This text is part of:
[55]
of the entire valley of the Ohio from the Union; and certain discontented or desperate spirits were pointed at and named by their neighbors as having sold themselves for money to the Spanish governor at New Orleans, agreeing to lend all their energies to the promotion of his absurd scheme.
So long as Spain held the gateway of the Mississippi, it seemed that no other sway there could be more unpopular or odious with our Western pioneers.
But a “sober second thought” was evinced from the moment that her flag had been supplanted by that of republican France.
It was instinctively and universally felt that even the growls and threats, in which our people so freely indulged so long as the effete and despised Spaniard was their object, would no longer be politic nor safe.
Directly after the general pacification of Europe, in 1802, by the treaty of Amiens, a powerful French expedition had sailed for the West Indies; and, though its ostensible and real destination was Hayti, the apprehension was here general and reasonable that it would ultimately, if not immediately, be debarked on the banks of the Mississippi.
The privileges of navigation and of deposit, which had seemed so niggardly when conceded by the weakness of Spain, were now rather contracted than enlarged, and were likely to be withdrawn altogether.
We had freely contemned and denounced the stupidity and blindness of King Log, but became suddenly grave and silent on the unexpected advent of King Stork.
Mr. Jefferson, who had recently been called to the Presidency, and who mainly did the deeper thinking of the young and vigorous party which now ruled the country, regarded the change with alarm from still another aspect.
Popular sympathy with and admiration for republican France, with a corresponding aversion to and hatred of aristocratic England, were among the most potent influences which had combined to overthrow the Federalists here and bring the Republicans into power.
But all this was now morally certain to be reversed.
France, planting herself, as it were, at our back door, there erecting fortifications, and jealously scrutinizing, if not positively arresting, every one who should undertake to pass in or out, became inevitably and predominantly the object of American distrust and hostility.1 And now the great advantage
1 Upon learning of this important transfer, Mr. Jefferson (April 18, 1802) wrote to Mr. Livingston, our Minister at Paris, as follows:
The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France, works most sorely on the United States. On this subject, the Secretary of State has written to you fully, yet I cannot forbear recurring to it personally, so deep is the impression it makes on my mind. It completely reverses all the political relations of the United States, and will form a new epoch in our political course. Of all nations of any consideration, France is the one which hitherto has offered the fewest points on which we could have any conflict of rights, and the most points of a communion of interests. From these causes, we have ever looked to her as our natural friend, as one with which we could never have an occasion of difference. Her growth, therefore, we viewed as our own — her misfortunes ours. There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market; and, from its fertility, it will ere long yield more than half of our whole produce, and contain more than half of our inhabitants. France, placing herself in that door, assumes to us the attitude of defiance. Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific dispositions, her feeble state, would induce her to increase our facilities there, so that her possession of the place would be hardly felt by us, and it would not, perhaps, be very long before some circumstances might arise, which might make the cession of it to us the price of something of more worth to her. 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 impossible that France and the United States can continue long friends, when they meet in so irritable a position. They, as well as we, must be blind if they do not see this; and we must be very improvident if we do not begin to make arrangements on that hypothesis. The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. It seals the union of two nations, who, in conjunction, can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment, we must marry ourselves to .the British fleet and nation. We must turn all our attention to a maritime force, for which our resources place us on very high ground: and, having formed and connected together a power which may render re-enforcement of her settlements here impossible to France, make the first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purpose of the united British and American nations. This is not a state of things we seek or desire. It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us, as necessarily as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect. --Jefferson's Works, vol. IV., p. 431.
Hartford. Published by O. D. Chase and Company. 1866.
Tufts University provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.