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IV.— FHE WORLD ASPECTS iW THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE 
 
 By WILLIAM M. SLOANE, 
 Professor, Columbia Universiti/, ycir york. 
 
 85 
 
FEB 16 1905 
 D. afB, 
 
THE WORLD ASPECTS OF THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 
 
 By William M. Sloane. 
 
 Argument by title is a very attractive form of fallacy. We 
 therefore freely confess that it is rather a thesis we have to 
 establish than a theme to unfold when we speak of the Louisi- 
 ana purchase as a decisive epoch of general history and of 
 American history in particular. Moreover, there is a sense 
 in which every moment throughout the comparatively short 
 duration of recorded history is a decisive one; in the pursuit 
 of that idea the verge between soiuid, solemn truth, and fanci- 
 ful fiction is but a razor edge. 
 
 Yet by common consent some men and some events are 
 epochal. Carefully scrutinized, such men and such events are 
 known by very definite qualities. There are times when the 
 great central current has few lagoons, no backwater, and 
 never an eddy. The whole substance of history is thrown 
 into a single channel, affording a nota})le example of the unity 
 of history and compelling its study by transverse sections 
 rather than b}' longitudinal fibers. The man of such a period 
 is fairly certain to be preeminenth^ busy, so diligent, so com- 
 prehensive, so perspicacious as to be for the duration of his 
 activity and abilit}" an indispensable person, the man of his 
 age. He is literally and etymologically a governor, for he 
 steers the bark of state alike on the convexity of the swift 
 and swollen tide, and in the hollowing current of a falling 
 flood. 
 
 Such a decisive epoch was that of the eig-hteenth-century 
 revolutions, a crisis reached after long, slow preparation, pre- 
 cipitated by social and religious bigotry, dizzy in its consum- 
 mation, wild and headlong in its fiight, precipitous in its crash. 
 Of this important time the results have been so permanent 
 that they are the commonplaces of contemporary history; in 
 
 87 
 
88 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 what Carlyle called the revolutionary loom the warp and woof 
 were spun from the past, and the fabric is that from which 
 our working clothes are cut. Moreover, within those years 
 appeared the great dominating soul of modern humanity, who 
 displayed first and last every weakness and every sordid mean- 
 ness of mankind, but in such giant dimensions that even his 
 depravity inspires awe. His virtues were equally porten- 
 tious because they worked on the grand scale, with materials 
 that had been thrashed and winnowed in the theory and 
 experience of five generations of mankind. It was well within 
 this stupendous age and by the act of this representative man 
 that Louisiana was redeemed from Spanish misrule and incor- 
 porated with;the Territories of the United States. Nor was 
 this all. A careful examination of the general political situa- 
 tion just a hundred years ago will exhibit the elemental and 
 almost ultimate fact that the sale of Louisiana was coincident 
 with the turn of the age. It is to this exhi])it and to some 
 reflections on its meaning that we address ourselves. 
 
 The substance of the treaty of Amiens was that Great 
 Britain ostensibly abandoned all concern with the continent 
 of Europe, and that France, ostensibly too, should strictl}' mind 
 her own affairs in her colonies and the remoter quarters of the 
 globe. George III removed from his escutcheon the fleur- 
 de-lis, and from his ceremonial title the style of King of 
 France. The whole negotiation was on both sides purel}^ 
 diplomatic, an exchange of public and hollow courtesies, to 
 gain time for the realities of a struggle for supremacy between 
 the world powers of the period, a struggle begun with modern 
 history, renewed in 1688, and destined to last until the 
 exhaustion of one of the contestants in 1815. Neither party 
 to the treaty had the slightest intention of observing either 
 its spirit or its letter. While the paper was in process of 
 negotiation Bonaparte was consolidating Fretich Empire on 
 the Continent, and after its signature he did not pause for a 
 single instant to show even a formal respect for his obliga- 
 tions. The reorganization of Holland in preparation for its 
 incorporation into the French system, the annexation of 
 Piedmont, and defiance to Russia in the matter of her Italian 
 proteges, the act of moderation in Switzerland, and, tinally, 
 the contemptuous rearrangement of ( MM-many, were successive 
 steps which reduced England to despair for her continental 
 
WORLD ASPP^CTS OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 89 
 
 trade. To her it seemed as if there could be no question 
 about two things: First, that the old order must be restored, 
 in order to safeguard her commercial safety; and second, that 
 her colonial policy must l)e more aggressive than ever. 
 
 A favorite charge of Napoleon's detractors is that he left 
 France without a colonial empire. This was due to no absence 
 of eithei- aspirations or etiorts. His earliest passion, his 
 mature intention, his latest yearnings were for a French 
 colonial empire. This was true, because there was not one 
 item of the great political creed formulated by Richelieu to 
 which he did not consider himself the heir; oriental aspira- 
 tions, western ventures and explorations, the dominance of 
 France in the tropic seas, around the glol)e, were articles of 
 that creed. It had been therefore no slight blow to his per- 
 sonal ambition when he failed in Egypt. Turkey was still 
 safe under the protection of Great Britain, and the highway 
 to India was still in Bi'itish hands. Almost without a mo- 
 ment's hesitancy, he turned his forces westward and formed 
 the majestic design of a second New France around the Carib- 
 bean, the Gulf of Mexico, and eventually with a might}^ wing 
 toward South America. This adjunct became the chief corner 
 stone of the policy when, after its initial failure, he had a 
 chance to renew it in 1808 by Sassenay's mission to Argentina. 
 
 Simultaneously he had come to terms wdth Paul of Russia, 
 and with him he negotiated a grandiose treaty providing for 
 a great land expedition against Hindustan. Each power was 
 to furnish 85,000 men and a corps of scholars; the march was 
 to ])e a colonization of the wilderness, and the wealth of the 
 East Indies was to be the reward. Paul died by violence just 
 as his army was crossing the Volga on the ice in March, 1801, 
 and Alexander, his more or less blood-guilty but philosophic 
 heir, put a stop to further procedure. A curious chapter of 
 England's resistance to the French Revolution is that for 
 which Lord Welleslc}" furnished the subject-matter in his 
 campaign against Tippoo Sahil), then in alliance with a mighty 
 band of French adventurers, who, though royalists, were 
 willing to stand and tight for French supremac}^ in India. 
 To this long and gallant struggle the treatj^ of Amiens was an 
 extinguisher, for it restored the five French cities to Bonaparte. 
 Decaen, the noted and boasting Aiiglophobe, nad demanded a 
 mission to India on the verv morrow of Hohenlindeu; less 
 
90 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASROCI ATION. 
 
 tliiui a month after the si^Miaturcs wore aHixed at Ainiens he 
 was dispatched to occiip}' the Freneli towns of Poiidicherrv. 
 now to be restorinh But with an expedition of l,(i(»() men he 
 iiad the monstrous dispr<)])ortion of seven <>en(>rals and a cor- 
 responding;' mass of minor otKeers. Clearly he was to reor- 
 ganize the whole French force of India. Wellesley refused 
 to execute the treaty, and Decaen was forced Imck on the 
 French settlements of Reunion as a ))ase from which to await 
 developments. Hindu troops were drilled, reorganized, and 
 t'oiuid thoroughly ti-ust worthy ; a detachment of them had (n^en 
 been sent to Egypt, where they had some slight share in the 
 retention. of British control. Jt was Bonaparte's role to pre- 
 sent a dauntless front to his foes, whatever his inner discour- 
 agement and hesitancy. Accordingly he dispatched the 
 notorious Sebastiani as a so-called commercial agent to examine 
 the situation in the Levant. The result was a report giving 
 an exact account of all the P^nglisli and Turkish forces beyond 
 the Adriatic, and drawing the highly pertinent conclusion 
 that 6,000 French soldiers could reconquer Egypt. When 
 this stinging insult was pul)lished by the First Consul in the 
 Moniteur, the British world was worried into open defiance. 
 
 From this rapid survey there emerge the important facts 
 essential to our discussion. It was surely a turning point in 
 the history of the civilized world, so far as Asia was con- 
 cerned, when Bonaparte's oriental designs were permanently 
 thwarted; when Russia was forced into an eastward expansion 
 north of the great central mountain ridge of Asia to become 
 a hyperborean power; when England detiantly claimed for the 
 tirst time all Hindustan as her own. It wrote " tinis '' to the 
 chapter of France's glory in India, and, indeed, to the story of 
 her Asiatic aspirations; her far-eastern colonies seized under 
 the present Republic are comparatively insigniticant; factories, 
 which she holds on the sufferance of the European concert, 
 and for which she w^ould not defy the world a single moment, 
 as she would defy it to the spilling of her heart's blood should 
 her present African empire l)e menaced. 
 
 Again, the situation was a turning point of the first impor- 
 tance in Africa. In consequence of the desire of ])oth con- 
 tracting parties to catch their breath, Egypt ^\as restored to 
 Turkey, and tfie Cape Colon}^ was to be a free port — a no- 
 man's-land; Ahilta, which is an African isle, was to be returned 
 
WORLD ASPECTS OF LOrilSIANA PlTRCHASE. 91 
 
 to the Knight's of St. John. The theoiy was that not one 
 Christian power, continental or insular, was to hold a coign 
 of vantage as regards the dark continent. Russia, to l)e sure, 
 was ealous for Malta; England and France, for Egypt and 
 the Cape; they might remain so, but that was all. Of course 
 we are familiar with the late partitions of Africa among the 
 powers, the coast and hinterland arrangements which bid fail' 
 to become permanent occupations. Had it not been for the 
 compulsor}' suspension of Bonaparte's oriental plans, the 
 retention ])y England both of India and of the Indian highway 
 through the Mediterranean, and the confirmation of this situ- 
 ation by the evolution of affairs across the Atlantic, which 
 culminated in the sale of Louisiana to us, the fate of Africa, 
 humanl}' speaking, would, like that of Asia, have been far 
 different in every sing'le respect. 
 
 What was written for Europe in the book of fate was soon 
 revealed. No one could prate more serenely about destiny 
 than General Bonaparte, nor scrutinize more quizzically the 
 sibjdline leaves. But like the augurs of old, he could scarcel}^ 
 retain his mirth when he announced the oracle, nor keep his 
 body from shaking with laughter while the feigned fury of 
 passion was distorting the features of his face in frenzied 
 anger. The treaty of Amiens was negotiated subject to guar- 
 anties from the other powers, and Addington well knew that 
 Russia was going to fish in the troubled waters of neutrality 
 for the leviathan of her disappearing prosperity. So the 
 English refused to evacuate Malta. The Whitworth scene is 
 one of Napoleon Bonaparte's finest dramatic roles, and the 
 delivery of his line, "I would rather see England in the 
 Faubourg St. Antoine than in Malta," a climax of theatrical 
 statesmanship. It is by no means sure that he might not have 
 seen the British sail away both from Alexandria and Valetta; 
 that he might not have received in delivery the cities of 
 Pondicherry; that he might not have confirmed his American 
 empire, had he been willing to grant Great Britain a com- 
 mercial treat}^ that would have turned her stores of manufac- 
 tured goods into hard cash, have relieved the awful financial 
 strain under which she was tortured, and have given her the 
 full advantage of her long precedence in the industrial revolu- 
 tion. But no. By the treaty of Morfontaine, September 30, 
 1800, with the United States, he arranged to strip us of all 
 
92 AMERTOAN HISTORTOAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mississippi tnidc :ukI tiius tardily execute the policy of our 
 isolation on this continent, which Vergennes had vainly sought 
 to embody in the pul^lic law of Europe. Soon he began to 
 close the ports of France and her allies more firmly than ever 
 to British goods, hoping under the protective system to give 
 France a chance in the race for industrial supremacy. The 
 English were aghast, and in their grim determination to renew 
 what they felt was a struggle for life and death they broke off 
 diplomatic relations, and war began. This outcome was 
 inevitable, but it was too soon for Bonaparte. His versatility 
 was sorely strained to settle finally on his policy. 
 
 It was Samuel Adams who first sneered at his fatherland as 
 a people of shopkeepers. The winged word soon became a 
 commonplace to all outsiders, but as it flew every nation that 
 used the gibe girded itself to enter the struggle for the same 
 goal. France above all was determined to l)e a nation of 
 shopkeepers, and the First Consul of what was still a shaky 
 expei-iment in' govermuent knew well that rather than aban- 
 don that ambition lie must sacrifice every other. After all, a 
 colonial empire has value only as the home nation has acces- 
 sible ports, manufactories for colonial products, and wares to 
 exchange with the producers. France had neither factories 
 nor manufactures, and was destitute of nearly the whole 
 machinery of exchange. Her merchant vessels sailed only 
 by grace of the British fleet. Her home market was depend- 
 ent on British traders, even in times of war. Bonaparte's 
 foremost thought, therefore, was for concentration of energy. 
 The sea power of the world was Britain's, and her tyranny of 
 the seas without a real check; even the United States could 
 only spit out defiant and revengeful threats when her mer- 
 chantmen were treated with contempt on the high seas by 
 British men-of-war. Therefore with swift and comprehensive 
 grasp he framed and announced a new policy. The French 
 envoy in London was informed that France was now forced 
 to the conquest of pAirope — this of course for the stimulating 
 of French industries— and to the restoration of her occidental 
 empire. This was most adroit. The embers of French patri- 
 otism could be fanned into a white heat l)y these well worn 
 but never exhausted expedients — a blast against perfidious 
 Albion and a sentimental passion for the New France beyond 
 the Atlantic. The motions were a feint against England bv 
 
WORLD ASPECTS OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE 93 
 
 the formation of a second camp at Boulogne, where a force 
 really destined for Austria was assembled, and the wresting 
 of Louisiana from the weak Spanish hands which held it. As 
 an incident of the agitation it seemed best that the French 
 democracy should have an imperial rather than a republican 
 title, and the stjde of emperor and empire was exhumed from 
 the garbage heap of the Terror for use in the pageantry of a 
 court. 
 
 In Europe thus, as in the neighboring continents, the rear- 
 rangement of politics, territorial boundaries, social, economic, 
 and diplomatic relations, a change which has made possible 
 the modern S3^stem, was really dependent on the events which 
 led to the adoption of the policy just described. But this 
 policy involved a reversal of every sound historical principle 
 in Bonaparte's plans. For twelve years longer he was to 
 commit blunder upon blunder; to trample on national pride; 
 to elevate a false system of political economy into a fetish; to 
 conduct, as in the Moscow campaign, great migrations to the 
 eastward in defiance of nature's laws; to launch his plain, not 
 to say vulgar and weak, family on an enterprise of monar- 
 chical alliances for which they had no capacity; to undo, in 
 short, as far as in him lay, every beneficent and well con- 
 ceived piece of statesmanship with which he had so far been 
 concerned. It has been well said that had he died in mid- 
 summer, 1802, his glory would have been immaculate and 
 there would have been no spots on his sun. The Napoleonic 
 work in Europe was destined to have its far-reaching and 
 permanent results, but the man was ere long almost entirely 
 eliminated from control over them. The very last of his 
 great constructions was the sale of Louisiana. He needed the 
 purchase money, he selected his purchaser and forced it on 
 him, with a view to upbuilding a giant rival to the gigantic 
 power of Great Britain. 
 
 When we turn, therefore, to America we shall at once 
 observe on how slender a thread a great event may depend; 
 how great a fire may be kindled by a spark adroitly placed. 
 While yet other matters were hanging in the balance he 
 selected his own brother-in-law. General Leclerc, such was 
 his deep concern, to conduct an expedition to the West Indies. 
 There were embarked 35,000 men, and these the very flower 
 of the republican armies, superb fighters, but a possible thorn 
 
94 AMEKICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 in the side of a budding enii)er<)r at iionie. Their goal was 
 San Domingo, where a woiidertul negro, Toussaint L'Ouver- 
 ture, noting the attractive example of the benevolent despots 
 in pAirope, had, under republican forms, not only al)olished 
 slaver}^, but had made himself a l)enelicent dictator. The 
 fine but delicate structure of his negro state was easil}" crushed 
 to the earth, but the fighting was fierce and pi'olonged, the 
 climate and the pest were enal)led to inaugurate and complete 
 a work of slaughter more ])aleful than that of war, and two- 
 thirds of the French invaders, including the commander and 
 15 of his generals, fell victims to the yellow fever. The 
 French were utterly routed, the sorr}- remnants sailed away, 
 and the blacks fell into the hands of the worthless tyrant 
 Dessalines, whose misrule killed the germs of order planted 
 by Toussaint. One of our historians thinks this check of 
 France by ])lack soldiers to have been a determinative factor 
 in American history, for thereafter there could be no question 
 of a GuU and Caribbean empire for France. Louisiana, he 
 indicates, ))ecame at once a superfluous dependency, costly 
 and annoying. This is a far-fetched contention: Great as 
 have been the services of the negro to the United States since 
 he first fought on the ])attlefield of Monmouth under Wash- 
 ington, the failure of France in San Domingo was not through 
 the sword of the blacks, but was an act of God through 
 pestilence. 
 
 The circumstances that forced Louisiana upon the United 
 States, then a petty power with revenues and expenditures 
 far smaller than those of the Philppine Islands at this moment, 
 arose from Napoleon's European necessities. The cession 
 from Spain included all that Spain had received from France, 
 the whole Gulf coast from St. Marys to the Rio Grande, and 
 the French pretensions not only northwestward to the liockies 
 but to the Pacific. The return made to Spain was the insig- 
 nificant kingdom of Etruria and a solemn pledge that, should 
 the First Consul fail in his promise, Louisiana in its fullest 
 extent was to be restored to Spain. France therefore might 
 not otherwise alienate it to au}^ power whatever. The exact- 
 ing and suspicious spirit shown both 1)V Charles IV and his 
 contemptible minister (iodoy. Prince^ of the Peace, had exas- 
 perated Bona])arto l)(\vond endurance. The Spanish Bourlions 
 were doomed b}' him to the fate of their kinsfolk in France; 
 
WORLD ASPECTS OF LOUISIANA rUKCHASE. 95 
 
 a pledge to a vanishing phantom of ro^^alty was of .small 
 account. It was during the delay created by the punctilio of 
 Godoy that the failure of the San Domingo expedition extin- 
 guished all hope of making Louisiana the sole entrepot and 
 staple of supplies for the West Indies. And simultaneous!}- 
 it grew evident that the truce negotiated at Amiens as a treat}^ 
 could not last much longer; that either France must endure 
 the humiliation of seeing her profits therefrom utterly with- 
 held, or herself declare war, or goad Great Britain into a 
 renewal of hostilities. This last, as is well known, was the 
 alternative chosen b}^ Napoleon. 
 
 Our Government had been in despair. The esta))li.shment 
 of French empire in the West Indies would have destroyed 
 our lucrative trade with the islands. It was trying enough 
 that a feeble power like Spain should connnand the outlet of 
 the Mississippi basin, but intolerable that such mastery of the 
 continent shoidd fall into the hands of a strong and magisterial 
 power like France. We were in dismay, even after the de- 
 parture of the French from San Domingo. Bonaparte, how- 
 ever, was scarcely less disturbed, for Jefferson, despite his 
 avowed Gallicism, spirited!}^ declared both to the First Consul 
 and to Livingston, our minister to Paris, that the occupation 
 of Louisiana by the great French force organized to that end 
 could only result in an alliance of the two English-speaking 
 nations which would utterly banish the French flag from the 
 high seas. Bonaparte preserved an outward calm for those 
 about him and went his way apparently unperturl)ed. But 
 inwardly his mind seethed and without long delay he took his 
 choice between the courses open to him. It was the first 
 exhibition to himself and his famil}^ of the imperial despot 
 soon to be known as Napoleon I, Emperor of the French. If 
 Britain was the tyrant of the seas, he would be despot of the 
 land. To French empire he would reduce German} , Italy, 
 and Spain in subjection, and with all the maritime resources 
 of the continent at his back he would first shut every impor- 
 tant port to English commerce, and then with allied and de- 
 pendent fleets at his disposal, try conclusions with the British 
 behemoth for liberty of the seas and a new colonial empire. 
 By the second camp at Boulogne and the occupation of IIan-= 
 over Napoleon threw England into jxmic, while sinndtaneously 
 he began the creation of his grand imperial army and thereby 
 
96 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 menaced Austria, the greatest German power, in her coalition 
 with Russia, Sweden, Naples, and Great Britain. The latter, 
 he was well aware, could face a hostile demonstration on her 
 front with courage-if not with equanimity, and he determined 
 to add a double stroke — to gain a harvest of gold and on her 
 rear to strengthen her exasperated trans-Atlantic sea ri\'al by 
 selling Louisiana to the l-nited States. 
 
 That determination was the turning point in his career, just 
 as the sudden wheel and about face of the splendid force at 
 Boulogne, when he hurled it across Europe at Vienna, dis- 
 played at last the turning point in his policy. His l)rother 
 Lucien had been an influential negotiator with Spain and 
 plumed himself on the acquisition of the great domain which 
 had been for long the brightest jewel in the crown of France. 
 His brother Joseph had negotiated the ti'eaty of Amiens as a 
 step preparatory to regaining a magnihcent colonial empire 
 for his country, an empire of which an old and splendid 
 French possession was to be the corner stone. Both were 
 stunned and then exasperated when they learned their brother's 
 resolution, sensations which were intensified to fury when 
 they heard him announce that he would work his will in spite 
 of all constitutional checks and balances. There is no historic 
 scene more grotesque than that depicted by Lucien in his 
 memoirs when he and Joseph imdertook to oppose Napoleon. 
 The latter was luxuriating in his morning ))ath, on April T, 
 1803, in the Tuileries, when the brothers were admitted. 
 After a long and intimate talk on general politics the fateful 
 subject w^as linall}' broached by Napoleon, as he turned from 
 side to side and wallowed in the perfumed water. Neither of 
 the brothers could control his feelings, and the controversy 
 grew hot and furious from minute to minute until Joseph, 
 leaning over the tub, roared threats of opposition and words 
 of denunciation. Brother Napoleon, lifting himself half way 
 to the top, suddenly fell back and clinched his arguments b}' 
 splashing a full flood in the face and over the body of Joseph, 
 drenching him to the skin. A valet was summoned. He 
 entered, and paralyzed by the fury of the scene, fell in a dead 
 faint. New aid was called, and the fires of passion l)eing slaked 
 for the time, the conflict ended until Napoleon and Joseph were 
 decentl}^ clothed, when it was renewed in the oflBce of the 
 secretary Bourrienne. Ere long hot words were again spoken, 
 violent language Avas succeeded by violent gestures, until at. 
 
WOELD ASPECTS OF LOUISIAIN A PURCHASE. 97 
 
 last Napoleon in a theatrical rag-e dashed his snufl'l)ox on the 
 floor and the contestants separated. Disjointed and fierce as, 
 was the stormy argument, it revealed the whole of the impe- 
 rial polic}" as we have stated it. 
 
 Meanwhile events in America, if not so picturesque and 
 majestic, were equall}^ tempestuous. The peace policy of 
 Jefl'erson was rapidly going to pieces in the face of a west- 
 ward menace, the Federalists were jubilant, and in the Senate 
 James Ross, of Pennsylvania, called for war. When the 
 intendant of Spain at New Orleans denied Americans the 
 storage rights they had enjoyed in that city since 1795, 
 the French politics of the President fell into general disrepute 
 and contempt, for men reasoned a fortiori, if such things be 
 done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dr}'? It 
 mattered not that Spain's highest official, the governor, dis- 
 avowed the act, the fire was in the stubble. The intendant 
 was stubborn and the fighting temper waxed hot. Both the 
 governor and the Spanish envo}' at Washington disavowed 
 the act again and rebuked the subordinate. Congress was 
 soothed, but not so the people of the West and South. They 
 were fully aware, as have been all our frontiersmen and 
 pioneers from the beginning, that the Mississippi and all the 
 lands it waters are the organic structure of unity and success- 
 ful settlement on this continent. The Pacific and Atlantic 
 coast strips, even the great but bleak valley of the St. Law- 
 rence, are incidents of territorial unity and political control 
 compared with the great alluvion of the Mississippi. This 
 was unknown, utterly unknown, and, worse yet, entirely 
 indifferent to our statesmen. Madison certainly, and possibly 
 Jefferson, believed that western immigration would pause and 
 end on the east bank of the Father of Waters. 
 
 Yet party government was a necessity under our s^^stem, 
 and Jefferson's ladder, the Republican party, would be knocked 
 into its component parts should the West and South, noisy, 
 exacting, and turbulent, desert and go over to the expiring 
 faction of the Federalists; nay, worse, it might be forced into 
 almost complete negation of its own existence by a forced 
 adoption of the Federalist policy, alliance with Great Britain — 
 monarchic and aristocratic — rather than with radical and dem- 
 ocratic France. What could a distracted partisan do ? Jeffer- 
 son was adroit and inventive. He sent James Monroe to 
 
 H. Doc. 745, 58-2— vol 1 7 
 
98 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 negotiate with Bonaparte for the purchase of New Orleans 
 and l)oth Floridas at the price of two millions, or upward to 
 ten, for all or part, whatever he could get; he was not even 
 to disdain the deposit or storage right, if nothing else could 
 be had, and if he could get nothing, he was to await instruc- 
 tions. With such credentials he sailed on March 8, 1803. 
 A peace lover must sometimes speak low and small, even as 
 cowards sometimes do. Three weeks later appeared in New 
 Orleans Laussat, the advance agent of French occupation; 
 Victor and his troops were to follow. It is not possible to 
 conceive that a foreign policy should be more perplexing, 
 confused, or uncertain than that of the philosophic theorist 
 who is the hero of the strict constructionist party in these 
 United States. 
 
 Robert R. Livingston, the regular American envoy at Paris, 
 had, under his instructions from home, worked with skill and 
 zeal on the spoliation claims and incidentall}" on the question 
 of the Mississippi and the Floridas. While the colonization 
 schemes of Bonaparte seemed feasible, Livingston made no 
 headway whatever, except to extort an admission that the 
 spoliation claims were just. Neither Talleyrand nor Living- 
 ston was much concerned about the great Northwest. The 
 American was clear that the importance of any control lay in 
 the possession of New Orleans, and on April 11, 1803, he said 
 so to the French minister, vigorously and squarely declaring 
 further that a persistent refusal of our request would unite 
 us with Great Britain to the serious discomfiture of France in 
 her colonial aspirations. This was said with some asperity, 
 for Livingston had been aware that the First Consul wanted 
 all negotiation transferred to Washington under the guid- 
 ance of a special envoy sent for the purpose, the willful 
 Bernadotte, and now worse yet, he himself was to, be super- 
 seded by Monroe. He had been a diligent and even importu- 
 nate negotiator; it was a ray of comfort in later days to 
 recall that the first suggestion for the sale of all Louisiana 
 was made to him in that momentous interview. 
 
 What had occurred Livingston could not know. It was 
 this: On the morning of that ver}^ da}' there reached the 
 Tuilleries dispatches giving in full detail an account of the 
 tremendous preparations making in England for the renewal 
 of war both ])y land and sea. Bonaparte's impatience knew 
 
WOKLD ASPECTS OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 99 
 
 no bounds. Hitherto he had concealed his true policy of sale 
 behind a scheme to spend the purchase money on internal 
 improvements in France, and he had on his work table map 
 outlines for five great canals. Now, at daybreak he sum- 
 moned Barbe-Marbois, sometime French consul-general in 
 the United States, an official of state with a thorough knowl- 
 edge of our aflairs, and ordered that a negotiation for the 
 sale, not of the Floridas and New Orleans, but of all Louisi- 
 ana, should immediately be opened with Livingston. He 
 fixed the price at 50,000,000 francs. The envoy could of 
 course do nothing, but he thought 30,000,000 enough. Next 
 day Monroe ari'ived at Havre, and reaching Paris April 13, 
 that very same day Barbe-Marbois and our two great states- 
 men began to treat. Upon Monroe and Livingston devolved 
 a momentous responsibility. Monroe was b}" a most indefi- 
 nite implication left a certain libert}, for under no circum- 
 stances whatsoever was he to end a negotiation if once it was 
 begun. And here, instead of minimizing terms, was, so to 
 speak, a great universe of land tender. But we had not so 
 easily thrown off the bright and glistening garment of right- 
 eousness as had Napoleon Bonaparte, and in the minds of both 
 Americans was the question, nonexistent for the First Con- 
 sul, as he himself squarely said, of whether the inhabitants of 
 the district, men and women, human souls, could be dealt in 
 as chattels are. 
 
 Livingston had already seen darkly as in a glass what the 
 west might make of the United States. Bonaparte's contri- 
 butions to the discussion were terse and trenchant. If he did 
 not transfer the title right speedily, a British fleet would take 
 possession almost in a twinkling. The transfer, he said, 
 might in three centuries make America the rival of Europe; 
 why not? — it was a long way ahead — but, on the other hand, 
 there never had been an enduring confederation, and this one 
 in America was unlikely to begin the series; finally, he wanted 
 the cash as the United States wanted the land. Let there be 
 no delay. And there was none. The terms of the sale and 
 the facts of the transfer do not concern us here. In Bona- 
 parte we had no friend; but what the ancient regime began 
 in establishing an American independence the First Consul 
 completed; for, thanks to him, we fought the war of 1812 for 
 commercial liberty, while the exploitation of Louisiana has 
 
100 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION". 
 
 made us what we are to-day. The instant we accepted that 
 great territory, with all its responsibilities and possibilities, 
 we became a world power. We were pun}- enough as a world 
 power at first, but we have grown. Jefferson and his agents 
 were primarih' statesmen for the purpose of existing- condi- 
 tions, and in Monroe's mission desired a remed}- soleh* and 
 entirel}" for party evils. They had, however, the courage to 
 accejjt the fortune forced upon them, even though in their 
 case, as in that of Bonaparte, it entailed, we repeat, a com- 
 plete reversal of all the political and party principles of the 
 platform on which they had hitherto stood. 
 
 The change wrought b}^ the Louisiana purchase in Ameri- 
 can life and culture was simpl}^ revolutionar3\ Hitherto in 
 our weakness we had faced backward, varying between two 
 ideas of European alliance. AVe virtually had British and 
 French parties. Jefferson, who represented the latter, 
 thought of no other alternative in his trouble than to strike 
 hands with England. With Louisiana on our hands we 
 turned our faces to our own front door. The Louisiana we 
 bought had no Pacific outlet in reality, but the Lewis and 
 Clark expedition g-ave it one, and that we have broadened by 
 war and purchase until we control the western shore of the 
 continent. Under such engrossing cares we ceased to think 
 of either French or British ties, except as exasperating, and 
 became not merely Americans, but, realizing Washington's 
 aspirations, turned into real continentals, with a scorn of all 
 entanglements whatever. In the occupation and settlement 
 of Louisiana the slaver}- question became acute, and it was 
 the struggle for the expansion of that system over Louisiana 
 soil which precipitated the civil war. 
 
 But if the change in national outlook was radical, that in 
 constitutional attitude was even more so. The constitutions 
 of our original States were the expression of political habits 
 in a comnumity, the Federal Constitution was in the main a 
 transcript of those elements which were common in some 
 degree to all the British colonies. It was an age of written 
 constitutions, because the flux of institutions was so rapid 
 that men needed a mooring for the substantial gains they had 
 made. The past was so recent that statesmen were timid, 
 and they wanted their metes and l)ounds to l)e fixed by a 
 monument. Nothing was more natural than to pause and fall 
 back on the record thus made permanent, and strict construe- 
 
WORLD ASPECTS OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 101 
 
 tion was and loiio- continued to be a political fetish. The 
 Ijouisiana purchase was a circumstance of the first importance 
 in party struggle. Yet neither Federalist nor Republican 
 dared, after mature deliberation, to urge the question of con- 
 stitutional amendment as essential to meet the crisis thus pre- 
 cipitated. The enormous price entailed what was felt to be 
 an intolerable burden of taxation, and in the uproar of spoken 
 and printed debate pla^xd no small part. But the vital ({ues- 
 tion was whether the adjustment of new relations was con- 
 stitutional. 
 
 Never did the kaleidoscope of politics display a more sur- 
 prising' reversnl of effect. The loose-construction party lost 
 its wits entirely, while the strict constructionists suddenly 
 became the apostles not of verbal but of logical construction. 
 Jefferson violated his princi])les in signing the treaty, l)ut he 
 was easily persuaded that amendment was not necessary; that 
 on the contrar\^ the treaty-making power covered the case 
 completely. This was not conquest, which would have been 
 covered b}' the war power, but purchase, which is covered by 
 the treaty power, surrendered, like the other, by the States to 
 the Federal Government. The Federalists were represented 
 in the House by Gajdord Grisvvold; in the Senate bv Ross and 
 Pickering. Their resistance was identical in both, factious 
 to the highest degree. Thev contended that the Executive 
 had usurped the powers of Congress b}' regulating commerce 
 with foreign powers and b}- incorporating foreign soil and 
 foreign people with the United States, this last being a power 
 which it was doubtful whether Congress possessed. Suppos- 
 ing, however, that New Orleans became American, how could 
 a treaty be valid which gave preferential treatment to that 
 single port in admitting French and Spanish ships on equal 
 terms with those owned b}' Americans? The treaty, they 
 asseverated, was therefore unconstitutional and, even worse, 
 impolitic, because we were unfitted and did not desire to 
 incorporate into our delicateh"-])alanced system peoples differ- 
 ent in speech, faith, and customs from ourselves. The}" were, 
 however, only mildly opposed to expansion; they were deter- 
 mined and captious in the interpretation of the Constitution. 
 The party in power were avowedly expansionist; their retort 
 was equally dialectic and vapid. The whole discussion would 
 have been empty except for Pickering's contention that there 
 existed no power to incorporate foreign territory into the 
 
102 AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. 
 
 United States, as was stipulated by the treaty. The House 
 had resolved, 90 to 25, to provide the money and had ap- 
 pointed a committee on provisional government. The Senate 
 ratified the treaty, 26 to 5. 
 
 What made the debates and action of Congress epochal was 
 the Federalist contention that Thomas Jefferson, as provis- 
 ional and interim governor, was nothing more or less than an 
 American despot in succession to a Spanish tyrant. Where 
 was the Constitution now; where would it be when in appoint- 
 ing the necessary officials — executive, judicial, and legisla- 
 tive — he would usurp not merely Spanish despotism, but the 
 powers of both the other branches of the Federal Government? 
 The Republicans quibbled, too; to appoint these three classes 
 of officials was not to exercise their powers. But they con- 
 firmed in unanswerable logic a distinction thus far only mooted 
 in our political histor3^ — that between States and Territories. 
 Already presidential appointees were exercising all three 
 powers in Mississippi and Indiana. This clenched the con- 
 tentions of the Republicans, and the bill for provisional gov- 
 ernment passed by an overwhelming vote on October 31. 
 Both parties throughout the struggle had tacitly abandoned 
 the position that Congress possessed merely delegated powers 
 and nothing further except the ability to cai'ry them into effect. 
 Both therefore admitted the possible interpretation of the 
 Constitution under stress of necessity, and the Federalists in 
 their quibbling contentions lost hold ever3'where except in 
 New England. That section saw its influence eclipsed by the 
 preponderance of southern and western power and ere long 
 was ripe for secession. 
 
 Volumes have been written and more will be on the romance 
 of the Louisiana purchase. Josiah Quinc}^ threatened the 
 dismemberment of the Union when the present State of 
 Louisiana was admitted in 1812; but for Jefferson's wisdom 
 in exploration it might have remained a wilderness long after 
 settlement began; Great Britain coveted it in 1815 when 
 Jackson saved it; Aaron Burr probably coveted an empire 
 within it; Napoleon III had dreams of its return to the new 
 France he was to found in Mexico. Excluding the Floridas, 
 which Spain would not concede as a part of it, and the Oregon 
 countr}^ the territory thus acquired was greater than that of 
 Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy 
 
WORLD ASPECTS OF LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 103 
 
 combined. Its agricultural and mineral resources were, 
 humanly speaking, inexhaustible. No wonder it excited the 
 cupidity as it stirred the imagination of mankind; no wonder 
 if men avnd to retain their power were dismayed at the pre- 
 ponderance it was sure to exert eventuall}' in a federal union 
 of States. At the present moment fourteen of our Common- 
 wealths, with a population of about sixteen millions and a tax- 
 able wealth of seven billions, occup}' its soil. By the time we 
 are fifty years older, at the present rate of settlement, these 
 will contain about a third of the power in the Union as deter- 
 mined by numbers and prosperity. All of them, however, 
 were never more than administrative districts, and by the 
 retroactive influence of this fact State sovereignty has thus 
 been made an empty phrase. 
 
 And this leads us to our final contention. If the Louisiana 
 purchase revolutionized our national outlook, our constitu- 
 tional attitude, and our sectional control, it has quite as radi- 
 call}^ changed our national texture. From that hour to this 
 we have called to the masses of Europe for help to develop 
 the wilderness, and they have come l\y millions, until now the 
 men and women of Revolutionary stock probably number less 
 than fifteen millions in the entire country. These later Ameri- 
 cans have, like the migrations of the Norsemen in central and 
 southern Europe, proved so conservative in their Americanism 
 that they outrun their predecessors in lo3^alty to its essentials. 
 They made the Union as it now is, in a very high sense, and 
 there is no question that in the throes of civil war it was their 
 blood which flowed at least as freely as ours in defense of it. 
 It is they who have kept us from developing on colonial lines 
 and have made us a nation separate and apart. This it is 
 which has prevented the powerful influence of Great Britain 
 from inundating us, while simultaneously two English-speak- 
 ing peoples have reacted one upon the other in their radical 
 differences to keep aflame the zeal for exploration, beneficent 
 occupation, and general exploitation of the globe in the inter- 
 ests of a high civilization. The localities of the Union have 
 been stimulated into such activities that manufactures and 
 agriculture have run a mighty race; commerce alone lags, and 
 no wonder, for Louisiana gave us a land world of our own, a 
 home market more valuable than both the Indies or the con- 
 tinental mass of the East. 
 
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