THE Louisiana treaty, signed in May, 1803, was followed by
two years of diplomatic activity. The necessary secrecy of diplomacy
gave to every President the power to involve the country without its
knowledge in dangers which could not be afterward escaped, and the
Republican party neither invented nor suggested means by which this old
evil of irresponsible politics could be cured; but of all Presidents,
none used these arbitrary powers with more freedom and secrecy than
Jefferson. His ideas of Presidential authority in foreign affairs were
little short of royal. He loved the sense of power and the freedom from
oversight which diplomacy gave, and thought with reason that as his
knowledge of Europe was greater than that of other Americans, so he
should be left to carry out his policy undisturbed.
Jefferson’s overmastering passion was to obtain West Florida. To this
end two paths seemed open. If he chose to conciliate, Yrujo was still
ready to aid; and Spain stood in such danger between England and France
that Godoy could not afford to throw the United States into the hands
of either. If Jefferson wished the friendship of Spain, he had every
reason to feel sure that the Prince of Peace would act in the same
spirit in which he had negotiated the treaty of 1795 and restored the
right of deposit in 1802. In this case Florida must be let alone until
Spain should be willing to cede, or the United States be ready for war.
On the other hand, the President might alienate Spain and grasp at
Florida. Livingston and Monroe warmly urged this policy, and were in
fact its authors. Livingston’s advice would by itself have had no great
weight with Jefferson or Madison, but they believed strongly in Monroe;
and when he made Livingston’s idea his own, he gave it weight. Monroe
had been sent abroad to buy Florida; he had bought Louisiana. From the
Potomac to the Mississippi, every Southern man expected and required
that by peace or war Florida should be annexed to the Union; and the
annexation of Louisiana made that of Florida seem easy. Neither Monroe,
Madison, nor Jefferson could resist the impulse to seize it.
Livingston’s plan has been described. He did not assert that Spain had
intended to retrocede Florida to France, or that France had claimed it
as included in the retrocession. He knew the contrary; and tried in
vain to find some one willing to say that the country to the Perdido
ought to be included in the purchase. He made much of Marbois’s
cautious encouragement and Talleyrand’s transparent manœuvres; but he
was forced at last to maintain that Spain had retroceded West Florida
to France without knowing it, that France had sold it to the United
States without suspecting it, that the United States had bought it
without paying for it, and that neither France nor Spain, although the
original contracting parties, were competent to decide the meaning of
their own contract. Believing that Bonaparte was pledged to support the
United States in their effort to obtain West Florida, Livingston was
anxious only to push Spain to the utmost. Talleyrand allowed him to
indulge in these dreams. “I have obtained from him,” wrote Livingston
to Madison,[149] “a positive promise that this government shall aid
any negotiation that shall be set on foot” for the purchase of East
Florida; while as for Florida west of the Perdido, “the moment is so
favorable for taking possession of that country, that I hope it has
not been neglected, even though a little force should be necessary to
effect it. Your minister must find the means to justify it.”
When the letters written by Livingston and Monroe in May, 1803,
reached Washington, they were carefully studied by the President,
fully understood, and a policy quickly settled. When Jefferson wrote
to Senator Breckenridge his ideas on the unconstitutionality of the
purchase, he spoke with equal clearness on the course he meant to
pursue toward Spain in order to obtain Florida:[150]--
“We have some claims to extend on the sea-coast westwardly to
the Rio Norte or Bravo, and, better, to go eastwardly to the Rio
Perdido, between Mobile and Pensacola, the ancient boundary of
Louisiana. These claims will be a subject of negotiation with
Spain; and if as soon as she is at war we push them strongly
with one hand, holding out a price with the other, we shall
certainly obtain the Floridas, and all in good time.”
This was not Livingston’s plan, but something quite distinct from it.
Livingston and Monroe wanted the President to seize West Florida, and
negotiate for East Florida. Jefferson preferred to negotiate for West
Florida and to leave East Florida alone for the time.
Madison had already instructed[151] the minister at Madrid that the
Floridas were not included in the treaty, “being, it appears, still
held by Spain,” and that the negotiation for their purchase would be
conducted by Monroe at Madrid. Instructions of the same date were
instantly sent to Monroe,[152] urging him to pursue the negotiation for
Florida, although owing to the large drain made on the Treasury, and
to the “manifest course of events,” the government was not disposed to
make sacrifices for the sake of obtaining that country. “Your inquiries
may also be directed,” wrote Madison, “to the question whether any, and
how much, of what passes for West Florida be fairly included in the
territory ceded to us by France.”
The idea that West Florida could be claimed as a part of the Louisiana
purchase was a turning-point in the second Administration of
Jefferson. Originating in Minister Livingston’s mind, it passed from
him to Monroe; and in a few weeks the President declared the claim
substantial.[153] As the summer of 1803 closed, Jefferson’s plan became
clear. He meant to push this claim, in connection with other claims,
and to wait the moment when Spain should be dragged into the war
between France and England.
These other claims were of various degrees of merit, and involved
France as well as Spain. During the _quasi_ war between the
United States and France, before Jefferson came into power, American
commerce in Spanish waters suffered severely from two causes. The first
consisted in captures made by Spanish cruisers, and condemnations
decided in Spanish courts; the second was due to captures made by
French cruisers, and condemned by French consuls in Spanish ports, or
by courts of appeal in France, without regard to the rights or dignity
of Spain. With much trouble, in August, 1802, at the time when Europe
and America were waiting for the end of Leclerc’s struggle with the
negroes and fevers of St. Domingo, Pinckney succeeded in persuading the
Prince of Peace to let the claims for Spanish depredations go before a
commission for settlement; but Godoy obstinately refused to recognize
the claims for French depredations, taking the ground that Spain was
in no way responsible for them, had never in any way profited by
them, and had no power at the time they occurred to prevent them; that
France, and France alone, had committed the offence, and should pay for
it.
Pinckney resisted this reasoning as energetically as possible; but
when Cevallos offered to sign a convention covering the Spanish
depredations, and reserving the Franco-Spanish claims for future
discussion, Pinckney properly decided to accept an offer which secured
for his fellow-citizens five or ten millions of money, and which left
the other claim still open.[154] The convention of Aug. 11, 1802, was
sent to the Senate Jan. 11, 1803, in the excitement that followed
Morales’s withdrawal of the _entrepôt_ at New Orleans. The Senate
deferred action until the last moment of the session; and then, March
3, 1803, after Nicholson and Randolph had appeared at the bar to
impeach Judge Pickering, Pinckney’s claims convention was taken up,
and the nine Federalists were allowed to defeat it by the absence of
Republican senators. The majority reconsidered the vote and postponed
the whole subject till the next session. Thus, owing to the action of
Federalist senators, when Jefferson in the following summer, after
buying Louisiana, looked about for the means of buying Florida, he
found these classes of claims, aggregating as he supposed between five
and ten million dollars, ready to his hand. Monroe was promptly ordered
to insist upon treating both classes alike, and setting both of them
against the proposed purchase of Florida. “On the subject of these
claims you will hold a strong language,” said Madison.[155]
A third class of claims could be made useful for the same purpose.
Damages had been sustained by individuals in the violation of their
right of deposit at New Orleans in the autumn of 1802.
“A distinction, however, is to be made,” wrote Madison, “between
the positive and specific damages sustained by individuals and
the general injuries accruing from that breach of treaty. The
latter could be provided for by a gross and vague estimate only,
and need not be pressed as an indispensable condition. The claim
however may be represented as strictly just, and a forbearance
to insist on it as an item in the valuable considerations for
which the cession [of Florida] is made. Greater stress may be
laid on the positive and specific damages capable of being
formally verified by individuals; but there is a point beyond
which it may be prudent not to insist, even here, especially
as the incalculable advantage accruing from the acquisition of
New Orleans will diffuse a joy throughout the western country
that will drown the sense of these little sacrifices. Should no
bargain be made on the subject of the Floridas, our claims of
every sort are to be kept in force.”
The President had not then decided to claim West Florida as included in
the Louisiana purchase, and he conceived of no reason which should make
Spain cling the more closely to Florida on account of the loss of New
Orleans.
The news of the Louisiana purchase reached Washington early in July,
1803; Madison wrote his instructions to Monroe at the end of the same
month; Jefferson announced his policy to Breckenridge in August. This
was the harvest season of his life. His theories were proved sound; his
system of government stood in successful rivalry with that of Bonaparte
and Pitt; and he felt no doubt that his friendship was as vital to
England, France, and Spain as all the armies and navies of the world.
In the midst of this enjoyment, September 4, he was suddenly told by
the Marquis of Casa Yrujo that he had bought stolen goods, and that
Spain as the rightful owner protested against the sale.[156]
Notwithstanding this strong measure, doubtless taken in obedience to
orders, Yrujo was still true to his old friendship. On hearing of the
cession, he did again what he had done eight months before, in the
excitement about the _entrepôt_ at New Orleans,--he tried to
smooth difficulties and quiet alarms.
“The ports of Florida,” he wrote to Don Pedro Cevallos,[157] “as
they would make it easy for us to annoy greatly the American
commerce in case of a war, would in like degree furnish the
Americans, if the Americans should possess them, the same means
of annoying ours, and of carrying on an immense contraband
trade from them, especially from Pensacola and Mobile, with
our provinces in the Gulf of Mexico. This last is the chief
evil which in my opinion will result from the acquisition of
Louisiana by the Americans, and can only be diminished by
numerous, watchful, and active revenue-cutters. For the rest I
do not look on the alienation of Louisiana as a loss for Spain.
That colony cost us much, and produced us very little.”
In short, Louisiana could not be defended by Spain, while as a part of
the United States it would certainly weaken, and probably dissolve, the
Union. As for the protest, he told[158] his Government, even before he
received Madison’s reply, that nothing would come of it.
As late as Nov. 5, 1803, Yrujo continued to write in the same tone to
his Government.
“The information I have received from trustworthy persons,” he
said,[159] “in regard to the disposition in which General Victor
was coming here, and the spirit of restlessness and almost of
rapine which reigned among many of the officials in his army,
leave me no doubt that the military colony of the French in
Louisiana would have been in reality a worse neighbor than the
Americans for us. Things have now taken such a turn, that in my
humble opinion if we are to lose Louisiana, the choice whether
that colony shall fall into the power of one nation rather than
another is not worth the expense and trouble of a war, provided
we preserve the Floridas.... I am convinced that this Government
knows perfectly the national interests, and to promote them will
follow in this respect a course of conduct which in proportion
as it better suits our own, should inspire us with greater
confidence.”
Yrujo acted the part of a true friend to both countries, in trying by
such arguments to reconcile his Government to the loss of Louisiana;
but there were limits to his good-will. He held that Spain could not
afford to part with Florida. Yrujo went to the extreme of concession
when he reconciled his Government to the loss of New Orleans, and
nothing would reconcile him to the further loss of Mobile and
Pensacola. Only on the theory that Spanish America was already ruined
by the cession of Louisiana could Yrujo argue in favor of selling
Florida.
On receiving Yrujo’s protests of September 4 and 27, Jefferson’s first
feeling was of anger. He sent a strong body of troops to Natchez.
“The Government of Spain,” he wrote to Dupont de Nemours,[160] “has
protested against the right of France to transfer, and it is possible
she may refuse possession, and that may bring on acts of force; but
against such neighbors as France there and the United States here, what
she can expect from so gross a compound of folly and false faith is not
to be sought in the book of wisdom.” The folly of such conduct might
be clear, but the charge of false faith against Spain for protesting
against being deprived of her rights, seemed unjust, especially in
the mouth of Jefferson, who meant to claim West Florida under a
Franco-Spanish treaty which was acknowledged by all parties to have
transferred Louisiana alone.
Only a week before this letter was written, the scheme of seizing West
Florida had been publicly avowed by John Randolph on the floor of the
House. Randolph’s speech of October 24, in language as offensive to
Spain as was possible in the mouth of a responsible leader, asserted,
as a fact admitting no doubt, that West Florida belonged to the United
States.[161] “We have not only obtained the command of the mouth of
the Mississippi, but of the Mobile, with its widely extended branches;
and there is not now a single stream of note rising within the United
States and falling into the Gulf of Mexico which is not entirely
our own, the Appalachicola excepted.” In a second speech the next
day, he reiterated the statement even more explicitly and in greater
detail.[162] The Republican press echoed the claim. Jefferson and
Madison encouraged the manœuvre until they could no longer recede, and
pushed inquiries in every direction,[163] without obtaining evidence
that West Florida was, or ever had been, a part of the government of
Louisiana. They even applied to Laussat,[164] the mortified and angry
French commissioner whom Bonaparte had sent to receive possession
of New Orleans; and Laussat, to the annoyance of Talleyrand and
Godoy, told the truth,--that the Iberville and the Rio Bravo were the
boundaries fixed by his instructions, and therefore that West Florida
was not a part of the purchase, but that Texas was.
Notwithstanding John Randolph’s official declaration, when the time
came for the delivery of Louisiana the Spanish governor, Dec. 20, 1803,
peacefully surrendered the province to Laussat; Laussat handed it in
due form to Claiborne; and Claiborne received it without asking for
West Florida, or even recording a claim for it. That this silence was
accidental no one pretended. The acquiescence in Spanish authority was
so implicit that Madison three months afterward, at a time when both
Executive and Legislature were acting on the theory that West Florida
was in Louisiana, found himself obliged to explain the cause of conduct
and contradictions so extraordinary. He wrote[165] to Livingston at
Paris that the President had for several reasons preferred to make no
demand for West Florida,--
“First, because it was foreseen that the demand would not only
be rejected by the Spanish authority at New Orleans, which
had in an official publication limited the cession westwardly
by the Mississippi and the Island of New Orleans, but it was
apprehended, as has turned out, that the French commissioner
might not be ready to support the demand, and might even be
disposed to second the Spanish opposition to it; secondly,
because in the latter of these cases a serious check would be
given to our title, and in either of them a premature dilemma
would result between an overt submission to the refusal and a
resort to force; thirdly, because mere silence would be no bar
to a plea at any time that a delivery of a part, particularly of
the seat of the government, was a virtual delivery of the whole.”
The President’s silence at New Orleans was the more conspicuous
because, at the moment when the province of Louisiana was thus
delivered with such boundaries as Spain chose to define, Congress
was legislating for Florida as an integral part of the Union. John
Randolph’s official assertion that Mobile belonged to the United
States under the treaty of cession, was made in the last part of
October, 1803, soon after Congress met. About a month later, November
30, he introduced a Bill nominally for giving effect to the laws of
the United States within the ceded territory. After much debate and
disagreement this Bill at length passed both Houses, and Feb. 24,
1804, received the President’s signature. The fourth section directed
that the territories ceded to the United States by the treaty, “and
also all the navigable waters, rivers, creeks, bays, and inlets lying
within the United States, which empty into the Gulf of Mexico east of
the River Mississippi, shall be annexed to the Mississippi district,
and shall, together with the same, constitute one district, to be
called the ‘District of Mississippi.’” This provision was remarkable,
because, as every one knew, no creeks, bays, or inlets lying within the
United States emptied into the Gulf. The Act by its eleventh section
authorized the President, “whenever he shall deem it expedient, to
erect the shores, waters, and inlets of the Bay and River of Mobile,
and of the other rivers, creeks, inlets, and bays emptying into the
Gulf of Mexico east of the said River Mobile, and west thereof to the
Pascagoula, inclusive, into a separate district, and to establish such
place within the same as he shall deem expedient, to be the port of
entry and delivery for such district.” This section gave the President
power of peace and war, for had he exercised it, the exercise must have
been an act of war; and John Randolph’s previous declarations left no
doubt as to the meaning in which he, who reported the Bill, meant it to
be understood.
By this time Yrujo was boiling with such wrath as a Spaniard alone
could imagine or express. His good-will vanished from the moment
he saw that to save Florida he must do battle with President,
Secretary of State, Congress, and people. One insult had followed
another with startling rapidity. The President’s _pêle-mêle_,
of which the story will be told hereafter, wounded him personally.
The cold reception of his protest against the Louisiana cession; the
captiousness of Madison’s replies to his remonstrances; the armed
seizure of New Orleans with which he was threatened; the sudden
disregard of his friendship and great services; the open eagerness of
the Government to incite Bonaparte to plunder and dismember Spain; the
rejection of the claims convention in March, and its sudden approval
by the Senate in January, as though to obtain all the money Spain was
willing to give before taking by force territory vital to her empire;
and above all, the passage of this law annexing the Floridas without
excuse or explanation,--all these causes combined to change Yrujo’s
ancient friendship into hatred.
In the midst of the complicated legislation about Louisiana, while the
Mobile Act was under discussion, Jefferson sent to the Senate, Dec.
21, 1803, the correspondence about the Spanish claims, and among the
rest an adverse opinion which Yrujo had obtained from five prominent
American lawyers on an abstract case in regard to the Franco-Spanish
spoliations. Madison was particularly annoyed by this legal opinion,
and thought it should bring these five gentlemen within the penalties
of the law passed Jan. 30, 1799, commonly known as Logan’s Act.
Senator Bradley of Vermont moved for a committee, which reported in
favor of directing the President to institute proceedings against
Jared Ingersoll, William Rawle, J. B. McKean, Peter S. Duponceau, and
Edward Livingston,--five lawyers whose legal, social, and political
character made a prosecution as unwise in politics as it was doubtful
in law. The Senate having at the moment too many prosecutions already
on its hands, let Senator Bradley’s Report lie unnoticed, and soon
afterward confirmed the claims convention by a vote of eighteen to
eight,[166]--barely two thirds, the least factious of the Federalists
joining the majority, and by this unpartisan act causing in the end
more embarrassment to the party in power than the most ingenious
factiousness could have plotted. Madison, in the midst of his measures
for pressing the acquisition of Florida, sent the ratified claims
convention to Madrid. The period fixed for ratification had long since
expired, and the attitude of the United States toward Florida had
altered the feelings and interests of Spain; but either Madison was
unaware of the change, or he wished to embarrass Godoy. He added in his
letter to Pinckney,[167] “It was judged best, on the whole, no longer
to deprive that class of our citizens who are comprehended in the
convention of the benefit of its provisions;” but although consenting
to take what Spain was willing to give, he spoke with contempt of the
Spanish argument against the Franco-Spanish claims, and insisted that
these should be pressed without relaxation. He even complained that
Yrujo, in taking the opinion of American lawyers, had failed in respect
to the United States government and his own.[168]
Madison seemed unconscious that Yrujo could have any just cause of
complaint, or that his Government could resent the tone and temper of
President and Congress. The passage of the Bill which made Mobile a
collection district and a part of the Mississippi territory gave Yrujo
the chance to retaliate. About a fortnight after the President had
signed this law, Yrujo one morning entered the State Department with
the printed Act in his hand, and overwhelmed Madison with reproaches,
which he immediately afterward supported by a note[169] so severe as
to require punishment, and so able as to admit of none. He had at
first, he said, regarded as “an atrocious libel” on the United States
government the assertion that it had made a law which usurped the
rights of Spanish sovereignty; yet such was the case. He gave a short
and clear abstract of the evidence which refuted the claim to West
Florida, and closed by requesting that the law be annulled.
Madison could neither maintain the law nor annul it; he could not even
explain it away. Gallatin told the President six months afterward,[170]
that “the public mind is altogether unprepared for a declaration that
the terms and object of the Mobile Act had been misunderstood by
Spain; for every writer, without a single exception, who has written
on the subject seems to have understood the Act as Spain did; it has
been justified by our friends on that ground.” Yet Jefferson was not
prepared to maintain and defend the Act in its full assertions of
authority, after accepting Louisiana without asking for West Florida.
Madison wrote a letter of complaint to Livingston at Paris,[171]
explaining, as already quoted, the reasons which had induced the
President to make no demand for West Florida before ascertaining the
views and claiming the interposition of the French government.
“In this state of things,” said he, “it was deemed proper by
Congress, in making the regulations necessary for the collection
of revenue in the ceded territory, and guarding against the new
danger of smuggling into the United States through the channels
opened by it, to include a provision for the case of West
Florida by vesting in the President a power which his discretion
might accommodate to events.”
This interpretation of the law was not in harmony with the law itself
or with Randolph’s speeches; but Madison hastened to turn from this
delicate subject in order to bring another complaint against Yrujo.
“The Act had been many weeks depending in Congress with these
sections, word for word, in it; ... it must in all probability
have been known to the Marquis d’Yrujo in an early stage of its
progress; if it was not, it marks much less of that zealous
vigilance over the concerns of his sovereign than he now makes
the plea for his intemperate conduct. For some days, even after
the Act was published in the Gazette of this city, he was
silent. At length, however, he called at the office of State,
with the Gazette in his hand, and entered into a very angry
comment.”
The Spanish minister’s subsequent notes had been written with “a
rudeness which no government can tolerate;” but his conduct was
chiefly of importance “as it urges the expediency of cultivating the
disposition of the French government to take our side of the question.”
The President came to Madison’s relief. By a proclamation issued a few
weeks afterward, reciting the terms of the Act of Congress in regard
to the Bay and River of Mobile, he declared all these “shores, waters,
inlets, creeks, and rivers, lying _within the boundaries of the
United States_,” to be a collection district, with Fort Stoddert for
its port of entry.[172] The italics were a part of the proclamation,
and suggested that such could not have been the intent of Congress,
because no part of the shores or waters of Mobile Bay, or of the other
bays east of Mobile, lay within the boundaries of the United States.
The evasion was a divergence from the words of the Act unwarranted by
anything in the context; and to give it authority, Jefferson, in spite
of Gallatin’s remonstrance, declared in his next Annual Message that
the Mobile Act had been misunderstood on the part of Spain.[173]