Madison was regarded by his contemporaries as a precise, well-balanced, even a timid man, argumentative to satiety, never carried away by bursts of passion, fretful rather than vehement, pertinacious rather than resolute,—a character that seemed incapable of surprising the world by reckless ambition or lawless acts; yet this circumspect citizen, always treated by his associates with a shade of contempt as a closet politician, paid surprisingly little regard to rules of consistency or caution. His Virginia Resolutions of 1798, his instructions in the Louisiana purchase, his assumption of Livingston’s claim to West Florida, his treatment of Yrujo, his embargo policy, his acceptance of Erskine’s arrangement, his acceptance of Cadore’s arrangement, and his occupation of West Florida were all examples of the same trait; and an abundance of others were to come. He ignored caution in pursuit of an object which seemed to him proper in itself; nor could he understand why this quiet and patriotic conduct should rouse tempests of passion in his opponents, whose violence, by contrast, increased the apparent placidity of his own persistence.
Forestalling the action of Congress which was to meet within five weeks, President Madison issued, Oct. 27, 1810, a proclamation announcing that Governor Claiborne would take possession of West Florida to the river Perdido, in the name and behalf of the United States. This proclamation, one of the most remarkable documents in the archives of the United States government, began by reasserting the familiar claim to West Florida as included in the Louisiana purchase:—
“And whereas the acquiescence of the United States in the temporary continuance of the said territory under the Spanish authority was not the result of any distrust of their title, as has been particularly evinced by the general tenor of their laws and by the distinction made in the application of those laws between that territory and foreign countries, but was occasioned by their conciliatory views, and by a confidence in the justice of their cause, and in the success of candid discussion and amicable negotiation with a just and friendly Power; ... considering, moreover, that under these peculiar and imperative circumstances a forbearance on the part of the United States to occupy the territory in question, and thereby guard against the confusions and contingencies which threaten it, might be construed into a dereliction of their title or an insensibility to the importance of the stake; considering that in the hands of the United States it will not cease to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiation and adjustment; considering finally that the Acts of Congress, though contemplating a present possession by a foreign authority, have contemplated also an eventual possession of the said territory by the United States, and are accordingly so framed as in that case to extend in their operation to the same,”—
Considering all these reasons, substantially the same self-interest by which France justified her decrees, and England her impressments, the President ordered Governor Claiborne, with the aid of the United States army, to occupy the country and to govern it as a part of his own Orleans territory.[263] By a letter of the same date the Secretary of State informed Claiborne, that, “if contrary to expectation, the occupation of this [revolutionized] territory should be opposed by force, the commanding officer of the regular troops on the Mississippi will have orders from the Secretary of War to afford you, upon your application, the requisite aid.... Should however any particular place, however small, remain in possession of a Spanish force, you will not proceed to employ force against it, but you will make immediate report thereof to this Department.”[264] Having by these few strokes of his pen authorized the seizure of territory belonging to “a just and friendly Power,” and having legislated for a foreign people without consulting their wishes, the President sent to the revolutionary convention at Baton Rouge a sharp message through Governor Holmes of the Mississippi territory, to the effect that their independence was an impertinence, and their designs on the public lands were something worse.[265]
A few days after taking these measures, Robert Smith explained their causes to Turreau in the same conversation in which he announced the decision to accept Cadore’s letter as the foundation of non-intercourse with England. The wish to preclude British occupation of Florida was the motive alleged by Smith for the intended occupation by the United States.[266]
“As for the Floridas, I swear, General, on my honor as a gentleman,” said Robert Smith to Turreau, October 31, “not only that we are strangers to everything that has happened, but even that the Americans who have appeared there either as agents or leaders are enemies of the Executive, and act in this sense against the Federal government as well as against Spain.... Moreover these men and some others have been led into these measures by the hope of obtaining from a new government considerable concessions of lands. In any case you will soon learn the measures we have taken to prevent the English from being received at Baton Rouge as they have been at Pensacola, which would render them absolute masters of our outlets by the Mobile and Mississippi. We hope that your Government will not take it ill that we should defend the part of Florida in dispute between Spain and us; and whether our pretensions are well-founded or not, your interest, like ours, requires us to oppose the enterprises of England in that country.”
Claiborne took possession of the revolutionized districts December 7, and the Spanish governor at Mobile was not sorry to see the insurgents so promptly repressed and deprived of their expected profits. Yet Claiborne did not advance to the Perdido; he went no farther than the Pearl River, and began friendly negotiations with Governor Folch at Mobile for delivery of the country still held by the Spaniards between the Pearl and the Perdido. Governor Folch had none but diplomatic weapons to use in his defence, but he used these to save that portion of the province for some years to Spain.
The four districts west of the Pearl River were organized by Claiborne as a part of the territory of Orleans, in which shape, the President’s proclamation had said, “it will not cease to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiation and adjustment” with Spain. Within a few weeks the President announced to Congress in his Annual Message that “the legality and necessity of the course pursued” required from the Legislature “whatever provisions may be due to the essential rights and equitable interests of the people thus brought into the bosom of the American family.” The difficulty of reconciling two such assertions perplexed many persons who in the interests of law and of society wished to understand how a people already brought into the bosom of the American family could remain a subject of fair negotiation with a foreign Power. The point became further complicated by the admission of Louisiana as a State into the Union, with the four districts which were “to be a subject of fair and friendly negotiation.”
The first result of these tortuous proceedings was to call a protest from Morier, the British chargé at Washington, who wrote to the Secretary of State, December 15, a letter[267] containing one paragraph worth noting:—
“Would it not have been worthy of the generosity of a free nation like this, bearing, as it doubtless does, a respect for the rights of a gallant people at this moment engaged in a noble struggle for its liberty,—would it not have been an act on the part of this country dictated by the sacred ties of good neighborhood and friendship which exist between it and Spain, to have simply offered its assistance to crush the common enemy of both, rather than to have made such interference the pretext for wresting a province from a friendly Power, and that at the time of her adversity?”