Union and Democracy

a lull in the tempest of war which was to rage fifteen years longer; but no man could have cast the horoscope of Europ

they would be under the immediate eye of the department, and would require but one set of plunderers to take care of them." Peace was his passion, he frankly avowed. He would have been gl

by paying tribute to these rapacious pirates; and the United States had followed the custom. The Pasha of Tripoli, however, was dissatisfied with the American tribute, a paltry eighty-three thousand dollars, and demanded more. The other Barbary powers threatened to make common cause with him. Anticipating

one half per cent was laid on all imports which paid an ad valorem duty, and the proceeds were kept as a separate treasury account. The Administration was sensitive to the charge that it was guilty of the very crime which it had accused the Federalists of committing-"taxing the industry of

ephen Decatur's destruction of the captured frigate Philadelphia, under the guns of the forts in the harbor of Tripoli; and the tragic death of Lieutenant Richard Somers and the crew of the Intrepid, as they

n expedition against their common enemy. With a motley army they marched across the desert from Egypt and fell upon the outlying domains of the Pasha. That astute monarch then yielded to persuasion. On June 3, 1805, with many protestations that he was being subjected to humiliating te

is a policy very unwise in both, and very ominous to us." What Jefferson apprehended was, indeed, an accomplished fact. On October 1, 1800, the day after Joseph Napoleon, in the name of his brother, set his hand to the Treaty of Morfontaine, which restore

t province was New Orleans, and the avenue of approach lay by way of Santo Domingo, once an important French colony, but now under the rule of Toussaint L'Ouverture. Before Talleyrand's dream of a revived colonial empire in the heart of the North American continent could be realized, this "gilded African" must be removed and Santo

rsed all the political relations of the United States. Hitherto, from the Republican point of view, France had been our natural friend. Henceforth, as the possessor of New Orleans, through which three eighths of the produce of the West passed to market, she became a natural and habitual enemy. "France placing herself in that door," wrote Jefferson to Livingston, "assumes to us the attitude of defiance. The impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of

ing Louisiana, might she not make concessions for the sake of retaining the friendship of the United States? Livingston was to sound the French Government to ascertain whether it would entertain the idea

s that of the Spanish intendant, but every one believed that it had been incited by France. The people of the Western waters, particularly in Tennessee and Kentucky, were outraged and demanded instant war against the aggressor. Even in Congress a war

ress "to defray any expenses in relation to the intercourse between the United States and foreign nations"; and James Monroe was appointed Minister Extraordinary to France an

oes; a second army had been decimated by yellow fever; and finally Leclerc himself had succumbed to the dread destroyer, leaving the remnants of the French troops to their fate. Without the most extraordinary exertions, Santo Domingo was lost; and what was Louisiana witho

what he would give for the whole of Louisiana. For the moment Livingston was nonplussed, and declined to make any offer. Talleyrand repeated his question and Livingston replied that twenty millions of francs would be a

ion francs with claims amounting to twenty millions more. For a fortnight the two envoys, at the risk of losing everything, sought to secure better terms. But the First Consul would not abate his demands. On May 2, 1803, Livingston and Monroe set their signatures to a treaty by which Napoleon agreed to sell a province of which he was not in possession and which he had contracted never t

limits they did not know, at a price which exceeded their allowance by $5,000,000. Besides, it was not at first believed that West Florida was included in this purchase. Livingston was keenly disappointed, until on narrower examination he found, in the words of the treaty, evidence which satisfied him that France-to quote Mr. Henry Adams-"had actually bought West Florida without knowing it and had sold it to

e Eastern States looked askance at this as at every act of the Administration of Thomas Jefferson, without knowing anything about this vast domain beyond the Mississippi. The President himself was not much better informed about Louisiana. In a report to Congress he undertook to put together such information as he could cull from books of travel and pick up by hearsay. His credulity led him into some amazing statements. A thousand miles

to undertake one of the most important explorations in American annals. With a body of picked men, Lewis and Clark made their way to the upper waters of the Missouri, and passed the winter of 1804-05 among the Mandans. In the following spring and summer they crossed the Rocky Mountains to the waters of the Columbia. Here they spent a second

ississippi almost to its source; on the second, begun soon after his return to St. Louis in 1806, he followed the course of the Arkansas to the peak which bears his name. His attempt to explore the head

ance immediately: and it secures to us the course of a peaceable nation." At the same time he was equally quick to see that the acquisition would give "a handle to the malcontents." To his intimates he avowed with the utmost frankness that the Administration had exceeded its constitutional powers. The Constitution, he conceived, did not conte

t fairly be inferred from the Constitution, and advised the President not to run the risk of turning the Senate against the treaty by raising constitutional scruples. In much distress of spirit Jefferson replied that to assume by free construction the power to acquire territory was to make blank paper of the Constitution. If the treaty-making power could be stretched

ond the immediate issue and discerned the inevitable economic as well as political consequences of westward expansion. The men who would have naturally populated the vacant lands of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont would inevitably seek this "new paradise of Louisiana," observed a New England pamphleteer. Jeffersonian Democracy rather than Federalism would become the creed of these transplanted New Englanders, if Ohio were a fa

providing that "the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union," the Administration had exceeded its constitutional authority. The consent of all the States was necessary to admit into the Union. Senator Pickering, of Massachusetts, held the same view. "I believe the assent of each individual State to be necessary," said he, "for the admissi

rses lay open, either to make Louisiana a part of the "territory" which the Constitution gives Congress power to "dispose of," or to hold the province as a dependency apart from other organized Territories. The provisional act which Congress adopted pointed in this latter direction, since it authorized the President to take possession of the province and concentrated all powers, civil and military, in the hands of agents to be appointed by

e treaty, in the old Cabildo at New Orleans, Laussat received from the Spanish governor the keys of the city and took possession of the province in the name of his master. For twenty days the Tricolor floated ove

ana were guaranteed all "the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States." Was not representative government one of these privileges? The obvious answer was the unpreparedness of the Spanish inhabitants for Anglo-American institutions. To the Western American who floated down the Mississippi, past the cotton-fields and sugar plantations cultivated by African negroes, and who landed his cargo on the levee at New Orleans, among the motley throngs, province and city seemed like a

rded by three commissioners with all possible dispatch to Washington. In the following year (1805), Congress so far yielded to

onfirmation of this shadowy title. That Spain did not intend to cede West Florida and that France had no expectation of receiving it seems clear enough from the instructions to Laussat. What he handed over to the American representative was Louisiana, w

d Livingston rather naively. "I do not know," replied Talleyrand; "you must take it as we received it." "But what did you mean to take?" Livingston insisted. "I do not know," was the reply. "Then yo

GRAPHI

issippi(1904), and J. K. Hosmer, The Louisiana Purchase (1902), contain brief accounts of the acquisition of the province. The actual route of the Lewis and Clark expedition may be traced with the aid of O. D. Wheeler, The Trail of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1904 (1904). The constitutional aspects of the Louisiana Treaty and the subsequent