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 THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE AND PRECEDIN 
 SPANISH INTRIGUES FOR DISMEMBER- 
 MENT OF THE UNION. 
 
 BY NATHANIEL PITT LANGFORD 
 
 Prom the Minnesota Historical Society Collections, Vol. IX, 1900. 
 
 Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, February 13, 1899. J^ 
 
13 
 i 
 
 / 1 
 
 Minnesota Histortcal, Society, 
 Vol. IX. Pr>ATE XVI. 
 
f f 
 
 THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE AND PRECEDING 
 SPANISH INTRIGUES FOR DISI^fEMBERMENT 
 OF THE UNION.* 
 
 BY NATHANIEL PITT LANGFORD. 
 
 "The Mississippi river," says George Bancroft, "is the guard- 
 ian and the pledge of the union of the States of America. 
 Had they been confined to the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, 
 there would have been no geographical unity between them; 
 and the thread of connection between lands that merely fringed 
 the Atlantic must soon have been sundered. • The father of 
 rivers gathers his waters from all the clouds that break be- 
 tween the Alleghanies and the farthest ranges of the Rocky 
 Mountains. The ridges of the eastern chain bow their heads 
 at the north and the south, so that long before science became 
 the companion of man, Nature herself pointed out to the bar- 
 barous races how short portages join his tributary waters to 
 those of the Atlantic coast. At the other side his mightiest 
 arm interlocks with the arms of the Oregon and the Colorado; 
 and, by the conformation of the earth itself, marshals high- 
 ways to the Pacific. From his remotest springs he refuses to 
 suffer his waters to be divided; but as he bears them all to 
 the bosom of the ocean, the myriads of flags that wave above 
 his head are all the ensigns of one people. States larger than 
 kingdoms flourish where he passes, and beneath his step cities 
 start into being, more marvellous in their reality than the 
 fabled creations of enchantment. His magnificent valley, 
 lying in the best part of the temperate zone, salubrious and 
 wonderfully fertile, is the chosen muster-ground of the various 
 elements of human culture brought together by men sum- 
 moned from all the civilized nations of the earth, and joined 
 in the bonds of common citizenship by the strong invincible 
 
 *Read at the monthly meeting of the Bixecutive Covmcil, February 13, 1899. 
 
454 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 attraction of republican freedom. Now that science has come 
 to be the household friend of trade and commerce and travel, 
 and that Nature has lent to wealth and intellect the use of her 
 constant forces, the hills, once walls of division, are scaled or 
 pierced or levelled, and the two oceans, between which the 
 republic has unassailably intrenched itself against the out- 
 ward world, are bound togetlier across the continent by 
 friendly links of iron. From the grandeur of destiny, foretold 
 by the possession of that river and the lands drained by its 
 waters, the Bourbons of Spain, hoping to act in concert with 
 Great Britain as well as France, would have excluded the 
 United States, totally and forever." 
 
 In the early days of our republic, the great national artery 
 so justly eidogized by our leading historian, was the fruitful 
 cause of the most dangerous intrig-ues, aimed at the perpetuity 
 of our Union. The inhabitants of the Ohio and Mississippi 
 valleys, cut off by the Appalachian range from all commercial 
 intercourse with the Atlantic seaboard, were necessarily de- 
 pendent upon the Mississippi for access to the markets of the 
 world. The mouth of that river was, as to them, the thresh- 
 old of subsistence. Extensive possessions, richness of soil, 
 and 'immensity of production were of little value without the 
 means which this great channel alone afforded for the estab- 
 lishment of commercial relations with other nations. The 
 most prolific, as well as most unbounded region of varied agri- 
 cultural production in the world was comparatively valueless 
 without this single convenience. 
 
 At the time whereof I now speak, the mouth of the Mis- 
 sissippi and the country adjacent was owned and controlled 
 by Spain, then a powerful nation, jealous of her possessions in 
 America, and unfriendly to the young republic which had sud- 
 denly sprung into existence on the northern borders of her em- 
 pire. She had assented to the stipulation in the treaty be- 
 tween Great Britain, the United States, and herself in 1783 in 
 which the independence of our country was recognized, that 
 the navigation of the Mississippi from its source to its mouth 
 should be and should forever remain free and open to the sub- 
 jects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States. 
 This privilege, sufficient for ordinary purposes in time of peace, 
 was liable at any moment and on almost any pretence, as we 
 
THE IX)UI8IANA PURCHASE. 455 
 
 shall hereafter see, to be absolutely denied, or to be hampered 
 with oppressive duties, or to be used for purposes dangerous to 
 the very existence of our government. 
 
 FORESIGHT OF W^ASHINGTON. 
 
 The first individual to see the evils which might flow from a 
 dependence upon this outlet to the ocean by the people living 
 west of the Alleghanies, was Washington himself. He had 
 carefully noted the flow of the rivers beyond the Alleghanies, 
 and the portages between them and the rivers flowing down 
 their eastern slope, at the time of his first visit into that region 
 before the Revolution, and was only hindered from forming 
 a company to unite them by an artificial channel, by the oc- 
 currence of the Revolution itself. The year after peace was 
 declared he again visited the country bordering the upper 
 waters of the Ohio, and at this time regarded the improvement 
 not only of immense importance in its commercial aspect to 
 the States of Maryland and ^^irginia, but as one of the neces- 
 sities of the general government, "He had noticed," says 
 Washington Irving, "that the flanks and rear of the United 
 States were possessed by foreign and formidable powers, who 
 might lure the Western people into a trade and alliance with 
 them. The Western States, he observed, stood as it were on 
 a pivot, so that the touch of a feather might turn them any 
 way. They had looked down the Mississippi and been tempted 
 in that direction by the facilities of sending everything down 
 the stream, whereas they had no means of coming to the At- 
 lantic sea-board but by long land transportatiou and rugged 
 roads. The jealous and untoward disposition of the Spaniard, 
 it was true, almost barred the use of the Mississippi; but they 
 might change their policy and incite trade in that direction. 
 The retention by the British Government, also, of the posts of 
 Detroit, Niagara, and Oswego, though contrary to the spirit 
 of the treaty, shut up the channel of trade in that quarter." 
 
 Washington's views were laid before the legislature of Vir- 
 ginia, and were received with such favor that he was induced 
 to repair to Richmond to give them his personal support. His 
 suggestions and representations during this visit gave the first 
 impulse to the great system of internal improvements since 
 pursued throughout the United States. 
 
456 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 DISSATISFACTION OF WESTERN SETTLERS. 
 
 While Washington was urging upon the people of Virginia 
 the importance of a water communication between the head 
 waters of the Potomac and the Ohio, and had succeeded so far 
 as to effect the organization of two companies under the pat- 
 ronage of the Governments of Maryland and Virginia, the peo- 
 ple of the Western States, dissatisfied with the tax imposed 
 upon them to pay the interest on the debt of the country to 
 France, were many of them abandoning their dwellings and 
 marching towards the Mississippi, "in order to unite with a 
 certain number of disbanded soldiers who were anxious to 
 possess themselves of a considerable portion of the territory 
 watered by that river." Their object was to establish a gov- 
 ernment under the name of The Western Independence, and 
 deny the authority of the American Congress, as McGillivray 
 says in a letter to the governor of Pensacola. 
 
 This Alexander McGillivray, the head chief of the Tala- 
 pouches, or Creeks, was a half-breed, the son of Lachland Mc- 
 Gillivray, a Scotchman, and a Creek woman. He was edu- 
 cated in Scotland. Pickett, the historian of Alabama, calls 
 him the Talleyrand of Alabama; and Gayarre, in an extended 
 eulogy, says of him: "The individual who, Proteus-like, could 
 in turn, — ^nay more, who could at the same time, be a British 
 colonel, a Spanish and an American general, a polished gen- 
 tleman, a Greek and Latin scholar, and a wild Indian chief 
 with the frightful tomahawk at his belt and the war paint on 
 his body, a shrewd politician, a keen-sighted merchant, a skill- 
 ful speculator, the emperor of the Creeks and Seminoles, the 
 able negotiator in person with Washington and other great 
 men, the writer of papers which would challenge the admira- 
 tion of the most fastidious, — he who could be a Mason among 
 the Christians, and a pagan prophet in the woods; he who 
 could have presents, titles, decorations, showered at the 
 same time upon him from England, Spain and the 
 United States, and who could so long arrest their en- 
 croachments against himself and his nation by play- 
 ing them like puppets against each other, must be allowed to 
 tower far above the common herd of men." McGillivray died 
 17th February, 1793. He was buried with Masonic honors, in 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 457 
 
 the garden of William Panton, in Pensacola. His death, spread 
 desolation among his people. 
 
 PROPHECIES OF NAVARRO 
 
 Martin Navarro, the Spanish intendant at New Orleans, 
 united with remarkable sagacity and foresight a jealousy of 
 the American population of the Western States, amounting 
 almost to mania. His policy in regulating commercial inter- 
 course with all neighbors was in the largest degree conciliatory 
 and generous. From the hour of its birth, he predicted with 
 singular accuracy the power and growth of the American re- 
 public. In 1786, speaking of the commercial relations between 
 the province of Louisiana and the numerous Indian tribes 
 which owned the territory bordering upon the Mississippi 
 river, he says:— 
 
 "Nothing can be more proper than that the goods they want 
 should be sold them at an equitable price, in order to afford 
 them inducements and facilities for their hunting pursuits, 
 and in order to put it within their means to clothe themselves 
 on fair terms. Otherwise they would prefer trading with the 
 Americans, with whom they would in the end form alliances 
 which cannot but turn out to be fatal to this province." 
 
 The surplus productions of the Western settlements at this 
 time had grown into a very considerable commerce, which, 
 having no other outlet than the Mississippi, was sent down 
 that river to New Orleans where it was subjected to unjust 
 and oppressive duties. The flatboat-men complained of the 
 seizures, confiscations, extortions and imprisonments which 
 in almost every instance were visited upon them by the Span- 
 ish authorities. Infuriated by the frequency and flagrant 
 character of these outrages, and denying the right of Spain 
 under the treaty of 1783 in any way to restrict the free naviga- 
 tion of the river, the Western people began seriously to con- 
 template an open invasion of Louisiana, and a forcible seizure 
 of the port of New Orleans. They laid their grievances before 
 Congress and petitioned that body to renew negotiations with 
 Spain, and secure for them such commercial privileges as were 
 necessary to the very existence of their settlements. 
 
 Navarro seconded these views, and writing to his Govern- 
 ment says: "The powerful enemies we have to fear in this 
 
458 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 proTin'ce are not the English, but the Americans, whom we 
 must oppose by active and sufficient measures." He then, by 
 a variety of reasons, urges that a restriction of commercial 
 franchises will only increase the embarrassment of Spain. 
 "The only way," he says, "to check them, is with a proportion- 
 ate population, and it is not by imposing commercial restric- 
 tions that this population is to be acquired, but by granting 
 a prudent extension and freedom of trade." 
 
 By granting the Americans special privileges, donating 
 lands to them and affording them other subsidies, Navarro 
 hoped to lure them from their allegiance to our Government. 
 Very many, yielding to these inducements, moved their fami- 
 lies into the Spanish province and became willing subjects of 
 His Catholic Majesty. The majority of those who remained, 
 owing to the repeated failures and rebuffs they had suffered 
 in their efforts to obtain free commercial privileges, were 
 forced at length to consider the idea of forming a new and in- 
 dependent republic of their own. TTieir separation by distance 
 and mountain barriers from the Atlantic states rendered all 
 commercial intercourse impracticable between the two portions 
 of the couIlt^3^ They were surrounded by savages against 
 whose murderous attacks their Government was unable to 
 afford them adequate protection, and their commerce was bur- 
 dened with oppressive and ruinous duties before it could gain 
 access to the markets of the world. Besides these considera- 
 tions, they were oppressed with heavy taxation to pay the in- 
 terest on the great war debt to France. These reasons, to any 
 one who can identify himself with the period of our history 
 now under review, would certainly seem sufficient to overcome 
 a patriotism which had always been measured by the amount 
 of sacrifice it was capable of making without any return. Our 
 Government, still under the old confederacy and no longer 
 bound by the cohesive elements of the war, was ready to fall 
 to pieces because of its inherent weakness. The majority of 
 the people, both east and west, had little confidence in its sta- 
 bility. The leading patriots of the Revolution, alarmed at the 
 frequent and threatening demonstrations of revolt made in all 
 parts of the country, were at a loss to know how to avoid a 
 final disruption. 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 459 
 
 '^What, tlien," says Wiashjngton in a letter to John Jay, "is 
 to be done? Things cannot go on in the same strain forever. 
 It is much to be feared, as you observe, that the better kind of 
 people, being disgusted with the circumstances, will have their 
 minds prepared for any revolution whatever. We are apt to 
 run from one extreme to another. ♦**♦»♦! aj^ 
 told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical 
 government without horror. From thinking proceeds speak- 
 ing ;-^-then acting is often but a single step. But how irrevo- 
 cable and tremendous! What a triumph for our enemies to 
 verify their predictions' What a triumph for the advocates 
 of despotism to find that we are ineapable of governing our- 
 selves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty 
 are merely ideal and fallacious." 
 
 It was when the country was in this condition, that the idea 
 of a separate independence took form among the people west 
 of the Alleghanies. Want of unanimity in the adoption of a 
 basis for the new republic only prevented its organization; 
 for as soon as the question came under serious consideration, 
 no less than five parties appeared, each claiming its plan to 
 be the only one suited to the purposes in view. Judge Martin, 
 in his history of Louisiana, says: 
 
 "The first party was for being independent of the United 
 States, and for the formation of a new republic unconnected 
 with the old one, and resting on a basis of its own and a close 
 alliance with Spain. 
 
 "Another party was willing that the country should become 
 a part of the province of Louisiana, and submit to the ad- 
 mission of the laws of Spain. 
 
 "A third desired a war with Spain and the seizure of New 
 Orleaifs. 
 
 "A fourth plan was to prevail on Congress, by a show of 
 preparation for war, to extort from the cabinet of Madrid what 
 it persisted in refusing. 
 
 "The last, as unnatural as the second, was to solicit France 
 to procure a retrocession of Louisiana, and to extend her pro- 
 tection to Kentucky." 
 
 Encouraged in their designs to lure the ^V>stern people 
 into Louisiana by this public evidence of their disaffection 
 
460 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 toward their own country, the Spanish authorities from this 
 moment conceived the idea of working a dismemberment of 
 our confederacy and attaching the vast country west of the 
 Alleghanies to the other Hispano-American possessions. Sepa- 
 rate plans for effecting this object were formed by Miro, the 
 governor of Louisiana, and Gardoquoi, the Spanish minister 
 at Philadelphia. These officials were jealous of each other, 
 and though partners in design, frequently clashed in their 
 measures. 
 
 GEN. WILKINSON'S INTRIGUES. 
 
 In June, 1787, General James Wilkinson, an officer of the 
 Revolution who had emigrated to the West a few months be- 
 fore, descended the Mississippi to New Orleans, with a cargo 
 of flour, tobacco, butter and bacon. His boat having been 
 seized, Wilkinson, after a protracted interview with Governor 
 Miro, parted from him with an order for its release and per- 
 mission to sell his cargo free of duty. This arch-intriguer was 
 permitted, during the entire period that his negotiations with 
 Miro were in progress, to enjoy all the privileges of the New 
 Orleans market free of duty. He sold large cargoes of tobacco, 
 flour and butter to the Spanish authorities on different occa- 
 sions, and received from Miro, at various times, very large sums 
 of money to aid him in the work of dismemberment. We learn 
 that at one time he sought to become a Spanish subject, but 
 was dissuaded by Miro, who, while he loved the treason, hated 
 the traitor. At another time, in the midst of his intrigues he 
 besought Miro to obtain for him a portion of the country to 
 which he could flee to escape the vengeance which would pur- 
 sue him in case his diabolical acts should be discovered by 
 Washington, He remained in New Orleans until September. 
 During that period, at Miro's request, he furnished him with 
 his views in writing of the political interests of Spain and the 
 Western people. This document strongly advocated the free 
 navigation of the Mississippi, and was sent to Madrid for 
 the perusal of the king. But it was intended simply as a 
 blind, to conceal the inception of an intrigue between Miro and 
 Wilkinson for the separation of the Western settlements from 
 the Union, and their adherence to Spain. It was soon ascer- 
 tained that, coincident with the submission of this document. 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 461 
 
 Wilkinson presented another to Miro, containing different rep- 
 resentations, but which was not made public. 
 
 In the meantime, Gardoquoi, acting without Miro's com- 
 pliance, had invited the people of Kentucky and the region 
 bordering the Cumberland river to establish themselves under 
 the protection of Spain in West Florida and the Florida dis- 
 trict of lower Louisiana, offering as inducements that thej 
 might hold slaves, stock, provisions for two years, fanning 
 utensils and implements, without paying any duty whatever, 
 and enjoy their own religion. Allured by these promises, 
 many Americans removed to Louisiana and became Spanish 
 subjects. To encourage this work of emigration, Gardoquoi 
 made a concession of a vast tract of land, seventy miles below 
 the mouth of the Ohio, to Col. George Morgan, upon his propo- 
 sition to settle it with a large number of immigrants. In pur- 
 suance of this purpose, Morgan afterwards laid the founda- 
 tions of a city there, which, in compliment to Spain, he called 
 New Madrid. 
 
 Gardoquoi, fearful lest his plans might be disturbed by 
 Miro, sent an agent to New Orleans to obtain for them the sup- 
 port of that functionary. Miro was deeply embroiled in the 
 intrigue with Wilkinson; — am enterprise, which, if successful, 
 would prove vastly more important than that of Gardoquoi. 
 Concealing his purpose from the latter, Miro, upon one pretext 
 and another, avoided committing himself to plans which, if 
 prosecuted, were certain to clash with his own. In January, 
 1788, he wrote to Valdes, the minister for the department of 
 the Indies: — 
 
 "I have been reflecting for many days whether it would not 
 be proper to communicate to D'Arges (Gardoquoi's agent) 
 Wilkinson's plans, and to Wilkinson the mission of D'Arges, 
 in order to unite them and dispose them to work in concert. 
 * * * The delivering up of Kentucky intO' His Majesty's 
 hands, which is the main object to which Wilkinson has prom- 
 ised to devote himself entirely, would forever constitute this 
 province a' rampart for the protection of New Spain." 
 
 In the course of this intrigue, Gardoquoi's agent stipulated 
 to lead fifteen hundred and eighty-two Kentucky families into 
 the Natchez district. Miro ordered Grandpre, the governor 
 of Natchez, to make concessions of land to each familv on its 
 
462 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL. SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 arrival, and require them to take the following oath : "We the 
 undersigned do swear, on the Holy Evangelists, entire fealty^ 
 vassalage and lealty to His Catholic Majesty, wishing volun- 
 tarily to live under his laws, promising not to act either 
 directly or indirectly against his real interest, and to give im- 
 mediate information to our commandants of all that may come 
 to our knowledge of whatever nature it may be, if prejudicial 
 to the welfare of Spain in general and to that of this province 
 in particular, in defence of which we hold ourselves ready to 
 take up anns on the first summons of our chiefs, and particu- 
 larly in the defence of this district against whatever forces 
 may come from the upper part of the river Mississippi, or from 
 the interior of the continent." 
 
 "Whilst presenting to them these considerations," writes 
 Miro, "you will carefully observe the manner in which they 
 shall receive them, and the expression of their faces. Of this 
 you will give me precise information, every time that you send 
 me the original oaths taken." 
 
 In furtherance of his enterprise, Wilkinson spent several 
 months in the Atlantic States after leaving New Orleans. He 
 wrote to Miro in cipher, on his return to the West, that all his 
 predictions were verifj-ing themselves. "Not a measure," he 
 says, "is taken on both sides of the mountains which does not 
 conspire to favor ours." About the same time he wrote to Gar- 
 doquoi in order to allay his suspicions. Keceiving from Miro 
 no immediate reply to his letter, he sent a cargo of produce 
 down the river in charge of Major Isaac Dunn, whom he ac- 
 credited to Miro as a fit auxiliary in the execution of their po- 
 litical designs. Dunn assured the Spanish governor that Ken- 
 tucky would separate entirely from the Federal Union the next 
 year. 
 
 While these schemes were in progress, the settlers in the 
 district of Cumberland, reduced to extremities by the frequent 
 and bloody invasions of the Indians south of them, sent dele- 
 gates to Alexander McGillivray, head chief of the tribes, to 
 declare their willingness to throw themselves into the arms of 
 His Catholic Majesty, as subjects. They said that Congress 
 could neither protect their persons nor property, nor favor their 
 commerce, and that they were desirous to free themselves from 
 all allegiance to a powder incapable of affording the smallest 
 benefit in return. 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 463 
 
 SPANISH INQUISITION. 
 
 One of the difficult questions for the Spanish authorities to 
 settle with the people they expected to lure to their embrace 
 was that of religion. Spain was not only Catholic, but she 
 had not abandoned the Inquisition, as a means of torturing 
 the rest of the world into a confession of that faith. Gardo- 
 quoi had promised all immigrants into Louisiana freedom of 
 religious opinion. Miro, willing to make some concessions, 
 would not concede entire freedom. Just at the time that a 
 promise had been made of a large emigration from the west- 
 ern settlements, Miro received a letter from the Reverend 
 Capuchin Antonio de Sedella, informing him that he had been 
 appointed commissary of the Inquisition, and that, in order 
 to carry his instructions into perfect execution, he might soon, 
 at some late hour of the night, deem it necessary to require 
 some guards to assist him in his operations. A few hours 
 afterwards while this inquisitor was reposing, he was roused 
 by an alarm. Starting up he met an officer and a file of grena- 
 diers, who, he supposed, had come to obey his orders. "My 
 friends," said he, "I thank you and his excellency for the 
 readiness of this compliance with my request. But I have no 
 use for your services, and you shall be warned in time when 
 you are wanted. Retire, then, with the blessing of God." The 
 surprise of the Holy Father may be conceived when told that 
 he was under arrest. "What!" he exclaimed, "will you dare 
 lay hands on a commissary of the Holy Inquisition ?" 
 
 "1 dare obey orders," was the stern reply, — and Father de 
 Sedella was immediately conducted on board a vessel which 
 sailed the next day for Cadiz. 
 
 Miro, writing to one of the members of the cabinet of 
 Madrid concerning this unceremonious removal, says: "The 
 mere name of the Inquisition, uttered in New Orleans, would 
 be sufficient, not only to check immigration, which is success- 
 fully progressing, but would also be capable of driving away 
 those who have recently come, and I even fear that in spite of 
 my having sent out of the country Father de Sedella, the most 
 fatal consequences may ensue from the mere suspicion of the 
 cause of his dismissal." This was the first and last attempt 
 of the Spaniards to plant the Inquisition in North America. 
 
464 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 In the midst of these intrigues and schemes, Navarro, the 
 talented intendant, was recalled by his Government and re- 
 turned to Spain. The two offices of governor and intendant 
 thus became united in Miro. In his last official dispatch, 
 Navarro expressed his views of the province with con- 
 siderable detail. He depicted the dangers which Spain had 
 to fear from the United States, — predicting that the "new- 
 born giant would not be satisfied Until he extended his domains 
 across the continent and bathed his vigorous young limbs in 
 the placid waters of the Pacific." A severance of the Union 
 was, in his opinion, the only way this could be prevented. This 
 was not difficult if the present circumstances were turned to 
 advantage. "Grant," said he, "every sort of commercial privi- 
 lege to the masses in the Western region, and shower pen- 
 sions and honors on the leaders." 
 
 While actively engaged in the prosecution of his intrigue 
 with Miro, we learn from a letter written to that official in 
 February, 1789, that in October of the previous year Wilkin- 
 son met with Col. Connelly, a British officer, who, he says, "had 
 travelled through the woods to the mouth of the river Big 
 Miami, from which he came down the Ohio in a boat." He 
 claimed to be an emissary of Lord Dorchester, the governor- 
 general of Canada. Ignorant of Wilkinson's secret negotia- 
 tions with Miro, he met him by invitation at his house, and 
 upon Wilkinson's assurance of regard for the interests of His 
 Britannic Majesty, Connelly unfolded to him the object of his 
 mission. He informed Wilkinson that Great Britain was de- 
 sirous of assisting the Western settlers in their efforts to open 
 the navigation of the Mississippi. She would join them to dis- 
 possess Spain of Louisiana, and as the forces in Canada were 
 too small to supply detachments for the purpose. Lord Dor- 
 chester would, in place thereof, supply our men with all the 
 implements of war, and with money, clothing, etc., to equip 
 an army of ten thousand men. 
 
 Wilkinson, in his letter to Miro, says: "After having 
 pumped out of him all that I wished to loiow, I began to 
 weaken his hopes by observing that the feelings of animosity 
 engendered by the late Revolution were so recent in the hearts 
 of the Americans that I considered it impossible to entice them 
 into an alliance with Great Britain; that in this district, par- 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 455 
 
 ticularlj in that part of it where the inhabitants had suffered 
 so much from the barbarous hostilities of the Indians, which 
 were attributed to British influence, the resentment of every 
 individual was much more intense and implacable. In order 
 to justify this opinion of mine, I employed a hunter who feigned 
 attempting his life. The pretext assumed by the hunter was 
 the avenging the death of his son, murdered by the Indians at 
 the supposed instigation of the English. As I hold the com- 
 mission of a civil judge, it was of course to be my duty to pro- 
 tect him against the pretended murderer, whom I caused to be 
 arrested and held in custody. I availed myself of this circum- 
 stance to communicate to Connelly my fear of not being able 
 to answer for the security of his person, and I expressed my 
 doubts whether he could escape with his life. It alarmed him 
 so much that he begged me to give him an escort to conduct 
 him out of the territory, which I readily assented to, and on 
 the 20th of November he recrossed the Ohio on his way back 
 to Detroit." 
 
 Such was the influence of Wilkinson with the people of the 
 districts of Kentucky and Cumberland, that between the years 
 1786 and 1792 he thwarted them four times in their designs to 
 invade Louisiana, after preparations had been made for that 
 purpose. His object was to unite the Western settlements 
 with Spain, — not to maintain the integrity of the Federal 
 Union. 
 
 ' STATE OP PRANKLAND. 
 
 Circumstances which had occurred several years before 
 this time gave birth to another intrigue of remarkable char- 
 acter, which culminated in the fall of 1788. The western por- 
 tion of North Carolina, known as the Washington District, 
 in 1784 declared itself independent and organized a govern- 
 ment under the name of the State of Frankland. The name 
 was afterward changed to Franklin. 
 
 At that time North Carolina was a turbulent state, and 
 there was little cohesion between the eastern and western 
 portions. The desire of the western portion to form a separate 
 state government was aimed at the parent state rather than 
 the United States. The parent state did not oppose the se- 
 cession, for the reason that it had been severely taxed to pay 
 30 
 
456 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 the Indian war debts inourred in protecting the western fron- 
 tier. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the western por- 
 tion complained that the jurisdiction of the courts was not ex- 
 tended over them, so as to protect them from the incursions 
 of the outlaws from adjoining states. 
 
 In the year 1784 the legislature of North Carolina ceded 
 what is now the State of Tennessee to the United States, 
 coupled with the condition that within two years it should 
 formally accept the gift; and further, that until the expiration 
 of that period, North Carolina should exercise sovereignty over 
 it. On August 23, 1784, a constitutional convention was called 
 at Jonesboro, of which John Sevier was president. A differ- 
 ence of opinion arose among the members as to whether their 
 declaration of independence should go into effect at once, or 
 at a future day; — but a vote being taken, two^thirds of the 
 members declared for immediate secession. The same ques- 
 tion divided the members when they met in November to frame 
 a constitution, and the convention dissolved in utter confusion. 
 In the meantime the State of North Carolina became alarmed 
 at the attitude of the secessionists, and repealed its act of 
 cession, which had not at that time been accepted by the 
 United States, and Governor Sexier advised his followers to 
 abandon the scheme for the organization of the new state. 
 But his adherents would not recede. They met on December 
 14. 1784, at Jonesboro and adopted a constitution, subject to 
 its ratification by a future convention, which was to meet at 
 Greenville in November, 1785. In March, 1785, the two houses 
 of the Legislature met and elected John Sevier Governor of 
 the new state, and organized courts, and passed general laws. 
 Among these acts of the Legislature was one authorizing the 
 payment of taxes and of salaries to be made in various articles 
 of merchandise. Among the articles in which, taxes were pay- 
 able were the following: Beaver, otter and deer skins, which 
 were rated at six shillings each; raccoon and fox skins, rated 
 at one shilling three pence each ; beeswax, at one shilling per 
 pound; rye whiskey, at three shillings six pence per gallon; 
 peach brandy, at three shillings per gallon. The salaries of all 
 officers were to be paid wholly in skins. The following is a 
 copy of one of the acts of the Legislature : — 
 
 "Be it enacted by the general assembly of the State of 
 Franklin, and it is hereby enacted by authority of the same, 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 467 
 
 that from and after the first day of January next the salaries 
 of this commonwealth shall be as follows, to-wit: 
 
 His Excellency, the Grovernor, per annum, 100 deer skins. 
 
 His Honor, the Chief Justice, 500 deer skins. 
 
 The Secretary to His Excellency, the Governor, 500 raccoon 
 skins. 
 
 County Clerk, 300 beayer skins. 
 
 Clerk of the House of Commons, 200 raccoon skins. 
 
 Members of the Assembly, per diem, three raccoon skins. 
 
 Justice's fee for serving a warrant, one mink skin." 
 
 Among the names proposed for the new state was that of 
 Frankland, or the "Land of freemen;^' but by a very small 
 majority it was decided to call it Franklin in honor of Ben- 
 jamin Franklin. Franklin, however, did not know that the 
 new state had been named for him until eighteen months after 
 its organization. Seemingly this name was given for the pur- , 
 pose of securing the friendship of Franklin for the new state ; — 
 but the wily statesman, while expressing his appreciation of 
 the honor conferred upon him, was loth to avow himself on the 
 side of the secessionists, and advised them to submit their 
 claims to Congress for adjustment. He pointed out to them 
 the excellence of a system of paternal government which pro- 
 vided for a Congress which oould act as a judge in such mat- 
 ters. 
 
 Governor Sevier apprised Governor Alexander Martin of 
 North Carolina that the inhabitants of the counties west of 
 the mountains had declared themselves independent and had 
 formed a separate State. Governor Martin replied that he 
 could not consent to such an irregular mode of separation, and 
 intimated that the Congress of the United States would inters 
 fere to prevent it. 
 
 The convention which was expected to ratify a constitu>- 
 tion met at Greenville on November 14, 1785. A new con- 
 stitution was presented, which, after an angry discussion, was 
 rejected, and one similar to that of North Carolina was 
 adopted. The rejected constitution was a curious document. 
 Full religious liberty was established, so far as it related to 
 forms of worship, but no one was allowed to hold office unless 
 he believed in Heaven, Hell, and the Trinity. Neither could 
 sabbath breakers, immoral men, clergymen, doctors, nor 
 
468 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL. SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 lawyers hold .office. Five days after the adoption of the con- 
 stitution, the Legislature of North Carolina assembled at New- 
 bem, and granted amnesty and full pardon to all who were 
 engaged in revolt against the authority of the State; — and 
 many men of influence returned to their allegiance, and resist- 
 ance to the authority of the state of Franklin assumed a more 
 determined form. Congress finally interfered, put an end to 
 the new State, and restored the country to North Carolina. In- 
 dignant at the interposition, the secessionists persisted in their 
 designs, and throug^h their displaced governor, Sevier, on the 
 12th of September, 1788, informed the Spanish minister, Gar- 
 doquoi, that they were unanimous in their vehement desire to 
 form an alliance and treaty of commerce with Spain and put 
 themselves under her protection. The settlers of the district 
 of Cumberland river, who were also under the jurisdiction of 
 North Carolina, gave the name of Miro to a district they had 
 formed, as evidence of their partiality for the Spanish govern- 
 ment. The promise of protection which the inhabitants of 
 the two districts received from Gardoquoi was so modified by 
 Miro that the scheme, though prosecuted for a time with 
 great vigor, finally failed from inability on the part of the se- 
 cessionists to comply with the conditions of recognition.. 
 
 A company composed of Alexander Moultrie, Isaac Huger, 
 Major William Snipes, Colonel Washington, and other dis- 
 tinguished South Carolinians was formed at Charleston in 
 1789, which purchased from the State of Georgia fifty-two 
 thousand nine hundred (52,900) square miles of territory ex- 
 tending from the Yazoo to the banks of the Mississippi near 
 Natchez. The Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Spain claimed a 
 portion of this territory. The ulterior designs of the company 
 in the purchase and settlement of the country were carefully 
 concealed for some time. Wilkinson, who was still engaged 
 in the effort to dismember the Union, having heard of this pur- 
 chase, lost no time in communicating his views to the com- 
 pany and expressing a desire to cooperate with them as their 
 agent. At the same time he addressed a letter to Miro, in 
 which, after telling him that he had applied to the company 
 for an agency, he says : — 
 
 "If I succeed, I am persuaded that I shall experience no 
 difficulty in adding their establishment to the domains of His 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE, 469 
 
 Majesty, and this they will soon discover to be to their interest. 
 ♦ * * * You will have the opportunity to modify the plan 
 of the company as your judgment and prudence will suggest 
 and the interest of the King may require. I will keep you in- 
 formed of every movement which I shall observe, and it will 
 be completely in your power to break up the projected settle- 
 ment, by inciting the Ohoctaws to incommode the colonists, 
 who will thus be forced to move off and to establish themselves 
 under your government." 
 
 Wilkinson's application for an agency was declined be- 
 cause of the appointment of Dr. O'Fallon before it was re- 
 ceived. He wrote to Miro on the subject of the company's 
 purposes. After speaking of the dissatisfaction of the mem- 
 bers of the company with the Federal Government, he states 
 that he has induced them to become subjects of Spain, "under 
 the appearance of a free and independent state, forming a ram- 
 part for the adjoining Spanish territories, and establishing 
 with them an eternal reciprocal alliance offensive and defen- 
 sive. This," he continues, "for a beginning, when once se- 
 cured with the greatest secrecy, will serve, I am fully per- 
 suaded, as an example to be followed by the settlements on the 
 western side of the mountains, which will separate from the 
 Atlantic portion of the Confederacy, because, on account of 
 the advantages which they will expect from the privilege of 
 trading with our colony under the protection of Spain, they 
 will unite with it in the same manner and as closely as are the 
 Atlantic States with France, receiving from it every assistance 
 in war and relying on its power in the moment of danger." 
 
 In a letter written to Miro on the 20th of June, Wilkinson 
 fully endorses the plans of the company. Miro submits to the 
 Court at Madrid the documents unfolding these plans, accom- 
 panied by a dispatch in which he sums up the advantages and 
 disadvantages of "taking a foreign state to board with us." 
 When near the conclusion, he explains how he has excited the 
 hostility and secured the opposition of all the Indian tribes to 
 the Americans. "I have recommended them," says he, "to re- 
 main quiet, and told them if these people presented themselves 
 with a view to settle on their lands, then to make no con- 
 cessions, and to warn them off, but to attack them in case they 
 refused to withdraw ; and I have promised that I would supply 
 them with powder and ball to defend their legitimate rights." 
 
470 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL. SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 INVASION OF LOUISIANA THREATENED. 
 
 Both Louisiana and the United States became at this time 
 apprehensive that an invasion of the former would be attempt- 
 ed by the British from Canada. Such an event would impose 
 upon our Government the necessity of determining a course 
 proper to be pursued should a passage be asked by Great 
 Britain for her troops through our territory, or should that 
 passage be made without permission. The opportunity was 
 deemed favorable to the prosecution of our claim to the navi- 
 gation of the Mississippi, and negotiations were opened with 
 Spain for the purchase of the Island of New Orleans and the 
 Floridas, — but Spain declined our offer of friendship, the only 
 consideration we were then able to give, and the project failed. 
 Miro's administration terminated in 1791. He was succeeded 
 by the Baron de Carondelet. 
 
 Such was the confidence inspired in the Government by the 
 adoption of the Constitution and the firm and watchful admin- 
 istration of Washington, that not only in the Eastern States 
 but in the Western districts also, all intrigues, cabals, and 
 schemes of dismemberment, during the fi/rst three years of 
 Carondelet's administration had seemingly expired. A brighter 
 era had dawned upon the country; hope had taken the place 
 of doubt in the minds of the people, and the old patriotism 
 which had borne us through the Revolution reinstated loyalty 
 in the bosoms of thousands whose thoughts had been for years 
 ripening for revolt. But the danger was not all over. Some 
 discontented and some ambitious spirits yet remained in the 
 West. Great Britain cast a greedy eye occasionally at the 
 mouth of the Mississippi, and poor torn, bleeding France, 
 which had just murdered her king, sent a sufficient number of 
 her maniac population to our shores to keep the spirit of mis- 
 rule in action. 
 
 Early in the year 1794 a society of French Jacobins, estab- 
 lished in Philadelphia, sent to Louisiana a circular which was 
 widely distributed among the French population of the prov- 
 ince, appealing to them to take up arms and cast off the Span- 
 ish yoke. The alarm which this gave the Baron de Carondelet 
 was increased by a knowledge of the efforts put forth by Genet, 
 the French minister to the United States, to organize and lead 
 an expedition of French and Americans against Louisiana. 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 471 
 
 Armed bands had assembled upon the Georgia frontier to join 
 it, and French emissaries were everywhere stirring up the 
 Western people to aid in the invasion. New Orleans was 
 strongly fortified, and the grim visage of war was again wrin- 
 kled for the conflict, 
 
 TREAT? OF MADRID. 
 
 Fear of English invasion over, Carondelet addressed himself 
 with great vigor to the unfinished schemes of Miro for dismem- 
 bering the Union and winning over the Western settlements 
 to Spain. Meantime, the negotiations so long pending be- 
 tween our Government and Spain culminated on the 20th of 
 October, 1795, in the Treaty of Madrid. By this treaty a 
 boundary line was established between the United States and 
 the Floridas. Spain also conceded to our people the free navi- 
 gation of the Mississippi from its source to the sea, and agreed 
 to permit them, "for the term of three years, to use the port 
 of New Orleans as a place of deposit for their produce and 
 merchandise, and export the same free from duty or charge, 
 except a reasonable consideration to be paid for storage and 
 other incidental expenses; that the term of three years may, 
 by subsequent negotiation be extended, or, instead of that 
 town, some other point in the island of New Orleans shall be 
 designated as a place of deposit for the American trade." 
 
 It was believed by the provincial authorities that this 
 treaty was formed for the purpose of propitiating the neutral- 
 ity of our Government in the event of a war, at that time immi- 
 nent, between Great Britain and Spain. They had no faith in 
 its permanency, or that its provisions would be observed by 
 Spain after her European embarrassments had been settled. 
 Instead of arresting, it had the effect to stimulate the efforts 
 of Carondelet in his favorite plan for the acquisition of the 
 Western settlements. He made proposals to Sebastian, In- 
 nis, and other early associates of Wilkinson, and through his 
 emissaries approached Wilkinson himself with promises; — but 
 it was too late. The Union had become consolidated. The wise 
 counsels of Washington allayed discontent, and the successful 
 campaign of Wayne had given assurance of protection. Wil- 
 kinson and his associates, foiled in the designs formed and 
 conducted under more favorable auspices, whatever their as- 
 pirations might have been, were too sagacious to revive an 
 
472 ' 'MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 enterprise which neither policy nor necessity could excuse, 
 and which a vigilant government was sure to punish. After 
 a few more s"truggles the Spanish authorities, on the 26th of 
 May, 1798, surrendered to Wilkinson (who, by the death of 
 Wayne, had been promoted) the territory claimed by the 
 Treaty of Madrid, and the Spanish power in America from 
 that moment began to decline. 
 
 Morales, the Spanish intendant, construing the letter of 
 the treaty strictly, on the 17th of July, 1799, chose to con- 
 sider that three years had elapsed since its ratification, and, 
 for the purpose of crippling the commerce of the Western 
 people, issued an order prohibiting the use of New Orleans 
 as a place of deposit by them, without designating, in accord- 
 ance with the treaty, any other suitable point. This measure 
 aroused the indignation of the West. An expedition against 
 New Orleans was openly contemplated. President Adams or- 
 dered three regiments of regulars to the Ohio, with instruc- 
 tions to have in readiness a sufficient number of boats to con- 
 vey the troops to New Orleans. Twelve new regiments were 
 added to the army, and an. invasion seemed inevitable, and 
 would most certainly have been attempted, had not indica- 
 tions of a popular determination to elect Mr. Jefferson to the 
 Presidency caused the postponement of a. project which could 
 not be completed before the close of Mr. Adams' administra- 
 tion. 
 
 No public documents of the period, accessible to me, speak 
 of the suspension by the Spaniards of this prohibitory order, 
 but from the fact that it was renewed afterwards, there can 
 be no doubt that terms of accommodation satisfactory to the 
 Western people were for the time agreed upon. 
 
 TREATY OF ST. ILDEPHONSO. 
 
 Napoleon, at this time First Consul, cast a longing eye at 
 the mouth of the Mississippi. His ministers had been in- 
 structed to obtain all possible information concerning Louisi- 
 ana. Monsieur de Pontalba. who had passed an official resi- 
 dence of many years in Louisiana, prepared at their request 
 a very remarkable memoir on the history and resources of 
 that province, which was presented to the French Directory 
 on the 15th of September, 1800. On the 1st of October fol- 
 lowing, a treaty between France and Spain was concluded at 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 473 
 
 St. Ildephonso, of which the third article'is in the following 
 words : — 
 
 "His Catholic Majesty promises and engages to retrocede 
 to the French Republic, six months after the full and entire 
 execution of the above conditions and stipulations relative 
 to His Royal Highness the Duke of Parma, the colony or prov- 
 ince 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 ought to be after the treaties subsequently en- 
 tered into between Spain and the other States." 
 
 France being at war with England when this treaty was 
 concluded, it was, at the request of Napoleon, carefully con- 
 cealed, lest England, then mistress of the seas, should take the 
 country from her, as she doubtless would have done, had 
 Napoleon taken possession of the province. 
 
 Spain inserted in this treaty a condition that she should 
 have the preference, in case France, in her turn, should be 
 disposed again to cede the territory. Great embarrassments 
 resulted from this stipulation. 
 
 The retrocession of Louisiana to France was not suspected 
 by our Government until March, 1801, six months after the 
 treaty of St. Ildephonso was concluded. It was then brought 
 to the notice of Mr. Madison, the secretary of state, by Mr. 
 Rufus King, our minister at the court of St. James, who wrote 
 on March 29, 1801:— 
 
 "The cession of Tuscany to the infant Duke of Parma, by 
 the treaty between France and Austria, adds very great 
 credit to the opinion which at this time prevails both at Paris 
 and London, that Spain has in return actually ceded Louisi- 
 ana and the Floridas to France. I am apprehensive that this 
 cession is intended to have, and may actually produce, effects 
 injurious to the Union and consequent happiness of the people 
 of the United States." 
 
 Mr. Madison seems to have shared the general incredulity 
 of England and other powers regarding the event, for he took 
 no notice of the intimation conveyed by Mr. King's dispatch, 
 until it was partially confirmed by another from the same 
 source on the 1st of June thereafter. In the first letter on the 
 subject Mr. King had deemed it of suflScient importance to 
 recommend the appointment of a minister to represent the 
 interests of our government near the court of France. In 
 
474 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLXECTIONS. 
 
 the last he related the substance of a conversation between 
 himself and Lprd Hawkesbury relative to Louisiana, in which 
 that .nobleman said that he had from different quarters re- 
 ceived infonnation of the cession to France, and very unre- 
 servedly expressed the reluctance with which they should be 
 led to acquiesce in a measure that might be followed by the 
 most important consequences: — that the acquisition might 
 enable France to extend her influence and perhaps her domin- 
 ion up the Mississippi and through the lakes, even to Canada. 
 To this, Mr. King replied : "We are content that the Floridas 
 remain in the hands of Spain, but should be unwilling to see 
 them transferred, except to ourselves." 
 
 CLAIM OF OUR GOVERNMENT. 
 
 Our government took the alarm instantlj'. The negotia- 
 tions it had effected with Spain, though still embarrassed 
 with some offensive conditions, had produced a state of com- 
 parative quiescence in the West; all dangerous intrigues were 
 at an end, and a further settlement had been projected which 
 would harmonize all opposing interests and forever secure to 
 our Western possessions the uninterrupted enjoyment of free 
 navigation of the Mississippi to the ocean. Such an arrange- 
 ment with France was deemed impossible. In the hands of 
 Napoleon, Louisiana would be at once transformed into a 
 powerful empire, and the Mississippi would be used as a high- 
 way to transport troops on errands of meditated invasion all 
 over the continent of North America. In her eager desire 
 to regain the Canadian possessions taken from her by Great 
 Britain, France would march her armies through our terri- 
 tories and inevitably embroil us in a war which would prove 
 in the end fatal to the liberties we had just established. 
 Heavy duties would necessarily be impost^d upon our West- 
 em population, and all the prejudices now so fortunately 
 allayed would be revived against the Government because of 
 its powerlessness to relieve them. 
 
 Mr. Madison addressed a dispatch to Mr. Pinckney, our 
 minister at Madrid, requesting him to ascertain whether a 
 treaty had been made, and if so, the extent of the cession 
 made by it. The Government appointed Mr. Robert R. Liv- 
 ingston minister to France. 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 475 
 
 In November, 1801, Mr. King succeeded in procuring a 
 "Copy of the secret treaty, and forwarded it to Mr. Madison. 
 In the midst of the alarm occasioned by this intelligence, the 
 war between France and England was terminated, and ar- 
 ticles of peace signed on the 1st of October, 1801, and France 
 commenced secret preparations to avail herself of the treaty 
 and take early possession of Louisiana. In the meantime 
 Mr. Livingston had arrived in Paris. On the 12th of Decem* 
 ber^ in a dispatch to Mr. Madison, he informed him that he 
 had hinted to one of the ministers that a cession of Louisiana 
 would afford them the means of paying their debts, — to which 
 the minister replied: ''None but spendthrifts satisfy their 
 debts by selling their lands," adding, however, after a short 
 pause, "but it is not ours to give." 
 
 TALLEYRAND'S DIPLOMACY. 
 
 Talleyrand was the Minister of Exterior Relations. In all 
 his interviews with Mr. Living-iton relative to the purchase 
 of Louisiana he fully exemplified one of the maxims of his 
 life, that "speech was given to man to enable him to disguise 
 his thoughts." All of Mr. Livingston's inquiries respecting 
 the treaty were met with studied reserve, duplicity, or posi- 
 tive denial. Often when he sought an interview the minister 
 was preoccupied or absent. He not only failed to obtain in- 
 formation of the extent of the cession and whether it included 
 the Floridas, but so undemonstrative were the communica- 
 tions of the minister upon the subject, that often he left him 
 doubtful of the intention of France to comply with the terms 
 of the treaty at all. His dispatches to Mr. Madison, while 
 they show no lack of exertion or expedient on his part to ob- 
 tain the desired information, bear evidence of the subtlety, 
 cunning, and artifice of one of the greatest masters of state- 
 craft the world has yet produced. At one time he expresses 
 his concern at the reserve of the French Government, and im- 
 portunes Talleyrand to inform him whether East and West 
 Florida or either of them are included in the treaty, and 
 afford him such assurances, with respect to the limits of their 
 territory and the navigation of the Mississippi heretofore 
 agreed upon between Spain and the L^nited States, as may 
 prove satisfactory to the latter. 
 
476 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 "If," he continues in the same note, "the territories of East 
 and West Florida be included within the limits of the cession. 
 obtained by France, the undersigned desires to be informed 
 how far it would be practicable to make such arrangements 
 between their respective governments, as would at the same 
 time aid the financial operations of France and remove by a 
 strong natural boundary all future causes of discontent be- 
 tween her and the United States." 
 
 Six days afterwards he writes to Mr. Madison that he has 
 received no reply to the above note. A month later in a dis- 
 patch he says: "They have as yet not thought it proper to 
 give me any explanations." One month afterwards he writes: 
 "The business most interesting to us, that of Louisiana, still 
 remains in the state it was. The minister will give no answer 
 to any inquiries I make on the subject. He will not say what 
 their boundaries are, what are their intentions, and when they 
 are to take possession." 
 
 Meantime the treaty of Amiens opened the ocean to Bona- 
 parte's contemplated expedition to Louisiana, The anxiety 
 of our government was greatly increased. Mr. Madison, in 
 a dispatch full of complaint at the ominous silence of the 
 French minister, among other intimations, conveys the fol- 
 lowing: — 
 
 "Since the receipt of your last communication, no hope 
 remains but from the accumulating difficulties of going 
 through with the undertaking, and from the conviction you 
 may be able to impress that it must have an instant and pow- 
 erful effect in changing the relations between France and the 
 United States." 
 
 Fears were entertained that the British Government 
 might have acquiesced in the treaty, so as to impair the stipu- 
 lations, concerning the free navigation of the Mississippi, but 
 these were dissipated by the assurance of Lord Hawkesbury, 
 in reply to a letter addressed to him on the subject by Mr. 
 King, that "His Majesty had not in any manner directly or 
 indirectly acquiesced in or sanctioned the cession." 
 
 TEDIOUS DELAY. 
 
 Nearly one month after this last dispatch to Mr. Madison^ 
 Mr. Livingston again informs him that the French Govern- 
 ment still continues to hold the same conduct with respect 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 477 
 
 to his inquiries in relation to the designs on Louisiana, but 
 assures him that nothing shall be done to impair the friendly 
 relations between America and France. Eight days after 
 this dispatch was written, he writes again that he has ac- 
 quired information on which he can depend, in relation to the 
 intention of the French Government. "Bernadotte," says he, 
 "is to command, Collot second in command, Adet is to be pre- 
 fect;" but the expedition is delayed until about September, 
 on account of some difQculty which Mr. Livingston conceives 
 to have "arisen from the different apprehensions of France 
 and Spain relative to the meaning of the term Louisiana, 
 which has been understood by France to include the Floridas, 
 but probably by Spain to have been confined to the strict 
 meaning of the term." 
 
 On the 30th of July, 1802, Mr. Livingston informs Mr. 
 Madison that he is preparing a lengthy memorial on the sub- 
 ject of the mutual interest of France and the United States 
 relative to Louisiana; and that he has received the explicit 
 assurance of the Spanish ambassador that the Floridas are 
 not included in the cession. 
 
 On the 10th of August following he again writes the secre- 
 tary that he has put his essay in such hands as he thinks will 
 best serve our purposes. "Talleyrand," he says, "has prom- 
 ised to give it an attentive perusal; after which, when I find 
 how it works, I will come forward with some proposition. I 
 am very much at a loss, however, as to what terms you would 
 consider it allowable to offer, if they can be brought to a sale 
 of the Floridas, either with or without New Orleans, which 
 last place will be of little consequence if we possess the Flo- 
 ridas, because a much better passage may be found on the 
 east side of the river." 
 
 Mr. Livingston now followed up his interrupted negotia- 
 tions with activity. He made several propositions for the 
 purchase of Louisiana, but was informed by the minister that 
 all offers were premature. "There never," says Mr. Living- 
 ston in a dispatch to the secretary of state, "was a Govern- 
 ment in which less could be done by negotiation than here. 
 There is no people, no legislature, no counsellors. One man 
 is everything. He seldom asks advice, and never hears it 
 unasked. His ministers are mere clerks; and his legislature 
 
478 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 and counsellors parade oflScers. Though the sense of every 
 reflecting man about him is against this wild expedition, no 
 one dares to tell him so. Were it not for the uneasiness it ex- 
 cites at home, it would give me none; for I am persuaded 
 that the whole will end in a relinquishment of the country, 
 and transfer of the capital to the United States." 
 
 Soon after this, Mr, Livingston had an interview with Jo- 
 seph Bonaparte, who promised to deliver to Napoleon any 
 communication Livingston could make. "You must not, how- 
 ever," he said, "suppose my power to serve you greater than it 
 actually is. My brother is his own counsellor, but we are 
 good brothers. He hears me with pleasure, and as I have ac- 
 cess to him at all times, I have an opportunity of turning his 
 attention to a particular subject that might otherwise be 
 passed over." He informed Mr. Livingston that he had read 
 his notes and conversed upon the subject with Napoleon, who 
 told him that he had nothing more at heart than to be upon 
 the best terms with the United States. 
 
 On the 11th of November Mr. Livingston wrote a hurried 
 letter to Mr. Madison, informing him that orders had been 
 given for the immediate embarkation of two demi-brigades 
 for Louisiana, and that they would sail from Holland in about 
 twenty days. The sum voted for this service was two and 
 one-half millions of francs. "No prudence," he concludes, 
 "will, I fear, prevent hostilities ere long, and perhaps the- 
 sooner their plans develop themselves the better." 
 
 RIGHT OF DEPOSIT PROHIBITED. 
 
 This was the condition of affairs when the Western people, 
 beginning to feel the effect of a proclamation suspending their 
 right of deposit in New Orleans, were importuning our Gov- 
 ernment for relief. Some idea may be formed of the excite- 
 ment which this act had produced, on reading the following, 
 which is one of many similar appeals addressed to Congress 
 by them: — 
 
 "The Mississippi is ours by the law of nature; it belongs 
 to us by our numbers, and by the labor which we have be- 
 stowed on those spots which, before our arrival, were desert 
 and barren. Our innumerable rivers swell it, and flow with it 
 into the Gulf of Mexico. Its mouth is the only issue which 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 479 
 
 nature has given to our waters, and we wish to use it for our 
 vessels. No power in the world shall deprive us of this right 
 We do not prevent the Spaniards and the French from ascend- 
 ing the river to our towns and villages. We wish in our turn, 
 without any interruption, to descend it to its mouth, to as- 
 cend it again, and exercise our privilege of trading on it, and 
 navigating it at our pleasure. If our most entire liberty in 
 this matter is disputed, nothing shall prevent our taking pos- 
 session of the capital, and when we are once masters of it we 
 shall know how to maintain ourselves there. If Congress re- 
 fuses us effectual protection, if it forsakes us, ^e will adopt 
 the measures which our safety requires, even if they endanger 
 the peace of the Union and our connection with the other 
 states. No protection, no allegiance." 
 
 Perhaps at no period in the history of our Grovemment 
 was the Union in more immediate danger of dissolution. Had 
 our citizens been fully apprised of our relations with France 
 and the neglect with which our embassador was treated, 
 nothing could have prevented an immediate secession of the 
 people west of the Alleghanies. Mr. Madison saw the gather- 
 ing of the storm, and on the 27th of November, a few days 
 before Congress assembled, addressed an earnest dispatch 
 to the American minister at Madrid. ''You are aware," said 
 he, "of the sensibility of our western citizens to such an oc- 
 currence. This sensibility is justified by the interest they 
 have at stake. The Mississippi to them is everything. It is 
 the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navigable 
 rivers of the Atlantic States, formed into one stream.* * * 
 Whilst you presume, therefore, in your representations to 
 the Spanish Government, that the conduct of its officer is no 
 less contrary to its Intentions than it is to its good faith, you 
 will take care to express the strongest confidence that the 
 breach of the treaty will be repaired in every wuy which jus- 
 tice and regard for a friendly neighborhood ma;y require." 
 
 Congress met, and President Jefferson, in a message on 
 Louisiana, said: "The cession of the Spanish province of 
 Louisiana to France which took place in the curse of the 
 late war, will, if carried into effect, make a chan^'e in the as- 
 pect of our foreign relations which will doubtle ,s have just 
 weight in any deliberations of the legislature coi nected with 
 
480 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL. SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 that subject." That body replied, that, relying with perfeot 
 confidence on the wisdom and vigilance of the Executive, they 
 would wait the issue of such measures as that department of 
 the Government should have pursued for asserting the rights 
 of the United States,— holding it to be their duty at the same 
 time to express their unalterable determination to maintain 
 the boundaries and the rights of navigation and commerce 
 through the river Mississippi, as established by existing 
 treaties. 
 
 MONROE APPOINTED MINISTER EXTRAORDINARY. 
 
 Party spirit at that time was but another name for party 
 animosity. The Federalists, anxious to regain the power that 
 they had lost by the election of Jefferson, seized upon the 
 subject of Mr. Livingston's mission and the proclamation of 
 prohibition ly the Spanish intendant, and held them up be- 
 fore the people as the necessary and inevitable product of 
 Democratic j rinciples. They were determined if possible to 
 force the cou atry into a war of invasion against New Orleans 
 and the coui'try including the mouth of the Mississippi, — a 
 measure in vhich the Western people would generally co- 
 operate. Tht» administration, on the other hand, still adhered 
 to the policy of negotiation, — ^and foreseeing that it must be 
 expeditious tc] avoid the inevitable destruction of the party, 
 and deprive i le Federals of the prestige which their vigor-, 
 ous measures were acquiring for them, President Jefferson, 
 on the 10th ol January, 1803, wrote to Mr. Monroe: — 
 
 "I have bivt a moment to inform you that the fever into 
 which the W( /stern world is thrown by the affair of New Or- 
 leans, stimulated by the mercantile and generally the Federal 
 interest, threatens to overbear our peace. In this situation 
 we are obliged to call on you for a temporary sacrifice of your- 
 self, to preveiit this greatest of evils in the present prosperous 
 tide of affairfl. I shall to-morrow nominate you to the Senate 
 for an extrj 'ordinary mission to France, and the circum- 
 stances are jj^uch as to render it impossible to decline; because 
 the whole jublic hope will be rested on you." 
 
 The Sen; te confirmed the nomination. Mr. Jefferson again 
 wrote to M|f. Monroe, urging him not to decline. "I know 
 nothing," h\ says, "which would produce such a shock, for 
 on the eveni of this mission depend the future destinies of 
 
 / 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 481 
 
 this republic. If we cannot by a purchase of the country in- 
 sure to ourselves a course of perpetual peace and friendship 
 with all nations, then, as war cannot be far distant, it be- 
 hooves us immediately to be preparing for that course, with- 
 out, however, hastening it; and it may be necessary (on your 
 failure on the Continent) to cross the Channel." We shall see 
 later the significance of this suggestion that he cross the 
 Channel into England. 
 
 The session of Congress had advanced to the middle of 
 February before any remedial measures were proposed for the 
 action of the Spanish intendant at New Orleans. Every fresh 
 dispatch from Mr. Livingston was a repetition of the old story 
 of neglect and silence. Meantime the Federal leaders, in- 
 cited by the continued and growing disaffection of the West- 
 ern people, as manifested by their inflammable appeals to 
 Congress, had resolved upon recommending immediate hos- 
 tilities as the last resort of the Government. The memora- 
 ble debate which involved a consideration of this question was 
 opened by Mr. Ross, of Pennsylvania, on the 14th of Febru- 
 ary, in a speech of remarkable force. The infraction of the 
 treaty of Madrid in 1795, by which the right of deposit had 
 been solemnly acknowledged, was claimed to be a sufficient 
 justification for a resort to arms. In the further progress of 
 this argument the speaker considered the opportunity as too 
 favorable to be lost, because success would be more assuvr:^ci 
 if a war was prosecuted while the Spaniards held posf^' cssion 
 of the country than it would be after it had passe"" rf'under the 
 dominion of France. With New Orleans in our Ypossession, 
 we could dictate the terms of a treaty that would \forever se- 
 cure our citizens from further molestation. These \\iews were 
 enforced by urgent appeals to the patriotism of th.\e people, 
 and the sternest denunciation of the tardy policy of '\ the ad- 
 ministration. At the close of his speech Mr. Ross pi^esented 
 a series of resolutions declaring the right of the peophj^ to the 
 free navigation of the Mississippi and a convenient p>lace of 
 deposit for their produce and merchandise in the ishaud of 
 New Orleans. The President would have been authorized 
 by the passage of these resolutions to take possession o'f such 
 place or places in the island or adjacent territories Jas he 
 might deem fit, and to call into actual service fifty tho/usand 
 
 31 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
482 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 militia to cooperate with the regular military and naval forces 
 in the work of invasion. They also provided for an appropria- 
 tion of five millions of dollars to defray the expenses of the 
 war. 
 
 A long aiid exhaustive debate followed, in which the 
 speeches on both sides were marked by distinguished ability 
 and eloquence, — those of Mr. Clinton against, and of Mr. Mor- 
 ris in favor of the resolutions, being among the ablest ever 
 before or since delivered on the floor of Congress. Milder 
 measures were finally substituted, authorizing the enrolment 
 of an army of eighty thousand men at the pleasure of the 
 President, and Congress adjourned. 
 
 Meantime Mr. Livingston reported some little progress in 
 the work of negotiation, and had addressed a memorial to 
 Bonaparte complaining of the conduct of the Spanish intend- 
 ant. Just at this time hostilities were again about to be re- 
 newed between England and France. Mr. Addington, the 
 British minister, in a conversation with Mr. King upon the 
 subject, observed that in case of war it would be one of the 
 first steps of Great Britain to occupy New Orleans. On the 
 11th of April, in an interview with Talleyrand, that minister 
 desired to know of Mr. Livingston if our Government wished 
 to purchase the whole of Lousiana. On receiving a negative 
 reply, he remarked that if they gave New Orleans, the rest 
 would be of little value. "Tell me," he continued, "what you 
 will give for the whole?" At the close of the dispatch con- 
 veying this. information to Mr. Madison, Mr. Livingston ap- 
 pends a postscript saying: "Orders are given this day to 
 stop the sailing of vessels from the French ports; war is 
 inevitable; my conjecture as to their determination to sell 
 is well founded. Mr. Monroe has just arrived." 
 
 BONAPARTE'S PROPOSITION. 
 
 Fear ^Jiat Great Britain would make an early attack upon 
 New Or^ieans, now that war between England and France 
 was cert ain, favored the efforts of Mr. Livingston for an early 
 purchase, and increased the anxiety of France to dispose of 
 the ent/ire province. Indeed, in a consultation held with 
 Decres and Marbois on the 10th of April, Napoleon fully re- 
 solved »to sell the whole of Louisiana. The little coquetry 
 that followed between Talleyrand, Marbois and Livinirston,, 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 483 
 
 was simply to obtain as large a price as possible. Napoleon 
 then said, "I know the full value of Louisiana, and I have been 
 desirous of repairing the fault of the French negotiator, who 
 abandoned it in 1762. A few lines of treaty have restored it 
 to me, and I have scarcely recovered it when I must expect 
 to lose it. But if it escapes from me, it shall one day cost 
 dearer to those who oblige me to strip myself of it, than to 
 those to whom I wish to deliver it. The English have suc- 
 cessively taken from France, Canada, Cape Breton, New 
 Foundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest portions of Asia. 
 They are engaged in exciting trouble in St. Domingo. They 
 shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet. Louisiana is 
 nothing in comparison with their conquests in all parts of the 
 globe, and yet the jealousy they feel at the restoration of this 
 colony to the sovereignty of France acquaints me with their 
 wish to take possession of it, and it is thus they will begin 
 the war." 
 
 The morning after this conference he summoned his min- 
 isters, and terminated a long interview in the following 
 words: — "Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in sea- 
 son. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans I 
 will cede, — it is the whole colony without any reservation. I 
 know the price of what I abandon, and have suflSciently 
 proved the importance that I attach to this province, — since 
 my first diplomatic act with Spain had for its object its re- 
 covery. I renounce it with the greatest regret. To attempt 
 obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to nego- 
 tiate this affair with the envoys of the United States. Do 
 not even await the arrival of Mr. Monroe; — have an interview 
 this very day with Mr. Livingston. But I require a great deal 
 of money for this war, and I would not like to commence it 
 with new contributions. * * * * i -y^ju ^^ moderate in 
 consideration of the necessity in which I am of making a sale. 
 But keep this to yourself. I want fifty millions, and for less 
 than that sum I will not treat; I would rather make a des- 
 perate attempt to keep these fine countries. To-morrow you 
 shall have full powers." 
 
 LOUISIANA PURCHASE TREATY SIGNED. 
 
 On the 30th of April, 1803, the treaty of cession was 
 signed. Louisiana was transferred to the United States, on 
 
484 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 condition that our government should consent to pay to 
 France eighty millions of francs. Of this amount, twenty 
 millions should be assigned to the payment of what was due 
 by France to the citizens of the United States. Article 3rd 
 of the treaty was prepared by Napoleon himself. It reads : — 
 
 "The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorpo- 
 rated in the Union of the United States, and admitted, as soon 
 as possible according to the principles of the Federal Consti- 
 tution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages and im- 
 munities of citizens of the United States, and in the mean- 
 time they shall be maintained and protected in the free en- 
 joyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which 
 they profess." 
 
 After the treaty was signed, the ministers rose and shook 
 hands, and Mr. Livingston, expressing the satisfaction which 
 they felt, said: "We have lived long, but this is the noblest 
 work of our whole lives. The treaty which we have just 
 signed has not been obtained by art or dictated by force: — 
 equally advantageous to the two contracting parties, it will 
 change vast solitudes into flourishing districts. From this 
 day the United States takes its place among the powers of the 
 first rank; — the English lose all exclusive influence in the 
 affairs of America. Thus one of the principal causes of Euro- 
 pean rivalries and animosities is about to cease. However, if 
 wars are inevitable, France will hereafter have in the New 
 World a natural friend, that must increase in strength from 
 year to year, and one which cannot fail to become powerful 
 and respected in every sea. The United States will re- 
 establish the maritime rights of all the world, which are now 
 usurped by a single nation. These treaties will thus be a 
 guarantee of peace and concord among commercial states. 
 The instruments which we have just signed will cause no 
 tears to be shed; they prepare ages of happiness for innu- 
 merable generations of human creatures. The Mississippi and 
 Missouri will see them succeed one another and multiply, 
 truly worthy of the regard and care of Providence, in the 
 bosom of equality, under just laws, freed from the errors of 
 superstition and the scourge of bad government." 
 
 When Napoleon was informed of the conclusion of the 
 treaty, he uttered the following sententious prophecy: "This 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 485 
 
 accession of territory strengthens forever the power of the 
 United States; — and I have just given to England a maritime 
 rival that will sooner or later humble her pride." 
 
 Neither of the contracting parties to this treaty was able 
 to define the boundaries of the vast territory of which it was 
 the subject. They were known to be immense, and in his 
 message to Congress announcing the purchase, Mr. Jefferson 
 says : — 
 
 "Whilst the property and sovereignty of the Mississippi 
 and its waters secure an independent outlet for the produce 
 of the Western States and an uncontrolled navigation through 
 their whole course, free from collision with other powers and 
 the dangers to our peace from that source, the fertility of the 
 country, its climate and extent, promise in due season im- 
 portant aids to our treasury, an ample provision for our pos- 
 terity, and a wider spread for the blessings of freedom and 
 equal laws." 
 
 Up to this time Spain had continued in actual and unin- 
 terrupted possession of the territory; — and, pending the rati- 
 fication of the treaty, the Spanish minister served notice 
 upon our Government that the treaty with France would be 
 void, on the ground that France had agreed that Spain should 
 have the preference, in case France should again cede Tx)uisi- 
 ana. President Jefferson replied that these were private 
 questions between France and Spain; — that the United States 
 derived its title from Napoleon, and did not doubt his guar- 
 antee of it; — and after farther unavailing protest, Spain re- 
 luctantly abandoned her claim to the territory. 
 
 TEXAS INCLUDED IN THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 
 
 Was Texas, as re-annexed to the United States in 1845, a 
 part of the original Louisiana Purchase? If so, under what 
 circumstances did it pass from our possession, so that its re- 
 covery resulted in the war with Mexico? If we did not ac- 
 quire it in that purchase, why did we cede it to Spain in 1819, 
 in exchange for the Floridas? 
 
 The United States claimed that the territory ceded to her 
 by France, extended to the Eio Bravo river, now called the Rio 
 Grande del Norte. The attitude of France was in support of 
 our government in this contention, she basing her own claim 
 to the territory prior to the date of its cession by her to Spain 
 
486 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 in 1762, upon its occupancy by LaSalle, who, with sixty men, 
 descended the Mississippi in 1682, and took possession, in the 
 name of Louis XTV., of aJl the country drained by the tribu- 
 taries of the Mississippi on the west, — to which he gave the 
 name Louisiana, and built Fori: Prudhomme. Two years later 
 he sailed from LaEochelle, France, with a company of two 
 hundred and eighty men, and, having passed the mouth of the 
 Mississippi through an error in the computation of longitude, 
 h.e landed in the Bay of St. Bernard, or Matagorda Bay, built 
 forts, and placed garrisons in them. LaSalle's explorations 
 along the shore of the Grulf of Mexico extended no farther west 
 than Matagorda Bay and the rivers which, flow into it. France 
 therefore could not make claims by virtue of LaSalle's "discov- 
 ery and occupancy" alone, to any portion of the country lying 
 south or west of the dividing ridge between the waters of Mata- 
 gorda Bay and the Rio Grande. The territory north and east 
 of these limits embraces about three-fifths of the state of 
 Texas. In 1685, LaSalle was killed upon the soil of Texas. 
 
 In the year 1699, Louis XLV. sent D'Iberville to found a 
 new colony, of which he was made Grovernor. D'Iberville took 
 possession of the country from the mouth of the Mobile to the 
 Bay of St. Bernard, in the name of France. Of this possession, 
 Marbois, in his "History of Louisiana", says : — 
 
 The occupation was hardly contested by the Spaniards, and the 
 relations of amity and common interest which were establJsshed at the 
 beginning of the 18th century between the two kingdoms, put an end to 
 any claims on the part of the court of Madrid. There was however no set- 
 tlement of boundaries;— and it appears that, on the one side, the Span- 
 iards were afraid that if they were accurately described, they would 
 have to consent to some concessions; — and on the other, the French 
 were unwilling to limit, by precise terms, their possible extension of 
 territory. 
 
 Louis XIV., in 1712, also issued letters patent to Crozat, 
 granting him the exclusive right, for twelve years, to trade in 
 this colony, which included Texas. Marbois, in speaking of 
 this privilege, says: — 
 
 The Government had only a very vague notion of what it was grant- 
 ing. * * * The limits of Louisiana were not afterwards; much better 
 defined;— but agreeably to the practice which certain maritime powers 
 
THE LOTUISIANA PURCHASE. 487 
 
 shad made a principle of the law of nations, the effect of the occupation 
 of the mouths of rivers and streams extended to their sources. 
 
 Marbois says that according to old documents, the bishop- 
 ric of Louisiana extended to the Pacific ocean, a/nd the Umits of 
 the diocese thus defined were secure from all dispute; — but that 
 the spiritual jurisdiction had no connection with the rights of 
 sovereignty and property. 
 
 France continued in almost undisputed possession of the 
 country for eighty years, or until her treaty of cession to Spain 
 in 1762. France believed that the territory belonged to her 
 prior to 1762, and there can exist little doubt that she in- 
 tended to include it all in the cession to Spain in that year; — 
 and it is equally evident that Spain relinquished her claim to 
 all that she acquired from France under the terms of the treaty 
 of St. Ildephonso, when she retroceded "Louisiana with the 
 same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that 
 it had when France possessed it." Both France and Spain 
 clearly understood that Louisiana extended on the west to the 
 Rio Grande. The only question at issue was that relating to 
 the eastern limit of Louisiana, and it was in reply to Living- 
 ston's question, *^What are the eastern bounds of Louisiana?" 
 that Talleyrand replied, "I do not know. You must take it as 
 we received it." 
 
 Upon the execution of the treaty of St. Ildephonso, the 
 French General, Victor, was designated by Decres, Napoleon's 
 Minister of Marine, to take possession of Louisiana. In the in- 
 structions which he prepared for the guidance of Victor, 
 Decres said: — 
 
 The extent of Louisiana is well determined on the south by the 
 Gulf of Mexico. But bounded on the west by the river called the Rio 
 Bravo, from its mouth to about the thirtieth parallel, the line of de- 
 marcation stops after reaching this point, and there seems never to 
 have been any agreement in regard to this part of the frontier. The 
 farther we go northward the more undecided is the boundary. This 
 part of America contains little more than uninhabited forests or Indian 
 tribes, and the necessity of fixing a boundary has never yet been felt 
 there. 
 
 These instructions, given immediately after the cession by 
 Spain to France, and in anticipation of her taking possession 
 
488 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 of the country, can leave little doubt tliat both France and 
 Spain regarded the Rio Grande as the western boundary of 
 Louisiana. Decres was the able coadjutor of Marbois in the 
 negotiations with Livingston and Monroe for the purchase of 
 Louisiana. 
 
 The Hon. Binger Hermann, commissioner of the General 
 Land Office, in his admirable work "The Louisiana Purchase/^ 
 which comprises a concise history of our various acquisitions 
 of territory during the past century, says: — 
 
 Our nation always claimed, as did France, that the Louisiana Pur- 
 chase extended westward to the Rio Bravo, because of the settlement 
 made by LaSalle, when, on his return from France, failing to find the 
 mouth of the Mississippi, he landed on the coast of what is now Texas; 
 therefore, the French always regarded the mouth of the Del Norte as 
 the western limit of Louisiana on the Gulf coast. Popple, an eminent 
 English geographer at that time, conceded this claim, and represented 
 on his map the Del Norte as the Avestern limit of Louisiana. The United 
 States on this ground claimed Texas up to 1819. and then abandoned it 
 when Spain ceded to us the two Floridas. It was said at the time 
 that the Spaniards prided themselves on their diplomacy in saving 
 Texas by surrendering Florida; indeed, there is much truth in this 
 boast, when we know how intently resolved our people were to possess 
 the Floridas, and hence we may well infer how ready they also were 
 to relinquish very STibstantial claims in order to acquire the long en- 
 vied Florida possessions;— this view is corroborated by reference to 
 President Monroe's message to Congress, December 7, 1819, concerning 
 the treaty with Spain in that year, wherein he says: "For territory 
 ceded by Spain, other territory of great value (Texas) to which our 
 claim was believed to be well founded, was ceded by the United States, 
 and in a quarter more interesting to her." A quarter of a century 
 later on there was still a vivid remembrance of our old claim to Texas 
 under the Louisiana Purchase, and when, in 1844, the annexation of 
 Texas was accomplished, President Tyler, in his messa.ge to the Senate 
 announcing the negotiation of that treaty, said that in event of the ap- 
 proval of annexation, "the Government will have succeeded in reclaim- 
 ing a territory w'hich formerly constituted a portion, as is confidently 
 believed, of its domain under treaty of cession of 1803, by France to the 
 United States," 
 
 In the progress of the debate upon the annexation of Texas, 
 Thomas H. Benton said : — 
 
 The oldest advocate for the recovery of Texas. I must be allowed 
 to speak in just terms of the criminal politicians who prostituted the 
 question of its recovery to their base purposes, and delayed its success 
 by degrading and disgracing it. A western man, and coming from a 
 
THE LOUISIANA PUBCHASE. 489 
 
 State more than any interested in the recovery of this country so un- 
 accountably thrown away by the treaty of 1819, I must be allowed to 
 feel indignant at seeing Atlantic politicians seizing upon it. 
 
 It will be borne in mind that in the speeches made in Con- 
 gress at the time of the admission of Texas to the Union, the 
 act was usually referred to not as the "annexation," but as the 
 "re-annexation" of Texas. 
 
 When the cession by France to the United States, of the 
 whole colony of Louisiana was agreed upon, Livingston and 
 Monroe thought that the terms in the third article of the 
 treaty, defining the extent of the territory, were too general, 
 and insisted that the true extent of Louisiana be specifically 
 defined. The French negotiator said that circumstances were 
 too pressing to permit them to consult the Court of Madrid, 
 and that Spain might wish to consult the viceroy of Mexico, 
 thus prolonging the discussion, and that it would be better for 
 the United States to abide by a general stipulation, as the 
 country was still for the most part in possession of the In- 
 dians; — and reminded them that in granting Canada to the 
 English in 1763, France only ceded the country it possessed 
 without specifically defining its limits; — yet England, in con- 
 sequence of that treaty, occupied territory as far west as the 
 Northern Ocean. This reasoning seemed to satisfy Livingston 
 and Monroe, and they made no more objections. Marbois, 
 writing, a quarter of a century later, of this incident, says : — 
 
 If, in appearing to be resigned to these general terms through neces- 
 sity, they considered them really preferable to more precise stipula- 
 tions, it must be admitted that the event has justified their foresight. 
 
 When Napoleon's attention was directed to the obscurity 
 and uncertainty of this stipulation, he said: — 
 
 If an obscurity does not already exist, it would perhaps be good 
 policy to put one there. 
 
 While there undoubtedly did exist much obscurity in the 
 minds of the negotiators of these several treaties concerning 
 the western limit of the ceded territory, France was prepared 
 to defend, and, had she not ceded it to the United States, 
 would have successfully defended, by negotiation or conquest, 
 her right to the territory as far west as the Rio G-rande, against 
 
490 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 any claim which Spain might have made. The territory with 
 this extent, including the Texas re-annexation, was specifically 
 known as Louisiana. It had been in the possession of France 
 for eighty years prior to 1762; — and whatever France ceded to 
 Spain at that time, she again ceded to t!he United States in 
 1803. It is evident, therefore, that the "Texas re-annexation" 
 of 1845, was, in 1803, part of the Louisiana Purchase. 
 
 VIEWS OP CONGRESSMEN. 
 
 It is not surprising that the public men of that day should 
 have feared the consequences of enlarging our republican do- 
 main. It looked to them like the renewal of the troubles 
 which they had just escaped, by the purchase of New Orleans 
 and the mouth of the Mississippi. It unsettled the ideas they 
 had formed of a Constitutional Government. They could not 
 see, as we can in this day of railroads and swift postal service, 
 and of telegraphs, giving immediate information concerning 
 the affairs of the nation, how such an immense territory was 
 to be subordinated to the control of a single General Govern- 
 ment. Hence we find such men as John Quincy Adams, Tim- 
 othy Pickering, Kufus Griswold, James White, and Uriah 
 Tracy, all men of enlarged, statesmanlike views, opposing the 
 bill entitled "An Act authorizing the erection of a stock to 
 the amount of eleven millions two hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars, for the purpose of carrying into effect the convention 
 of the 30th of April, 1803, between the United States and the 
 French Republic." 
 
 The speech of Mr. White against the passage of the bill is 
 a fair reflex of the views entertained by the leading public 
 men of that day. Speaking of the treaty, he says : — 
 
 I wish not to be understood as predicting that the French vrill not 
 cede to us the actual and quiet possession of the territory, I hope to 
 God they may, for possession of it we must have:— I mean of New Or- 
 leans and of such other portions on the Mississippi as may be neces- 
 sary to secure to us forever the complete and uninterrupted naviga- 
 tion of that river. This I have ever been in favor of, I think it essen- 
 tial to the peace of the United States and the prosperity of our West- 
 ern country. But as to Louisiana, this new, immense, unbounded 
 world,— if it should be ever incorporated into this Union, which I have 
 no idea can be done but by altering the Constitution, I believe it will 
 be the greatest curse that could at present befall us; — it may be pro- 
 ductive of innumerable evils, and especially of one that I fear even to 
 looli upon. Gentlemen on all sides, with very few exceptions, agree 
 
THE LOUISIANA PITRCHASE. 49]^ 
 
 that the settlement of the country will be highly injurious and danger- 
 ous to the United States; but as to what has been suggested of remov- 
 ing the Creeks and other nations of Indians from the eastern to the 
 -western banks of the Mississippi, and making the fertile regions of 
 Louisiana a howling wilderness, never to be trodden by the foot of 
 civilized man, it is impracticable. * * * To every man acquainted 
 with the adventurous, roving, and enterprising temper of our people, 
 and with the manner in which our Western country has been settled, 
 such an idea must be chimerical. The inducements will be so strong, 
 that it will be impossible to restrain our citizens from crossing the 
 river. Louisiana must and will be settled, if we hold it, and with the 
 very population that would otherwise occupy part of our present ter- 
 ritory. Thus our citizens will be removed to the immense distance 
 of two or three thousand miles from the capital of the Union, where 
 they will scarcely ever feel the rays of the General Government; their 
 affections will become alienated; they will gradually begin to view 
 us as strangers; they will form other commercial connections; and 
 our interests will become distinct. 
 
 These, with other causes that human wisdom may not now fore- 
 see, will in time effect a separation, and I fear our bounds will be 
 fixed nearer to our houses than the water of the Mississippi. We have 
 already territory enough, and when I contemplate the evils that may 
 arise to these States from this intended incorporation of Louisiana into 
 the Union, I would rather see it given to France, to Spain, or to any 
 other nation of the earth, upon the mere condition that no citizen of 
 the United States should ever settle within its limits, than to see the 
 territory sold for a hundred millions of dollars, and we retain the sov- 
 ereignty. * * * And I do say that, under existing circumstances, 
 even supposing that this extent of territory was a desirable acquisition, 
 fifteen millions of dollars was a most enormous sum to give. 
 
 This "enormous sum" was less than three cents an acre 
 for this immense domain, which had, in 1890, as shown by the 
 U. S. census, a population of over 11,000,000 people, and to 
 say nothing of its yield of gold, silver, copper, coal and lumber, 
 whose agricultural products alone in 1896, amounted to $345,- 
 000,000. 
 
 The dread of the disastrous consequences which Mr. White 
 feared would follow the crossing of the Mississippi river for 
 the purposes of settlement, found expression at that time in 
 a resolution presented in Congress, declaring that any Ameri- 
 can citizen who should cross the Mississippi river for the pur- 
 pose of settlement, should, by that act, forfeit all claim to the 
 protection of his Government. 
 
 We can to-day readily see that the questions which are now 
 engrossing the attention of the country concerning the acqui- 
 
492 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 sition of new territory in the Philippines are not new ques- 
 tions. The history of one hundred years ago is to-day repeat- 
 ing itself in every essential feature. The arguments of to-day 
 are those of a century ago. The question of the constitutional 
 right of our Goyernment to purchase Louisiana, and the larger 
 question of the expediency of forming an Anglo-American alli- 
 ance should France attempt openly to take possession of the 
 vast region which she had acquired under the secret treaty 
 with Spain, were, in their immediate results as well as in their 
 distant consequences, fully discussed on the floor of Congress 
 and in the diplomatic correspondence of President Jefferson. 
 Some of the New England members of Congress, foreseeing 
 that in a brief period of time many new States would be 
 formed out of the Louisiana purchase, and deprecating a loss 
 of the political supremacy of their own States in the national 
 Legislature, were ready to dissolve the Union on this issue. 
 Even after the Louisiana treaty was ratified by the payment 
 of the purchase money and the country at large had begun to 
 realize the value of its new possessions, there was seemingly 
 no abatement of this feeling; — and eight jears later, when 
 the bill admitting Louisiana into the Union as a State was 
 under discussion in the United States Senate, Josiah Quincy, 
 then Senator from Massachusetts, uttered these words : — 
 
 I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion, that if this 
 bill passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved;— that the 
 States which compose it are free from their moral obligations;— -and 
 that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some to pre- 
 pare, definitely, for a separation;— amicably if they can, violently if 
 they must 
 
 At this point in the debate he was called to order by Mr. 
 Poindexter, delegate in Congress for Mississippi (which was 
 then a Territory), for the utterance of these words of treason 
 against the United States Government. 
 
 Just fifty years later the conditions were changed, and it 
 was Mississippi and not Massachusetts that sought to separate 
 herself from the Union. 
 
 Following this remarkable declaration, Mr. Quincy said: — 
 
 I have already heard of six States, and some say there will be, at 
 no great distance of time, more. 
 
 Were Mr. Quincy in the United States Senate to-day, he 
 would be greeted by forty of his Senatorial colleagues, and 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 493 
 
 nearly one hundred members of the lower house of Congress, 
 from twenty States in the Union formed out of the Louisiana 
 purchase and other and later acquisitions of territory. 
 
 Mr. Tracy, after delivering an elaborate argument on the 
 subject, in which he arrives at the conclusion that the pur- 
 chase itself is constitutional, says: — 
 
 We can hold the territory;— but to admit tlie inhabitants into the 
 Union, to make citizens of them, and to make States by treaty, we can- 
 not constitutionally do;^and no subsequent act of legislation, or even 
 ordinary amendment to our Constitution, can legalize such a measure. 
 If done at all, they must be done by universal consent of all the States 
 or partners of our political association;— and this universal consent I 
 Am positive can never be obtained to. such a pernicious measure as 
 the admission of Louisiana, — of a world, — and such a world,— into our 
 Union. This would be absorbing the Northern States and rendering 
 them as insignificant in the Union as they ought to be, if by their own 
 consent the new measure should be adopted. 
 
 Senator Plumer of New Hampshire also said: — 
 
 Admit this Western world into the Union, and you destroy at once 
 the weight and importance of the Eastern States, and compel them to 
 establish a separate independent Empire. 
 
 These declarations indicate that local interests and jeal- 
 ousies measured, in a great degree, the patriotism of many of 
 the statesmen of that day. 
 
 LETTERS OF JEFFERSON. 
 
 We frequently hear it alleged to-day that Thomas Jeffer- 
 flon stood upon! the ground which is taken by many of his party 
 at this time, that the United States had no constitutional 
 power to purchase Louisiana. Jefferson, however, held that 
 view in theory only. He was sufficiently sagacious to see that 
 Louisiana would become essential to the United States in its 
 future development, and, without awaiting the action of Con- 
 gress, he made the purchase regardless of the constitutional 
 inhibition which he declared existed. It was a sublime act 
 of statesmanship; — a master stroke for which he is and ever 
 will be more renowned than as the author of the Declaration 
 of Independence. He acknowledged that he, as the Executive, 
 had gone beyond the letter of the Constitution; — yet he used 
 his utmost endeavor to have the treaty ratified promptly, and 
 the purchase money provided with the least possible discussion 
 
494 MINNESOTA HISTORICXL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 of the constitutionality of the purchase, which he regarded 
 as the crowning event of his administration, and for the con- 
 summation of which he was ready to proceed to any extreme. 
 On August 30, 1803, he wrote to Levi Lincoln: — 
 
 The less that is said about any constitutional difficulty, the better; 
 — ^and it will be desirable for Congress to do what is necessary, in 
 silence. 
 
 On Sept. 7, 1803, Jefferson wrote to Wilson C. Nicholas: — 
 
 Whatever Congress shall think it necessary to do should be done 
 with as little debate as possible, and particularly so far as respects 
 the constitutioual difficulty. * * * * As the constitution expressly de- 
 clares itself to be made for the United States, I cannot lielp believing 
 the intention was not to permit Congress to admit into the Union new 
 States to be formed out of the territory, for which, and under whose 
 authority alone they were then acting. * * * * i had rather ask 
 an enlargement of power from the Nation where it is found necessary, 
 than to assume it by a construction which would make our power 
 boundless. * ♦ * * Let us go on then, perfecting it, by adding, by 
 way of amendment to the Constitution, those powers which time and 
 trial show are still wanting. * * * * i think it important, in the 
 present case, to set an example against broad construction, by ap- 
 pealing for new power to the people. If, however, our friends shall 
 think differently, certainly I shall acquiesce with satisfaction;— confid- 
 ing, that the good sense of our country will correct the evil of con- 
 struction when it shall produce its ill effects. 
 
 On August 12, 1803, Jefferson wrote to Mr. Breckenridge : — 
 
 This treaty must of course be laid before both Houses. * * • ♦ 
 They, I presume, will see their duty to the country in ratifying and 
 paying for it; * * * • but I suppose they must then appeal to the 
 Nation for an additional article to the Constitution, approving and con- 
 firming 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 Ex- 
 ecutive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the 
 good of his country, has done an act beyond the Constitution. The 
 Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties, and risk- 
 ing themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it, and 
 throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized, 
 what we know they would have done for themselves had they been 
 in a situation to do it. It is the case of a guardian investing the money 
 of his ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory, and saying 
 to him when of age, 'I did this for your good; I pretend to no right 
 to bind you; you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape 
 as I can; I thought it my duty to risk myself for you.' But we shall 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 495-, 
 
 not be disavowed by the Nation, and their act of Indemnity will con- 
 firm and not weaken the Constitution, by more strongly marking out 
 its lines. 
 
 Although Jefferson here acknowledges that he had gone 
 beyond the letter of the Constitution, he evidently believed 
 that he had not violated the spirit of Republican Government 
 which was behind that instrument, nor the fundamental prin- 
 ciples upon which it was based; — and he was willing to ac- 
 cept as its proper interpretation, that many of the powers of 
 the Government under it are implied; — and that, as the peo- 
 ple made the Constitution, they could also amend it whenever 
 it became necessary to do so; — but that the purchase of new 
 territory, not being in violation of the underlying spirit of the 
 Constitution, could be made without any amendment to it. 
 
 OPINION OP CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. 
 
 This view of Jefferson was upheld and confirmed twenty- 
 five years later, by United States Chief Justice John Marshall. 
 In the case of the American Insurance Company vs. David 
 Canter, reported in 1st Peters, page 511, Chief Justice Mar- 
 shall, in delivering the opinion of the court, in January, 1828, 
 said: — 
 
 The Constitution confers absolutely on tlie Government of the 
 Union, the powers of making war and making treaties;— consequently 
 that Government possesses the power of acquiring territory either by 
 conquest or by treaty. The usage of the world is, if a nation be not 
 entirely subdued, to consider the holding of conquered territory as a 
 mere military occupation until its fate shall be determined at the 
 treaty of peace. If it be ceded by the treaty, the acquisition is con- 
 firmed, and the ceded territory becomes a part of the nation to which 
 it is annexed; — either on the terms stipulated in the treaty of cession, 
 or on such as its new master shall impose. On such transfer of terri- 
 tory It has never been held that the relations of the inhiabitants with 
 each other undergo any change. Their relations with their former 
 sovereign are dissolved, and new relations are created between them 
 and the government which has acquired their territory. The same act 
 which transfers their country transfers the allegiance of those who remain 
 in it; and the law, which may be denominated political, is necessarily 
 changed. 
 
 The language of the learned Chief Justice clearly estab- 
 lishes the right of one nation to transfer to another, any terri- 
 tory, and the allegiance and loyalty of its inhabitants, with 
 
496 MIN"NESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 out their consent. It is also evident, from an examination of 
 that portion of the opinion of the court which is not quoted 
 above, that the court believed that the CoMstitution and laws 
 of the United States did not extend by their own force over 
 territory so acquired, but that Congress alone could determine 
 all questions involved in their government. 
 
 Many of the most eminent jurists of our country believe 
 that the liberal powers which Chief Justice Marshall gave to 
 the Constitution during the thirty-four years that he inter- 
 preted it, were necessary to its durability, and that a strict ad- 
 herence to its letter would have destroyed it. Judge Story 
 siaid: — 
 
 The Constitution, since its adoption, owes more to him than to any 
 other single mind for its true interpretation and vindication. 
 
 No amendment of the Constitution has ever been deemed 
 necessary to confirm the purchase of Louisiana, as the general 
 power of the government to acquire territory and also to gov- 
 ern any territory it chooses to acquire, cannot be enlarged or 
 strengthened by any such amendment. And as the Nation 
 did not disavow the President of the United States at the be- 
 ginning of the nineteenth century in acquiring Louisiana, so it 
 will not disavow its President at its close, in acquiring the 
 Philippines. 
 
 ANGLO-AMERICAN ALLIANCE. 
 
 It is interesting to note the radical attitude of Jefferson at 
 this time, on the subject of forming an Anglo-American alli- 
 ance, and the length to which he was willing to go in this re- 
 spect in order to acquire Louisiana. 
 
 I have already adverted to Jefferson's letter to Monroe, in 
 which he wrote that ff Louisiana could not be purchased from 
 Napoleon, it might be necessary for him (Monroe) to cross the 
 Channel into England. For what purpose did he think this 
 might become necessary? It was to form an alliance with 
 England, in case of a failure of the negotiations for the pur- 
 chase of Louisiana. In a letter to Robert Livingston, dated 
 April 18, 1802, he boldly declared his policy in case of the re- 
 fusal of France to sell Louisiana to the United States. On 
 that day he wrote to Livingston: — 
 
 The cession of Louisiana by Spain to France, worlis most sorely 
 on the United States. * * • * jt completely reverses all the polit- 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 497 
 
 ieal relations of the United States. * * * * There is on the globe 
 one &ingle spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual 
 enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths 
 of our territory must pass to market. * * * * France, placing her- 
 self in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might 
 have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific disposition, her feeble 
 state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her 
 possession of the place would hardly be felt by us, and it would not 
 be very long before some circumstance might arise which might make 
 the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her. Not 
 so can it ever be in the hands of France. The impetuosity of her tem- 
 per, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of 
 eternal friction with us, and our character, which, though quiet and 
 loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded, despising 
 wealth in competition with insult or injury, enterprising and energetic 
 as any nation on earth;— these circumstances render it impossible that 
 France and the United States can continue long friends, when they 
 meet in so irritable a position. They, as well as we, must be blind 
 if they do not see this;— and we must be very improvident if we do 
 not begin to make arrangements on that hypothesis. The day that 
 France takes possession of New Orleans, fixes the sentence which is to 
 restrain her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union 
 of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession 
 of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the Brit- 
 ish fleet and Nation. We must turn all our attention to a maritime 
 force, for which our resources place us on very high ground;- and 
 having formed and connected together a power which may render re- 
 inforcement of her settlements here impossible to France, make the 
 first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for the tearing 
 up of any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two 
 continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the 
 United British and American Nations. * * * * in that case France 
 will have held possession of New Orleans during the interval of a 
 peace, long or short, at the end of which it will be wrested from her. 
 
 This letter to Chancellor Livingston was enclosed by Jef- 
 ferson to M. Dupont de Nemours, an eminent and influential 
 citizen of France, whose good offices in behalf of our govern- 
 ment Jefferson sought, and to whom he w'rote on April 25, 
 1802:— 
 
 ' You may be able to impress on the Government of France the 
 inevitable consequences of their taking possession of Louisiana;— and 
 though, as I here mention, the cession of New Orleans and the Floridas 
 to us would be a palliation, yet I believe it would be no more, and that 
 this measure will cost France, and perhaps not very long hence, a war 
 which will annihilate her on the ocean and place that element under the 
 despotism of two nations, which I am not reconciled to the more be- 
 32 
 
498 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 cause my own would be one of them. Add to this the exclusive appro- 
 priation of both. continents of America as a consequeoice. 
 
 These letters reveal the length to which Jefferson was will- 
 ing to carry the Nation on this issue. It was not only Louisi- 
 ana, but it was the whole of North America and South Amer- 
 ica that he proposed to hold jointly with England, under an 
 alliance which would sweep France from the ocean, and place 
 it — "that element," as he terms it, — under the control of Amer- 
 ica and England. The wildest imagination cannot carry us 
 farther than this. All our present purposes of expansion, and 
 all suggestions of the present concerning an Anglo-Saxon alli- 
 ance, are dwarfed into insignificance when compared with this 
 proposal of Jefferson, 
 
 Mr. Breckenridge did not share in the fears of his col- 
 leagues, concerning the purchase of Louisiana. In the stir- 
 ring reply which he made to them, he asks : — 
 
 Is the Goddess of Liberty restrained by water-cour.«tes? Is she 
 governed by geographical limits? Is her dominion on this continent 
 confined to the east side of the INIississippd? So far from believing 
 that a Republic ought to be confined within narrow limits, I believe 
 on the contraiy that the more extensive its dominion, the more safe 
 and durable it will be. In proiwrtion to the number of hands you in- 
 trust the precious blessings of a free government to, in the same pro- 
 portion do you multiply the chances for their preservation. 
 
 The measure providing the means for the purchase of the 
 territory finally became a law, and the LTnited States thereby 
 added to its original domain twelve hundred and sixty thou- 
 sand (1,260,000) square miles, including Texas, which, in 1S19, 
 was relinquished to Spain in exchange for the Floridas, and 
 was re-annexed to the United States in 1845. This vast acqui- 
 sition was more than one-third greater than the whole area of 
 the United States and their territorial possessions at the time 
 of the purchase. 
 
 FEARS OF EASTERN STATE3.MSN. 
 
 The fears entertained by our early statesmen are all forgot- 
 ten. I have recalled them, not to illustrate any deficiency in 
 the foresight or wisdom of the men of that day, but to show 
 how remarkable has been the progress of improvement, discov- 
 ery, and invention, by which we have been enabled, during 
 nearly a century of national expansion, to incorporate not only 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 
 
 499 
 
 the Louisiana Purchase, but others of still greater aggregate ex- 
 tent, into the government of the Republic, without endanger- 
 ing its safety, and without any amendment to the Constitu- 
 tion, or any material modification of our form of government, 
 or divergence from the faith or policy of Thomas Jefferson, 
 and others of the Fathers of the Republic. 
 
 It is worthy of notice that all of these vast regions were 
 ceded by the nations possessing them, without consulting their 
 subjects, and the cession accepted by the United States with- 
 out obtaining or even asking the consent of the inhabitants. 
 As was said by Chief Justice Marshall in the opinion already 
 referred to, "the same act which transfers their country, trans- 
 fers the allegiance of those who remain in it." The power to 
 expand is inherent and limitless. The United States may con- 
 stitutionally take whatever territory it desires, if it is rightly 
 acquired. The question is one of expediency only, not of power. 
 
 It is said that the best and most enlightened thought of 
 New England to-day is opposed to the expansion policy of our 
 Grovernment. We may answer that the most enlightened 
 thought and best statesmanship of New England opposed the 
 purchase of Louisiana, and of the Floridas, and the measures 
 by which we acquired Oregon, and the treaty with Mexico 
 which gave us California. But the enlightening experiences of 
 a century have left their lessons, and there is to-day neither in 
 New England nor elsewhere in the United States, any promi- 
 nent man in public life who would venture to question the wis- 
 dom of the measures by which these acquisitions were made, 
 and which have so benefited and enriched the Republic. And 
 with distance annihilated by steam and electricity, there is no 
 reason which can be presented why the work of civilization and 
 development whidh has been so successfully accomplished by 
 the American people in the remote regions of this continent, 
 may not be as effectively done on any soil under the sun. 
 
 The doleful predictions of a century ago, like those we are 
 hearing to-day, when our land is teeming with the spirit of ac- 
 quisition, were born of a fear and timidity which are inimical 
 to great progress; and they represent a mental attitude which 
 is not fitted to grapple with new problems. 
 
 This Nation is no longer an infant, but a giant. The sun 
 never sets on the land over which now float the stars and 
 
500 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 stripes, and we. have need to expand our ideas of our destiny 
 as we hare expanded our territory. The present is no time 
 for faint-heartedness in the councils of the Republic. 
 
 MODE OP DEFINING WESTERN BOUNDARY. 
 
 The western boundary of the vast territory ceded to the 
 United States under the name of Louisiana was a geographical 
 problem, incapable of any other than a forced solution. It 
 was claimed that by the treaty of Utrecht, concluded in 1713, 
 the 401h parallel of latitude had been adopted and definitively 
 settled as the dividing line between the French possessions of 
 Western Canada and Louisiana on the south, and the British 
 territories of Hudson Bay on the north, and that this 
 boundary extended westward to the Pacific. So unreliable 
 was the evidence in support of this claim, that it was finally 
 determined, in the settlement of the western boundary of 
 Louisiana, to adopt such lines as were indicated by nature, 
 namely, the crest of mountains separating the waters of 
 the Mississippi from those flowing into the Pacific. This left 
 in an unsettled condition the respective claims of Spain, Rus- 
 sia, Great Britain and the United States to the vast territory 
 beyond the Rocky Mountains, extending along the 42nd paral- 
 lel of latitude west to the Pacific on the south, thence north 
 up the coast indefinitely, thence east to the crest of the Rocky 
 Mountains, thence following the crest, south, to the place of 
 beginning. Both our country and Great Britain recognized 
 an indefeasible right in Spain to some portion of this country, 
 but our relations with Spain were such at the time, that this 
 opinion was not openly promulgated. The territory included 
 the mouth of the Columbia, the entire region drained by that 
 river and its tributaries, and an extensive region still further 
 north independent of this great river system. The most valu- 
 able portion of it at this early period in our history was that 
 traversed by the Columbia and its tributaries. 
 
 DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA BY CAPTAIN GRAY. 
 
 Great Britain had no right, by discovery or otherwise, to 
 any portion of this part of the territory. "The opening," says 
 Greenhow, "through which its waters are discharged into the 
 ocean was first seen in August, 1776, by the Spanish navigator 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 5OI 
 
 Heceta, and was distinguished on Spanish charts within the 
 thirteen years next following, as the mouth of the River San 
 Roque. It was examined in July, 1788, by Meares, who quitted 
 it with the conviction that no river existed there. This opin- 
 ion of Meares was subscribed, without qualification, by Van- 
 couver, after he had minutely examined the coast, 'under the 
 most favorable conditions of wind and weather,' and notwith- 
 standing the assurance of Gray to the contrary." The actual 
 discovery of the mouth of the Columbia was made on the 11th 
 of May, 1792, by Captain Robert Gray, a New England navi- 
 gator, who says in his logbook under that date : "Beheld our 
 desired port, bearing east-south-east, distant six leagues. At 
 eight a. m., being a little to the windward of the entrance of 
 the harbor, bore away, and ran in east-north-east between the 
 breakers, having from five to seven fathoms of water. When 
 we were over the bar, we found this to be a large river of fresh 
 water, up which we steered." 
 
 Captain Gray remained in the Columbia from the 11th until 
 the 20th of May, during which time he sailed up the river 
 fifteen miles, gave to it the name it still bears, trafficked with 
 the natives, and named the capes at the entrance and other 
 points above. 
 
 ATTITUDE OF JEFFERSON. 
 
 The United States had this claim to the rnouth of the river 
 and the interior drained by it and its triburaries eleven years 
 before the Louisiana Purchase was made. President Jefferson 
 evidently believed that Gray's discovery fully established our 
 claim to all that region, and that it was not embraced within 
 the limits of the territory ceded by Spain to France in 1800 
 by the treaty of St. Ildephonso: — for in January, 1803, while 
 negotiations with Napoleon were in progress, and three months 
 before the Louisiana treaty was signed, he sent a confidential 
 message to Congress, which resulted in an appropriation by 
 that body of twenty-five hundred dollars for an exploration of 
 the region. No public documents accessible to me at this time 
 throw much light upon this secret or confidential message, 
 but it is probable that the hidden purpose contained in it was 
 privately brought to the notice of a sufficient number of the 
 members of Congress to insure the small appropriation asked 
 
502 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 for it. In a letter to Dr. Barton, dated Feb. 27, 1803, Jefferson 
 refers to these "secret proceedings'' as follows : 
 
 You know we have been many years wishing to have the Missouri 
 explored, and whatever river, heading with that, runs into the Western 
 ocean. Congress, in some secret proceedings, have yielded to a proposi- 
 tion I made them for permitting me to have it done. * * * 
 
 That Jefferson desired to enshroud in secrecy the real pur- 
 pose of this expedition, and conceal it from the knowledge of 
 Great Britain and the Northwest Company, is evident from his 
 suggestions relative to the title of the bill providing for the ap- 
 propriation, and from the small number of persons he desired 
 to enlist in the enterprise, as well as from other mysterious 
 and covert suggestions contained in this secret message to Con- 
 gress, from which I here quote. After outlining a project for 
 the extension of the public commerce among the Indian tribes 
 of the Missouri and the western ocean, he says: 
 
 An intelligent officer, with ten or twelve chosen men, fit for the en- 
 terprise and willing to undertake it, taken from our posts where they 
 may be spared without inconvenience, might explore the whole line, 
 even to the Western Ocean, have conference with the natives on the 
 subject of commercial intercourse, * * * and return with the in- 
 formation acquired in the course of two summers. * * ♦ Their pay 
 would be going on while here or there. While other civilized nations 
 have encountered great expense to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge 
 by undertaking voyages of discovery and for other literary purposes, in 
 various parts and directions, our nation seems to owe to the same object, 
 as well as to its own interests, to explore this only line of easy com- 
 munication across the continent, and so directly traversing our oiv'n part 
 of it. The interests of commerce place the principal object within the 
 constitutional powers and care of Congress, and that it should inci- 
 dentally advance the geographical knowledge of our own continent, can 
 not but be an additional gi-atification. The nation claiming the terri- 
 tory, regarding this as a Utei-ary pursuit, which it is in the habit of per- 
 mitting within its dominions, would not be disposed to view it with 
 jealousy, even if the expiring state of its interests there did not render 
 it a matter of indifference. The appropriation of $2,500 "for the purpose 
 of extending the external commerce of the United States," while understood 
 and considered by the Executive as giving the legislative sanction, 
 would cover the undertaking from notice, and preAeut the obsitructions 
 which interested individuals might otherwise previously prepare in its 
 way. 
 
 LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION. 
 
 The expedition was not organized, however, before the pur- 
 chase from France was concluded. After that was agreed 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 
 
 503 
 
 upon, Captain Meriwether Lewis, whose grand-uncle married a 
 sister of Washington, and who, at the time of his appoint- 
 ment, was the private secretary of President Jefferson, and| 
 Captain William Clark, were, at the instance of Jefferson, ap- 
 pointed to explore the country up the Missouri to its source 
 and to the Pacific. From the moment of their appearance on 
 the Missouri, their movements were watched by the British, 
 and as soon as the object of their expedition was discovered, 
 the Northwest Company, in 1805, sent out its men to establish 
 posts and occupy territories on the Columbia. The British 
 Company proceeded no farther than the Mandan villages on the 
 Missouri. Another party, dispatched on the same errand in 
 1806, crossed the Rocky Mountains near the passage of the 
 Peace river, and formed a small trading establishment in the 
 54th degree of north latitude, — the first British post west of 
 the Rocky Mountains. Neither at this nor at any subsequent 
 time until 1811 does it appear that any of the waters of the 
 Columbia were seen by persons in the service of the North- 
 west Company. 
 
 Lewis and Clark arrived at the Kooskooskee river, a tribu- 
 tary of the Columbia, in latitude 4G° 34', early in October, 1805, 
 and on the 7th of that month began their descent in five canoes. 
 They entered the great southern tributary', which they called 
 Lewis, and proceeded to its confluence, giving the name of 
 Clark to the northern branch; thence they sailed down the 
 Columbia to its mouth, and wintered there until the middle of 
 March, 1806. They then returned, exploring the streams 
 which emptied into the Columbia and furnishing an accurate 
 geographical description of the entire country through which 
 they passed. 
 
 ASTOR EXPEDITION. 
 
 Early in 1811 the men sent by John Jacob Astor to the 
 northwest coast in the interest of the Pacific Fur Company, 
 erected buildings and a stockade, with a view to permanent 
 settlement, on a point of land ten miles above the mouth of 
 the Columbia, which they called Astoria. With the exception 
 of one or two trading posts on some of the small streams con- 
 stituting the head waters of the river, the country had not at 
 this time been visited by the English. Further detail of the 
 history and trials of the Pacific Fur Company is unnecessary 
 in this place, but the reader who desires to acquaint himself 
 
504 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL, SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 with it is referred to Irving's "Astoria" for one of the most 
 thrilling narratives in American history. 
 
 In 1818, after Astoria had been sold by the Americans to 
 the British Fur Company and the stockade occupied by British 
 troops, it was restored to the United States under a provision 
 of the Treaty of Ghent, without prejudice to any of the claims 
 that either the United States, Great Britain, Spain or Russia 
 might have to the ultimate sovereignty of the territory. The 
 claims of the respective nations were afterward considered by 
 the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain and the United States. 
 Messrs. Rush and Gallatin, who represented our Government, 
 proposed that the dividing line between the territories should 
 be drawn from the northwestern extremity of the Lake of the 
 Woods north or south, as the case might require, to the 49th 
 parallel of latitude, thence west to the Pacific. The British 
 commissioners, Messrs. Goldburn and Robinson, agreed to ad- 
 mit the line as far w est as the Rocky Mountains. Our repre- 
 sentatives on that occasion supported the claim of our Gov- 
 ernment by citing Gray's discovery, the exploration of the Co- 
 lumbia from source to mouth by Lewis and Clark, and the first 
 settlement and occupancy of the country by the Pacific Fur 
 Company. The British commissioners asserted superior 
 claims by virtue of former voyages, especially those of Captain 
 Cook, and refused to agree to any boundary which did not 
 give them the harbor at the mouth of the river in common 
 with the United States. Finding it impossible to agree upon 
 a boundary, it was at length agreed that all territories and 
 their waters claimed by either power west of the Rocky 
 Mountains should be free and open to the vessels, citizens and 
 subjects of both for the space of ten years; provided, however, 
 that no claim of either or of any other nation to any part of 
 those territories should be prejudiced by the arrangement. 
 
 FLORIDA TREATY. 
 
 On the 22nd of February, 1819, Spain ceded Florida to the 
 United States, and by the treaty it was agreed that a line 
 drawn on the meridian from the source of the Arkansas north- 
 ward to the 42nd parallel of latitude, and thence along that 
 parallel westward to the Pacific, should form the northern 
 boundary of the Spanish possessions and the southern bound- 
 ary of those of the United States in that quarter. 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 5()5 
 
 On the 5th of April, 1824, the negotiations between the 
 United States and Russia were terminated bj a convention 
 signed at St. Petersburg, which, among other provisions, con- 
 tained one to the effect that "neither the United States nor 
 their citizens shall, in future, form an establishment on those 
 coasts or on the adjacent islands north of the latitude of 54° 
 40', and the Russians shall make none south of that latitude." 
 
 These concessions on the part of Spain and Russia left the 
 United States and Great Britain sole claimants for the entire 
 territory under consideration, the claim of Great Britain hav- 
 ing been fortified by a treaty with Russia in 1825, in which 
 the Russian Government agi'eed, as it had done with our Gov- 
 ernment the previous year, that the line of 54° 40' should be 
 the boundary between their respective possessions. 
 
 The period of ten years' joint occupation by our Govern- 
 ment and Great Britain agreed upon in 1818 was now ap- 
 proaching a termination. A new negotiation was opened, and 
 after submitting and rejecting several propositions for a set- 
 tlement, it was finally agreed between the two Governments 
 that they should continue in the joint occupancy of the terri- 
 tory for an indefinite period, either party being at liberty to 
 demand a new negotiation on giving the other one year's no- 
 tice of its intention. 
 
 The relations thus established between the two Govern- 
 ments continued without interruption until the attention of 
 Congress was called to the subject by President Tyler in his 
 message read at the opening of the session of 1842. The sub- 
 ject was referred to the committees on foreign affairs in both 
 houses of Congress, and a bill was introduced in the Senate 
 for the occupation and settlement of the territory, and extend- 
 ing the laws of the United States over it. A protracted debate 
 followed, the bill passed the Senate and was sent to the House 
 of Representatives, where a report against it was made by 
 Mr. Adams, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, and 
 the session expired without any debate on the subject. When 
 the report of the debates in Congress reached England, it pro- 
 duced some excitement in the House of Commons, and in 
 February, 1844, the Honorable Richard Packenham, plenipo- 
 tentiary from Great Britain, arrived in Washington with full 
 instructions to treat definitively on all disputed points relative 
 to the country west of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
506 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 In August following the British minister opened the nego- 
 tiation by a proposition which would have given Great Britain 
 two-thirds of the entire territory of Oregon, including the free 
 navigation of the Columbia and the harbors on the Pacific. 
 This was promptly rejected, and no further attempt at adjust- 
 ment was made until the following year. An offer was then 
 made by President Polk, which being rejected, closed the door 
 to further negotiation. The President recommended to Con- 
 gress that the agreement for joint occupation be terminated. 
 
 FINAL SETTLEMENT OF BOUNDARY. 
 
 A very animated debate, which continued until near the 
 close of the session, sprang up, in which the question of bound- 
 ary lost most of its national features in the sharp party con- 
 flict to which it was subjected. The Democrats, generally 
 adopting the recommendations of the President, advocated the 
 extreme northern boundary of 54° 40', and were ready, if 
 necessary, to declare that as the ultimatum. A few leaders 
 among them, of whom Thomas Benton was, perhaps, the most 
 prominent, united with the Whigs in opposition to this ex- 
 treme demand, and the line was finally established by treaty 
 on the 49th parallel. 
 
 Hon. James C Blaine, in a speech delivered at Lewiston, 
 Maine, on August 25, 1888, said: "The claim of the Democrats 
 to the whole of what now constitutes British Columbia up to 
 latitude 54° 40', was a pretense put forth during the presiden- 
 tial canvass of 1844 as a blind, in order to show that they were 
 as zealous to secure Northern territory as they were bent on 
 acquiring Southern territory. President Polk made his cam- 
 paign on this claim. The next thing the country heard was 
 that Mr. Polk's administration was compelled to surrender the 
 whole territory to Great Britain, confessing that it had made 
 pretenses which it was unable to maintain or defend. Had 
 his party not forced the question to a settlement, the joint occu- 
 pation which had come down from Jefferson to that hour 
 would have peacefully continued, and with our acquisition of 
 California two years afterwards and the immediate discovery 
 of gold, the thousands of American citizens who swarmed to 
 the Pacific coast would have occupied British Columbia, and 
 the final settlement would doubtless have been in favor of 
 
THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE. 5{)7 
 
 those who were in actual posssession; — and but for the blun- 
 dering diplomacy of the Democratic party, which prematurely 
 and without any reason forced the issue, we should to-day see 
 our flag floating over the Pacific front, from the Gulf of Cali- 
 fornia to Behring's Straits." 
 
 This mode of settlement probably averted a war between 
 Oreat Britain and the United States, but after a careful sur- 
 vey of all the facts, including discoveries, explorations and set- 
 tleihents, I cannot but feel that the concessions were all made 
 by the United States, whose title to the whole of the territory 
 was much more strongly fortified than that of Great Britain 
 to any portion of it. 
 
 As from our present vantage ground we look back a half 
 century in review of the debates and discussions in Congress 
 upon this boundary question, we marvel at the seeming lack 
 of prescience which the wisest of the public men of that day 
 displayed in estimating the value of these possessions. Even 
 as enlightened and sagacious a statesman as Daniel Webster, 
 in his famous speech delivered on the floor of the United 
 States Senate, on April 6, 1846, while defending his course in 
 advocating the treaty of Washington, in speaking of the value 
 of the privilege granted by England to the citizens of Aroos- 
 took County, in the State of Maine, in allowing them free navi- 
 gation of the River St. John, to the ocean, said : 
 
 ''We have heard a great deal lately of the immense value 
 and importance of the Columbia river and its navigation ; — but 
 I will undertake to say that for all purposes of human use, 
 the St. John is worth a hundred times as much as the Colum- 
 bia is, or ever will be." 
 
 Standing to-day in the valley of the Mississippi and casting 
 our eyes over the Louisiana Purchase and our later acquisi- 
 tions, upon this continent, we talk of the West, — its cities, — 
 its agriculture, — its progress, with rapture; — a land where but 
 half a century ago, nearly all was bare creation; — whose val- 
 leys, now teeming with fruition, had then never cheered the 
 vision of civilized man; — whose rivers, which now afford the 
 means of employment to thousands, and which are bordered by 
 myriads of happy homes, then rolled in solitary grandeur to 
 their imion with the Missouri and the Columbia; — to all this we 
 
508 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS. 
 
 point with pride as the latest and noblest illustration of our re- 
 publican system of government. But beyond this West, which 
 we so much admire and eulogize, there has come to us from the 
 islands of the Pacific, another West, where the real work of 
 development is just commencing; — a land whose rugged feat- 
 ures, American civilization with all its attendant blessings 
 will soften; — insuring respect for individual rights and the 
 practice of orderly industry, security for life and property, 
 freedom of religion and the equal and just administration of 
 law; — and where man, educated, intellectual man, will plant 
 upon foundations as firm as our mountains, all the institu- 
 tions of a free, enlightened and happy people; — a land where 
 all the advantages and resources of the West of yesterday 
 will be increased, and varied, and spread out, by educational, 
 industrial and social development, upon a scale of magnificence 
 which has known no parallel, and which will fill the full meas- 
 ure of Berkeley's prophecy: — 
 
 "Westward the course of Empire takes its way. 
 
 The first four acts already past, 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day. 
 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last.'' 
 
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LIBRfiRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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