“I believe we may consider the mass of the States south and west of Connecticut and Massachusetts as now a consolidated body of Republicanism,”—he wrote to Governor McKean in the midst of the Mississippi excitement.[66] “In Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire there is still a Federal ascendency; but it is near its last. If we can settle happily the difficulties of the Mississippi, I think we may promise ourselves smooth seas during our time.” What he rightly feared more than any other political disaster was the risk of falling back to the feelings of 1798 and 1799, “when a final dissolution of all bonds, civil and social, appeared imminent.”[67] With zeal which never flagged, Jefferson kept up his struggle with the New England oligarchy, whose last move alarmed him. So sensitive was the President, that he joined personally in the fray that distracted New England; and while waiting for news from Monroe, he wrote a defence of his own use of patronage, showing, under the assumed character of a Massachusetts man, that a proportionate division of offices between the two parties would, since the Federalists had so much declined in numbers, leave to them even a smaller share of Federal offices than they still possessed. This paper he sent to Attorney-General Lincoln,[68] to be published in the Boston “Chronicle;” and there, although never recognized, it appeared.
Had the Federalists suspected the authorship, they would have fallen without mercy upon its arguments and its modest compliment to “the tried ability and patriotism of the present Executive;” but the essay was no sooner published than it was forgotten. The “Chronicle” of June 27, 1803, contained Jefferson’s argument founded on the rapid disappearance of the Federalist party; the next issue of the “Chronicle,” June 30, contained a single headline, which sounded the death-knell of Federalism altogether: “Louisiana ceded to the United States!” The great news had arrived; and the Federalist orators of July 4, 1803, set about their annual task of foreboding the ruin of society amid the cheers and congratulations of the happiest society the world then knew.
The President’s first thought was of the Constitution. Without delay he drew up an amendment, which he sent at once to his Cabinet.[69] “The province of Louisiana is incorporated with the United States and made part thereof,” began this curious paper; “the rights of occupancy in the soil and of self-government are confirmed to the Indian inhabitants as they now exist.” Then, after creating a special Constitution for the territory north of the 32d parallel, reserving it for the Indians until a new amendment to the Constitution should give authority for white ownership, the draft provided for erecting the portion south of latitude 32° into a territorial government, and vesting the inhabitants with the rights of other territorial citizens.
Gallatin took no notice of this paper, except to acknowledge receiving it.[70] Robert Smith wrote at some length, July 9, dissuading Jefferson from grafting so strange a shoot upon the Constitution.[71]
“Your great object is to prevent emigrations,” said he, “excepting to a certain portion of the ceded territory. This could be effectually accomplished by a constitutional prohibition that Congress should not erect or establish in that portion of the ceded territory situated north of latitude 32° any new state or territorial government, and that they should not grant to any people excepting Indians any right or title whatever to any part of the said portion of the said territory.”
Of any jealousy between North and South which could be sharpened by such a restriction of northern and extension of southern territory, Jefferson was unaware. He proposed his amendment in good faith as a means of holding the Union together by stopping its too rapid extension into the wilderness.
Coldly as his ideas were received in the Cabinet, Jefferson did not abandon them. Another month passed, and a call was issued for a special meeting of Congress October 17 to provide the necessary legislation for carrying the treaty into effect. As the summer wore away, Jefferson imparted his opinions to persons outside the Cabinet. He wrote, August 12, to Breckenridge of Kentucky a long and genial letter. Congress, he supposed,[72] after ratifying the treaty and paying for the country, “must then appeal to the nation for an additional article to the Constitution approving and confirming an act which the nation had not previously authorized. The Constitution has made no provision for our holding foreign territory, still less for incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The Executive, in seizing the fugitive occurrence which so much advances the good of their country, have done an act beyond the Constitution. The Legislature, in casting behind them metaphysical subtleties and risking themselves like faithful servants, must ratify and pay for it, and throw themselves on their country for doing for them unauthorized what we know they would have done for themselves had they been in a situation to do it.”
Breckenridge—whose Kentucky Resolutions, hardly five years before, declared that unconstitutional assumptions of power were the surrender of the form of government the people had chosen, and the replacing it by a government which derived its powers from its own will—might be annoyed at finding his principles abandoned by the man who had led him to father them; and surely no leader who had sent to his follower in one year the draft of the Kentucky Resolutions could have expected to send in another the draft of the Louisiana treaty. “I suppose they must then appeal to the nation” were the President’s words; and he underscored this ominous phrase. “We shall not be disavowed by the nation, and their act of indemnity will confirm and not weaken the Constitution by more strongly marking out its lines.” The Constitution, in dealing with the matter of amendments, made no reference to the nation; the word itself was unknown to the Constitution, which invariably spoke of the Union wherever such an expression was needed; and on the Virginia theory Congress had no right to appeal to the nation at all, except as a nation of States, for an amendment. The language used by Jefferson was the language of centralization, and would have been rejected by him and his party in 1798 or in 1820.
On the day of writing to Breckenridge the President wrote in a like sense to Paine; but in the course of a week despatches arrived from Paris which alarmed him. Livingston had reason to fear a sudden change of mind in the First Consul, and was willing to hasten the movements of President and Congress. Jefferson took the alarm, and wrote instantly to warn Breckenridge and Paine that no whisper of constitutional difficulties must be heard:[73]—
“I wrote you on the 12th instant on the subject of Louisiana and the constitutional provision which might be necessary for it. A letter received yesterday shows that nothing must be said on that subject which may give a pretext for retracting, but that we should do sub silentio what shall be found necessary. Be so good, therefore, as to consider that part of my letter as confidential.”