From every point of view, whether Justice Campbell and the secession convention of South Carolina were right or wrong in their historical judgment, the Louisiana purchase possessed an importance not to be ignored. Even in 1804 the political consequences of the act were already too striking to be overlooked. Within three years of his inauguration Jefferson bought a foreign colony without its consent and against its will, annexed it to the United States by an act which he said made blank paper of the Constitution; and then he who had found his predecessors too monarchical, and the Constitution too liberal in powers,—he who had nearly dissolved the bonds of society rather than allow his predecessor to order a dangerous alien out of the country in a time of threatened war,—made himself monarch of the new territory, and wielded over it, against its protests, the powers of its old kings. Such an experience was final; no century of slow and half-understood experience could be needed to prove that the hopes of humanity lay thenceforward, not in attempting to restrain the government from doing whatever the majority should think necessary, but in raising the people themselves till they should think nothing necessary but what was good.

Jefferson took a different view. He regarded, or wished to regard, the Louisiana treaty and legislation as exceptional and as forming no precedent. While he signed the laws for governing the territory, he warmly objected to the establishment of a branch bank of the United States at New Orleans. “This institution is one of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution,” he wrote to Gallatin;[86] “ought we to give further growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?” Gallatin was clear that the business of the Treasury required such aid, and Jefferson again acquiesced. Gallatin was also allowed and encouraged to enforce the restrictions on the importation of slaves into Louisiana.[87] “It seems that the whole Cabinet,” wrote the French chargé to his government, “put the utmost weight on this prohibition. Mr. Jefferson is earnestly bent on maintaining it, and his Secretary of the Treasury takes the severest measures to insure its execution.”

As though the annexation of Louisiana alone made not enough change in the old established balances of the Constitution, Congress took up another matter which touched the mainspring of the compact. A new Presidential election was at hand. The narrow escape of 1800 warned the party in power not again to risk society by following the complicated arrangements of 1788. In the convention which framed the Constitution no single difficulty was more serious than that of compromising the question of power between the large and small States. Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Connecticut were well aware that the large States would take the lion’s share of power and patronage; they knew that except by accident no citizen of theirs could ever reach the Presidency; and as accident alone could give the small States a chance, accident was to them a thing of value. Whatever tended to make their votes decisive was an additional inducement with them to accept the Constitution. The Vice-presidency, as originally created, more than doubled their chance of getting the Presidency, and was invented chiefly for this purpose; but this was not all. As the number of electoral votes alone decided between President and Vice-president, a tie-vote was likely often to occur; and such a tie was decided by the House of Representatives, where another bribe was intentionally offered to the small States by giving the election to the State delegations voting as units, so that the vote of Delaware weighed as heavily as the vote of Pennsylvania.

The alarm caused by Burr’s rivalry with Jefferson in February, 1801, satisfied the Republican party that such a door to intrigue ought not to be left open. Oct. 17, 1803, before the Louisiana treaty was taken up, an amendment to the Constitution was moved by friends of the Administration in the House. This, which took shape at length as the Twelfth Amendment, obliged the members of the electoral college to distinguish in their ballots the persons voted for as President and Vice-president.

Slight as this change might appear, it tended toward centralizing powers hitherto jealously guarded. It swept away one of the checks on which the framers had counted to resist majority rule by the great States. Lessening the influence of the small States, and exaggerating the office of President by lowering the dignity of Vice-president, it made the processes of election and government smoother and more efficient,—a gain to politicians, but the result most feared by the State-rights school. The change was such as Pennsylvania or New York might naturally want; but it ran counter to the theories of Virginia Republicans, whose jealousy of Executive influence had been extreme.

Roger Griswold said with prophetic emphasis:[88]—

“The man voted for as Vice-president will be selected without any decisive view to his qualifications to administer the government. The office will generally be carried into the market to be exchanged for the votes of some large States for President; and the only criterion which will be regarded as a qualification for the office of Vice-president will be the temporary influence of the candidate over the electors of his State.... The momentary views of party may perhaps be promoted by such arrangements, but the permanent interests of the country are sacrificed.”

Griswold held that true reform required abolition of the office; and in this opinion his old enemy John Randolph warmly agreed. In the Senate, had the question risen as a new one, perhaps a majority might have favored abolition, for the results of retaining the office were foreseen; but the discussion was hampered by the supposed popular will and by express votes of State legislatures, and Congress felt itself obliged to follow a prescribed course. The amendment was adopted by the usual party vote; and the Federalists thenceforward were able to charge Jefferson and his party with responsibility not only for stripping the small States of an advantage which had made part of their bargain, but also for putting in the office of President, in case of vacancies, men whom no State and no elector intended for the post.

CHAPTER VII.

The extraordinary success which marked Jefferson’s foreign relations in the year 1803 was almost equally conspicuous in domestic affairs. The Treasury was as fortunate as the Department of State. Gallatin silenced opposition. Although the customs produced two millions less than in 1802, yet when the Secretary in October, 1803, announced his financial arrangements, which included the purchase-money of fifteen million dollars for Louisiana, he was able to provide for all his needs without imposing a new tax. The treaty required the issue of six-per-cent bonds for eleven million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, redeemable after fifteen years. These were issued; and to meet the interest and sinking fund Gallatin added from his surplus an annual appropriation of seven hundred thousand dollars to his general fund; so that the discharge of the whole debt would take place within the year 1818, instead of eighteen months earlier, as had been intended. New Orleans was expected to provide two hundred thousand dollars a year toward the interest. Of the remaining four millions, the Treasury already held half, and Gallatin hoped to provide the whole from future surplus, which he actually did.