Among the many unsolved problems which Jefferson bequeathed to his successor in office was that of the southern frontier. Running like a shuttle through the warp of his foreign policy had been his persistent desire to acquire possession of the Spanish Floridas. This dominant desire, amounting almost to a passion, had mastered even his better judgment and had created dilemmas from which he did not escape without the imputation of duplicity. On his retirement he announced that he was leaving all these concerns "to be settled by my friend, Mr. Madison," yet he could not resist the desire to direct the course of his successor. Scarcely a month after he left office he wrote, "I suppose the conquest of Spain will soon force a delicate question on you as to the Floridas and Cuba, which will offer themselves to you. Napoleon will certainly give his consent without difficulty to our receiving the Floridas, and with some difficulty possibly Cuba."
In one respect Jefferson's intuition was correct. The attempt of Napoleon to subdue Spain and to seat his brother Joseph once again on the throne of Ferdinand VII was a turning point in the history of the Spanish colonies in America. One by one they rose in revolt and established revolutionary juntas either in the name of their deposed King or in professed cooperation with the insurrectionary government which was resisting the invader. Events proved that independence was the inevitable issue of all these uprisings from the Rio de la Plata to the Rio Grande.
In common with other Spanish provinces, West Florida felt the impact of this revolutionary spirit, but it lacked natural unity and a dominant Spanish population. The province was in fact merely a strip of coast extending from the Perdido River to the Mississippi, indented with bays into which great rivers from the north discharged their turgid waters. Along these bays and rivers were scattered the inhabitants, numbering less than one hundred thousand, of whom a considerable portion had come from the States. There, as always on the frontier, land had been a lodestone attracting both the speculator and the homeseeker. In the parishes of West Feliciana and Baton Rouge, in the alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi, and in the settlements around Mobile Bay, American settlers predominated, submitting with ill grace to the exactions of Spanish officials who were believed to be as corrupt as they were inefficient.
If events had been allowed to take their natural course, West Florida would in all probability have fallen into the arms of the United States as Texas did three decades later. But the Virginia Presidents were too ardent suitors to await the slow progress of events; they meant to assist destiny. To this end President Jefferson had employed General Wilkinson, with indifferent success. President Madison found more trustworthy agents in Governor Claiborne of New Orleans and Governor Holmes of Mississippi, whose letters reveal the extent to which Madison was willing to meddle with destiny. "Nature had decreed the union of Florida with the United States," Claiborne affirmed; but he was not so sure that nature could be left to execute her own decrees, for he strained every nerve to prepare the way for American intervention when the people of West Florida should declare themselves free from Spain. Holmes also was instructed to prepare for this eventuality and to cooperate with Claiborne in West Florida "in diffusing the impressions we wish to be made there."
The anticipated insurrection came off just when and where nature had decreed. In the summer of 1810 a so-called "movement for self-government" started at Bayou Sara and at Baton Rouge, where nine-tenths of the inhabitants were Americans. The leaders took pains to assure the Spanish Commandant that their motives were unimpeachable: nothing should be done which would in any wise conflict with the authority of their "loved and worthy sovereign, Don Ferdinand VII." They wished to relieve the people of the abuses under which they were suffering, but all should be done in the name of the King. The Commandant, De Lassus, was not without his suspicions of these patriotic gentlemen but he allowed himself to be swept along in the current. The several movements finally coalesced on the 25th of July in a convention near Baton Rouge, which declared itself "legally constituted to act in all cases of national concern... with the consent of the governor" and professed a desire "to promote the safety, honor, and happiness of our beloved king" as well as to rectify abuses in the province. It adjourned with the familiar Spanish salutation which must have sounded ironical to the helpless De Lassus, "May God preserve you many years!" Were these pious professions farcical? Or were they the sincere utterances of men who, like the patriots of 1776, were driven by the march of events out of an attitude of traditional loyalty to the King into open defence of his authority?
The Commandant was thus thrust into a position where his every movement would be watched with distrust. The pretext for further action was soon given. An intercepted letter revealed that DeLassus had written to Governor Folch for an armed force. That "act of perfidy" was enough to dissolve the bond between the convention and the Commandant. On the 23d of September, under cover of night, an armed force shouting "Hurrah! Washington!" overpowered the garrison of the fort at Baton Rouge, and three days later the convention declared the independence of West Florida, "appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the World" for the rectitude of their intentions. What their intentions were is clear enough. Before the ink was dry on their declaration of independence, they wrote to the Administration at Washington, asking for the immediate incorporation of West Florida into the Union. Here was the blessed consummation of years of diplomacy near at hand. President Madison had only to reach out his hand and pluck the ripe fruit; yet he hesitated from constitutional scruples. Where was the authority which warranted the use of the army and navy to hold territory beyond the bounds of the United States? Would not intervention, indeed, be equivalent to an unprovoked attack on Spain, a declaration of war? He set forth his doubts in a letter to Jefferson and hinted at the danger which in the end was to resolve all his doubts. Was there not grave danger that West Florida would pass into the hands of a third and dangerous party? The conduct of Great Britain showed a propensity to fish in troubled waters.
On the 27th of October, President Madison issued a proclamation authorizing Governor Claiborne to take possession of West Florida and to govern it as part of the Orleans Territory. He justified his action, which had no precedent in American diplomacy, by reasoning which was valid only if his fundamental premise was accepted. West Florida, he repeated, as a part of the Louisiana purchase belonged to the United States; but without abandoning its claim, the United States had hitherto suffered Spain to continue in possession, looking forward to a satisfactory adjustment by friendly negotiation. A crisis had arrived, however, which had subverted Spanish authority; and the failure of the United States to take the territory would threaten the interests of all parties and seriously disturb the tranquillity of the adjoining territories. In the hands of the United States, West Florida would "not cease to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiation." In his annual message President Madison spoke of the people of West Florida as having been "brought into the bosom of the American family," and two days later Governor Claiborne formally took possession of the country to the Pearl River. How territory which had thus been incorporated could still remain a subject of fair negotiation does not clearly appear, except on the supposition that Spain would go through the forms of a negotiation which could have but one outcome.
The enemies of the Administration seized eagerly upon the flaws in the President's logic, and pressed his defenders sorely in the closing session of the Eleventh Congress. Conspicuous among the champions of the Administration was young Henry Clay, then serving out the term of Senator Thurston of Kentucky who had resigned his office. This eloquent young lawyer, now in his thirty-third year, had been born and bred in the Old Dominion—a typical instance of the American boy who had nothing but his own head and hands wherewith to make his way in the world. He had a slender schooling, a much-abbreviated law education in a lawyer's office, and little enough of that intellectual discipline needed for leadership at the bar; yet he had a clever wit, an engaging personality, and a rare facility in speaking, and he capitalized these assets. He was practising law in Lexington, Kentucky, when he was appointed to the Senate.
What this persuasive Westerner had to say on the American title to West Florida was neither new nor convincing; but what he advocated as an American policy was both bold and challenging. "The eternal principles of self preservation" justified in his mind the occupation of West Florida, irrespective of any title. With Cuba and Florida in the possession of a foreign maritime power, the immense extent of country watered by streams entering the Gulf would be placed at the mercy of that power. Neglect the proffered boon and some nation profiting by this error would seize this southern frontier. It had been intimated that Great Britain might take sides with Spain to resist the occupation of Florida. To this covert threat Clay replied,
"Sir, is the time never to arrive, when we may manage our own affairs without the fear of insulting his Britannic Majesty? Is the rod of British power to be forever suspended over our heads? Does the President refuse to continue a correspondence with a minister, who violates the decorum belonging to his diplomatic character, by giving and deliberately repeating an affront to the whole nation? We are instantly menaced with the chastisement which English pride will not fail to inflict. Whether we assert our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by land—whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils of the nation. It contributed to the repeal of the embargo—that dishonorable repeal, which has so much tarnished the character of our government. Mr. President, I have before said on this floor, and now take occasion to remark, that I most sincerely desire peace and amity with England; that I even prefer an adjustment of all differences with her, before one with any other nation. But if she persists in a denial of justice to us, or if she avails herself of the occupation of West Florida, to commence war upon us, I trust and hope that all hearts will unite, in a bold and vigorous vindication of our rights.