sum finally agreed upon was sixty millions of francs for the territory, and twenty millions for the satisfaction of American claims against France. After the treaty was executed, Napoleon said to Monroe that he had made the transfer, not so much on account of the price, as from motives of policy; and in agreeing to the treaty he said: "I have given England a maritime rival which will sooner or later humble her pride."

While the negotiations were preceded by great solicitude on the part of the government of the United States, they were in the end consummated with great celerity and ease. Circumstances favored the United States, and it was the highest statesmanship and diplomacy to seize upon and improve the occasion. The treaty was followed by considerable recrimination between the respective friends of Livingston and Monroe, as to the relative credit due these gentlemen for the part they bore in this transaction, so important and valuable for their country. Mr. Livingston dignified the controversy by a lengthy dispatch to Secretary Madison reviewing the participation of Monroe and himself, from which it is seen that he felt that the greater share of the credit was due to himself.1 Monroe's manuscripts also contain full reference to the controversy. Jefferson, in noting the discussion, said: "The truth is both have a just portion of merit, and were it necessary or proper it could be shown that each has rendered peculiar service and of important value." 2

The result exceeded all the expectations of our government. Neither the President nor the country had 28 Writings of Jefferson, 249.

12 For. Rel. 573.

anticipated the acquisition of any territory west of the Mississippi. In fact, as we have seen, Pinckney was authorized to guarantee the possession of that territory to Spain, and Livingston and Monroe were likewise authorized to make a similar guarantee to France. The instructions contemplated only the acquisition of such territory, more or less, as they could obtain on the east side of the river. "They ask of me a town," said Napoleon," and I give them an empire." In their dispatches communicating the treaty, Livingston and Monroe acknowledged they had exceeded their instructions, but humbly hoped they had not erred.1 Livingston wrote the Secretary of State: "If the price is too high, the outlay might be reimbursed by the sale of the territory west of the Mississippi to some power of Europe whose vicinity we should not fear." Jefferson thought it might be useful as a refuge for the Indians east of the Mississippi. He had not then awakened to the fact that the treaty was to be the greatest achievement of his life.

Before the treaty was ratified by the Senate the Spanish government, both through the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Mr. Pinckney at Madrid and through Yrujo, the minister in Washington, to Secretary Madison, protested against the cession from France to the United States, on the ground, first, that France gave a pledge to Spain that she would never alienate the territory, and that on no other condition would Spain have ceded it; and, second, that the consideration for the cession had failed in the case of France, as that gov

1 2 For. Rel. 558.

28 Writings of Jefferson, 244, 251, 263.

ernment had stipulated to procure the recognition of the King of Tuscany from Russia and Great Britain.

Secretary Madison, in reply, sought to show that neither ground of the protest was well founded, and, in any case, they could have no weight with the United States, which was not served with notice by Spain of her claim, and we had taken the title in good faith.1 President Jefferson dismissed the subject in more terse terms, in a letter to Livingston: "We have answered, that these were private 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." The protest had no effect upon the Senate, as the treaty was submitted to that body on October 17, 1803, and so promptly ratified that the exchange of ratifications and the proclamation of the treaty occurred on October 21.

2

The extent of territory embraced in the cession was for some time a matter of uncertainty and dispute. We shall see that in later negotiations with Spain it assumed serious importance. It was claimed by some that the Louisiana Territory as held by France extended to the Pacific Ocean coterminous with British North America, and as late as 1897 a map of the United States was published by the Department of the Interior (Land Office), showing the Louisiana purchase to include all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains and north of 42° of latitude. This claim was not well founded, as has been conclusively shown by the Commissioner of the Land Office by a citation of much 9 8 Writings of Jefferson, 278.

12 For. Rel. 569-572.

historical and political data.1 The French never set up any claim to territory west of the Rocky Mountains, and the American negotiators of the treaty of cession of 1803 understood these mountains to be the western boundary of Louisiana. In August, 1803, after the treaty had been made, Jefferson wrote: "The boundaries, which I deem not admitting of question, are the high lands on the western side of the Mississippi inclosing all its waters, the Missouri, of course;" and this opinion he confirmed in a letter to the geographer Mellish, in 1816, after a thorough examination of the subject, saying, "the western boundary of Louisiana

is along the highlands and mountains dividing the Mississippi from those of the Pacific."

When the special mission to negotiate for the acquisition of the island of New Orleans and a part of Florida was decided upon, a difficulty at once presented itself to President Jefferson, he believing that such acquisition was an act beyond the Constitution. As early as January, 1803, he submitted the question to Mr. Gallatin, the ablest member of the Cabinet, for his consideration, saying he thought it "safer not to permit the enlargement of the Union but by amendment of the Constitution." As soon as the treaty was received the serious aspect of this difficulty was exaggerated, as in place of the acquisition of a small strip at the outlet of the Mississippi, which might be defended as a commercial necessity, it was seen that we had acquired a vast and unknown territory not sought for and apparently

1 The Louisiana Purchase, by Binger Hermann, 1898.

2 2 For. Rel. 559.

useless. To his faithful friend, Senator Breckenridge, he wrote at length respecting the treaty and as to the duty of Congress to take the action necessary to carry it into effect, and he adds, "but I suppose they [Congress] must then appeal to the nation [the States] for an additional article to the Constitution, approving and confirming an act which the nation had not previously authorized. The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution.” 1

Soon after the treaty reached Washington, Jefferson himself prepared a draft of an amendment to the Constitution, and submitted it to the members of his Cabinet and to partisan senators.2 The general tenor of their views in reply was that the amendment was unadvisable. Such utterances must have sounded strange to Jefferson, who had inspired the famous "Kentucky Resolutions" introduced by Breckenridge five years before, which declared that unconstitutional assumptions of power were a surrender of our form of governTo Nicholas, senator from Virginia, a prominent advocate of the Kentucky Resolutions, who in reply to his inquiry had expressed the opinion that the Constitution might be construed to sustain the treaty, Jefferson wrote: "Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." 3

ment.

18 Writings of Jefferson, 244.

2 Ib. 241.

3 Ib. 247.