Jefferson and his Colleagues

y had been his persistent desire to acquire possession of the Spanish Floridas. This dominant desire, amounting almost to a passion, had mastered even his better judgment and had cre

suppose the conquest of Spain will soon force a delicate question on you as to the Floridas and Cuba, which will offer themselves to

he history of the Spanish colonies in America. One by one they rose in revolt and established revolutionary juntas either in the name of their deposed King or in professed cooperation wit

s from the north discharged their turgid waters. Along these bays and rivers were scattered the inhabitants, numbering less than one hundred thousand, of whom a considerable portion had come from the States. There, as always on the frontier, land had been a lodestone attracting both the speculator and th

son, with indifferent success. President Madison found more trustworthy agents in Governor Claiborne of New Orleans and Governor Holmes of Mississippi, whose letters reveal the extent to which Madison was willing to meddle with destiny. "Nature had decreed the union of Florida with the United States," Claiborne affirmed; but he was not so sure that natu

he people of the abuses under which they were suffering, but all should be done in the name of the King. The Commandant, De Lassus, was not without his suspicions of these patriotic gentlemen but he allowed himself to be swept along in the current. The several movements finally coalesced on the 25th of July in a convention near Baton Rouge, which declared itself "legally constituted to act in all cases of national concern... with the consent of the governor" and professed a desire "to

the independence of West Florida, "appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the World" for the rectitude of their intentions. What their intentions were is clear enough. Before the ink was dry on their declaration of independence, they wrote to the Administration at Washington, asking for the immediate incorporation of West Florida into the Union. Here was the blessed consummation of years of diplomacy near at hand. President Madison had only to reach out his hand and pluck the ripe fruit; yet he hesitated from constitutional scruple

hitherto suffered Spain to continue in possession, looking forward to a satisfactory adjustment by friendly negotiation. A crisis had arrived, however, which had subverted Spanish authority; and the failure of the United States to take the territory would threaten the interests of all parties and seriously disturb the tranquillity of the adjoining territories. In the hands of the United States, West Florida would "not cease to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiatio

ho had resigned his office. This eloquent young lawyer, now in his thirty-third year, had been born and bred in the Old Dominion-a typical instance of the American boy who had nothing but his own head and hands wherewith to make his way in the world. He had a slender schooling, a much-abbreviated law educa

his mind the occupation of West Florida, irrespective of any title. With Cuba and Florida in the possession of a foreign maritime power, the immense extent of country watered by streams entering the Gulf would be placed at the mercy of that power

stisement which English pride will not fail to inflict. Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land-whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation. It contributed to the repeal of the embargo-that dishonorable repeal, which has so much tarnished the character of our government. Mr. President, I have before said

of seeing, ere long, the NEW United States (if you will allow me the expression) embracing, not only the old thirteen States,

ite of himself in the direction of Clay's vision. If West Florida in the hands of an unfriendly power was a menace to the southern frontier, East Florida from the Perdido to the ocean was not less so. By the 3d of January, 1811, he was prepared to recommend

r faces were missing. Its first and most significant act, betraying a new spirit, was the choice as Speaker of Henry Clay, who had exchanged his seat in the Senate for the more stirring arena of the House. In all the history of the House there is only one other instance of the choice of a

mittees those who shared his impatience with commercial restrictions as a means of coercing Great Britain. On the Committee on Foreign Relations-second to none in importance at this moment-he placed Peter B. Porter of New York, young John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and Felix Grundy of Tennessee; the chairmanship of the Committee on Naval Affairs he gave to Langdon Cheves of South Carolina; and the chairmanship of the Committee on Military A

ted States into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis; and corresponding with the national spirit and expectations." It was this part of the message which the Committee on Foreign Relations took for the text of its report. The time had arrived, in the opinion of the committee, when forbearance ceased to be a virtue and when Congress must as a sacred duty "call forth the patriotism

oundly interested in the northern frontier, doubted not that Great Britain could be despoiled of her extensive provinces along the borders to the North. Grundy, speaking for the Southwest, contemplated with satisfaction the time when the British would be driven from the continent. "I feel anxious," he concluded, "not only to add the Floridas to the South, but the Canadas to the North of this Empire." Othe

only two measures of military importance, one of which provided for the addition to the army of twenty-five thousand men enlisted for five years, and the other for the calling into service of fifty thousand state militia. The proposal of the naval committee to

at he and his advisers believed war inevitable. The nation was divided in sentiment, the Federalists insisting with some plausibility that France was as great an offender as Great Britain and pointing to the recent captures of American merchantmen by French cruisers as evidence that the decrees had not been repealed. Eve

and property. And this sense of wrongs is the more acute in proportion to the racial propinquity of the offender. The most bitter of all feuds are those between peoples of the same blood. It was just because the mother country from which Americans had won their independence was now denying the fruits of that independence that she became the object of attack. In two part

he suspicion was justified. The key to the early history of the northwestern frontier is the fur trade. It was for this lucrative traffic that England retained so long the western posts which she had agreed to surrender by the Peace of Paris. Out of the region between the Illinois, the Wabash, the Ohio, and Lake Erie, pelts had been shipped year after year to the value annually of some 100,000 pounds, in return for the products of British looms and forges. It was the constant aim of the British trader in the Northwest to secure "the exclusive advantages of a valuable trade during Peace

fur traders of Can

d Colonies (1814),

orth West Company,"

of Western history.

of 1811," in the

port" (1911) by

y which was believed to embrace not merely the tribes of the Northwest but also the Creeks and Seminoles of the Gulf region. Persistent rumors strengthened long-nourished suspicions and connected this Indian unrest with the British agent

ts drifted into Washington, it colored perceptibly the minds of those who doubted whether Great Britain or France were the greater offender. Grundy, who had seen three brothers killed by Indians and his mother reduced from opulence to poverty in a single night, spoke passionately of that po

embargo for ninety days had been declared on the 4th of April, he told the British Minister that it was not, could not be considered, a war measure. He still waited for Congress to shoulder the responsibility of declaring war. Why did he hesitate? Was he aware of the woeful s

resident to tell him, that if he wished a renomination, he must agree to recommend a declaration of war. The story has never been corroborated; and the dramatic interview probably never occurred; yet the President knew, as every one knew, that his renomination was possible only with the support of the war party. When he accepted the nomination from the Republican caucus on the

remarks were prefatory to a motion. The Speaker ruled that he must first make a motion. "My proposition is," responded Randolph sullenly, "that it is not expedient at this time to resort to a war against Great Britain." "Is the motion seconded?" asked the Speaker. Randolph protested that a second was not needed and appealed from the decision of the chair. Then, when the House sus

state papers as almost to lose its power to provoke popular resentment. It was significant, however, that the President put in the forefront of his catalogue of wrongs the impressment of American sailors on the high seas. No indignity touched national pride so keenly and none so clearly differentiated Great Britain from France as the national enemy. Almost equally provocative was the harassing of incoming and outg

ke outrage. Four long years had been spent in testing the efficacy of commercial restrictions, and the country was if anything less prepared for the alternative. When Presi

concluded, "is radically a contest for their sovereignty and independency." There was now no other alternative than an immediate appeal to arms. On the same day Calhoun introduced a bill declaring war against Great Britain; and on the 4th of June in secret session the war p

dvised him in April to send a minister to England, he might have been apprized of that gradual change in public opinion which was slowly undermining the authority of Spencer Perceval's ministry and commercial system. He had only to wait a little longer to score the greate