USA > Kentucky > The political beginnings of Kentucky. A narrative of public events bearing on the history of that state up to the time of its admission into the American Union > Part 9
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Aside from the provisions for personal recompense to the leading adventurers, which occupy most of the long and formal plans of colonization, there were two or three features that met the present complication of political affairs. It was stipulated that the colonists, if they located within Spanish territory, must take an oath of fealty to the King; on the other hand, they were assured religious toleration, right of unobstructed commerce, and freedom from all disturbance in their navigation of the Mississippi."
The arrangement was announced in October, 1788, though
I "Con la libre tolerancia de religion, y sin ser molestados en la navigacion del rio Misisipi, con el fin de hallar un marcado libre de direcho para los de sus tierras." (Morgan's accepted plan as reported by Gardoqui to Floridablanca, No. 296, 24th Octo- tober, 1788.)
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it had been long before canvassed and the conclusion reached by Gardoqui that he would proceed in some such manner.
The arguments adduced to show how great a safeguard such a colony would be, and how the violence of the Ken- tuckians would be restrained by Morgan's settlement, were illusive, but Gardoqui wished to believe them, and his gov- ernment was quite ready to be convinced. Equally fallacious was the pretense that the American settlement established at New Madrid would secure to Spain an exclusive use of the Lower Mississippi, and it is hardly to be supposed that Gar- doqui really expected the products of Kentucky and Ohio to be arrested in their voyage down the rivers by so attractive an obstacle as a free port."
To the eye of Wilkinson and of Miro, sharpened by self- interest, it was plain that the scheme of Morgan was disas- trous to their plan of trade.
The scheme of a free port seemed to them especially objectionable, for it tended to destroy the value of permits and to undermine the importance of the trader who enjoyed the Governor's favor. With the establishment of New Mad- rid Morgan would become the controller of the commerce of the West, licensed by the royal grant to carry his bargains
I " Puerto libre al que el se ha propuesto llamar Nuevo Madrid." (Gardoqui to Floridablanca, No. 306, 24th December, 1788.)
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free past New Orleans to the outer world. Wilkinson be- sought Miro to discourage Morgan's enterprise in all possi- ble ways. He wrote that :
"In a political point of view Morgan's establishment can produce no good result, but, on the contrary, will have most pernicious consequences; because the Americans who may settle there will, on account of their prox- imity to and their constant intercourse with their countrymen on this side of the river, retain their old prejudices and feelings, and will continue to be Americans as if they were on the banks of the Ohio. On the other side, the intention of detaining the productions of this vast country at a point so distant from their real market, whilst the Americans remain the carriers of that trade, can not fail to cause discontents and to embroil the two countries in difficulties. Probably it will destroy the noble fabric of which we have laid out the foundations and which we are endeavoring to com- plete. If it be deemed necessary to keep the Americans at a distance from Louisiana, let the Spaniards at least be the carriers of the produce they receive in their ports, and of the merchandise which is acceptable to the Americans." *
The tendency of affairs, however, seemed to leave little room for freedom of action on Gardoqui's part, had he indeed doubted the wisdom of contracting with Morgan.
Baron Steuben had submitted to him a plan of coloniza- tion, under which it was proposed to locate four thousand two hundred agriculturists and artisans on the banks of the Mississippi, stipulating for a grant of two million acres, with
1 Wilkinson to Miro, 29th February, 1789. Gayarre, History of Louisiana, Spanish Domination, 244.
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privilege of religious toleration to the colonists and right to local government under the general authority of Spain.'
George Rogers Clark had also forwarded from the Falls of the Ohio, under date of 15th March, 1788, and by the hand of Maj. John Rogers, a similar plan, which he supposed to be the first suggestion of the kind. He wished a grant of land, extending from the thirty-sixth to the thirty-eighth degree of latitude, and measuring back westward from the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi two degrees of longi- tude. Upon such territory he was willing to plant colonists, giving out of the general tract one thousand acres to each family; the King to assure religious toleration, and to namne the local Governor.2
Gardoqui had also long ago heard of Tardiveau and his scheme of trade between the settlements in Kentucky and the port of New Orleans. As early as July, 1787, he had informed Floridablanca on this point :
"Subsiste un sujeto de la misma nacion en Danville (pueblo de Ken- tucky), caballero de San Luis, que vive con esplendor y gasta bastante, que la voz general lo cuenta sostenido por su gobernio. Pretendio bajar el Mis-
" The entire correspondence with Steuben, and a translation into Spanish of his proposals for colonization is given by Gardoqui. (Gardoqui to Floridablanca, No. 252, 18th April, 1788.)
2 The letter of Clark and his plan for a colony is given in the despatch of Gardoqui to Floridablanca, No. 282, 25th July, 1788.
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isipi y pasar al Nuevo Orleans, pero se lo negue con buen modo y estoy siguiendo sus pasos, aunque es casi imposible a tanta distancia y sin com- municacion ni correos." I
The importance of Tardiveau, evanescent as it was, in- creased when Pierre Wower d'Arges2 came to Kentucky on a secret mission from Gardoqui to organize a scheme of col- onization upon the Lower Mississippi. Those whom he might induce to remove from Kentucky were to be promised liberal grants of land, free right of importing slaves, imple- ments, and other property during two years, free enjoyment of their religion, and an implied guaranty against customs imposts exceeding fifteen per cent.3 D'Arges led Gardoqui to believe that no less than one thousand five hundred and eighty-two Kentucky families+ would be induced to come into his plan, and that his potent argument would be the
I Gardoqui to Floridablanca, confidential, No. 17, 16th July, 1787. The importance and wealth of Tardiveau was entirely overestimated by Gardoqui. He was an intelli- gent, enterprising Frenchman who sought fortune in the West. While residing at Dan- ville he was a member of the Political Club, and seems to have been respected and es- teemed. His earlier history is unknown. He is thought to have removed to Louisiana.
In a document styled "Observations upon the Colony of Kentucky," presumably from Connolly's pen, inclosed in Lord Dorchester's despatch to Lord Sydney, No. 126, 27th August, 1789, it is said: "Lacassang & Co., at Louisville, and Tardezvaus, at Danville, are mercantile houses of note in the interest of France. The latter carried on trade from Bordeaux to the States during the war, and are supposed to have been prisoners at Halifax." This paper will be found in the appendix.
2 Frequently called Wouvres.
3 Perkins, Western Annals, 486, says 15 per cent; Gayarre, History of Louisiana, Spanish Domination, 197, puts it at 25 per cent, but Miro wrote Wilkinson that the duty was to be a uniform rate of 15 per cent. (Gayarre, 255.)
+ Gayarre, History of Louisiana, Spanish Domination, 201.
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right of trade with New Orleans. It seems incredible that such a migration should have been thought possible. D'Arges, who spent some months at the Falls of the Ohio, had no apparent occupation beyond the amusement of a naturalist. He formed the acquaintance of Tardiveau, and the latter, fired with the possibilities of land speculation, sought Gardoqui with professions of his ability to colonize, and succeeded in enlisting the Count de Moustier, French Envoy, in his behalf." It was discovered by Gardoqui that Tardiveau had two years before represented to the French Home Government the obvious advantages that would follow an occupation by France of New Orleans and Louisiana, and had suggested the seizure.2 By this discovery fresh alarm for the Spanish territory was aroused. And withal American immigration continued to flow toward the Ohio Valley. The founders of Marietta were already on their way, under Cutler and Whipple, to found a new New Eng- land at the mouth of the Muskingum and reinforce the march of the great West.
Perplexed by these complications, Gardoqui gladly availed himself of the royal permission to close with Morgan.
From that moment the foothold of Spain in North Amer- ica was destroyed. Time only was required to finish the
' Gardoqui to Floridablanca, No. 314, 4th March, 1789.
" Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Secret Despatch No. 19, 11th April, 1788.
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work of American encroachment which the concession of New Madrid and its commercial privileges had begun. The policy of Spain in regard to trade with her colonies had con- spicuously weakened. The concession of a uniform fifteen- per-cent customs' duty, once granted and announced, could never be retracted. Though Miro made unremitting oppo- sition to the New Madrid scheme, interposing all sorts of embarrassments to its success, and at last defeating it, the fact of trade was established, and established in a manner that undermined the Spanish prestige and utterly destroyed whatever vague hope there might have been of separating the western country from the Union.
Although his conclusions had been formed and the pre- liminaries doubtless agreed with Morgan, Gardoqui still in a hopeless and aimless way imagined that in the confusion of events the West might be detached from the Union and drift to a connection with Spain, if not indeed into actual sub- mission to the royal authority.
A better knowledge of the people would have shown him the futility of such an expectation. He would have under- stood the hopelessness of bringing under Spanish rule and Catholic control and inquisitorial dominion' that hardy
I Miro was prompt to repudiate the notion that toleration was to import a free right to practice one's own peculiar religion. He thus explicitly instructed Lieutenant Colonel Grandpré, Governor at Natchez, as to any immigrants from Kentucky: "As to religion, you are already aware that the will of His Majesty is that they be not disturbed on that account, but I think it proper that they be made to understand, that this tolera-
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and unbending race of Presbyterians and Baptists who had come out of Rockbridge and Augusta to people Kentucky, and impress upon the new State the political and religious features of their faith. The New England colonists at Mari- etta had come into the West bringing with them the Bible and the sword, as their Puritan forefathers had aforetime done. It was mere madness to expect the allurement or subjection of such a population.
Gardoqui, though four years resident at New York, never acquired a knowledge of the people to whom he was accredited, nor a just conception of their public men. He tion means only that they shall not be compelled to become Catholics; and it is expe- dient that this information be conveyed to them in such a manner as to convince them that they are not to have the free exercise of their religion, that is, that they are not to build churches or have salaried ministers of their creed." (Gayarre, History of Louisiana, Spanish Domination, 202.)
The design of establishing the Inquisition at New Orleans had long been enter- tained by unwise zealots in Spain, but the opinions of Charles III were opposed to it. At his death the Capuchin Antonio de Sedella was despatched to New Orleans as Com- missary of the Holy Inquisition. This ecclesiastic notified Miro that he would proceed to execute his office, and would perhaps need details of guards to make arrests. Miro had the wisdom and the courage to make a military arrest of the inquisitor and send him back to Spain. He wrote to his government that "the mere name of Inquisition uttered in New Orleans would be sufficient not only to check immigration, which is successfully 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 Sedilla the most fatal consequences may ensue from the mere suspicion of the cause of his dismissal." The effect of even a rumor of coming Inquisitorial power upon such staunch and thorough-paced Calvinists as Isaac Shelby, Samuel McDowell, Caleb Wal- lace, and their associates may be imagined. Had there been no other reason of policy or patriotism, the antagonism of religions, in the then state of religious feeling, would have made impossible any plan for putting Kentucky under Spanish authority. In jus- tice to the Kentucky Catholics, it should be observed that they looked with no less hostility than their Presbyterian and Baptist fellow citizens upon a Spanish ecclesias- tical establishment. They were chiefly of English blood and from Maryland, and brought with them the principles of Lord Baltimore and his colonists.
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brought with him the diplomatic traditions of his former experience. He assumed that every public man must have his leaning, determined by self-interest, toward some political power other than his own country, and he uniformly acted on the belief that all were approachable. In his ignorance of American character and American ways he continually misconstrued the political characters with whom he came in contact, and continually represented as attached to Spanish interests persons who were utter strangers to the thought. His first estimate of Madison was that he was "a creature of France,"" and he was equally confident at another time that a sincere friendship had been established between that states- man and himself .? The informal visits which members of Congress were accustomed to pay, and the perfect freedom of their political conversations, led him to suppose that he was exercising an overmastering influence, when in truth his own opinions and intentions were being sounded.
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He expressed his firm belief that Gen. Henry Knox had completely unbosomed himself, in despair of the Republic3 and the necessity of foreign intervention. Richard Henry Lee was reported as completely won over to all that Spain
* " Por que el Maddisson, qui vino de Virginia, es criatura de la Francia." (Gar- doqui to Floridablanca, Secret Despatch No. 16, 12th May, 1786.)
2 " Establado con el una amistad reciproca y sincera." (Gardoqui to Floridablanca, No. 178, 12th May, 1787.)
3 Gardoqui to Floridablanca, Secret Despatch No. 16, 12th May, 1786.
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could desire,' and that he would support all measures neces- sary to carry out the Spanish plan, of which the occlusion of the Mississippi was so important a part.
Col. Henry Lee was "baited," as the minister supposed, by a loan of money, along with John Parker; a supposition not borne out by any vote or speech of theirs or warranted by any history or tradition.
Gardoqui flattered himself, and assured his government, that he had in a large measure formed and maintained a pro- nounced Spanish opinion in the Atlantic States and among the New England delegates adverse to the interests of the West,2 and favorable to a stoppage of the river navigation.3
Judged by his own writings, he must be pronounced sin- gularly deficient in perspicacity and too sanguine by far for a diplomat confronting new and complicated issues. He was in truth completely read and understood by the men whom he thought he was manipulating.
The machinery of the Confederation was so inadequate
I " Mi respectable amigo el ex-Presidente Mr. Ricardo Henry Lee, por que es todo nuestro, y Miembro de Virginia en este Congresso, cuya presencia acrobardara a sus concolegas, y es capaz de dar doble consistencia a nuestras ideas." (Gardoqui to Flori- dablanca, Secret Despatch No. 16, 12th May, 1786.)
2 " Por que los del norte opinan como nosotros, y los del sur se oponan acerrimos." (Gardoqui to Floridablanca, 6th August, 1786.)
3 A memorandum of his conversation with Clinton is given. ( Gardoqui to Florida- blanca, Secret Despatch No. 6, 21st November, 1785.) Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, indeed gave color to Gardoqui's report by his avowal in Congress (23d April, 1787), that "the shutting of the Mississippi would be advantageous to the Atlantic States, and he wished to see it shut." (Madison Papers, Vol. II, p. 609.)
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to governmental ends, and the powers conferred so restricted that the members of the Continental Congress assembled and acted hardly otherwise than as agents of localities. The reservations of the Articles of Confederation left many occa- sions for direct conference between a State and a foreign power.
The points of his conversations with Knox, Clinton, Richard Henry Lee, and other influential men are given by Gardoqui in his voluminous despatches. These cover all the public relations and complications that existed or seemed threatened. The expression of individual opinion on the part of delegates in the Congress seems to have been very unreserved. In the then unformed condition of the Ameri- can government each delegate was (as has already been observed) unfettered to confer with the Spanish Minister; for the States were not yet passed from the union of the Con- federation to the more perfect union under the Constitution. The writings of Madison preserve memorials of this signif- icant fact, and give large details of the interviews. Gov. Randolph held communication with Gardoqui through Mad- ison.' In March, 1787, Madison and Bingham, of Pennsyl- vania, had a long private conference with Gardoqui, in which the problem of the Mississippi was discussed and the sugges- tion ventured by the Spanish Minister that "the people of
I Madison to Randolph, 2d April, 1787, 2 Madison Papers, 629.
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Kentucky would make good Spanish subjects, and that they would become such for the privilege annexed to that char- acter."' At another time the body of Virginia delegates in Congress in conference with Gardoqui indulged a "free conversation on the western country and the Mississippi." Madison has preserved an account of its points; and notes that Gardoqui "intimated, with a jocular air, the possibility of the Western people becoming Spanish subjects."2
The element of secrecy was singularly absent from all these conferences. The delegates communicated and dis- cussed them freely among themselves, and published them by their correspondence.3
It does not at all appear that there ever was one member of the Congress, or a single public man, other than Gen. James Wilkinson, Judge Benjamin Sebastian, and Dr. James White, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, with whom any corrupt relations were established, or to whom the thought of a traitorous bargain occurred. The virulence of party feeling and personal rivalries filled the air for twenty years with injurious insinuations or defamatory charges; but time has cooled the passions that then raged, and investigation
I Mad son Papers, Vol. II, p. 592.
2 Madison Papers, Vol. II, p. 601.
3For example, Madison's account to Jefferson ( Madison Papers, Vol. II, p. 622), and Brown's account to Madison of his conference with Gardoqui, as confirmed by Madison in his letter of 11th October, 1834, to Mann Butler. (MS. in the writer's possession, but published in Butler's History of Kentucky, edition of 1836, p. 518, and in Collin's · History of Kentucky, Vol. I, P 329.)
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vindicates the purity of American public men of the period. The same justice that must vindicate Madison from the charge of being a creature of France, afterward converted to a Spanish partisan, and Richard Henry Lee, and Bingham, and Brown of intrigues and conspiracies, and Henry Lee and Parker of suspicion of bribe-taking, rejects the charge that Gorham was willing to divide the country in order that Massachusetts might secure a market for fish, or that Clin- ton viewed with dissatisfaction the prosperity of the West, or that Knox sighed for the strong intervention of a foreign power in American affairs. It must alike establish the patri- otic fair fame of those soldiers of the Revolution who pushed the American advance guard to the Scioto, the Cumberland, the Kentucky, and to the banks of the Mississippi.
The attention of Congress was so absorbed in anxious watch of the votes upon the adoption of the Federal Consti- tution that all consideration of the Kentucky memorial was deferred. Brown had already presented the proceedings of the Danville Convention of 1787 and the request of Ken- tucky for admission as a member of the Confederation.' The consideration in committee of the whole, fixed for four days later, was deferred indefinitely. On May 30th Congress named the ensuing Monday for consideration of the mat- ter,2 and on 2d June, 1787, the Kentucky delegate had the
1 29th February, 1788. Journals of Congress, Vol. IV, p. 811.
2 30th May, 1788. Journals of Congress, Vol. IV, p. 819.
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supreme satisfaction of carrying through the Committee of the Whole a report moved by Mr. Otis of Massachusetts:
"That, in their opinion, it is expedient that the District of Kentucky be erected into an independent State, and therefore they submit the following resolution. That the address and resolutions from the District of Ken- tucky, with the acts of the legislature of Virginia therein specified, be referred to a committee consisting of a member from each state, to prepare and report an act acceding to the independence of the said district of Ken- tucky, and for receiving the same into the union as a member thereof in a mode conformable to the articles of confederation." 1
On the following day, June 3d, Congress by resolution (apparently unanimous) agreed to the report, and designated the special committee that should prepare the necessary leg- islation, Williamson of North Carolina, Hamilton of New York, Arnold of Rhode Island, Baldwin of Georgia, Dane of Massachusetts, Kearney of Delaware, Gilman of New Hampshire, Brown of Virginia, Clarke of New Jersey, Tucker of South Carolina, and Read of Pennsylvania, were selected .? The committee without difficulty agreed upon the draft of the act, but before it could be reported for pas- sage news came in from the north that disconcerted the plan. On the 2d of July it was announced that New Hampshire had transmitted her ratification of the Federal Constitution
Journals of Congress, Vol. IV, p. 819.
2 3d June, 1788. Journals of Congress, Vol. IV, p. 819.
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"and the same being read, the president reminded Congress that this was the ninth ratification transmitted and laid before them."'
The great change. was accomplished. The action of New Hampshire inaugurated the Constitutional Republic of America; for by the terms of the new organic law it was pro- vided that
" The ratification of the conventions of nine states shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution between the states so ratifying the same."
The States which, as members of the Confederation, had entertained the memorial of Kentucky, all save four, were now component parts of a new government, bound by that new and inspired instrument that spoke in the name of the people of the United States, and prescribed allegiance to "a more perfect union."
The old bonds were relaxed, the powers of the old sys- tem vanished, save only as they might serve for putting in motion the powers of the new. The governmental work of the Confederation was done; it only remained for the Conti- nental Congress to fix a day on which electors should be chosen in the ratifying States.
The ratification by New Hampshire (21st June) was but a week earlier than that by Virginia (26th June).
1 2d July, 1788. Journals of Congress, Vol. IV, p. 827.
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It was very plain to the Congress that power to re- ceive a new State was no longer one of its functions. The Confederation could not do so, for it was practically at an end; nine of its thirteen members were withdrawn. The Continental Congress had no powers under the new Government in such a matter, for new States could only be received by the Congress that should convene under the Constitution.
The particular result as to Kentucky was a bitter disap- pointment to that delegate whose every energy had been bent to procuring action that would admit Kentucky while yet the Confederation lived and possessed power. The hopes of his people were dashed; possibilities of disorder loomed up. He discerned misrepresentation, dissension, and trouble in the near future. He was the youngest mem- ber of the Continental Congress, and its last survivor; and during the fifty years of his after-life he ever regretted that during the month of June, 1788, his friend Madison had not been present to give his powerful and persuasive aid to the establishment and admission into the Union of the new Commonwealth of Kentucky.'
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