NAPOLEON AND LOUISIANA 297 transferred Louisiana to the powerful and aggressive Napoleon, who intended to build up a vast colonial power in its borders. The rumor soon became a certainty, but as months passed and the province remained in the hands of Spain the public mind remained calm. Late in 1802 it was violently agitated when news came that the Spanish governor in New Orleans had withdrawn the right of deposit granted in the treaty of 1795. The public construed this as a change of policy in anticipation of the new régime in Louisiana, and the West was for seizing the mouth of the river before it was too late. Jefferson wisely thought the action of the governor unauthorized, and restrained the popular wrath while he negotiated. Deposit. Five months later he was informed by the Spanish minister that the right of deposit would be restored, and this removed the question from the range of possible war and left it freely in the field of diplomacy. Right of Jefferson's It was the president's plan to impress France with our seriousness in the matter, and to that end he used the strongest language. Let France know, he said, that the nation which held the mouth of the Mississippi was our enemy, and if Napoleon per- Diplomacy. sisted in his purpose we should "marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation," so that England and the United States, coöperating for supremacy at sea, would hold at their mercy the revived French colonial establishment. He let the British minister see what he meant, and at a dinner paid him such marked attention that the French minister made it a subject of comment in his letter to Talleyrand. Generally speaking, Jefferson was pacific, not because of cowardice, as his enemies thought, but because he abhorred war and thought it was usually undertaken through unreasonable impulse. His vigorous attitude toward France shows how positive he could be when he considered a vital issue at stake. Meanwhile, Livingston, our minister in Paris, was instructed to sound Napoleon in regard to the purchase of the Isle of Orleans and West Florida. It is not probable that Jefferson thought the proposition would succeed, but it offered a point of departure in the negotiation. San Ildefonso. Unknown to him, events in Paris were shaping themselves more favorably than he dared hope; and to understand them we must go back to the treaty of San Ildefonso, October 1, 1800. By that agreement Napoleon induced Spain to transfer Treaty of Louisiana to him in exchange for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, which, elevated to the kingdom of Etruria, was to be given to the Duke of Parma, son-in-law of the king of Spain, when a general peace was made in Europe. Napoleon promised not to sell the territory thus acquired to any nation but Spain, and it was agreed that later negotiations should be entered into for the cession of West Florida. The treaty was kept secret for the time being, but its essential features were soon known. This vast acquisition of land was to be the basis of a revived colonial empire, which the rising Napoleon thought would increase his popularity with the glory-loving French people. Toussaint Before that scheme could be realized the island of Santo Domingo must be conquered. Here Toussaint L'Ouverture, at the head of an army of blacks, was fighting to maintain the power he had founded. Every step he took in the progress of military despotism seemed but a shadow of the course of a greater despot in France. The world took notice and smiled, whereat Napoleon, deeply irritated, felt the greater need of suppressing the man who made him ridiculous while he defied French authority. In February, 1801, Napoleon made the treaty of Lunéville and was at peace with the continent. England continued the war with little heart, and brought it to an end a year later in the treaty of Amiens. This period of victory offered the triumphant First Consul the opportunity to bring Santo Domingo back to obedience. January, 1802, arrived in Santo Domingo Leclerc, one of the best French generals, with an army of 10,000, and the war of reconquest Toussaint began. Toussaint wished to use guerilla methods, but his officers overruled him. After three months of struggle they began to yield to the blandishments of Leclerc, thinking that it booted little to suffer further in behalf of the black emperor. At last Toussaint himself ventured to surrender, being assured of personal safety. After six weeks of fancied security he was arrested, sent to France according to the orders of Napoleon, and in less than a year died in a fortress in the Jura Mountains. Then Napoleon sent an order to restore slavery, his intention from the beginning. But for that, he might have ruled the island and proceeded with his colonial plans in Louisiana. As it was, the negro laborers rose to a man. Toussaint's officers were true to Leclerc, but all the efforts of the combined French white and black forces did not check the onslaughts of the maddened laborers who saw slavery restored in the neighboring island of Guadeloupe. Then yellow fever appeared. In three months 24,000 men, soldiers and sailors, had died, and Leclerc demanded 17,000 more, with a vast sum of money, before the work of subjugation was done. He announced that this could only be done by killing over half the lower classes, male and female, above twelve years of age; and he thought that peace once restored, annual revolts might be looked for in the future. Before such a stupendous undertaking even Napoleon's resolution quailed, and it was decided to abandon the island. Louisiana Louisiana was now useless to Napoleon, and although he had assured Spain he would not sell it, he looked around for a buyer. April 10, 1803, he told Marbois, head of the treasury, to see if the United States would entertain an offer to buy. The shrewd Talleyrand, scenting an opportunity for LOUISIANA ACQUIRED 299 The Treaty Ratified. profit, anticipated Marbois, and the following day opened the matter with Livingston, our minister. The two were discussing the purchase of the Isle of Orleans when Talleyrand said, "What would you give for all Louisiana?" The suggestion was unexpected, but Livingston concealed his eagerness, and said that as he expected a special envoy from the United States in two days, he wished the matter to be deferred that long. The envoy was Monroe, whom Jefferson had sent to try to purchase the Isle of Orleans and West Florida. On the thirteenth Marbois and Livingston talked until midnight about the affair, the former inquiring if we would pay 60,000,000 francs in cash and also assume claims of Americans against France worth 20,000,000 francs. Livingston said this was too much, but he felt inwardly that it was a good bargain, and after some haggling the purchase was made on that basis. The treaty was signed on May 2, although it was antedated to April 30. It increased the national domain by 140 per cent. The transaction pleased Jefferson, but also alarmed him. A strict constructionist, he could find no authority in the constitution for purchasing foreign territory, and he began to prepare an amendment granting congress the right. He seems to have forgotten this when he proposed to buy the Isle of Orleans. An intimation from Paris that Napoleon might change his mind before an amendment could be adopted caused the president to abandon his plan, and the treaty was duly ratified October 21, 1803. December 20, to the gratification of every American in the Mississippi valley, the stars and stripes was hoisted over New Orleans. Now arose the question of boundaries. According to the treaty we received "the colony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other states." The words were from the treaty of 1800. Livingston asked Talleyrand what they meant. "I do not know," was the reply, "you must take it as we received it." "But what did you mean to take?" said Livingston, to which the astute Frenchman again said, "I do not know," adding, "You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it." At that time Talleyrand had in his cabinet a copy of the instructions designed for Victor, who was to have been the first French governor of Louisiana, informing him that the boundary on the west was the Rio Grande, and on the east the river Iberville, i.e. the eastern border of the Isle of Orleans. This was quite definite, but it was unknown to Jefferson for some time, and meanwhile he adopted a theory worthy of Talleyrand himself. Louisiana's Before 1762 Louisiana extended to the Perdido, including Mobile, which as the outlet of a river system reaching from Georgia to Mississippi was greatly desired by the United States. Jefferson saw in the son Settled It. words of the treaty, "that it had when France possessed it," an opportunity to claim this part of what he must have known was undoubtedly West Florida, i.e. Spanish territory, and, in How Jeffer- Talleyrand's words, he "made the most of it." He communicated his opinion to congress, which accepted it, and passed, February, 1804, the Mobile act, erecting the region in question into a customs district and annexing it to Mississippi territory. Lest this lead to war with Spain, Jefferson tactfully located the customs house for the new district north of the Florida line. His plan was to hold the dispute in abeyance until Spain was in a war, and then seize the desired district. The Southwest, to whom the Coosa-Alabama line of river communication was of the utmost importance, approved his plan, and thought nothing of the points of national honor involved. But Jefferson did not trust entirely to the prospect of war. He would use it, if possible, as a means of forcing Spain to withdraw, and to that end he hoped to enlist the efforts of Napoleon, whose influence in Madrid was all but supreme. The French emperor understood this game and skillfully turned it against the American president by holding out West Florida when he wished the good will of Jefferson, and by withdrawing it when his temporary purpose was accomplished. DISSENSION IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY By the beginning of 1804 Jefferson's popularity was well established. None of the calamities prophesied by the federalists had followed his election. On the contrary, the debt was being paid. Jefferson a through Gallatin's wise economy, Louisiana had been Success. acquired, party rancor was dying, business was prosperous, and the president manifested a desire to conciliate all sections and interests. It was also evident that Jefferson directed his party with a strong hand. He early recognized Burr as a disturbing element and proceeded to crush him. The character of the New Yorker would have justified this, to say nothing of his intrigue for the presidency in 1801. Burr was attacked through the New York patronage, which was sedulously given to Clinton, his bitter enemy. The His Attitude vice-president was the least submissive of men, and now toward Burr. began to lean toward the federalists, and this only increased the difference between him and his party. Finally, he fell into the net of Pickering and the extreme New England federalists. They were so bitter against Jefferson that they planned to carry their section out of the union before his insidious conciliation should warp it out of their hands. It was an erratic scheme, and probably would have been rejected by the people, but the schemers decided to make the attempt if New York, the great commercial state of the North, could be induced to join them. To that end they approached Hamil THE YAZOO CONTROVERSY 301 Burr Over ton, who rejected their proposals. Then they turned to Burr, who was complaisant. They got him accepted as federalist candidate for governor in the spring of 1804, thinking that his own friends and the federalists would elect him. But now whelmed. Hamilton exerted himself, and defeated Burr at the polls by disclosing the object for which he had been nominated. This angered the discredited man, and the result was the duel on July 11, 1804, in which Hamilton was killed and Burr's political influence blasted. Jefferson in national affairs and Clinton in state affairs reaped the fruits of that foolish crime. John Randolph. A more serious party disturbance came through the opposition of John Randolph, a vehement and caustic speaker against whom few members of congress could stand in debate. As chairman of the ways and means committee in the house he was a chief exponent of the administration policy. His lofty manner offended many republicans, particularly the men from the North, for whom he openly expressed contempt. His ideas were not always practical, and Jefferson in a quiet way began to oppose the most impossible of them. Randolph then struck back, the occasion being the Yazoo claims, whose origin goes back to Washington's administration. The Yazoo After the revolution Georgia claimed the lands to the Mississippi by a title formally as good as that by which the other states claimed their Western lands. She also held that the region involved in the secret clause of the treaty of 1782 should come to her because it was originally a part of her domain. The United States might well dispute the latter claim, but left it in abeyance, hoping that all the region would soon be transferred to the federal government. But Georgia wished to realize on the lands, and by several grants sold them to great land companies, known as Yazoo companies. The last of these grants, including the others, was made in 1795 at about a cent and a half an acre. The sale was made by a corrupt legislature, and the next legislature declared it null. Now resulted a pretty piece of confusion, in which the Yazoo lands were claimed by Georgia, the United States, since most of them were in the disputed region, and the grantees, who held that a state could not annul a grant for the corruption of its own agents. Georgia was defiant, and as President Adams did not wish to coerce a state, a compromise was arranged by which Georgia relinquished the lands to the federal government, which undertook to erect them into Missis sippi Territory, and to pay damages to Georgia and the Compromise companies. Commissions were appointed for the latter Proposed. purpose, and reported among other things that the United States should pay Georgia $1,250,000, and the grantees the proceeds of the sale of 5,000,000 acres of land. In 1803 a bill was before congress to put this compromise into effect. |