days before the expiration of the Seventh Congress; its legislature assembling at Chilicothe on the first day of spring.

April 19.

SECTION II.

PERIOD OF EIGHTH CONGRESS.

MARCH 4, 1803-MARCH 3, 1805.

As the first triumph of Jefferson's policy respecting Louisiana came Spain's disavowal of the Intendant's action in prohibiting the American deposit at New Orleans; and an order from the King restoring that right to the United States until some equivalent place should be mutually agreed upon, as the treaty provided. Through D'Yrujo the temperate forbearance of the United States government was cordially acknowledged. The French prefect, Laussat, had now arrived at New Orleans, and only awaited the arrival of the promised army and fleet to take formal possession on behalf of his government; but he offered no obstruction to the order of Spain. Uneasy as our Western people had become over the temporary curtailment of their commercial rights in the Mississippi, the real injury suffered was not great."

April 2.

May 17.

*

But the national heart was now more firmly fixed than ever in the desire to gain the toll-gates of this great river highway; nor did the administration fail to give that desire full expression. What our government sought most to obtain was the two Floridas, together with the island of New Orleans. Monroe's selection for the momentous embassy had been made not without some apprehension that there might be need of a young, joyous, vivacious spirit at Paris to brace up the negotiation in aid of Livingston, who was old, hard of hearing, had never been brought much in contact with the enterprising spirit of

to expire, must be left to conjecture; but it came with ill grace from one who knew so well what it had cost the Union to make its title good to this territory. See current newspapers, December, 1802; supra, vol. i., p. 196.

* Madison's Writings, April 20th, 1803.

1803.

NEGOTIATION FOR LOUISIANA.

45

the West, and whose latest correspondence, besides, betrayed discouragement with his task, and a disposition to have our government fight for the coveted territory, as the only sure means of obtaining it. Livingston had, nevertheless, proved himself a discreet, zealous, and persistent negotiator under the most trying circumstances.*

Napoleon had set his heart upon reacquiring the vast territory which France had so prodigally signed away in 1762 under the pressure of adverse war with Great Britain, and once more gaining that ascendency in North America of which her island enemy had deprived her. A French expedition under General Victor had prepared to set sail from Dunkirk, with 3000 horses and 3000 workmen as the advance guard of this colonial enterprise in the New World. What Bonaparte regarded indispensable in military science, however, Jefferson had applied to politics, namely, an accurate calculation of all contingencies in the first place, and then giving to accident its exact allowance. The accident for which Jefferson had here allowed was, in truth, the speedy renewal of hostilities between France and England. The treaty of Amiens was too hastily drawn up, and its adjustment of disputes too incomplete to be more than a truce between them. The irritated ambitions of the two implacable rivals would not suffer either to rest upon a drawn victory. And thus it came to pass ere Monroe could reach Paris. New taunts were thrown out; Napoleon charged the British with perfidy over Malta; George III. retorted with charges of French perfidy; Lord Whitworth, the English ambassador, was openly affronted by the First Consul at the Tuileries in presence of the whole diplomatic corps; England impressed into her navy every sailor who could be found at Liverpool, while an army conscription went on rigorously through France. The question was not whether war might be avoided, but how long it would be postponed.

Feb.-March.

Hitherto, Livingston had striven in vain to gain Napoleon's favor. He had prepared a memorial upon Louisiana to en

* "I will give you a certificate," said Talleyrand once laughingly, "that you are the most importunate negotiator I have yet met with." See Parton's Jefferson, 653.

April 8.

force the views his government entertained; and this, Joseph Bonaparte assured him, the First Consul read with attention; but no one could tell how far it had moved him. All at once Victor's sailing orders at Dunkirk were countermanded, and Livingston found himself treated with marked respect. Napoleon had relinquished, and most reluctantly, his designs upon the American continent, under the pressure of a speedy war with England, and the necessity of preventing the United States from making an alliance with his enemy. Forced to surrender the Mississippi, in any event he resolved to put it out of the reach of his immediate foe and gain the gratitude of a new and rising power. He needed money, furthermore, in aid of his warlike operations; and no power would pay for Louisiana so liberally as the United States, for none had so ample means and motives for its purchase. Barbè-Marbois was accordingly authorized, on the First Consul's behalf, to negotiate an immediate sale to the United States, not of New Orleans alone, or the eastern bank, but of the whole territory of Louisiana as Spain had ceded it to France. Napoleon left Talleyrand out of the business, lest, perhaps, the X. Y. Z. recollection might be revived unpleasantly. While Monroe, who arrived in Paris the afternoon of April 12th, was on his way from Havre, Livingston received terms; and Marbois, coming the next day as April 12-13. Monroe was dining with Livingston, it was agreed that the First Consul being a man of promptness, and Monroe not yet presented to him, his colleague should speak for both as to price. Monroe's instructions being more ample than Livingston's, the two were quickly enabled to consummate the purchase.* Fifty millions of francs was the secret limit at which Marbois had been empowered to sell Louisiana; he offered it for one hundred millions and promptly closed at eighty millions.†

April 10-11.

The treaty, which was accompanied by two conventions, fixed, therefore, the purchase price for Louisiana at April 30. a sum about equivalent to $15,000,000 in the aggregate, of which $11,250,000 or 60,000,000 francs were to be in six * See Memoirs of Marbois; Napoleon's Correspondence.

† Monroe Correspondence.

1803.

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.

47

per cent. stock of the United States, redeemable after fifteen years in annual instalments; this country further assuming all claims of its citizens on France under the recent convention, to the amount, as estimated, of $3,750,000, or 20,000,000 francs. It was provided, moreover, that the inhabitants of the ceded territory should continue secure in their religion, liberty, and property, and be duly admitted to the rights of citizens of the United States. Ships of France and Spain, laden with the produce of their countries or colonies, were to be admitted for twelve years at New Orleans on the same terms as American vessels, and French ships ever after on the footing of the most favored nations.

This famous treaty was actually signed May 2d, in the French language, and two or three days after in English. On the Sunday previous to its execution, Livingston presented his colleague to Napoleon, and both dined with him afterwards. The Consul asked many questions, after his quick catechizing fashion, concerning the United States, Jefferson, and the Federal city. "You Americans," said he, "did brilliant things in your war with England; you will do the same again." But Monroe, parrying this thrust at our neutral policy, responded that the Americans would always behave well when it was their lot to go to war.* Marbois relates that as soon as the three negotiators had signed the treaties they all rose and shook hands; Livingston, who was a man of dignified presence, giving utterance to his joy and satisfaction in feeling that the United States now took a position among the powers of the first rank.†

By this sudden, and in its full extent, unexpected acquisition of territory, the United States were indeed placed at the portals of an illustrious career. But yesterday the Mississippi was the barrier of our national ambition, and a foreign king considered whether his own license restrained him from shutting up the outlet to our Western commerce. A stroke of the pen changed all; and to-day a vast, unexplored, almost illimitable empire was ours; perpetual immunity from dangerous

* Monroe Correspondence, May, 1803.

Memoirs of Marbois; Parton's Jefferson. For treaty and conventions, see 8 U. S. Statutes at Large.

neighbors; sole possession of this river of rivers, with all its tributaries; a sure dominating influence in the affairs of the North American Continent; national opportunities for the dim future almost depressing in their sublimity. Where, now, would the long surf of our advancing civilization dash into spray? Hitherto natural barriers, those surest bound-marks and protectors from foes within and without, arrested our progress; henceforth, the tide of emigration would sweep from post to post, encroaching upon foreign populations too weak everywhere to resist; nor, unless internal decay and dismemberment arrested the novel experiment, finding effectual bulwark or breakwater interposed east of the Pacific or north of the Isthmus, while an acre of desirable territory was left. Would that encroachment go on forever or would dismemberment interrupt it?

Hopes and misgivings together like these filled Jefferson's mind as he contemplated the grandeur of the new purchase. Not fully observant of the latitude line which slavery had begun to draw across the Union, he meditated upon a separation which the great longitudinal river might finally accomplish. West Mississippi and East Mississippi might hereafter separate, and these millions of acres with their varied productions pass into the control of a confederacy detached from that which now purchased them. But this was a remote danger, too remote to affect living men, and far less a present evil than that of a hostile nation's occupation. "The future inhabitants of the Atlantic and Mississippi States," such were his thoughts, "will be our sons. We leave them in distinct but bordering establishments. We think we see their happiness in their union, and we wish it."*

To complete the natural boundaries of the American Union as hitherto intended, this full environment was needed: the Atlantic on the east, the great lakes on the north, the Mississippi on the west, and the Gulf of Mexico on the south. Such completion it had been the prime object of the administration to procure by negotiation. The present transfer, however, was of the territory alone which France had acquired from Spain;

* Jefferson's Writings, 1803.