter gave him an

opportunity not only to get "his political compass rectified" but to map

out for the President the course to follow. The often quoted letter

written by Jefferson to Monroe on October 24, 1823, contained little

more than what had passed between them when Monroe visited his estate in

Virginia. It was simply a reaffirmation of the fundamental maxims of the

Jeffersonian policies:--"never to entangle ourselves in the broils of

Europe--never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic

affairs."

After making a survey of all the circumstances, Jefferson could write in

conclusion:

I could honestly, therefore, join in the declaration proposed, that

we aim not at the acquisition of any of those possessions, that we

will not stand in the way of any amicable arrangement between them

and the Mother country; but that we will oppose, with all our means,

the forcible interposition of any other form or pretext, and most

especially, their transfer to any power by conquest, cession, or

acquisition in any other way.