Henry Adams

“ He knew that Laussat, who hated the Spaniards more than he did the Americans, had betrayed the secret. If Talleyrand hoped to repress American ambition, he must have calculated on the effects of force or fear, or he must have been overwhelmed by the immensity of the scale on which the Americans were acting. The doctrine of contiguity, on which the United States could rest their most plausible claim to Oregon, was as valid then as it ever afterward became; and if Talleyrand did not appreciate it, Godoy proved himself the more sagacious statesman. ”

“ What could, on his construction, prevent the President and Senate, by treaty, annexing Cuba to Massachusetts, or Bengal to Rhode Island, if ever the acquirement of colonies should become a favorite object with governments, and colonies should be acquired? But does any constitutional objection really exist?... To me it would appear, (1) that the United States, as a nation, have an inherent right to acquire territory; (2) that whenever that acquisition is by treaty, the same constituted authorities in whom the treaty-making power is vested have a constitutional right to sanction the acquisition. ”

“ America through which I have travelled, I have not found a single Englishman who did not feel himself to be an American; not a single Frenchman who did not find himself a stranger.” Bonaparte knew that England held the monopoly of American trade, and that America held the monopoly of democratic principles; yet he did an act which was certain to extend British trade and fortify democratic principles. ”

“ States would be justified in declaring war at any moment, Great Britain looked uneasily for the first symptoms of retaliation. When Madison took so earnest a tone, Merry might reasonably expect that his words would be followed by acts.
These shocks were not all that the new British minister was obliged to meet at the threshold of his residence in Washington. At the moment when he was, as he thought, socially maltreated, and when he was told by Madison that America meant to insist on her neutral rights, he learned that the Government did not intend to ratify Rufus King’s boundary convention. ”

“ When Marbois took the treaty to the First Consul, Bonaparte listened to its provisions with lively interest; and on hearing that twenty millions were to be employed in paying claims,—a use of money which he much disliked,—he broke out: “Who authorized you to dispose of the money of the State? I want to have these twenty millions paid into the Treasury. The claimants’ rights cannot come before our own.” ”

“ Things have now taken such a turn, that in my humble opinion if we are to lose Louisiana, the choice whether that colony shall fall into the power of one nation rather than another is not worth the expense and trouble of a war, provided we preserve the Floridas.... I am convinced that this Government knows perfectly the national interests, and to promote them will follow in this respect a course of conduct which in proportion as it better suits our own, should inspire us with greater confidence. ”

“ Constitution which empowers Congress ‘to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States.’ Perhaps the power of governing a territory belonging to the United States which has not, by becoming a State, acquired the means of self-government, may result necessarily from the fact that it is not within the jurisdiction of any particular State, and is within the power and jurisdiction of the United States. The right to govern may be the inevitable consequence of the right to acquire territory. ”

“ To fill the Foreign Office Pitt could find no better man than Lord Harrowby,—a personage of very second-rate importance in politics. With a Cabinet so weak as to command little respect, and reactionary as was required to suit the King’s growing prejudices, Pitt was obliged to disguise his feebleness by the vigor of his measures. While creating, by expenditure of money, a new coalition against Napoleon, he was unable to disregard the great moneyed and social interests which were clamoring for a spirited policy against neutrals and especially against America. ”

“ To this objection Nicholson replied that Louisiana was not a State. “It is a territory purchased by the United States in their confederate capacity, and may be disposed of by them at pleasure. It is in the nature of a colony whose commerce may be regulated without any reference to the Constitution.” The new territory, therefore, was in the nature of a European colony; the United States government might regulate its commerce without regard to the Constitution, give its population whatever advantages Congress might see fit, and use it to break down New England—or slavery. ”

“ Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, and North Carolina were nearly unanimous; and beyond the mountains democracy had its own way without the trouble of a discussion. Federalism was already an old-fashioned thing; a subject of ridicule to people who had no faith in forms; a half-way house between the European past and the American future. The mass of Americans had become democratic in thought as well as act; not even another political revolution could undo what had been done. As a democrat, Jefferson’s social success was sweeping and final ”

“ Yet in any discussion that may arise on this subject, and in every discussion you may have to sustain, the First Consul wishes you to be informed of his most positive and pronounced desire to live in good understanding with the American government, to cultivate and to improve for the advantage of American commerce the relations of friendship which unite the two peoples. No one in Europe wishes the prosperity of that people more than he. ”

“ Even King’s cool head was possessed with the thought which tormented Hamilton, Cabot, Ames, Pickering, Griswold, and Tracy,—the crisis which was always coming, and which, in the midst of peace, plenty, and contentment such as a tortured world had seldom known, overhung these wise and virtuous men like the gloom of death. ”

“ Yet no one knew better than Talleyrand the instincts of the American people, and their ambition to use the entire continent for their experiments! He knew that the First Consul, by his instructions to Laussat, had given, so far as he could, the authority of both French and Spanish governments to the claim of the United States that Louisiana stretched westwardly to the Rio Bravo, and on the northwest indefinitely to a line yet to be fixed. ”

“ Peace was his passion.
To complicate this civil war in the little society of Washington, Jerome Bonaparte appeared there, and brought with him his young wife, Elizabeth Patterson, of Baltimore. Jerome married this beautiful girl against the remonstrances of Pichon; but after the marriage took place, not only Pichon, but also Yrujo and Jefferson, showed proper attention to the First Consul’s brother, who had selected for his wife a niece of the Secretary of the Navy, and of so influential a senator as General Smith. Yet nothing irritated Napoleon more than Jerome’s marriage. ”

“ For patient and willing students who have groped in search of the idea which, used by Hamilton and Jefferson, caused bitterer feeling and roused deeper terrors than civil war itself, Cabot’s long and perhaps pedantic letter on the policy of disunion was full of meaning. “We shall go the way of all governments wholly popular,—from bad to worse,—until the evils, no longer tolerable, shall generate their own remedies.” Democracy must end in a crisis, experience and reason pronounced it impracticable and absurd, Nature would in due time vindicate her own laws ”

“ Conscious of her own power, she thought that the United States should be first to give way. Had the American government been willing to perform its neutral obligations strictly, the circle might have been broken without much trouble; but the United States wished to retain their advantage, and preferred to risk whatever England might do rather than discourage desertion, or enact and enforce a strict naturalization law, or punish fraud. The national government was too weak to compel the States to respect neutral obligations, even if it had been disposed to make the attempt. ”

“ I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I cede; it is the whole colony, without reserve. I know the price of what I abandon. I have proved the importance I attach to this province, since my first diplomatic act with Spain had the object of recovering it. I renounce it with the greatest regret; to attempt obstinately to retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate the affair. Have an interview this very day with Mr. Livingston. ”

“ If at that day the navigation laws had one object more important than another, it was to foster the prosperity of these islands, in order that their sugar and molasses, coffee and rum, might give freight to British shippers and employment to British seamen; but to Lord Sheffield the islands were only a degree less obnoxious than the revolted United States, for they were American at heart, complaining because they were forbidden to trade freely with New York and Boston, and even asserting that when the navigation laws were strictly enforced their slaves died of starvation and disease. ”

“ The Americans were not only beginning to engross the direct trade between their own ports and Europe, but were also rapidly obtaining the indirect carrying-trade between the West Indies and the European continent, and even between one European country and another. The British government began to feel seriously uneasy. At a frightful cost the people of England were striving to crush the navies and commerce of France and Spain, only to build up the power of a dangerous rival beyond the ocean. ”

“ Any attempt to regain old ascendency by conquering Louisiana would have thrown the United States into the hands of France; and had Bonaparte anticipated such an act, he should have helped it. That Great Britain should waste strength in conquering Louisiana in order to give it to the United States, was an idea not to be gravely argued. Jefferson might, indeed, be driven into an English alliance in order to take Louisiana by force from France or Spain ”

“ That Monroe should have been the last person in London to know the secret thoughts of Pitt was not surprising. The Board of Trade commonly exerted more influence than the Foreign Office over the relations of England with the United States; and George Rose, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, Pitt’s devoted friend and a Tory after Lord Sheffield’s heart, would never have chosen Monroe as a confidant of schemes under discussion in his department. Lord Harrowby was but the mouthpiece of other men. ”

“ Even in New England, where there is among the body of the people more wisdom and virtue than in any other part of the United States, we are full of errors which no reasoning [165] could eradicate if there were a Lycurgus in every village. We are democratic altogether; and I hold democracy in its natural operation to be the government of the worst.
“There is no energy in the Federal party, and there could be none manifested without great hazard of losing the State government. ”

“ Such gentleness toward a man of Pickering’s temper was a mistake, which helped to cost the life of one whom conservatives regarded as their future leader in the crisis. Pickering was restive under the sense that his friends preferred other counsellors; whereas his experience and high offices, to say nothing of his ability, entitled him, as he thought, to greater weight in the party than Hamilton, Cabot, or Rufus King. Backed by Tracy, Griswold, and other men of standing, Pickering felt able to cope with opposition. ”

“ That an insane man could be guilty of crime, and could be punished on ex parte evidence, without a hearing, with not even an attorney to act in his behalf, seemed such a perversion of justice that the precedent fell dead on the spot. Perhaps, from the constitutional point of view, a more fatal objection was that in doing what the world was sure to consider an arbitrary and illegal act, the Virginians failed to put on record the reasons which led them to think it sound in principle. ”