USA > Idaho > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 4
USA > Montana > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 4
USA > Oregon > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 4
USA > Washington > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 4
USA > Wyoming > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 4
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Louisiana Purchase.
and his legislature and counsellors parade officers. 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 excites at home, it would give me none; for I am persuaded that the whole will end in a relin- quishment of the country and transfer of the capital to the United States."
Soon after this, Mr. Livingston had an inter- view with Joseph Bonaparte, who promised to receive any communication he could make to Napoleon. "You must not, however," 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 access 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 em- barkation of two demi-brigades for Louisiana, and
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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."
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 Govern- ment for relief. Some idea may be formed of the excitement which this act had produced, on reading the following, 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 bestowed 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 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 ascending the river to our towns and villages. We wish in our turn to descend it without any interruption to its mouth, to ascend it again, and exercise our privi-
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Louisiana Purchase.
lege 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 refuses us effectual protection, if it forsakes us, we 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 Government 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 ambassador was treated, nothing could have prevented an immediate seces- sion of the people west of the Alleghanies. Mr. Madison saw the gathering of the storm, and on the 27th of November, a few days before Con- gress assembled, addressed an earnest despatch to the American minister at Madrid. "You are aware," said he, " of the sensibility of our west- ern citizens to such an occurrence. This sensi- bility 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,
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Louisiana Purchase.
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 ex- press the strongest confidence that the breach of the treaty will be repaired in every way which jus- tice and regard for a friendly neighborhood may 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 course of the late war, will, if carried into effect, make a change in the aspect of our foreign relations which will doubt- less have just weight in any deliberations of the legislature connected with that subject."
That body replied : " That, relying with perfect confidence on the wisdom and vigilance of the Ex- ecutive, 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 navi- gation and commerce through the river Missis- sippi, as established by existing treaties."
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Louisiana Purchase.
Party spirit at this time was but another name for party animosity. The Federalists, anxious to regain the power that they had lost by the elee- tion of Jefferson, seized upon the subject of Mr. Livingston's mission and the proclamation of pro- hibition by the Spanish intendant, and held them up before the people as the necessary and inevi- table product of Democratic principles. They were determined if possible to force the country into a war of invasion against New Orleans and the country including the mouth of the Missis- sippi, - a measure in which the Western people would generally co-operate. The administration, on the other hand, still adhered to the policy of negotiation, - and foreseeing that it must be expeditious to avoid the inevitable destruction of the party, and deprive the Federals of the prestige which their vigorous measures were acquiring for them, President Jefferson, on the 10th of January, 1803, wrote to Mr. Monroe :-
" I have but a moment to inform you that the fever into which the Western world is thrown by the affair of New Orleans, stimulated by the mer- cantile and generally the Federal interest, threat- ens to overbear our peace. In this situation we are obliged to call on you for a temporary sacrifice of yourself, to prevent this greatest of evils in the
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present prosperous tide of affairs. I shall to- morrow nominate you to the Senate for an extra- ordinary mission to France, and the circumstances are such as to render it impossible to decline ; because the whole public hope will be rested on you." "
The Senate confirmed the nomination. Mr. Jefferson again wrote to Mr. Monroe, urging him not to decline. "I know nothing," he says, " which would produce such a shock, for on the event of this mission depend the future destinies of this republic. If we cannot by a purchase of the country insure to ourselves a course of perpetual peace and friendship with all nations, then, as war cannot be far distant, it behooves us immediately to be preparing for that course, without, however, hastening it; and it may be necessary (on your failure on the Continent) to cross the Channel."
The session of Congress had advanced to the middle of February before any remedial meas- ures were proposed for the action of the Spanish intendant at New Orleans. Every fresh despatch from Mr. Livingston was a repetition of the old story of neglect and silence. Meantime the Fed- eral leaders, incited by the continued and grow- ing disaffection of the Western people, as mani-
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fested by their inflammable appeals to Congress, had resolved upon recommending immediate hos- tilities as the dernier ressort of the Government. The memorable debate which involved a consid- eration of this question was opened by Mr. Ross, of Pennsylvania, on the 14th of February, in a speech of remarkable force. The infraction of the treaty of Madrid of 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 assured if a war were prosecuted while the Spaniards held possession of the country than it would be after it had passed under the domin- ion of France. With New Orleans in our pos- session we could dictate the terms of a treaty that would forever secure our citizens from fur- ther molestation. These views were enforced by urgent appeals to the patriotism of the people and the sternest denunciation of the tardy policy of the administration. At the close of his speech Mr. Ross presented a series of resolu- tions declaring the right of the people to the free navigation of the Mississippi and a convenient place of deposit for their produce and merchan-
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Louisiana Purchase.
dise in the island of New Orleans. The Presi- dent would have been authorized by their pas- sage to take possession of such place or places in the island or adjacent territories as he might deem fit, and to call into actual service fifty thousand militia to co-operate with the regular military and naval forces in the work of inva- sion. They also provided for an appropriation of five millions of dollars to defray the expenses of the war.
A long and exhaustive debate followed, in which the speeches on both sides were marked by distinguished ability and eloquence, - those of Mr. Clinton against and Mr. Morris in favor of the resolutions being among the ablest ever before or since delivered on the floor of Con- gress. Milder measures were finally substituted, authorizing the enrolment of an army of eighty thousand 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 intendant. Just at this time hostilities were again about to be renewed between England and France. Mr. Addington, the British minister, in a conversation
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Louisiana Purchase.
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 Talley- rand, that minister desired to know of Mr. Liv- ingston if our Government wished to purchase the whole of Louisiana. 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 despatch conveying this information to Mr. Madison, Mr. Livingston appends a postscript saying : " Orders are given this day to stop the sailing of vessels from the French ports ; war is inevitable; my conjectures as to their determination to sell is well founded. Mr. Monroe has just arrived."
Fear that Great Britain would make an early attack upon New Orleans, now that war was cer- tain, favored the efforts of Mr. Livingston for an early purchase, and increased the anxiety of France to dispose of the entire province. Indeed, in a consultation with two of his counsellors on the 10th of April, Napoleon fully resolved to sell the whole of Louisiana. The little coquetry that followed between Talleyrand, Marbois, and Liv- ingston was simply to obtain as large a price as
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Louisiana Purchase.
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 1763. 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 successively 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 sum- moned his ministers, and terminated a long in- terview in the following words : - " Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. 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,
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and have sufficiently proved the importance that I attach to this province, - since my first diplo- matic act with Spain had for its object its recov- ery. I renounce it with the greatest regret. To attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate 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 will be 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 desperate attempt to keep these fine countries. To-morrow you shall have full powers."
On the 30th of April the treaty of cession was signed. Louisiana was transferred to the United States, on 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 : -
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Louisiana Purchase.
" The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, accord- ing to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States, and in the meantime they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their lib- erty, property, and the religion which they pro- fess."
After the treaty was signed, the ministers rose, 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 dis- tricts. From this day the United States take their 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 European 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
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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 innumerable 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 accession of territory strength- ens 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 ter- ritory 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
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Louisiana Purchase.
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 important aids to our treasury, an ample provision for our posterity, and a wider spread for the blessings of freedom and equal laws."
It is not surprising that the publie men of that day should have feared the consequences of en- larging our republican domain. 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 Gov- ernment. They could not see, as we can in this day of railroads and telegraphs, how such an immense territory was to be subordinated to the control of a single general government. Hence we find such men as John Quincy Adams, Timothy Pickering, Rufus Griswold, James White, and Uriah Traey, all men of enlarged, statesmanlike views, opposing the bill entitled " An Act author- izing the ereetion of a stock to the amount of eleven millions two hundred and fifty thousand
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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 will 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 Orleans and of such other portions on the Mississippi as may be necessary 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 essential to the peace of the United States and the prosperity of our Western 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 productive of innumerable evils, and especially of one that I fear even to look upon. Gentlemen on all sides, with very few exceptions, agree that the settlement of the country will be
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highly injurious and dangerous to the United States; but as to what has been suggested of removing the Creeks and other nations of In- dians 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 im- practicable. 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 induce- ments 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 territory. 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 gradu- ally 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 foresee, will in time effect a separa-
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tion, 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 Louis- iana 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 hun- dred 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."
Mr. Tracy, after delivering an elaborate argu- ment on the subject, in which he arrives at the conclusion that the purchase itself is constitu- tional, says : -
" We can hold the territory ; but to admit the inhabitants into the Union, to make citizens of them and States by treaty, we cannot consti- tutionally do; and no subsequent act of legis- lation, or even ordinary amendment to our Constitution, can legalize such a measure. If done at all they must be done by universal con-
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Louisiana Purchase.
sent of all the States or partners of our political association : and this universal consent I am posi- tive 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."
Mr. Breckinridge did not share in these fears. In the stirring reply which he made to them, he asks : -
" Is the Goddess of Liberty restrained by water- courses ? Is she governed by geographical limits ? Is her dominion on this continent confined to the east side of the Mississippi ? So far from believing in the doctrine that a republic ought to be con- fined within narrow limits, I believe on the con- trary that the more extensive its dominion, the more safe and durable it will be. In proportion to the number of hands you intrust the precious blessings of a free government to, in the same proportion do you multiply the chances for their preservation."
The measure finally became a law, and the United States thereby added to their original domain eight hundred and ninety-three thousand
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five hundred and seventy-nine square miles, being seventy-eight thousand eight hundred and ninety- nine square miles more than the area of the thirteen States.
The fears entertained by our early statesmen are all forgotten. I have recalled them, not to illustrate any deficiency in the foresight or wis- dom of the men of that day, but to show how re- markable has been the progress of improvement, discovery, and invention, by which we have been enabled, not only to incorporate the great Louisi- ana purchase, but others of still greater extent into the government of the Great Republic. And the future, which even now is teeming with the spirit of acquisition, justifies us in the utter- ance of the sentiment :
" No pent-up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours."
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European Treaties.
CHAPTER III.
EUROPEAN TREATIES.
MODE OF DEFINING THE WESTERN BOUNDARY OF LOUISI- ANA - GREAT BRITAIN NO RIGHT TO ANY PORTION OF THE TERRITORY WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS - DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA BY CAPT. GRAY - LEWIS AND CLARKE'S EXPEDITION - ASTOR'S EXPE- DITION - NEGOTIATION FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF THE CLAIMS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES - FLORIDA TREATY - RUSSIAN TREATY - RENEWAL OF THE TREATY FOR JOINT OCCUPATION - ACTION OF CONGRESS - DEBATE, AND FINAL SETTLEMENT OF THE 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 49th 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, -
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European Treaties.
and that this boundary extended westward to the Pacific. So unreliable was the evidence in sup- port 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 the mountains separating the waters of the Mississippi from those flowing into the Pacific. This left in an un- settled condition the respective claims of Spain, Russia, Great Britain, and the United States to the vast territory beyond the Rocky Mountains, extending along the 42nd parallel 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 inde- feasible 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 month 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 valuable portion of it at this early period in our history was that traversed by the Columbia and its tributaries.
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