In the following year Congress divided the province, giving to the southern part, the Territory of Orleans, which contained most of the inhabitants, a separate territorial government, and annexing the sparsely settled upper part to the Indiana Territory. The Act of 1804 was roundly abused because it gave to the President the appointment of all officers in the Territory of Orleans, even the appointment of the legislative council of thirteen. By the treaty, it was pointed out, the inhabitants of Louisiana were guaranteed all "the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States." Was not representative government one of these privileges? The obvious answer was the unpreparedness of the Spanish inhabitants for Anglo-American institutions. To the Western American who floated down the Mississippi, past the cotton-fields and sugar plantations cultivated by African negroes, and who landed his cargo on the levee at New Orleans, among the motley throngs, province and city seemed like a foreign country, and the inhabitants aliens in speech and habits. From the buildings, with their many arcades and balconies and varied coloring, to the courts of law where the Code Napoléon, introduced by Laussat, added confusion to the Spanish law, the atmosphere of New Orleans was that of a city of the Old World, where one civilization was superimposed upon an older. Men bred in the traditions of the English law might reasonably doubt whether the people of Louisiana were ready for self-government.
Before the new territorial government could be organized, a remonstrance had been drawn up by the people of Louisiana and forwarded by three commissioners with all possible dispatch to Washington. In the following year (1805), Congress so far yielded to the complaints of the people of Louisiana as to authorize an elective assembly and to hold out the promise of eventual statehood.
But what were the bounds of Louisiana? No one knew with certitude. The letters of Livingston and Monroe had convinced Jefferson that Louisiana included at least West Florida, and for two years he sought by every diplomatic device to wrest from Spain a confirmation of this shadowy title. That Spain did not intend to cede West Florida and that France had no expectation of receiving it seems clear enough from the instructions to Laussat. What he handed over to the American representative was Louisiana, with the Rio Bravo and the Iberville as boundaries. With some show of right, Jefferson might have occupied Texas; he preferred, however, to chase his phantom claim to Florida. For Texas nobody then cared, but the Floridas were coveted by Southern planters.
In a letter written soon after the signing of the Louisiana Treaty, Robert Livingston relates a suggestive conversation which he had with Talleyrand. "What are the eastern bounds of Louisiana?" asked Livingston rather naively. "I do not know," replied Talleyrand; "you must take it as we received it." "But what did you mean to take?" Livingston insisted. "I do not know," was the reply. "Then you mean that we shall construe it our own way?" "I can give you no direction," replied the astute Frenchman. "You have made a noble bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will make the most of it."
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The history of the Barbary Wars is well told by G. W. Allen, Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs(1905), and by C. O. Paullin, Commodore John Rodgers(1910). The investigations of Henry Adams in foreign archives enabled him to treat the diplomatic history of the purchase of Louisiana with great fullness. F. A. Ogg, The Opening of the Mississippi(1904), and J. K. Hosmer, The Louisiana Purchase (1902), contain brief accounts of the acquisition of the province. The actual route of the Lewis and Clark expedition may be traced with the aid of O. D. Wheeler, The Trail of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1904 (1904). The constitutional aspects of the Louisiana Treaty and the subsequent legislation for the territory are discussed at length by Adams, and less satisfactorily by Schouler and Von Holst. Channing, The Jeffersonian System, 1801-1811 (1906), contains a good account of the whole episode. The problem of the original boundaries is discussed by F. E. Chadwick, The Relations of the United States and Spain(1909).
FACTION AND CONSPIRACY