1805.

THE PERDIDO AND THE RIO GRANDE.

39

The receipt of this letter and the news of Pinckney's quarrel with Cevallos determined Monroe to set out at once for Madrid. His route lay through Paris, and at Paris he stopped to seek French help. Of the result of such an application he was not long in doubt; indeed, he had not been three days at Paris when he was told plainly that the whole question was one of money. "Spain," said one man, who spoke with authority, "Spain must cede territory. The United States must pay money." Marbois declared that if Spain were suitably compensated the negotiation might succeed. Despite these unmistakable assurances, Monroe determined to try, and spent some weeks in persuading Livingston to carry his note to Talleyrand. In it he again stated the claims of the United. States to the Perdido and the Rio Grande, reminded Talley. rand that, at the suggestion of the Emperor, the negotiation for the cession of the Floridas and the payment of damages had been put off, told him that it was now to be begun, and asked for the support of Napoleon. As time was precious, Monroe did not wait for the reply, but passed on to Madrid. The answer, therefore, was addressed to John Armstrong, who had just replaced Robert R. Livingston as Minister to France. The letter was long, but the substance was this: France had ceded to the United States in 1803 what she had received from Spain in 1800, and what she received in 1800 was a retroces sion of what she ceded to Spain in 1762, and what she ceded to Spain in 1762 was the territory west of the Mississippi, the Iberville, and Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain. Florida she gave to England. How, then, could it be receded to her by Spain?*

A month later Monroe and Pinckney renewed relations with Spain and submitted the project of a convention to Cevallos. By one article Spain was to acknowledge the Perdido as the eastern boundary of Louisiana. By another, a temporary neutral strip was to be established, into which no settlers from either country were to go. By a third, the final boundary be

* Talleyrand to John Armstrong, December 21, 1804. Foreign Relations, vol ii, pp. 635, 636.

+ Pinckney and Monroe to Cevallos, January 28, 1805. Foreign Relations, vol. ii, pp. 636–639.

tween the countries was to be established before a certain date. By a fourth, commissioners were to be chosen to determine all damages due to either power. The fifth authorized the Commissioners to fix the losses arising from the suspension of the right of deposit at New Orleans in 1802. The sixth specified the manner in which the awards should be paid.

The project of a convention, Cevallos said in his reply, ought to result from the discussion of the points in dispute. He proceeded, therefore, to lay aside the project and take up the discussion under three heads-the damages, the indemnity for injuries caused by suspending the right of deposit, and the boundary of Louisiana. Unable to agree on the question of indemnity, they passed to the discussion of the eastern boundary, and a whole month was spent in idle dispute. Again no agreement was reached, and the eastern boundary was dropped and the western taken up. Cevallos offered to fix a point on the shore of the Gulf between the rivers Calcasieu and Marnentou and draw a line northward between the Spanish post of Neustra Señora de los Adaes and the French post of Natchitoches on the Red river; where the line should then run he proposed to leave to a commission.* The envoys answered that the United States claimed to the Rio Bravo, but would, on two conditions, accept the Colorado. If Spain would pay the claims provided for in the convention of 1802 and cede the two Floridas, the United States would waive all other claims for damages and make the boundary a neutral belt thirty miles wide on one or both sides of a line to be the Colorado to its source, a line to the most southwesterly source of the Red river, thence along the highlands parting the waters of the Mississippi and the Missouri from the waters of the Rio Bravo, and a meridian to the north boundary of Louisiana.† Cevallos declared the terms unreasonable. The correspondence ended, Monroe asked for his passport, and a week later was on his way back to London. There was, he declared, no other alternative. He must depart or submit to terms which it was well known France would accept, nay, had perhaps dictated.

*Cevallos to Pinckney and Monroe, April 13, 1805.

Pinckney and Monroe to Cevallos, May 12, 1805. Foreign Relations, vol.

ii, p. 665.

1805.

THE PRICE OF WEST FLORIDA.

41

These terms were: make a loan of seventy millions of livres, give it to Spain, and, when Spain had transferred it to France, receive from Spain the disputed territory and the money by instalment in seven years.* Pinckney lingered some months longer, for every mule was seized for the use of the King, and he could not get to the Sitio to take leave. James Bowdoin, of Massachusetts, was in the mean time appointed to take Pinckney's place.†

* Monroe's Diary at Aranjuez, April 22, 1805. Manuscripts State Department. Nominated November 19, 1804. November 20, 1804, the Senate consented. Executive Journal, vol. i, pp. 473, 474.

CHAPTER XV.

RESULTS OF THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA.

WHILE the purchase of Louisiana was thus involving us in a boundary dispute abroad, it was producing consequences far more serious and alarming at home. It set up the principle that Congress may violate the Constitution if the mass of the voters approve. It destroyed what was then called the balance of power between the North and the South. It stirred up the Federal press of New England to clamor for a separation of the States, and encouraged the Federal leaders in Congress deliberately to plan disunion. The vast extent of the Southern States, the richness of their soil, the mildness of their climate, the ruling place they held in politics, led to the belief that they would in no long time outstrip the North. The purchase of Louisiana was, therefore, to thousands of wellmeaning men a matter of the gravest concern. They were sure that the power, the influence, the prosperity of New England were gone forever, When the Constitution was framed, these men would argue, a balance of power among the original parties was considered to exist. For a while this balance was carefully maintained, and the admission of Kentucky, a Western State, was attended by the admission of Vermont, an Eastern State. But the entrance of Tennessee into the Union was by no means offset by the entrance of Ohio. The balance of power was then destroyed, and what was then begun has, by the purchase of Louisiana, been assured a steady continuance. Out of that territory will be made new States. These new States the South will use to govern the East till the Western States, increasing in number and growing in population, themselves combine and rule both the South and the

1804.

DISCONTENT IN NEW ENGLAND.

43

East. Under either set of rulers New England is doomed. Shall she then submit to the guidance and tyranny of the South? The recent augmentation of Southern interests must convince every State above the Chesapeake and Potomac that safety is to be found nowhere but in separation.

ever.

The prosperity of New England, in the opinion of these men, demanded separation. Virginia influence, Virginia politics, Virginia men ruled everywhere. The influence of New England in the affairs of the nation seemed gone forShe was, they thought, fast becoming no better than a Virginia colony. From such a fate she must, at all hazards, be saved. The idea of separation was an old one. That men living under such varieties of climate, eating such different kinds of food, believing such different creeds, and following such different occupations, could long be held in union, was never generally believed till after the second war with England. Long before the Constitution was framed, the secession of the country beyond the mountains and the formation of a Western Republic in the valley of the Mississippi was the dream of such scheming politicians as Wilkinson, and the everpresent dread of such earnest patriots as Washington. Long after the Constitution was adopted, in the stormy days of the Alien and Sedition laws and the contested election of 1801, separation was again discussed openly. "The Potomac the Boundary, the Negro States by themselves," became a toast in more than one goodly company, and was boldly hung up in the Merchants' Coffee-House at Philadelphia. In the Connecticut Courant long disunion essays appeared over the signatures of Pelham, Gustavus, and Raleigh. The Hudson or the Delaware ought, in the opinion of these writers, to be the boundary of a Northern Confederacy. But by the great body of New England men this suggestion was never heeded. Their bodily comforts were in no way touched by the acts of Congress. They paid no stamp taxes, no direct taxes, no excise taxes. Their crops were as plentiful, their voyages were as successful, their catches were as large under Jefferson as they had been under Washington or Adams. Money had never been so abundant. Labor had never been so well repaid. The whole community was growing richer, more pros