Thomas Jefferson, the Apostle of Americanism

by Gilbert Chinard

He had already heard many objections to the treaty; of all of them he disposed summarily. He did not take seriously the danger mentioned by the Federalists of seeing a fringe of States, different in interest from the original States, form along the Mississippi and threaten the homogeneity of the Union. If it came to the worst, it would be better for the United States to have as neighbors along the western border a Federation of States inhabited by a people of the same blood than a Spanish or French dominion. Then Jefferson prophetically outlined the development of the West as he foresaw it. The inhabited part of Louisiana was to become a new State as soon as possible. Above Pointe Coupée, the best procedure was probably to move the Indians across the river and to fill the vacant territories with white colonists. "When we shall be full on this side, we may lay off a range of States on the western bank from the head to the mouth, and so, range after range, advancing compactly as we multiply."

As to the constitutionality of the purchase, he admitted there was no article of the Constitution authorizing the holding of foreign territory, and still less contemplating the incorporation of foreign nations into the Union. "The executives, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution." They were justified in doing it, however, just as much as a guardian has the right to invest money for his ward in purchasing an adjacent territory and saying to him when of age: "I did this for your good; I pretend to no right to bind you; you may disavow me, and I must get out of the scrape as I can: I thought it my duty to risk myself for you." This is another instance when Jefferson the lawyer discarded what he called "metaphysical subtleties" to look squarely at the facts and to do his duty as he saw it, "as a faithful servant."

The third annual message of the President was read before Congress on October 17. Written in simple language like all the State papers of Jefferson, it contained a graceful word for "the enlightened government of France", and pointed out soberly the advantages that would accrue to the United States from the purchase:

While the property and sovereignty of the 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 wide-spread field for the blessings of freedom and equal laws.

The President avoided any specific recommendation on the measures to be adopted to incorporate into the Union the recently acquired territories, resting on the wisdom of Congress to determine the "measures which may be necessary for the immediate occupation and temporary government of the country; for rendering the change of government a blessing to our newly adopted brethren; for securing to them the rights of conscience and of property; for confirming to the Indian inhabitants their occupancy and self-government." The Senate ratified the treaty after a two-day discussion, the members voting strictly on party lines. It came before the House on the twenty-second. The discussion was hot and more prolonged; doubts as to the French title to the purchase were raised; doubts as to the constitutionality of the measure. The treaty proper was ratified on October 25, and on November 3 acts were passed authorizing the issue of bonds in order to pay France.

A letter of Jefferson to Livingston contains the epilogue of the negotiations. It is another very interesting instance of the way Jefferson knew how to handle men. Pichon, the French minister, had been instructed by his Government to secure a clause to the ratification providing "against any failure in time or other circumstances of execution on the part of the United States." Jefferson took the matter in hand himself and demonstrated to Pichon that in case the French Government insisted upon such a proviso, the United States would insert a similar clause of protestation "leaving the matter where it stood before." He insisted that it was to throw on the good faith of both nations a doubt most unpleasant to an honest man to entertain, and concluded that he had "more confidence in the word of the First Consul than in all the parchment we could sign." What could the Frenchman do except to bow politely and acquiesce, and "like an able and honest minister (which he is in the highest degree) he undertook to do what he knew his employers would do themselves, were they spectators of all existing circumstances, and exchange the ratifications purely and simply." "So," concluded Jefferson, "this instrument goes to the world as an evidence of the candor and confidence of the nations in each other, which will have the best effects."

A last point remained to be settled. It was suspected that Spain had entered a formal protest against the whole transaction, "since the First Consul had broken a solemn promise not to alienate the country to any nation." On that point Jefferson refused to express any opinion: "We answered that these were questions between France and Spain which they must settle together; that we derived our title from the First Consul and did not doubt his guarantee of it." Meanwhile measures were provided to take formal possession from Laussat after he should have received the territory from Spain. "If he is not so disposed we shall take possession and it will rest with the Government of France, by adopting the act as their own, then to settle the latter with Spain."[446] In order to provide for any eventuality, the governor of the Mississippi was ordered to move down with General Wilkinson all his troops at hand to take formal possession.

Thus the transaction fraught with so many dangers came to what Jefferson called in a letter to Priestley (January 29, 1804) "a happy denouement", thanks "to a friendly and frank development of causes and effects in our part and good sense enough in Bonaparte to see that the train was unavoidable and would change the face of the world."

If Jefferson took liberties with the Constitution in the matter of the purchase, he was equally broad-minded in his construction of the treaty. One of the articles provided that the inhabitants of the territories ceded by France "will be incorporated into the Union and admitted as soon as possible according to the principles of the Federal Constitution to the enjoyment of all the advantages and immunities of the citizens of the United States" (Article III). This was precisely what Jefferson was firmly resolved not to do. Theoretically, and according to his often expressed views on self-government, he should have taken steps to admit immediately the newly acquired territory into the Union and to allow the inhabitants to decide on a constitution. Practically, he considered that they were unfitted for self-government and, although he did not formally declare it at the time, he was convinced that self-government could not succeed with a population mainly French and Spanish. The letter he wrote on the subject to Du Pont de Nemours is almost disarming in its naïveté:

We are preparing a form of government for the Territory of Louisiana. We shall make it as mild and free, as they are able to bear, all persons residing there concurring in the information that they were neither gratified, nor willing to exercise the rights of an elective government. The immense swarm flocking thither of Americans used to that exercise, will soon prepare them to receive the necessary change.[447]