wily, always commanding his temper, proud because he is a Spaniard but supple and cunning, accommodating the tone of his pretensions precisely to the degree of endurance of his opponents, bold and overbearing to the utmost extent to which it is tolerated, careless of what he asserts or how grossly it is proved to be unfounded.”
The history of the negotiations running through the fall and winter is a succession of propositions and counter-propositions, made formally by the chief participants or tentatively and informally through Neuville. The western boundary of the Louisiana purchase was the chief obstacle to agreement. Each sparred for an advantage; each made extreme claims; and each was persuaded to yield a little here and a little there, slowly narrowing the bounds of the disputed territory. More than once the President and the Cabinet believed that the last concession had been extorted and were prepared to yield on other matters. When the President was prepared, for example, to accept the hundredth meridian and the forty-third parallel, Adams insisted on demanding the one hundred and second and the forty-second; and “after a long and violent struggle,” wrote Adams, “he [De Onis] . . . agreed to take longitude one hundred from the Red River to the Arkansas, and latitude forty-two from the source of the Arkansas to the South Sea.” This was a momentous decision, for the United States acquired thus whatever claim Spain had to the northwest coast but sacrificed its claim to Texas for the possession of the Floridas.
Vexatious questions still remained to be settled. The spoliation claims which were to have been adjusted by the convention of 1802 were finally left to a commission, the United States agreeing to assume all obligations to an amount not exceeding five million dollars. De Onis demurred at stating this amount in the treaty: he would be blamed for having betrayed the honor of Spain by selling the Floridas for a paltry five millions. To which Adams replied dryly that he ought to boast of his bargain instead of being ashamed of it, since it was notorious that the Floridas had always been a burden to the Spanish exchequer. Negotiations came to a standstill again when Adams insisted that certain royal grants of land in the Floridas should be declared null and void. He feared, and not without reason, that these grants would deprive the United States of the domain which was to be used to pay the indemnities assumed in the treaty. De Onis resented the demand as “offensive to the dignity and imprescriptible rights of the Crown of Spain”; and once again Neuville came to the rescue of the treaty and persuaded both parties to agree to a compromise. On the understanding that the royal grants in question had been made subsequent to January 24, 1818, Adams agreed that all grants made since that date (when the first proposal was made by His Majesty for the cession of the Floridas) should be declared null and void; and that all grants made before that date should be confirmed.
On the anniversary of Washington’s birthday, De Onis and Adams signed the treaty which carried the United States to its natural limits on the southeast. The event seemed to Adams to mark “a great epocha in our history.” “It was near one in the morning,” he recorded in his diary, “when I closed the day with ejaculations of fervent gratitude to the Giver of all good. It was, perhaps, the most important day of my life . . . . Let no idle and unfounded exultation take possession of my mind, as if I would ascribe to my own foresight or exertions any portion of the event.” But misgivings followed hard on these joyous reflections. The treaty had still to be ratified, and the disposition of the Spanish Cortes was uncertain. There was, too, considerable opposition in the Senate. “A watchful eye, a resolute purpose, a calm and patient temper, and a favoring Providence will all be as indispensable for the future as they have been for the past in the management of this negotiation,” Adams reminded himself. He had need of all these qualities in the trying months that followed.
CHAPTER XIV. FRAMING AN AMERICAN POLICY
The decline and fall of the Spanish Empire does not challenge the imagination like the decline and fall of that other Empire with which alone it can be compared, possibly because no Gibbon has chronicled its greatness. Yet its dissolution affected profoundly the history of three continents. While the Floridas were slipping from the grasp of Spain, the provinces to the south were wrenching themselves loose, with protestations which penetrated to European chancelries as well as to American legislative halls. To Czar Alexander and Prince Metternich, sponsors for the Holy Alliance and preservers of the peace of Europe, these declarations of independence contained the same insidious philosophy of revolution which they had pledged themselves everywhere to combat. To simple American minds, the familiar words liberty and independence in the mouths of South American patriots meant what they had to their own grandsires, struggling to throw off the shackles of British imperial control. Neither Europe nor America, however, knew the actual conditions in these newborn republics below the equator; and both governed their conduct by their prepossessions.
To the typically American mind of Henry Clay, now untrammeled by any sense of responsibility, for he was a free lance in the House of Representatives once more, the emancipation of South America was a thrilling and sublime spectacle–“the glorious spectacle of eighteen millions of people struggling to burst their chains and to be free.” In a memorable speech in 1818 he had expressed the firm conviction that there could be but one outcome to this struggle. Independent these South American states would be. Equally clear to his mind was their political destiny. Whatever their forms of government, they would be animated by an American feeling and guided by an American policy. “They will obey the laws of the system of the new world, of which they will compose a part, in contradistinction to that of Europe.” To this struggle and to this destiny the United States could not remain indifferent. He would not have the Administration depart from its policy of strict and impartial neutrality but he would urge the expediency–nay, the justice–of recognizing established governments in Spanish America. Such recognition was not a breach of neutrality, for it did not imply material aid in the wars of liberation but only the moral sympathy of a great free people for their southern brethren.
Contrasted with Clay’s glowing enthusiasm, the attitude of the Administration, directed by the prudent Secretary of State, seemed cold, calculating, and rigidly conventional. For his part, Adams could see little resemblance between these revolutions in South America and that of 1776. Certainly it had never been disgraced by such acts of buccaneering and piracy as were of everyday occurrence in South American waters. The United States had contended for civil rights and then for independence; in South America civil rights had been ignored by all parties. He could discern neither unity of cause nor unity of effort in the confused history of recent struggles in South America; and until orderly government was achieved, with due regard to fundamental civil rights, he would not have the United States swerve in the slightest degree from the path of strict neutrality. Mr. Clay, he observed in his diary, had “mounted his South American great horse . . . to control or overthrow the executive.”
President Monroe, however, was more impressionable, more responsive to popular opinion, and at this moment (as the presidential year approached) more desirous to placate the opposition. He agreed with Adams that the moment had not come when the United States alone might safely recognize the South American states, but he believed that concerted action by the United States and Great Britain might win recognition without wounding the sensibilities of Spain. The time was surely not far distant when Spain would welcome recognition as a relief from an impoverishing and hopeless war. Meanwhile the President coupled professions of neutrality and expressions of sympathy for the revolutionists in every message to Congress.
The temporizing policy of the Administration aroused Clay to another impassioned plea for those southern brethren whose hearts–despite all rebuffs from the Department of State–still turned toward the United States. “We should become the center of a system which would constitute the rallying point of human freedom against the despotism of the Old World . . . . Why not proceed to act on our own responsibility and recognize these governments as independent, instead of taking the lead of the Holy Alliance in a course which jeopardizes the happiness of unborn millions?” He deprecated this deference to foreign powers. “If Lord Castlereagh says we may recognize, we do; if not, we do not . . . . Our institutions now make us free; but how long shall we continue so, if we mold our opinions on those of Europe? Let us break these commercial and political fetters; let us no longer watch the nod of any European politician; let us become real and true Americans, and place ourselves at the head of the American system.”
The question of recognition was thus thrust into the foreground of discussion at a most inopportune time. The Florida treaty had not yet been ratified, for reasons best known to His Majesty the King of Spain, and the new Spanish Minister, General Vives, had just arrived in the United States to ask for certain explanations. The Administration had every reason at this moment to wish to avoid further causes of irritation to Spanish pride. It is more than probable, indeed, that Clay was not unwilling to embarrass the President and his Secretary of State. He still nursed his personal grudge against the President and he did not disguise his hostility to the treaty. What aroused his resentment was the sacrifice of Texas for Florida. Florida would have fallen to the United States eventually like ripened fruit, he believed. Why, then, yield an incomparably richer and greater territory for that which was bound to become theirs whenever the American people wished to take it?
But what were the explanations which Vives demanded? Weary hours spent in conference with the wily Spaniard convinced Adams that the great obstacle to the ratification of the treaty by Spain had been the conviction that the United States was only waiting ratification to recognize the independence of the Spanish colonies. Bitterly did Adams regret the advances which he had made to Great Britain, at the instance of the President, and still more bitterly did he deplore those paragraphs in the President’s messages which had expressed an all too ready sympathy with the aims of the insurgents. But regrets availed nothing and the Secretary of State had to put the best face possible on the policy of the Administration. He told Vives in unmistakable language that the United States could not subscribe to “new engagements as the price of obtaining the ratification of the old.” Certainly the United States would not comply with the Spanish demand and pledge itself “to form no relations with the pretended governments of the revolted provinces of Spain.” As for the royal grants which De Onis had agreed to call null and void, if His Majesty insisted upon their validity, perhaps the United States might acquiesce for an equivalent area west of the Sabine River. In some alarm Vives made haste to say that the King did not insist upon the confirmation of these grants. In the end he professed himself satisfied with Mr. Adams’s explanations; he would send a messenger to report to His Majesty and to secure formal authorization to exchange ratifications.
Another long period of suspense followed. The Spanish Cortes did not advise the King to accept the treaty until October; the Senate did not reaffirm its ratification until the following February; and it was two years to a day after the signing of the treaty that Adams and Vives exchanged formal ratifications. Again Adams confided to the pages of his diary, so that posterity might read, the conviction that the hand of an Overruling Providence was visible in this, the most important event of his life.
If, as many thought, the Administration had delayed recognition of the South American republics in order not to offend Spanish feelings while the Florida treaty was under consideration, it had now no excuse for further hesitation; yet it was not until March 8, 1822, that President Monroe announced to Congress his belief that the time had come when those provinces of Spain which had declared their independence and were in the enjoyment of it should be formally recognized. On the 19th of June he received the accredited charge d’affaires of the Republic of Colombia.
The problem of recognition was not the only one which the impending dissolution of the Spanish colonial empire left to harass the Secretary of State. Just because Spain had such vast territorial pretensions and held so little by actual occupation on the North American continent, there was danger that these shadowy claims would pass into the hands of aggressive powers with the will and resources to aggrandize themselves. One day in January, 1821, while Adams was awaiting the outcome of his conferences with Vives, Stratford Canning, the British Minister, was announced at his office. Canning came to protest against what he understood was the decision of the United States to extend its settlements at the mouth of the Columbia River. Adams replied that he knew of no such determination; but he deemed it very probable that the settlements on the Pacific coast would be increased. Canning expressed rather ill-matured surprise at this statement, for he conceived that such a policy would be a palpable violation of the Convention of 1818. Without replying, Adams rose from his seat to procure a copy of the treaty and then read aloud the parts referring to the joint occupation of the Oregon country. A stormy colloquy followed in which both participants seem to have lost their tempers. Next day Canning returned to the attack, and Adams challenged the British claim to the mouth of the Columbia. “Why,” exclaimed Canning, “do you not KNOW that we have a claim?” “I do not KNOW,” said Adams, “what you claim nor what you do not claim. You claim India; you claim Africa; you claim–” “Perhaps,” said Canning, “a piece of the moon.” “No,” replied Adams, “I have not heard that you claim exclusively any part of the moon; but there is not a spot on THIS habitable globe that I could affirm you do not claim; and there is none which you may not claim with as much color of right as you can have to Columbia River or its mouth.”
With equal sang-froid, the Secretary of State met threatened aggression from another quarter. In September of this same year, the Czar issued a ukase claiming the Pacific coast as far south as the fifty-first parallel and declaring Bering Sea closed to the commerce of other nations. Adams promptly refused to recognize these pretensions and declared to Baron de Tuyll, the Russian Minister, “that we should contest the right of Russia to ANY territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments.”*
* Before Adams retired from office, he had the satisfaction of concluding a treaty (1824) with Russia by which the Czar abandoned his claims to exclusive jurisdiction in Bering Sea and agreed to plant no colonies on the Pacific Coast south of 54 degrees 40 minutes.
Not long after this interview Adams was notified by Baron Tuyll that the Czar, in conformity with the political principles of the allies, had determined in no case whatever to receive any agent from the Government of the Republic of Colombia or from any other government which owed its existence to the recent events in the New World. Adams’s first impulse was to pen a reply that would show the inconsistency between these political principles and the unctuous professions of Christian duty which had resounded in the Holy Alliance; but the note which he drafted was, perhaps fortunately, not dispatched until it had been revised by President and Cabinet a month later, under stress of other circumstances.
At still another focal point the interests of the United States ran counter to the covetous desires of European powers. Cuba, the choicest of the provinces of Spain, still remained nominally loyal; but, should the hold of Spain upon this Pearl of the Antilles relax, every maritime power would swoop down upon it. The immediate danger, however, was not that revolution would here as elsewhere sever the province from Spain, leaving it helpless and incapable of self-support, but that France, after invading Spain and restoring the monarchy, would also intervene in the affairs of her provinces. The transfer of Cuba to France by the grateful King was a possibility which haunted the dreams of George Canning at Westminster as well as of John Quincy Adams at Washington. The British Foreign Minister attempted to secure a pledge from France that she would not acquire any Spanish-American territory either by conquest or by treaty, while the Secretary of State instructed the American Minister to Spain not to conceal from the Spanish Government “the repugnance of the United States to the transfer of the Island of Cuba by Spain to any other power.” Canning was equally fearful lest the United States should occupy Cuba and he would have welcomed assurances that it had no designs upon the island. Had he known precisely the attitude of Adams, he would have been still more uneasy, for Adams was perfectly sure that Cuba belonged “by the laws of political as well as of physical gravitation” to the North American continent, though he was not for the present ready to assist the operation of political and physical laws.
Events were inevitably detaching Great Britain from the concert of Europe and putting her in opposition to the policy of intervention, both because of what it meant in Spain and what it might mean when applied to the New World. Knowing that the United States shared these latter apprehensions, George Canning conceived that the two countries might join in a declaration against any project by any European power for subjugating the colonies of South America either on behalf or in the name of Spain. He ventured to ask Richard Rush, American Minister at London, what his government would say to such a proposal. For his part he was quite willing to state publicly that he believed the recovery of the colonies by Spain to be hopeless; that recognition of their independence was only a question of proper time and circumstance; that Great Britain did not aim at the possession of any of them, though she could not be indifferent to their transfer to any other power. “If,”said Canning, “these opinions and feelings are, as I firmly believe them to be, common to your government with ours, why should we hesitate mutually to confide them to each other; and to declare them in the face of the world?”
Why, indeed? To Rush there occurred one good and sufficient answer, which, however, he could not make: he doubted the disinterestedness of Great Britain. He could only reply that he would not feel justified in assuming the responsibility for a joint declaration unless Great Britain would first unequivocally recognize the South American republics; and, when Canning balked at the suggestion, he could only repeat, in as conciliatory manner as possible, his reluctance to enter into any engagement. Not once only but three times Canning repeated his overtures, even urging Rush to write home for powers and instructions.
The dispatches of Rush seemed so important to President Monroe that he sent copies of them to Jefferson and Madison, with the query–which revealed his own attitude–whether the moment had not arrived when the United States might safely depart from its traditional policy and meet the proposal of the British Government. If there was one principle which ran consistently through the devious foreign policy of Jefferson and Madison, it was that of political isolation from Europe. “Our first and fundamental maxim,” Jefferson wrote in reply, harking back to the old formulas, “should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe, our second never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with Cis-Atlantic affairs.” He then continued in this wise:
“America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe, and peculiarly her own. She should therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely be, to make our hemisphere that of freedom. One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit; she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By acceding to her proposition, we detach her from the band of despots, bring her mighty weight into the scale of free government and emancipate a continent at one stroke which might otherwise linger long in doubt and difficulty . . . . I am clearly of Mr. Canning’s opinion, that it will prevent, instead of provoking war. With Great Britain withdrawn from their scale and shifted into that of our two continents, all Europe combined would not undertake such a war . . . . Nor is the occasion to be slighted which this proposition offers, of declaring our protest against the atrocious violations of the rights of nations, by the interference of any one in the internal affairs of another, so flagitiously begun by Buonaparte, and now continued by the equally lawless alliance, calling itself Holy.”
Madison argued the case with more reserve but arrived at the same conclusion: “There ought not to be any backwardness therefore, I think, in meeting her [England] in the way she has proposed.” The dispatches of Rush produced a very different effect, however, upon the Secretary of State, whose temperament fed upon suspicion and who now found plenty of food for thought both in what Rush said and in what he did not say. Obviously Canning was seeking a definite compact with the United States against the designs of the allies, not out of any altruistic motive but for selfish ends. Great Britain, Rush had written bluntly, had as little sympathy with popular rights as it had on the field of Lexington. It was bent on preventing France from making conquests, not on making South America free. Just so, Adams reasoned: Canning desires to secure from the United States a public pledge “ostensibly against the forcible interference of the Holy Alliance between Spain and South America; but really or especially against the acquisition to the United States themselves of any part of the Spanish-American possessions.” By joining with Great Britain we would give her a “substantial and perhaps inconvenient pledge against ourselves, and really obtain nothing in return.” He believed that it would be more candid and more dignified to decline Canning’s overtures and to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France. For his part he did not wish the United States “to come in as a cock-boat in the wake of the British man-of-war!”
Thus Adams argued in the sessions of the Cabinet, quite ignorant of the correspondence which had passed between the President and his mentors. Confident of his ability to handle the situation, he asked no more congenial task than to draft replies to Baron Tuyll and to Canning and instructions to the ministers at London, St. Petersburg, and Paris; but he impressed upon Monroe the necessity of making all these communications “part of a combined system of policy and adapted to each other.” Not so easily, however, was the President detached from the influence of the two Virginia oracles. He took sharp exception to the letter which Adams drafted in reply to Baron Tuyll, saying that he desired to refrain from any expressions which would irritate the Czar; and thus turned what was to be an emphatic declaration of principles into what Adams called “the tamest of state papers.”
The Secretary’s draft of instructions to Rush had also to run the gauntlet of amendment by the President and his Cabinet; but it emerged substantially unaltered in content and purpose. Adams professed to find common ground with Great Britain, while pointing out with much subtlety that if she believed the recovery of the colonies by Spain was really hopeless, she was under moral obligation to recognize them as independent states and to favor only such an adjustment between them and the mother country as was consistent with the fact of independence. The United States was in perfect accord with the principles laid down by Mr. Canning: it desired none of the Spanish possessions for itself but it could not see with indifference any portion of them transferred to any other power. Nor could the United States see with indifference “any attempt by one or more powers of Europe to restore those new states to the crown of Spain, or to deprive them, in any manner whatever, of the freedom and independence which they have acquired.” But, for accomplishing the purposes which the two governments had in common–and here the masterful Secretary of State had his own way–it was advisable THAT THEY SHOULD ACT SEPARATELY, each making such representations to the continental allies as circumstances dictated.
Further communications from Baron Tuyll gave Adams the opportunity, which he had once lost, of enunciating the principles underlying American policy. In a masterly paper dated November 27, 1823, he adverted to the declaration of the allied monarchs that they would never compound with revolution but would forcibly interpose to guarantee the tranquillity of civilized states. In such declarations “the President,” wrote Adams, “wishes to perceive sentiments, the application of which is limited, and intended in their results to be limited to the affairs of Europe . . . . The United States of America, and their government, could not see with indifference, the forcible interposition of any European Power, other than Spain, either to restore the dominion of Spain over her emancipated Colonies in America, or to establish Monarchical Governments in those Countries, or to transfer any of the possessions heretofore or yet subject to Spain in the American Hemisphere, to any other European Power.”
But so little had the President even yet grasped the wide sweep of the policy which his Secretary of State was framing that, when he read to the Cabinet a first draft of his annual message, he expressed his pointed disapprobation of the invasion of Spain by France and urged an acknowledgment of Greece as an independent nation. This declaration was, as Adams remarked, a call to arms against all Europe. And once again he urged the President to refrain from any utterance which might be construed as a pretext for retaliation by the allies. If they meant to provoke a quarrel with the United States, the administration must meet it and not invite it. “If they intend now to interpose by force, we shall have as much as we can do to prevent them,” said he, “without going to bid them defiance in the heart of Europe.” “The ground I wish to take,” he continued, “is that of earnest remonstrance against the interference of the European powers by force with South America, but to disclaim all interference on our part with Europe; to make an American cause and adhere inflexibly to that.” In the end Adams had his way and the President revised the paragraphs dealing with foreign affairs so as to make them conform to Adams’s desires.
No one who reads the message which President Monroe sent to Congress on December 2, 1823, can fail to observe that the paragraphs which have an enduring significance as declarations of policy are anticipated in the masterly state papers of the Secretary of State. Alluding to the differences with Russia in the Pacific Northwest, the President repeated the principle which Adams had stated to Baron Tuyll: “The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” And the vital principle of abstention from European affairs and of adherence to a distinctly American system, for which Adams had contended so stubbornly, found memorable expression in the following paragraph:
“In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparations for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective Governments; and to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies and dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”
Later generations have read strange meanings into Monroe’s message, and have elevated into a “doctrine” those declarations of policy which had only an immediate application. With the interpretations and applications of a later day, this book has nothing to do. Suffice it to say that President Monroe and his advisers accomplished their purposes; and the evidence that they were successful is contained in a letter which Richard Rush wrote to the Secretary of State, on December 27, 1823:
“But the most decisive blow to all despotick interference with the new States is that which it has received in the President’s Message at the opening of Congress. It was looked for here with extraordinary interest at this juncture, and I have heard that the British packet which left New York the beginning of this month was instructed to wait for it and bring it over with all speed . . . . On its publicity in London . . . the credit of all the Spanish American securities immediately rose, and the question of the final and complete safety of the new States from all European coercion, is now considered as at rest.”
CHAPTER XV. THE END OF AN ERA
It was in the midst of the diplomatic contest for the Floridas that James Monroe was for the second time elected to the Presidency, with singularly little display of partisanship. This time all the electoral votes but one were cast for him. Of all the Presidents only George Washington has received a unanimous vote; and to Monroe, therefore, belongs the distinction of standing second to the Father of his Country in the vote of electors. The single vote which Monroe failed to get fell to his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. It is a circumstance of some interest that the father of the Secretary, old John Adams, so far forgot his Federalist antecedents that he served as Republican elector in Massachusetts and cast his vote for James Monroe. Never since parties emerged in the second administration of Washington had such extraordinary unanimity prevailed.
Across this scene of political harmony, however, the Missouri controversy cast the specter-like shadow of slavery. For the moment, and often in after years, it seemed inevitable that parties would spring into new vigor following sectional lines. All patriots were genuinely alarmed. “This momentous question,” wrote Jefferson, “like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.”
What Jefferson termed a reprieve was the settlement of the Missouri question by the compromise of 1820. To the demands of the South that Missouri should be admitted into the Union as a slave State, with the constitution of her choice, the North yielded, on condition that the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36 degrees 30′ should be forever free. Henceforth slaveholders might enter Missouri and the rest of the old province of Louisiana below her southern boundary line, but beyond this line, into the greater Northwest, they might not take their human chattels. To this act of settlement President Monroe gave his assent, for he believed that further controversy would shake the Union to its very foundations. With the angry criminations and recriminations of North and South ringing in his ears, Jefferson had little faith in the permanency of such a settlement. “A geographical line,” said he,” coinciding with a marked principle, moral and political, once conceived and held up to the angry passions of men, will never be obliterated; and every new irritation will mark it deeper and deeper.” And Madison, usually optimistic about the future of his beloved country, indulged only the gloomiest forebodings about slavery. Both the ex-Presidents took what comfort they could in projects of emancipation and deportation. Jefferson would have had slaveholders yield up slaves born after a certain date to the guardianship of the State, which would then provide for their removal to Santo Domingo at a proper age. Madison took heart at the prospect opened up by the Colonization Society which he trusted would eventually end “this dreadful calamity” of human slavery. Fortunately for their peace of mind, neither lived to see these frail hopes dashed to pieces.
Signs were not wanting that statesmen of the Virginia school were not to be leaders in the new era which was dawning. On several occasions both Madison and Monroe had shown themselves out of touch with the newer currents of national life. Their point of view was that of the epoch which began with the French Revolution and ended with the overthrow of Napoleon and the pacification of Europe. Inevitably foreign affairs had absorbed their best thought. To maintain national independence against foreign aggression had been their constant purpose, whether the menace came from Napoleon’s designs upon Louisiana, or from British disregard of neutral rights, or from Spanish helplessness on the frontiers of her Empire. But now, with political and commercial independence assured, a new direction was imparted to national endeavor. America made a volte-face and turned to the setting sun.
During the second quarter of the nineteenth century every ounce of national vitality went into the conquest and settlement of the Mississippi Valley. Once more at peace with the world, Americans set themselves to the solution of the problems which grew out of this vast migration from the Atlantic seaboard to the interior. These were problems of territorial organization, of distribution of public lands, of inland trade, of highways and waterways, of revenue and appropriation problems that focused in the offices of the Secretaries of the Treasury and of War. And lurking behind all was the specter of slavery and sectionalism.
To impatient homeseekers who crossed the Alleghanies, it never occurred to question the competence of the Federal Government to meet all their wants. That the Government at Washington should construct and maintain highways, improve and facilitate the navigation of inland waterways, seemed a most reasonable expectation. What else was government for? But these proposed activities did not seem so obviously legitimate to Presidents of the Virginia Dynasty; not so readily could they waive constitutional scruples. Madison felt impelled to veto a bill for constructing roads and canals and improving waterways because he could find nowhere in the Constitution any specific authority for the Federal Government to embark on a policy of internal improvements. His last message to Congress set forth his objections in detail and was designed to be his farewell address. He would rally his party once more around the good old Jeffersonian doctrines. Monroe felt similar doubts when he was presented with a bill to authorize the collection of tolls on the new Cumberland Road. In a veto message of prodigious length he, too, harked back to the original Republican principle of strict construction of the Constitution. The leadership which the Virginians thus refused to take fell soon to men of more resolute character who would not let the dead hand of legalism stand between them and their hearts’ desires.
It is one of the ironies of American history that the settlement of the Mississippi Valley and of the Gulf plains brought acute pecuniary distress to the three great Virginians who had bent all their energies to acquire these vast domains.. The lure of virgin soil drew men and women in ever increasing numbers from the seaboard States. Farms that had once sufficed were cast recklessly on the market to bring what they would, while their owners staked their claims on new soil at a dollar and a quarter an acre. Depreciation of land values necessarily followed in States like Virginia; and the three ex-Presidents soon found themselves landpoor. In common with other planters, they had invested their surplus capital in land, only to find themselves unable to market their crops in the trying days of the Embargo and NonIntercourse Acts. They had suffered heavy losses from the British blockade during the war, and they had not fully recovered from these reverses when the general fall of prices came in 1819. Believing that they were facing only a temporary condition, they met their difficulties by financial expedients which in the end could only add to their burdens.
A general reluctance to change their manner of life and to practice an intensive agriculture with diversified crops contributed, no doubt, to the general depression of planters in the Old Dominion. Jefferson at Monticello, Madison at Montpelier, and to a lesser extent Monroe at Oak Hill, maintained their old establishments and still dispensed a lavish Southern hospitality, which indeed they could hardly avoid. A former President is forever condemned to be a public character. All kept open house for their friends, and none could bring himself to close his door to strangers, even when curiosity was the sole motive for intrusion. Sorely it must have tried the soul of Mrs. Randolph to find accommodations at Monticello for fifty uninvited and unexpected guests. Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, who has left lively descriptions of life at Montpelier, was once one of twenty-three guests. When a friend commented on the circumstance that no less than nine strange horses were feeding in the stables at Montpelier, Madison remarked somewhat grimly that he was delighted with the society of the owners but could not confess to the same enthusiasm at the presence of their horses.
Both Jefferson and Madison were victims of the indiscretion of others. Madison was obliged to pay the debts of a son of Mrs. Madison by her first marriage and became so financially embarrassed that he was forced to ask President Biddle of the Bank of the United States for a long loan of six thousand dollars –only to suffer the humiliation of a refusal. He had then to part with some of his lands at a great sacrifice, but he retained Montpelier and continued to reside there, though in reduced circumstances, until his death in 1836. At about the same time Jefferson received what he called his coup de grace. He had endorsed a note of twenty thousand dollars for Governor Wilson C. Nicholas and upon his becoming insolvent was held to the full amount of the note. His only assets were his lands which would bring only a fifth of their former price. To sell on these ruinous terms was to impoverish himself and his family. His distress was pathetic. In desperation he applied to the Legislature for permission to sell his property by lottery; but he was spared this last humiliation by the timely aid of friends, who started popular subscriptions to relieve his distress. Monroe was less fortunate, for he was obliged to sell Oak Hill and to leave Old Virginia forever. He died in New York City on the Fourth of July, 1831.
The latter years of Jefferson’s life were cheered by the renewal of his old friendship with John Adams, now in retirement at Quincy. Full of pleasant reminiscence are the letters which passed between them, and full too of allusions to the passing show. Neither had lost all interest in politics, but both viewed events with the quiet contemplation of old men. Jefferson was absorbed to the end in his last great hobby, the university that was slowly taking bodily form four miles away across the valley from Monticello. When bodily infirmities would not permit him to ride so far, he would watch the workmen through a telescope mounted on one of the terraces. “Crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious,” he wrote to Adams. “But while writing to you, I lose the sense of these things in the recollection of ancient times, when youth and health made happiness out of everything. I forget for a while the hoary winter of age, when we can think of nothing but how to keep ourselves warm, and how to get rid of our heavy hours until the friendly hand of death shall rid us of all at once. Against this tedium vitae, however, I am fortunately mounted on a hobby, which, indeed, I should have better managed some thirty or forty years ago; but whose easy amble is still sufficient to give exercise and amusement to an octogenary rider. This is the establishment of a University.” Alluding to certain published letters which revived old controversies, he begged his old friend not to allow his peace of mind to be shaken. “It would be strange indeed, if, at our years, we were to go back an age to hunt up imaginary or forgotten facts, to disturb the repose of affections so sweetening to the evening of our lives.”
As the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence approached, Jefferson and Adams were besought to take part in the celebration which was to be held in Philadelphia. The infirmities of age rested too heavily upon them to permit their journeying so far; but they consecrated the day anew with their lives. At noon, on the Fourth of July, 1826, while the Liberty Bell was again sounding its old message to the people of Philadelphia, the soul of Thomas Jefferson passed on; and a few hours later John Adams entered into rest, with the name of his old friend upon his lips.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
GENERAL WORKS
Five well-known historians have written comprehensive works on the period covered by the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe: John B. McMaster has stressed the social and economic aspects in “A History of the People of the United States;” James Schouler has dwelt upon the political and constitutional problems in his “History of the United States of America under the Constitution;” Woodrow Wilson has written a “History of the American People” which indeed is less a history than a brilliant essay on history; Hermann von Holst has construed the “Constitutional and Political History of the United States “in terms of the slavery controversy; and Edward Channing has brought forward his painstaking “History of the United States,” touching many phases of national life, to the close of the second war with England. To these general histories should be added “The American Nation,” edited by Albert Bushnell Hart, three volumes of which span the administrations of the three Virginians: E. Channing’s “The Jeffersonian System” (1906); K. C. Babcock’s “The Rise of American Nationality” (1906); F. J. Turner’s “Rise of the New West” (1906).
CHAPTER I
No historian can approach this epoch without doing homage to Henry Adams, whose “History of the United States,” 9 vols. (1889-1891), is at once a literary performance of extraordinary merit and a treasure-house of information. Skillfully woven into the text is documentary material from foreign archives which Adams, at great expense, had transcribed and translated. Intimate accounts of Washington and its society may be found in the following books: G. Gibbs, “Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams”, 2 vols. (1846); Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, “The First Forty Years of Washington Society” (1906); Anne H. Wharton, “Social Life in the Early Republic” (1902). “The Life of Thomas Jefferson,” 3 vols. (1858), by Henry S. Randall is rich in authentic information about the life of the great Virginia statesman but it is marred by excessive hero-worship. Interesting side-lights on Jefferson and his entourage are shed by his granddaughter, Sarah N. Randolph, in a volume called “Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson” (1871).
CHAPTER II
The problems of patronage that beset President Jefferson are set forth by Gaillard Hunt in “Office-seeking during Jefferson’s Administration,” in the “American Historical Review,” vol. III, p. 271, and by Carl R. Fish in “The Civil Service and the Patronage” (1905). There is no better way to enter sympathetically into Jefferson’s mental world than to read his correspondence. The best edition of his writings is that by Paul Leicester Ford. Henry Adams has collected the “Writings of Albert Gallatin,” 3 vols. (1879), and has written an admirable “Life of Albert Gallatin” (1879). Gaillard Hunt has written a short “Life of James Madison” (1902), and has edited his “Writings,” 9 vols. (1900-1910). The Federalist attitude toward the Administration is reflected in the “Works of Fisher Ames,” 2 vols. (1857). The intense hostility of New England Federalists appears also in such books as Theodore Dwight’s “The Character of Thomas Jefferson, as exhibited in His Own Writings” (1839). Franklin B. Dexter has set forth the facts relating to Abraham Bishop, that arch-rebel against the standing order in Connecticut, in the “Proceedings” of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March, 1906.
CHAPTER III
The larger histories of the American navy by Maclay, Spears, and Clark describe the war with Tripoli, but by far the best account is G. W. Allen’s “Our Navy and the Barbary Corsairs” (1905), which may be supplemented by C. O. Paullin’s “Commodore John Rodgers” (1910). T. Harris’s “Life and Services of Commodore William Bainbridge” (1837) contains much interesting information about service in the Mediterranean and the career of this gallant commander. C. H. Lincoln has edited “The Hull-Eaton Correspondence during the Expedition against Tripoli 1804-5” for the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, vol. XXI (1911). The treaties and conventions with the Barbary States are contained in “Treaties, Conventions, International Acts, Protocols and Agreements between the United States of America and Other Powers,” compiled by W. M. Malloy, 3 vols. (1910-1913).
CHAPTER IV
Even after the lapse of many years, Henry Adams’s account of the purchase of Louisiana remains the best: Volumes I and II of his “History of the United States.” J. A. Robertson in his “Louisiana under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States,” 1785-1807, 2 vols. (1911), has brought together a mass of documents relating to the province and territory. Barbe-Marbois, “Histoire de la Louisiana et de la Cession” (1829), which is now accessible in translation, is the main source of information for the French side of the negotiations. Frederick J. Turner, in a series of articles contributed to the “American Historical Review” (vols. II, III, VII, VIII, X), has pointed out the significance of the diplomatic contest for the Mississippi Valley. Louis Pelzer has written on the “Economic Factors in the Acquisition of Louisiana” in the “Proceedings” of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, vol. VI (1913). There is no adequate biography of either Monroe or Livingston. T. L. Stoddard has written on “The French Revolution in San Domingo” (1914).
CHAPTER V
The vexed question of the boundaries of Louisiana is elucidated by Henry Adams in volumes II and III of his “History of the United States.” Among the more recent studies should be mentioned the articles contributed by Isaac J. Cox to volumes VI and X of the “Quarterly” of the Texas State Historical Association, and an article entitled “Was Texas Included in the Louisiana Purchase?” by John R. Ficklen in the “Publications” of the Southern History Association, vol. V. In the first two chapters of his “History of the Western Boundary of the Louisiana Purchase” (1914), T. M. Marshall has given a resume of the boundary question. Jefferson brought together the information which he possessed in “An Examination into the boundaries of Louisiana,” which was first published in 1803 and which has been reprinted by the American Philosophical Society in “Documents relating to the Purchase and Exploration of Louisiana” (1904). I. J. Cox has made an important contribution by his book on “The Early Exploration of Louisiana” (1906). The constitutional questions involved in the purchase and organization of Louisiana are reviewed at length by E. S. Brown in “The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase, 1803-1812” (1920).
CHAPTER VI
The most painstaking account of Burr’s expedition is W. F. McCaleb’s “The Aaron Burr Conspiracy” (1903) which differs from Henry Adams’s version in making James Wilkinson rather than Burr the heavy villain in the plot. Wilkinson’s own account of the affair, which is thoroughly untrustworthy, is contained in his “Memoirs of My Own Times,” 3 vols. (1816). The treasonable intrigues of Wilkinson are proved beyond doubt by the investigations of W. R. Shepherd, “Wilkinson and the Beginnings of the Spanish Conspiracy,” in vol. IX of “The American Historical Review,” and of I. J. Cox, “General Wilkinson and His Later Intrigues with the Spaniards,” in vol. XIX of “The American Historical Review.” James Parton’s “Life and Times of Aaron Burr” (1858) is a biography of surpassing interest but must be corrected at many points by the works already cited. William Coleman’s “Collection of the Facts and the Documents relative to the Death of Major-General Alexander Hamilton” (1804) contains the details of the great tragedy. The Federalist intrigues with Burr are traced by Henry Adams and more recently by S. E. Morison in the “Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis,” 2 vols. (1913). W. H. Safford’s “Blennerhassett Papers” (1861) and David Robertson’s “Reports of the Trials of Colonel Aaron Burr for Treason, and for a Misdemeanor,” 2 vols. (1808), brought to light many interesting facts relating to the alleged conspiracy. The “Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 1801-1816,” 6 vols. (1917), contain material of great value.
CHAPTER VII
The history of impressment has yet to be written, but J. R. Hutchinson’s “The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore” (1913) has shown clearly that the baleful effects of the British practice were not felt solely by American shipmasters. Admiral A. T. Mahan devoted a large part of his first volume on “Sea Power in its relations to the War of 1812,” 2 vols. (1905), to the antecedents of the war. W. E. Lingelbach has made a notable contribution to our understanding of the Essex case in his article on “England and Neutral Trade” printed in “The Military Historian and Economist,” vol. II (1917). Of the contemporary pamphlets, two are particularly illuminating:
James Stephen, “War in Disguise; or, the Frauds of the Neutral Flags” (1805), presenting the English grievances, and “An Examination of the British Doctrine, which Subjects to Capture a Neutral Trade, not open in Time of Peace,” prepared by the Department of State under Madison’s direction in 1805. Captain Basil Hall’s “Voyages and Travels” (1895) gives a vivid picture of life aboard a British frigate in American waters. A graphic account of the Leopard-Chesapeake affair is given by Henry Adams in Chapter I of his fourth volume.
CHAPTERS VIII AND IX
Besides the histories of Mahan and Adams, the reader will do well to consult several biographies for information about peaceable coercion in theory and practice. Among these may be mentioned Randall’s “Life of Thomas Jefferson,” Adams’s Life of Albert Gallatin” and “John Randolph” in the “American Statesmen Series,” W. E. Dodd’s “Life of Nathaniel Macon” (1903), D. R. Anderson’s “William Branch Giles” (1914), and J. B. McMaster’s “Life and Times of Stephen Girard,” 2 vols. (1917). For want of an adequate biography of Monroe, recourse must be taken to the “Writings of James Monroe,” 7 vols. (1898-1903), edited by S. M. Hamilton. J. B. Moore’s “Digest of International Law”, 8 vols. (1906), contains a mass of material bearing on the rights of neutrals and the problems of neutral trade. The French decrees and the British orders-in-council were submitted to Congress with a message by President Jefferson on the 23d of December, 1808, and may be found in “American State Papers, Foreign Relations,” vol. III.
CHAPTER X
The relations of the United States and Spanish Florida are set forth in many works, of which three only need be mentioned: H. B. Fuller, “The Purchase of Florida” (1906), has devoted several chapters to the early history of the Floridas, but so far as West Florida is concerned his work is superseded by I. J. Cox’s “The West Florida Controversy, 1789-1813” (1918). The first volume, “Diplomacy,” of F. E. Chadwick’s “Relations of the United States and Spain,” 3 vols. (1909-11), gives an account of the several Florida controversies. Several books contribute to an understanding of the temper of the young insurgents in the Republican Party: Carl Schurz’s “Henry Clay,” 2 vols. (1887), W. M. Meigs’s “Life of John Caldwell Calhoun,” 2 vols. (1917), M. P. Follett’s “The Speaker of the House of Representatives” (1896), and Henry Adams’s “John Randolph” (1882).
CHAPTER XI
The civil history of President Madison’s second term of office may be followed in Adams’s “History of the United States,” vols. VII, VIII, and IX; in Hunt’s “Life of James Madison;” in Adams’s “Life of Albert Gallatin;” and in such fragmentary records of men and events as are found in the “Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison” (1886) and Mrs. M. B. Smith’s “The First Forty Years of Washington Society” (1906). The history of New England Federalism may be traced in H. C. Lodge’s “Life and Letters of George Cabot” (1878); in Edmund Quincy’s “Life of Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts” (1867); in the “Life of Timothy Pickering,” 4 vols. (1867-73); and in S. E. Morison’s “Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis,” 2 vols. (1913). Theodore Dwight published his “History of the Hartford Convention” in 1833. Henry Adams has collected the “Documents relating to New England Federalism,” 1800-1815″ (1878). The Federalist opposition to the war is reflected in such books as Mathew Carey’s “The Olive Branch; or, Faults on Both Sides” (1814) and William Sullivan’s “Familiar Letters on Public Characters” (1834).
CHAPTER XII
The history of the negotiations at Ghent has been recounted by Mahan and Henry Adams, and more recently by F. A. Updyke, “The Diplomacy of the War of 1812” (1915). Aside from the “State Papers,” the chief sources of information are Adams’s “Life of Gallatin” and “Writings of Gallatin” the “Memoirs of John Quincy Adams,” 12 vols. (1874-1877), and “Writings of John Quincy Adams” 7 vols. (1913-), edited by W. C. Ford, the “Papers of James A. Bayard, 1796-1815” (1915), edited by Elizabeth Donnan, the “Correspondence, Despatches, and Other Papers, of Viscount Castlereagh,” 12 vols. (1851-53), and the “Supplementary Despatches. of the Duke of Wellington,” 15 vols. (1858-78). The Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. XLVIII (1915), contain the instructions of the British commissioners. “A Great Peace Maker, the Diary of James Gallatin, Secretary to Albert Gallatin” (1914) records many interesting boyish impressions of the commissioners and their labors at Ghent.
CHAPTER XIII
The want of a good biography of James Monroe is felt increasingly as one enters upon the history of his administrations. Some personal items may be gleaned from “A Narrative of a Tour of Observation Made during the Summer of 1817” (1818); and many more may be found in the “Memoirs and Writings” of John Quincy Adams. The works by Fuller and Chadwick already cited deal with the negotiations leading to the acquisition of Florida. The “Memoirs et Souvenirs” of Hyde de Neuville, 3 vols. (1893-4), supplement the record which Adams left in his diary. J. S. Bassett’s “Life of Andrew Jackson,” 2 vols. (1911), is far less entertaining than James Parton’s “Life of Andrew Jackson,” 3 vols. (1860), but much more reliable.
CHAPTER XIV
The problem of the recognition of the South American republics has been put in its historical setting by F. L. Paxson in “The Independence of the South American Republics” (1903). The relations of the United States and Spain are described by F. E. Chadwick in the work already cited and by J. H. Latane in “The United States and Latin America” (1920). To these titles may be added J. M. Callahan’s “Cuba and International Relations” (1899). The studies of Worthington C. Ford have given John Quincy Adams a much larger share in formulating the Monroe Doctrine than earlier historians have accorded him. The origin of President Monroe’s message is traced by Mr. Ford in “Some Original Documents on the Genesis of the Monroe Doctrine,” in the “Proceedings” of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1902, and the subject is treated at greater length by him in “The American Historical Review,” vols. VII and VIII. The later evolution and application of the Monroe Doctrine may be followed in Herbert Kraus’s “Die Monroedoktrin in ihren Beziehungen zur Amerikanischen Diplomatie and zum Volkerrecht” (1913), a work which should be made more accessible to American readers by translation.
CHAPTER XV
The subjects touched upon in this closing chapter are treated with great skill by Frederick J. Turner in his “Rise of the New West” (1906). On the slavery controversy, an article by J. A. Woodburn, “The Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise,” in the “Report” of the American Historical Association for 1893, and an article by F. H. Hodder, “Side Lights on the Missouri Compromise,” in the “Report” for 1909, may be read with profit. D. R. Dewey’s “Financial History of the United States” (1903) and F. W. Taussig’s “Tariff History of the United States” (revised edition, 1914) are standard manuals. Edward Stanwood’s “History of the Presidency,” 2 vols. (1916), contains the statistics of presidential elections. T. H. Benton’s “Thirty Years’ View; or, A History of the Working of American Government, 1820-1850,” 2 vols. (1854-56), becomes an important source of information on congressional matters. The latter years of Jefferson’s life are described by Randall and the closing years of John Adams’s career by Charles Francis Adams.