The two most important measures of the first administration were, however, the repression of the Barbary pirates and the acquisition of Louisiana. Mr. Jefferson’s [pg 124]ineffectual efforts, while he was minister to France, to put down by force Mediterranean piracy have already been rehearsed. During Mr. Adams’s term, two million dollars were expended in bribing the bucaneers. One item in the account was as follows, “A frigate to carry thirty-six guns for the Dey of Algiers;” and this frigate went crammed with a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of powder, lead, timber, rope, canvas, and other means of piracy. One hundred and twenty-two captives came home in that year, 1796, of whom ten had been held in slavery for eleven years.
Jefferson’s first important act as President was to dispatch to the Mediterranean three frigates and a sloop-of-war to overawe the pirates, and to cruise in protection of American commerce. Thus began that series of events which finally rendered the commerce of the world as safe from piracy in the Mediterranean as it was in the British channel. How brilliantly Decatur and his gallant comrades carried out this policy, and how at last the tardy naval powers of Europe fol[pg 125]lowed an example which they ought to have set, every one is supposed to know.
The second important event was the acquisition of Louisiana. Louisiana meant the whole territory from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, embracing about one million square miles. All this region belonged to Spain by right of discovery; and early in the year 1801 news came from the American minister at Paris that Spain had ceded or was about to cede it to France. The Spanish ownership of the mouth of the Mississippi had long been a source of annoyance to the settlers on the Mississippi River; and it had begun to be felt that the United States must control New Orleans at least. If this vast territory should come into the hands of France, and Napoleon should colonize it, as was said to be his intention,—France then being the greatest power in Europe,—the United States would have a powerful rival on its borders, and in control of a seaport absolutely necessary for its commerce. We can see this now plainly enough, but even so able a man as Mr. Livingston, the American [pg 126]minister at Paris, did not see it then. On the contrary, he wrote to the government at Washington: “... I have, however, on all occasions, declared that as long as France conforms to the existing treaty between us and Spain, the government of the United States does not consider itself as having any interest in opposing the exchange.”
Mr. Jefferson’s very different view was expressed in the following letter to Mr. Livingston: “... France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific disposition, her feeble state would induce her to increase our facilities there.... Not so can it ever be in the hands of France; the impetuosity of her temper, the energy and restlessness of her character, placed in a point of eternal friction with us and our character, which, though quiet and loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded, despising wealth in competition with insult or injury, enterprising and energetic as any nation on earth,—these circumstances render it im[pg 127]possible that France and the United States can continue long friends when they meet in so irritable a position.... The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark.... From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”
Thus, at a moment’s notice, and in obedience to a vital change in circumstance, Jefferson threw aside the policy of a lifetime, suppressed his liking for France and his dislike for England, and entered upon that radically new course which, as he foresaw, the interests of the United States would require.
Livingston, thus primed, began negotiations for the purchase of New Orleans; and Jefferson hastily dispatched Monroe, as a special envoy, for the same purpose, armed, it is supposed, with secret verbal instructions, to buy, if possible, not only New Orleans, but the whole of Louisiana. Monroe had not a word in writing to show that in purchasing Louisiana—if the act should be [pg 128]repudiated by the nation—he did not exceed his instructions. But, as Mr. Henry Adams remarks, “Jefferson’s friends always trusted him perfectly.”
The moment was most propitious, for England and France were about to close in that terrific struggle which ended at Waterloo, and Napoleon was desperately in need of money. After some haggling the bargain was concluded, and, for the very moderate sum of fifteen million dollars, the United States became possessed of a territory which more than doubled its area.
The purchase of Louisiana was confessedly an unconstitutional, or at least an extra-constitutional act, for the Constitution gave no authority to the President to acquire new territory, or to pledge the credit of the United States in payment. Jefferson himself thought that the Constitution ought to be amended in order to make the purchase legal; but in this he was overruled by his advisers.
Thus, Jefferson’s first administration ended with a brilliant achievement; but this public [pg 129]glory was far more than outweighed by a private loss. The President’s younger daughter, Mrs. Eppes, died in April, 1804; and in a letter to his old friend, John Page, he said: “Others may lose of their abundance, but I, of my wants, have, lost even the half of all I had. My evening prospects now hang on the slender thread of a single life. Perhaps I may be destined to see even this last cord of parental affection broken. The hope with which I have looked forward to the moment when, resigning public cares to younger hands, I was to retire to that domestic comfort from which the last great step is to be taken, is fearfully blighted.”