Jay succeeded in his mission; a treaty was made, followed in May, 1796, by the surrender of the British forts in the Northwest Territory; which finally relieved Kentucky from British accessorial influence in the Indian aggressions.
[pg 283] In 1795, Governor Carondelet, of Louisiana, renewed the efforts instituted by Miro and Wilkinson to separate Kentucky from the Union. As Wilkinson at the time was a general in the United States army and no longer a resident of Kentucky, his chief agent in Kentucky was Judge Sebastian. Carondelet’s agents soon discovered that the people of Kentucky no longer cared to surrender their interest in the Union in exchange for Spanish commercial privileges.
On October 25, 1795, a treaty was entered into between Spain and the United States by Article IV of which it was stipulated that: “His Catholic Majesty has likewise agreed that the navigation of the said river in its whole breadth from its source to the ocean shall be free only to his subjects and the citizens of the United States unless he should extend this privilege to the subjects of other powers by special convention.” On August 2, 1796, this treaty became operative by presidential proclamation.
So far as known, after the adoption of the treaty, Spain made no effort to procure the withdrawal of Kentucky from the Union until 1797. Then Governor Carondelet’s agent, Thomas Power, came to Kentucky with a letter to Sebastian in which it was suggested that Kentucky was “* * * to withdraw from the federal union and form an independent western government.”
After Power had conferred with Judge Sebastian he visited Wilkinson, at the time a major general in the United States army and stationed at Detroit. Wilkinson was much put out by the visit and told Power he had been instructed to arrest him. He did not do this but sent him under guard to Fort Massac, from which point he was permitted to go to New Madrid and from there returned to New Orleans.
[pg 284] Power reported to Carondelet that Wilkinson received him ungraciously and said: “We are both lost without deriving any benefit from your journey. * * * The project is chimerical, as the western country has obtained by the treaty of 1795 all she wants. Spain had best abide by the treaty which has overturned all my plans and rendered ten years’ labor useless.”
As is known, the Jay treaty came very near causing war between France and the United States. Many Kentuckians felt that France had good reason for declaring war. Her charge against this government was that by the concessions made to Great Britain, America had disregarded her commercial and defensive allegiance with France.
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From the organization of the Union Virginia, and, after Kentucky was carved from it, Kentucky were anti-federal states, championing state rights and declaring in no uncertain terms that the Federal Government was a creature of the states.
The Federal Government and the State of Kentucky kept close watch upon each other; the State jealously guarding her rights and the Federal Government ever suspicious of the separatist spirit of Kentucky; though a reference by vote of the people would have disclosed that only a small though influential minority advocated such a policy.