On some subjects Jefferson was determined to shut his eyes. He officially asserted that the Orleans militia had done honor to themselves and won the confidence of their fellow-citizens at a moment when he was receiving from Governor Claiborne almost daily warnings that the Orleans militia could not be trusted, and would certainly not fight against Spain.
By this course of conduct Jefferson entangled himself in a new labyrinth of contradictions and inconsistencies. Until that moment, his apparent interests and wishes led him to ignore or to belittle Burr’s conspiracy; but after the moment had passed, his interests and convictions obliged him to take the views and share the responsibilities of General Wilkinson. Thus John Randolph found fresh opportunities to annoy the President, while the President lost his temper, and challenged another contest with Luther Martin and Chief-Justice Marshall.
After shutting his ears to the reiterated warnings of Eaton, Truxton, Morgan, Daveiss, and even to the hints of Wilkinson himself; after neglecting to take precautions against Burr, Wilkinson, or the city of New Orleans, and after throwing upon the Western people the responsibility for doing what the government had been instituted to do; after issuing a proclamation which treated Burr’s armament as a filibustering venture like that of Miranda; and after sending to Congress an Annual Message which excused the proclamation on the ground that it was an act of good faith toward Spain, although Spain took no such view of it,—Jefferson could not reasonably expect the opposition in Congress to accept without a protest sudden legislation resting on the theory that the Constitution and the Union were in danger.
The month of December, 1806, passed at Washington without producing a public display of uneasiness on the President’s part; the Government was waiting to hear from Kentucky and Ohio. Outwardly Jefferson continued to rely on the patriotism of the people of Louisiana, but inwardly he was troubled with fears. December 22 Robert Smith, anxious to save himself from possible calamity, wrote to him a letter of remonstrance.
“In the course of our various communications,” said Smith,[238] “in relation to the movements of Colonel Burr in the Western country, I have from time to time expressed the opinions which, as they were not at all countenanced by any of the other gentlemen, I did not deem it expedient to press upon your attention.... If, as was proposed on the 24th of October, the sloops-of-war and the gunboats stationed at Washington, New York, Norfolk, and Charleston had been sent to New Orleans under the command of Commodore Preble, with Captain Decatur second in command, we would at this time have nothing to apprehend from the military expedition of Colonel Burr. Such a naval force joined to the ketches and gunboats now on the Mississippi, would beyond a doubt have been sufficient to suppress such an enterprise. But this step, momentous as it was, the Executive could not take consistently with the limitations of existing statutes and with the spirit manifested by the House of Representatives at their last session. The approaching crisis will, I fear, be a melancholy proof of the want of forecast in so circumscribing the Executive within such narrow limits.”
Robert Smith, conscious of being the person whom Congress most distrusted, grasped at the idea of freeing himself from restraint, and did not stop to ask whether Burr’s impunity were due to want of forecast in Congress or in the Executive. He was alarmed; and the President’s reply to his letter showed that Jefferson was equally uncomfortable.[239]
“What I had myself in contemplation,” the President answered, “was to wait till we get news from Louisville of December 15, the day of Burr’s proposed general rendezvous. The post comes from thence in twelve days. The mail next expected will be of that date. If we then find that his force has had no effectual opposition at either Marietta or Cincinnati, and will not be stopped at Louisville, then, without depending on the opposition at Fort Adams (though I have more dependence on that than any other), I should propose to lay the whole matter before Congress, ask an immediate appropriation for a naval equipment, and at the same time order twenty thousand militia, or volunteers, from the Western States to proceed down the river to retake New Orleans, presuming our naval equipment would be there before them. In the mean time I would recommend to you to be getting ready and giving orders of preparation to the officers and vessels which we can get speedily ready.”
Not a trace of confidence in the people of Louisiana was to be detected in this plan of operations. The duty of the government not only to act, but to act with extreme quickness and vigor, before Burr should come within a long distance of New Orleans, was avowed. The idea of calling out twenty thousand men to retake New Orleans showed a degree of alarm contrasting strongly with the equanimity that preceded it, and with the inertness which had allowed such an emergency to arise. The difference of tone between this letter and the President’s public language was extreme. Nevertheless, the Western mail arrived, bringing news that the State of Ohio had seized the greater part of Burr’s boats, that six or eight had escaped, and that Burr had gone to Nashville; and in this partly satisfactory report the President saw reason for further silence. Next came, Jan. 2, 1807, Wilkinson’s letter of November 12 from Natchez, with its pledge to perish in New Orleans, and with messages, not trusted to writing, but orally imparted to the messenger, about Burr’s cipher letters and their contents. Still the President made no sign. For want of some clew his followers were greatly perplexed; and men like John Randolph, who hated the President, and Samuel Smith, who did not love him, began to suspect that at last the Administration was fairly at a standstill. Randolph, with his usual instability, swayed between extremes of scepticism. At one moment he believed that the situation was most serious; at another, that the conspiracy was only a Spanish intrigue. January 2 he wrote to Monroe, in London, a letter full of the conviction that Spain was behind Burr:[240] “I am informed also, through a very direct and respectable channel, that there is a considerable party about Lexington and Frankfort highly propitious to his views, and with strong Spanish prepossessions. Some names which have been mentioned as of the number would astonish you.” Jefferson’s conduct irritated him more than that of Burr or Yrujo:—
“The state of things here is indeed unexampled. Although the newspapers teem with rumors dangerous to the peace and safety of the Union, and notwithstanding Government give full faith and credit to the existence of a formidable conspiracy, and have given information and instructions to the several State authorities how to act (under which Ohio has done herself much honor), yet not one syllable has been communicated to Congress on the subject. There are some other curious circumstances which I must reserve for oral communication, not caring to trust them by letter. One fact, however, ought not to be omitted. The army (as it is called) is in the most contemptible state, unprovided with everything, and men and officers unacquainted with their duties.”
In what state Randolph expected the army to be, after six years of such legislation as his, could not be guessed. Officers and soldiers, distributed by companies, in forts hundreds of miles distant from each other, could hardly become acquainted with any other duties than those of a frontier garrison. General Smith did not, like Randolph, complain of others for the consequences of his own acts. He too wrote at that moment a confidential letter, describing the situation, to his brother-in-law, Wilson Cary Nicholas:[241]—