the louisiana purchase

The LouisianaPurchase

TH O M A S FL E M I N G

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

fmatter.qxd 4/15/03 9:06 AM Page iii

Innodata0471484407.jpg

The Louisiana Purchase

fmatter.qxd 4/15/03 9:06 AM Page i

Preeminent writers offering fresh, personal perspectives on the defining events of our time

Published Titles

William Least Heat-Moon, Columbus in the Americas

Scott Simon, Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball

Alan Dershowitz, America Declares Independence

Thomas Fleming, The Louisiana Purchase

Forthcoming Titles

Douglas Brinkley on the March on Washington

William F. Buckley Jr. on the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Eleanor Clift on Passing the 19th Amendment

Sir Martin Gilbert on D-Day

Martin Goldsmith on the Beatles Coming to America

fmatter.qxd 4/15/03 9:06 AM Page ii

The LouisianaPurchase

TH O M A S FL E M I N G

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Copyright 2003 by Thomas Fleming. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New JerseyPublished simultaneously in Canada

Design and production by Navta Associates, Inc.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit-ted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scan-ning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 UnitedStates Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, orauthorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the CopyrightClearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax(978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher forpermission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons,Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, e-mail: [email protected].

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have usedtheir best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties withrespect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically dis-claim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Nowarranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials.The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. Youshould consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor theauthor shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, includingbut not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Cus-tomer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the UnitedStates at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content thatappears in print may not be available in electronic books. For more information aboutWiley products, visit our web site www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Fleming, Thomas J.The Louisiana Purchase / Thomas Fleming.

p. cm. (Turning points)ISBN 0-471-26738-4 (Cloth)

1. Louisiana Purchase. I. Title. II. Turning points (John Wiley & Sons)E333 .F56 2003973.4'6dc21

2002156131Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

fmatter.qxd 4/15/03 9:06 AM Page iv

http://www.copyright.comhttp://www.wiley.com

1. Idealist at Work 1

2. Realist at Work 12

3. The Game Begins 26

4. Frustration All Around 34

5. Aedes Aegypti to the Rescue 44

6. The Dying General 55

7. A War Hero to the Rescue 66

8. Between Peace and War 81

9. All Eyes on Paris 92

10. The Big Bargain 106

11. Hanging Fire 118

v

Contents

fmatter.qxd 4/15/03 9:06 AM Page v

vi C O N T E N T S

12. Constitution Bending in Washington, D.C. 131

13. Triumphand New Perils 146

14. Destiny Takes Charge 159

15. The Final Challenge 174

Further Reading 185

fmatter.qxd 4/15/03 9:06 AM Page vi

1Idealist at Work

The greatest diplomatic triumph in the history of theUnited States began with a blunder. In July 1801, fourmonths after Thomas Jefferson took over the presidentialpalace, as the unfinished White House was then called,Louis Andre Pichon, the affable young charg daffaires ofthe French Republic, visited the United States new chiefexecutive. That such a low-ranking diplomat was Francessole spokesman in the new U.S. capital was stark evidenceof the strained relations between the worlds only tworepublics. Normally an ambassador would be on hand tohandle such an important relationship.

From 1798 to 1800, France and the United States hadfought a vicious, undeclared war at sea in which Frenchprivateers and frigates had despoiled a staggering $12million in U.S. ships and cargoes (the modern equivalentof almost $200 million). American men-of-war hadslugged it out ship to ship with many of these depredators.Fearful of a French invasion, George Washington hademerged from retirement to head a ten thousandman

1

c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 1

2 T H E L O U I S I A N A P U R C H A S E

U.S. army, and appointed General Alexander Hamilton asits field commander.

The war had emerged as a byproduct of the larger warFrance was waging with England. The French were furi-ously resentful over what they considered American treach-erythe United States refusal to honor the treaty ofalliance it had signed with King Louis XVI in 1778,which had enabled the new republic to win independencefrom England.

President George Washington had declared the UnitedStates neutral in the struggle that erupted between Revo-lutionary France and England in 1793. He had decidedthat the French Republic, having beheaded Louis XVI, wasno longer the same country with whom the United Stateshad been allied during its revolution. Franceand numer-ous French partisans in the United Statesthought therewas a distinctly pro-English tilt to this international bal-ancing act. Washingtons successor, President John Adams,partly agreed with this view, and had sent three commis-sioners to Europe to negotiate an end to the so-calledQuasi-War.

Louis Andre Pichon had acted as secretary of theFrench delegation to this parley and played a major role inworking out an agreement that called for a firm, invio-lable and universal peace. But many skeptical Americans,notably members of the Federalist Party led by Jeffersonschief rival, General Alexander Hamilton, still nursed vio-lently antagonistic feelings toward France. They found spe-cial grounds for complaint about this treaty, in which theUnited States had abandoned millions of dollars in claims

c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 2

by U.S. merchants for losses in the Quasi-War. In return,France agreed to release the United States from the Treatyof 1778, which the Federalists considered already defunct.

Thomas Jefferson was not one of these Francophobes.On the contrary, the tall, red haired, freckle-faced presi-dent greeted Pichon warmly as the spokesman for a coun-try that stirred his deepest political emotions. For theprevious nine years, Jefferson had defended the FrenchRevolution against fierce criticism in the United States.Even when France collapsed into an orgy of mob rule andraw terror in 17931794, Jefferson retained his faith in therevolutions redeeming value. Repeatedly he had insistedthat the liberty of the whole earth depended on aFrench victory against England and the other Europeanpowers that had assailed France after Louis XVIs execu-tion. Rather than permit this cause to fail, Jefferson toldone friend, he would have seen half the earth desolated.

Jeffersons followers, who soon coalesced into theRepublican Party, often expressed this vehement opinionin riotous demonstrations in the streets of New York andother cities. President Washington viewed these numerous,so-called Democratic Societies as seedbeds of insurrection.Their behavior, combined with the far worse excesses ofthe French Revolution, convinced conservatives that lib-erty and equality were dangerous ideas. This convictionbecame part of the Federalist Partys gospel.

Pichon was hoping for a demonstration of Jeffersonsfriendship for France. The young charg asked the presi-dent about U.S. policy toward the troubled island of SantoDomingo. Then, as now, it was divided into a French-

I D E A L I S T A T W O R K 3

c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 3


speaking western third (the future republic of Haiti) and aSpanish-speaking eastern two thirds (the future DominicanRepublic) with a range of mountains as a geographical bar-rier between them. Spain had ceded the Spanish part of theisland to France in 1795. The French sections sugar, cof-fee, and indigo plantations once made it Frances mostvaluable overseas possession. The French Revolution hadtriggered a civil war that wrecked the economy.

Out of the turmoil emerged an extraordinary blackleader, Toussaint LOuverture, who ruled both enclaves, inwhich some four hundred thousand ex-slaves lived uneasilywith thousands of whites and free mulattoes. Toussaint wasimmensely proud of his martial prowess and did notcomplain when his followers called him the Bonaparte ofthe Antilles.

Pichon, who spoke excellent English, asked Jeffersonwhat the United States would do if France tried to regaincontrol of Santo Domingo. Would it support such aneffort? A smiling Jefferson replied that nothing would beeasier than to supply everything for your army and navy,and to starve out Toussaint.

This was a startling reversal of the policy of PresidentJohn Adams, who had seen LOuvertures emergence as anopportunity to frustrate British and French imperialism inthe Caribbean. Adams and his secretary of state, TimothyPickering, had shipped LOuvertures army food andammunition, which helped them defeat a British army thatattempted to seize Santo Domingo. They also sent EdwardStevens, an old friend of Alexander Hamilton, to theislands major port, Cap Francois, where he became

c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 4

LOuvertures trusted friend and adviser and urged him todeclare independence.

Jefferson assured Pichon that most Americans had noenthusiasm for an independent Santo Domingo ruled by ablack dictator, who was a walking, talking threat to thepeace and prosperity of every American state with largenumbers of slaves. In September 1800, Virginia had beenbadly shaken by an aborted rebellion led by two freeAfricans, Gabriel Prosser, a Richmond blacksmith, and hisbrother Martin, an itinerant preacher.

Jefferson also told Pichon he thought it was likely thatan isolated Toussaint would turn to piracy to finance hisrule. There was a grave danger of Santo Domingo becom-ing an Algiers in American waters. In the Mediter-ranean, the Moslems of Algiers and other North Africancities regularly preyed upon merchant ships of all nations.Jefferson grandly predicted that if rumors of an early peacebetween France and England were true, the British wouldjoin in a campaign to remove Toussaint from the politicalscene and reimpose white control on Santo Domingo.England also had islands in the West Indies that werecrowded with slaves made restless by the French Revolu-tions cry of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

A delighted Pichon rushed back to his residence andreported the presidents statement to his superior in Paris,Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord,one of the most corrupt and devious politicians in the his-tory of France or any other nation. Talleyrand was borninto a noble family that traced their pedigree to the year1000. He was pressured by his father into becoming a


c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 5


priest because a boyhood injury had left him with a seriouslimp. On the eve of the French Revolution, his fathersecured him the bishopric of Autuna favor he soonregretted. The son, already notorious for his impiety,sided with the revolutionists and was soon excommuni-cated by the pope.

When Talleyrand took charge of the foreign office in1797, he had reportedly exulted: I am going to make animmense fortune! One of his first moves was a demandfor a huge bribe from American diplomats to settle thegrowing tensions between the United States and France.The Americans had reacted with public indignation, reply-ing: No, not a sixpence! In subsequent telling, thisbecame a fervid slogan: Millions for defense, but not onecent for tribute. The undeclared war soon followed.

The episode deepened Talleyrands already low opinionof Americans. In the mid-1790s, he had spent two years inthe United States escaping the revolutions reign of terrorand departed with the fixed opinion that these newcomersto the family of nations were boring, self-righteous upstartswho needed to be put in their place. One of the best waysto do this, Talleyrand had concluded, was to check theirwestward expansion by gaining control of Florida and theMississippi River basin, establishing a wall of brass thatthe Americans could never penetrate, even if they called onthe British for help.

Pichons dispatch was soon being pondered by theman who had brought order out of the chaos of theFrench RevolutionFirst Consul Napoleon Bonaparte.Born into a family of petty, largely penniless Corsican

c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 6

aristocrats two years after France purchased the island fromGenoa in 1767, Napoleon was educated at elite Frenchmilitary schools. He managed to qualify for a career in theroyal army in spite of speaking French with a heavy Corsi-can accent. The 1789 revolution levitated this strong-willed soldier to ever-increasing power, thanks to hisability to organize and lead men, his readiness to take risksand his utter ruthlessness. The upheaval also instilled inhim a carefully concealed loathing for the masses and theirviolent tendencies.

By the age of twenty-five, Bonaparte was a brigadiergeneral and a man to watch. Seven years later, on Novem-ber 10, 1799, he led a coup detat that made him one ofthree consuls entrusted with executive power. Bonapartewas the only consul that mattered. Under a new constitu-tion, the legislature was an easily manipulated three-tieredaffaira senate that introduced Bonapartes decrees, a tri-bunate that debated them, and an assembly that votedtheir approval. Announcing that the romance of the rev-olution was over, Napoleon imprisoned or exiled radicalsand ruled as a civilian, with more authority than Louis XVIever dreamed of wielding.

The British, exhausted and almost bankrupt after nineyears of global war, were ready to sign a peace treaty, leav-ing this military genius the virtual ruler of Europe. At theBattle of Marengo in 1800, Napoleon had smashed thearmy of Englands chief ally, Austria, and forced Vienna tosign a humiliating peace in February 1801, in which it sur-rendered the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

The Man of Destiny, as millions of admirers called


c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 7


Bonaparte, welcomed President Jeffersons invitation toretake Santo Domingo. The conquest of the island was afirst step in Napoleons plan to reestablish Frances empirein North America, which it had lost in the Seven YearsWar (17541761) with England and her continental allies.Talleyrand, the man who had given Napoleon the idea,was equally pleased. It is easy to imagine these two cynicsexchanging smiles. The naivete of these Americans! Theystill thought that the ideals of the French Revolution werealive and meaningful in France. Napoleonand the artfulTalleyrandknew that only one reality mattered now:power.

If all went well, Talleyrands vision of French control ofthe Mississippi River valley would achieve glorious fruitionon Napoleons bayonets. Jefferson and his governmentwould become another French satellite, like Belgium, theNetherlands, Switzerland, and the petty kingdoms of Ger-many and Italy. The First Consul would rule not onlyEurope but also North America. Control of South Amer-ica would inevitably follow. King Carlos IV of Spain wasalready terrified of Napoleons power. Finally, with thegold and silver of the mines of Mexico and Peru, and thebountiful harvests and enterprising seamen of the UnitedStates at Frances command, the Man of Destiny wouldturn on England and crush that nation of conniving shop-keepers once and for all.

The supposed peace between the United States andFrance was called the Treaty of Mortefontaine, named afterthe country chateau owned by Bonapartes older brother,Joseph, where it had been signed. The agreement had

c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 8

been followed the next day by a very different treaty inSpain. The chief negotiator was Lucien Bonaparte,younger brother of the First Consul. Signed at San Ilde-fonso, a country palace of the Spanish king, this treaty stip-ulated that Spain would return to France the immenseterritory of Louisiana, which King Louis XV had given toSpain in 1763 to compensate his Iberian ally for its lossesin their struggle with England in the Seven Years War. Inreturn, Napoleon would place the son-in-law of the Span-ish king on the throne of the Duchy of Tuscany and namehim monarch of a new kingdom called Etruria. To provethat this was a transaction between firm friends, the FirstConsul pledged never to cede Louisiana to a third power,for any reason.

It would be hard to imagine a more graphic demon-stration of the cynicism of the Talleyrand-Bonaparte team.Within twenty-four hours they solemnly vowed to renewtheir friendship with the United States at Mortefontaineand cut a deal at San Ildefonso that they knew would rup-ture this friendship the moment the news got out. Ofcourse, they were presuming that the news would not getout until they were ready to let it out.

What was the territory of Louisiana? Nothing less thanthe heart of the American continent. It stretched from theCanadian border to the mouth of the Mississippi, and fromthe western bank of the great river to the Shining Moun-tains, the Indian name for the Rockies. As a vital adjunctto this vast retrocession, Napoleon also wanted theSpanish colonies of East and West Florida, which com-prised the present-day state of Florida, plus portions of


c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 9


what is now the state of Louisiana on the east bank of theMississippi up to the thirtieth parallel of latitude. Thisswatch of the continent had four hundred miles of coast-line along which France could create naval bases thatwould dominate the waters of the Caribbean and the Gulfof Mexico. Bonaparte ordered Talleyrand to begin bar-gaining with the Spanish king to add this final touch to hisvision of restored colonial power.

Santo Domingo fit into this ambitious scheme as asource of badly needed cash. Napoleon was convinced thatthe island could again become the cornucopia it had beenbefore the French Revolution. Instead of buying foodfrom the Americans, the way the colony had previouslyoperated, the victuals would now come at bargain pricesfrom French farms in Louisiana. First, however, ToussaintLOuverture and his fellow generalsthese gildedAfricans as Bonaparte called themwould have to beeliminated.

While signing preliminary articles of peace with theEnglish in October 1801, Bonaparte obtained theirapproval to send an expedition to regain Santo Domingo.To bolster his argument, he paraphrased President Jeffer-sons fears that Toussaint LOuverture would turn topiracy. Bonaparte promptly ordered his brother-in-law,aggressive General Charles Leclerc, and twenty thousandof Frances best troops to prepare to depart for theCaribbean. So confident was the first consul of swift suc-cess, he saw no reason why his beautiful younger sister,Pauline, should not accompany her handsome husband.

The First Consul commanded Leclerc to subdue and

c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 10

occupy Santo Domingoa task Bonaparte estimatedwould require no more than six weeksand then detach alarge portion of his army to take possession of Louisiana.Included in Leclercs orders was the commitment thatclever Charg Pichon had extracted at the White House:Jefferson has promised that the instant the French armyarrives, all measures will be taken to starve Toussaint andto aid the army.


c01.qxd 4/15/03 9:08 AM Page 11

2Realist at Work

In Washington, D.C., Secretary of State James Madisonpresided over a handful of clerks in a square brick buildingdown the street from the White House. The tiny Depart-ment of State shared the structure with the equally minus-cule Department of War. On the other side of the WhiteHouse a similar brick building housed the slightly largerTreasury Department. In the new capital, the entire federalgovernment, including members of Congress and theSupreme Court, numbered only 293 people.

In 1801 the State Department was the ear throughwhich the country listened to confidential reports onwhat was happening in the rest of the world. As the yearlengthened, Secretary of State Madison did not like whathe was hearing. Rumors were swirling through Europeabout Spain retroceding Louisiana to France. The secrettreaty of San Idelfonso was growing less secret with everypassing day.

A climax of sorts was a letter from Rufus King, the U.S.minister to England, stating that in all probability Spain

12

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 12

had ceded Louisiana and the Floridas to France. Evenmore worrisome was another part of Kings letter, in whichhe reported that certain influential persons in Francethought that nature has marked a line of separationbetween the people of the United States living upon thetwo sides of the range of mountains that divides their ter-ritory. This produced the specter of French money andideology being used to seduce western Americans tosecede from the union and form a separate nation west ofthe Appalachian Mountains.

Around the same time, Virginian Fulwar Skipwith, thenew commercial agent for the United States in Paris, wroteJefferson that certain men in high office had industri-ously circulated a report that Louisiana was to remainSpanish property. Skipwith said he was sure of thereverse. An old Paris handhe had previously been con-sul generalSkipwith had also learned that the Frenchgovernment had formed a plan of peopling that countryto an amazing extent.

Secretary of State Madison decided it was time to have atalk with Charg dAffaires Pichon. The tone would bevery different from the promise of perpetual friendshipwith France that Jefferson had delivered in July.

The contrast between the tall, ebullient U.S. presidentand the small, severely self-controlled Madison was at firstglance almost puzzling. Seemingly total opposites, theywere extremely close friends. Only a few people knew howmuch Jefferson depended on Madisons cool analyticmind to ballast his often soaring enthusiasms.

Madison recognized the importance of Jeffersons

R E A L I S T A T W O R K 13

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 13


visionary gifts, which enabled him to make the 1776 dec-laration of independence a document that transformed acolonial revolt into a struggle with global spiritual over-tones. Jefferson in turn recognized the power of Madisonsintellect, which had enabled him to create almost single-handedly the federal constitution that rescued the UnitedStates from disorder and disunion in 1787.

Even more important was Madisons ability to deal withJeffersons impulsive and erratic style without impairingtheir friendship. In his later years, Madison often said thatallowances ought to be made for the Jeffersonian ten-dency to express in strong and round terms the impres-sions of the moment.

Madisons talk with Charg Pichon swiftly became ademonstration of his readiness to correct the impressionthat the United States was prepared to be Frances unques-tioning partner in Bonapartes plan to regain control ofSanto Domingo. Summoning up the most circumspectand studied expression he could, Pichon nervously relatedin his subsequent dispatch, the secretary asked if thereport of Louisianas retrocession was true. Madisonhoped it was an idea that had occurred to French strate-gists during the late naval war and had been abandonedonce peace between the two countries had been con-firmed. French ownership of the west bank of the Missis-sippi and the port of New Orleans, through which westernAmericans exported tons of grain, cotton, and other farmproducts, was certain to lead to collisions that wouldendanger the peace between the two nations.

The agitated Pichon claimed to know nothing about the

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 14

rumor of France obtaining Louisiana. But he admitted thatseveral times since their revolution, various French leadershad talked of regaining the territory. Surely Madison didnot imply that was a crime?

Not at all, Madison smoothly replied. But he stillthought it would be a political mistake. Spain, the presentowner of the territory, was peaceable. The Americanswere accustomed to the Spanish, who had some oddquirks, but permitted them to use the river and the port ofNew Orleans under the terms of a treaty that the Wash-ington administration had negotiated with Madrid in1795. The French would introduce a new element in thatpolitical equation. At the same time, Madison said he didnot want Pichon to think that the United States was in anyway worried about French troops in Louisiana. The amaz-ing growth of the western population had eliminated thecountrys concerns on that score.

Did Madisons talk of collisions mean the Americanswere getting ready to go beyond the Mississippi? Pichonasked.

Of course not, Madison replied. He dismissed the ideaas a chimera. But the jittery French diplomat was by nomeans convinced of this disavowal, which might mean nomore than his own claim to know nothing about Francesrepossession of Louisiana.

Once more Pichon tried to calm the secretarys fears.Europeans shared the use of many rivers without undue fric-tion. Why couldnt the two republics negotiate any and allpoints of contention? Madison shook his head and repeatedhis prediction that France in Louisiana meant collisions.


c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 15


Back in his residence, Pichon wrote a dispatch to Paristhat more than demonstrated how effectively Madison hadworked on him. The charg warned Talleyrand that theplan to transfer Louisiana to France might mean a war thatwould bring England into the conflict as a U.S ally. If thefirst consul proceeded with his program, it would be vitalto select with the utmost care the officials who came toLouisiana. Almost as if he were trying to prove Madisonspoint that the Americans were formidable, Pichon notedthat the population of the new state of Kentucky hadleaped from sixty thousand to two hundred fifty thousandin fifteen years.

Growth was undoubtedly the American republics out-standing characteristic, especially in the West. Between1750 and 1800, the overall U.S. population rose from1,170,000 to 5 million. Between 1790 and 1800, thepopulation of the first two western states, Kentucky andTennessee, rose 300 percent. Kentucky had more peoplethan five of the original states (New Hampshire, RhodeIsland, New Jersey, Delaware, and Georgia). Growingalmost as fast was the territory of Ohio, which would soonbecome the seventeenth state.

Beneath this facade of vigor were disturbing tensions.The people of the western waters, as they liked to stylethemselves, had a heady sense of a separate democratic des-tiny that at times verged on downright dislike of the sup-posedly arrogant and conservative East. In 1794, when theU.S. Congress attempted to raise money by imposing taxeson whiskey that Westerners distilled from their grain, thecitizens in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, rose in

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 16

revolt, terrorized federal tax collectors, and talked of set-ting up a separate nation. Similar voices were heard in thewestern valleys of Virginia and the Carolinas.

President George Washington, urged on by his pugna-cious Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, hadraised an army and smashed this Whiskey Rebellionwithout firing a shot. But worries about the Wests loyaltyto the federal union continued to trouble more than onethoughtful American, as Rufus Kings letter to Madisonmade clear.

In 1801, lingering suspicions of similar disloyalty stillswirled around the commander of the U.S. Army, GeneralJames Wilkinson, who had been a staff officer in the Amer-ican Revolution. Moving to Kentucky after the war, hewent into land speculation and politics. In 1788 he led acampaign for Kentuckys independence, claiming for him-self a dubious expertise in dealing with the Spanish in NewOrleans. The new federal government persuaded mostKentuckians to choose statehood within the union.

By that time, Wilkinson was so cozy with the governorof Louisiana that he swore a covert allegiance to the Span-ish crown and became Agent 13 in their secret service,receiving a stipend of $2,000 a year. Rejoining the regularU.S. Army, he rose swiftly to brigadier general and in 1797became commander in chiefa job to which President Jefferson reappointed him, dismissing rumors of hisdivided allegiance.

Thomas Jeffersons transfer of the government toWashington, D.C., was an arrangement he had worked outin a negotiation with Alexander Hamilton when they


c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 17


were both in Washingtons cabinet. It had not endearedhim to his Federalist critics, who tended to live in cities andtowns and pursue commercial careers. But Jeffersonslargely rural followers saw nothing wrong with the rawfederal village in which the government began operatingin 1800. They liked the presidents casual stylehis habitof receiving visitors in old clothes and carpet slippers orjumping on a horse to do his own shopping. They sawnothing wrong with the common post and rail fence hehad built around the White House. All this was in keepingwith what Jefferson called Republican simplicity.

Unfortunately, the rest of the country was growing inways that made Republican simplicity seem more affecta-tion than reality. With the 1793 invention of the cottongin, Eli Whitney had opened the door to fortunes forSouthern planters. Now Whitney was manufacturing gunsin New Haven using interchangeable partsa first step tomass production. Textile factories were sprouting in otherparts of New England. Four out of five Americans stillmade their living as farmers, but they were doing far morethan feeding themselves and their families. They wereexporting tons of wheat, corn, and cotton for handsomeprofits.

Between 1793 and 1801, U.S. export sales quintupledto $70 million a year, and most of the goods and producewere carried in U.S. ships. When the federal governmentunder James Madisons constitution went into operation in1789 there were only three banks in the country. By 1801,there were twenty-nine banks and their capital had multi-plied six-fold. Moreover, U.S. bankers were in regular

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 18

communication with the great merchant bankers ofEurope, giving them vastly expanded sources of credit.

Thanks to the financial system established by AlexanderHamilton when he was secretary of the treasury underGeorge Washington, the United States had the highestcredit rating in the world. The nations net worth was esti-mated to be $1.8 billion. No less than three hundredprinters turned out newspapers for a reading public thathad practically eliminated illiteracy. Booksellers had multi-plied fifty times since the end of the Revolution in 1783.The population of U.S.cities such as New York, Boston,and Philadelphia was growing almost as rapidly as thestates of the West.

The affluent East thought Washington, D.C., was aprime example of the extremismand hypocrisyofRepublican simplicity. In his unfinished White House,President Jefferson presided over a wine cellar stocked withexpensive European vintages. The presidents mountaintopmansion, Monticello, in Virginia, was neither simple norrustic. Then there was the unfinished capitol a mile downmuddy Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.Because Jefferson had abolished most of the taxes levied byhis predecessors, the U.S. Treasury lacked the cash to erectthe central hall and dome. The two wings were connectedby a crude wooden walkway.

Although Jeffersons Republican Party had dominatingmajorities in both houses of Congress, his rule was not assecure as it looked to a casual observer. There were somealarming fissures in the self-styled party of the people. Onthe left wing were Old Republicans, ideologues who


c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 19


were in many cases committed to an almost paranoid fearof the federal governments power and an even more para-noid dislike of the Federalists, who had taken the name oftheir party from their belief in the beneficent effects of fed-eral authority.

The Old Republicans wanted to sweep out every Feder-alist officeholder in the nation, from the lowliest post-master to the clerks of the executive departments inWashington, D.C. They were not thrilled when Jeffersonhad tried to heal the breach between the two parties bydeclaring in his inaugural address, We are all republicans,we are all federalists. They were even less enthused by hisretention of Federalists in many government jobs.

These policies were heartily approved by another wingof the party, sometimes called National Republicans.Chief among these was Secretary of State Madison, whohad worked closely with Alexander Hamilton to set up thenew federal government that the Constitution had created.Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, who had takenover Hamiltons financial system with scarcely a change,was another of these middle-of-the-road Republicans whourged Jefferson to shun the fanaticism of the Old Repub-licans and lure moderate Federalists into their party.

Still another political fissure, less concerned with ideol-ogy, revolved around the enigmatic figure of Jeffersonsvice president, Aaron Burr of New York. An astute politi-cian, Burr had carried his home state for the Republicansand made Thomas Jefferson president. But when the twomen became deadlocked in the electoral college, Burr, inthe view of many Republicans, had behaved treacherously

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 20

by allegedly flirting with a Federalist offer to make himpresident in Jeffersons place. Burr steadfastly denied thisslur, and there is little objective evidence to support it. Butthe president, listening to Burrs numerous Republicanenemies in New York, became convinced of its truth, andthe vice president slowly discovered he was persona nongrata at the White House.

For the time being, Louisiana relegated worries aboutOld Republicans and Burr to the sidelines. Dissatisfiedwith Charg Pichons answers, President Jefferson andSecretary of State Madison decided it was time to send aminister plenipotentiary to Paris who could find out thetruth about Louisiana. Their choice was a man who at firstglance had little in common with Republican simplicity.Robert R. Livingston of New York was as wealthy in landand as confident in his lineage as any European aristocrat.In the Hudson River Valley, he presided over thousands ofacres of farms and tenants.

Livingstons great-grandfather had emigrated fromScotland in 1672 and, by dint of hard dealing in the furtrade and in the politics of the colony of New York,acquired 160,000 acres and the Lordship of the Manorof Livingston. By the time his great-grandson becameminister to France in 1801, the manor had added manythousands of additional acres on both sides of the Hudson,and the Livingston family virtually assumed that it wastheir destiny to play major roles in their countrys politics.

In spite of his wealth, Robert Livingston had backed theAmerican Revolution and served ably in the ContinentalCongress as a delegate from New York. Toward the end of


c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 21


the eight-year struggle for independence, Livingston hadbecome the Foreign Secretary of Congress, making him akind of secretary of state in embryo. The experience lefthim with few illusions about the way Europeans practiceddiplomacya background that undoubtedly had not a lit-tle to do with why Jefferson and Madison chose him as theminister to Paris. Another by no means unimportant factorwas Livingstons enduring friendship with France, rootedin his personal knowledge of how crucial French aid was inwinning the war for independence. Finally there wasJeffersons estimate of him as a man with a mind of thefirst order.

Livingstons only flaw was a growing deafness. But thereis little evidence that it interfered with his diplomatic per-formance. Madison and Jefferson instructed the New Yorkmanor lord to find out if there was any truth to the rumorthat Louisiana was about to become French, and, if true,ordered him to do everything in his power to dissuadeNapoleon from the transfer. But he was also told to donothing that would unnecessarily irritate our future neigh-bors, or check the liberality which they may be disposed toexercise in relation to the trade and navigation through themouth of the Mississippi. At this point, the fall of 1801,Jefferson was still loath to abandon his dream of a happypartnership with France.

The new minister plenipotentiary set out for France onOctober 15, 1801, traveling in his usual aristocratic style.His wife, his two daughters and their husbands, numerousservants, and the secretary of the legation, Thomas

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 22

Sumter, crowded aboard the frigate USS Boston. Livings-tons splendid coach was lashed to the open deck andserved as a parlor for the ladies. They survived a sea voyagethat included an all-too-common episode of terror. Off theFrench coast, waves towered above the quarterdeck and aviolent wind seemed certain to drive them onto the rockyshore. But the wind suddenly shifted and the Boston strug-gled into the port of LOrient.

By December 3, the Livingstons were in Paris, wherethey were welcomed by Fulwar Skipwith and other mem-bers of the U.S. colony. Even warmer was the greeting ofthe ministers old friend from revolutionary days, theMarquis de Lafayette. Fleeing the French Revolutionsreign of terror, the marquis had sought refuge with theAustrians. They blamed him for his role in the upheaval,and he spent much of the next decade in prison. Diplo-matic pressure on the part of his U.S. friends had helpedfree him, and Napoleon had permitted him to return toFrance with the hope that he would support the first con-suls regime.

Another warm greeter was suave Franois Barbe-Marbois, who had been secretary to the French legation inPhiladelphia during the American Revolution. He hadmarried an American woman and had worked closely withLivingston to keep the alliance of the two countries alive inspite of much criticism and disillusionment on both sides.Marbois also had been a victim of the French Revolutionsturmoil. In 1797 he had been seized and exiled to thepestilential village of Sinammary in French Guyana.


c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 23


His wife had a mental breakdown from which she neverrecovered. Napoleon, seeking to reconcile all classes andpolitical creeds, had recalled the former royalist and madehim Frances minister of finance.

With the help of these two friends, Livingston quicklyachieved official status. He was presented to Foreign Min-ister Talleyrand on December 5, and the next day made hisinitial bow to the ruler of France, First Consul Bonaparte.The introduction took place in the Hall of Ministers in theold royal palace of the Tuileries. Livingston was accompa-nied by his two sons-in-law wearing the uniforms of aide-de-camps to the governor of New York. After waiting for an hour, they were ushered to the Audience Roombetween parallel lines of magnificently uniformed consularguards. There the first consul, in a gorgeous red coatembroidered with gold, paced around a waiting circle ofdiplomats, exchanging a few words with each, while For-eign Secretary Talleyrand limped after him.

When Bonaparte reached Livingston in his diplomaticpromenade, the first consul asked if he had been toEurope before. When Livingston said no, Bonaparte said:You have come to a very corrupt world. Turning to Tal-leyrand, he brusquely added: Explain to him that the oldworld is very corrupt. You know something about that,dont you?

There is no record of Talleyrands reply. No answer was required. The first consul and his chief adviser weremocking the U.S. minister and his naive president. The ex-bishop of Autun, as Livingston well knew, was the man

c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 24

whose greed for a bribe had plunged France and theUnited States into the Quasi-War. Here he stood, with hisdead eyes and supercilious smile, exchanging jokes aboutcorruption at the right hand of Frances ruler. Fortunately,Livingstons self-esteem was too solid to worry about thepossibility that he was being insulted. Instead, with a bold-ness that came naturally to this burly six-footer, he went towork on finding out what the French were planning to dowith Louisiana.


c02.qxd 4/15/03 9:09 AM Page 25

3The Game Begins

Two weeks after Napoleons sardonic exchange withRobert Livingston in the Tuileries palace, General Leclercand his fleet and army sailed from Brest. To smooth theirarrival, Bonaparte dispatched a friendly letter to ToussaintLOuverture. We have conceived esteem for you, hewrote. And we take pleasure in proclaiming the greatservice you have rendered to the French people. What canyou desire?the liberty of the blacks? You know that in allthe countries where we [the French] have been, we havegiven it to peoples who had it not.

Leclercs armada hove to off the coast of Santo Domingoin late January 1802. By this time, Secretary of State Madi-sons policy diverged sharply from President Jeffersonsburst of Francophile enthusiasm in July. A new U.S. consul,Tobias Lear, former private secretary to George Washing-ton, had replaced Edward Stevens in Santo Domingo. Oneof his first statements when he arrived in Cap Francois was afulsome congratulation of Toussaint LOuverture for hiswise and benevolent rule of Santo Domingo.

26

c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 26

When a troubled Louis Pichon protested this embrace ofthe black ruler, Madison smoothly assured him that he andJefferson disapproved of Lears statement. At the sametime, he informed Pichon that the U.S. governmentthought it was important to retain the friendship of theseex-slave rulersthe blacks of Guadaloupe had recentlyrisen in revoltlest in revenge they try to excite U.S. slavesto rebel. Pichon hurried to the White House and remindedthe president of his promise to starve Toussaint. To his dis-may, Pichon found Jefferson reserved and cold.

On Santo Domingo, the size of Leclercs fleet and armymade LOuverture and his allies more than a little suspi-cious. It was too large to be the mere escort of a delegationfrom Paris, reaffirming Frances theoretical sovereigntyover the island. When Leclerc called on Henri Christophe,one of LOuvertures generals, to surrender Cap Francois,Christophe declined. Leclerc promptly attacked from landand sea. Christophe responded by burning the port cityand slaughtering the white inhabitants before retreatinginto the countryside.

An exasperated Leclerc found himself in a ruined citywhere almost all the food was in U.S. ships in the harborand American-owned warehouses ashore. Relying on Jef-fersons promise of collaboration, he tried to buy foodfrom the Americans and was outraged by the prices theydemanded. He rushed an agent to New York to borrow amillion francs. Not a single bank in that city or in Philadel-phia would lend him a cent. The disorders of the revolu-tion had destroyed French credit around the world.

Grimly, Leclerc seized supplies from the Americans and

T H E G A M E B E G I N S 27

c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 27


named his own prices. When U.S. ship captains andmerchants protested, they were insulted and threatenedwith the seizure of their vessels. Soon U.S. newspaperswere indignantly reporting the French generals high-handed behavior, which stirred unpleasant memories of theQuasi-War.

By the first week in March, Madison and Jefferson werehearing a first-person account of the turmoil on SantoDomingo. The report came from a U.S. ship captain whohad witnessed the destruction of Cap Francois and riskedhis life to rescue some white inhabitants from GeneralChristophes vengeance. The captain brought with him aletter from Tobias Lear, adding additional details. Evenmore important was a letter from a Kentuckian who wasserving as a captain in Leclercs cavalry. This soldier of for-tune informed Lear that a part of the French expeditionwas destined for Louisiana.

General Leclerc bombarded Charg dAffaires Pichonwith letters, ordering him to make the United States deliveron their promise to feed his army. Pichon replied with astream of advice and thinly disguised reprimands. AbusingU.S. ship captains and merchants was not the way to winAmerican friendship. As for handing him the problem ofsupplying the army, Pichon boldly informed Talleyrand thatit made no sense. Why did France send an army to SantoDomingo without money or advice on how to supply it?Someone in Paris was very close to incompetent.

When Pichon sought help from Secretary of State Madi-son, he found himself answering difficult questions: Whywas the French army so large? Shouldnt Paris have

c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 28

explained the first consuls plans before the expeditionsailed? He also mentioned the report from Tobias Lear thatpart of the army was destined for Louisiana. Was that true?

Pichon stoutly maintained that he had no informationabout French plans for Louisiana, which was true as far asit went. He asked Madison to cooperate with France byallowing him to publish a letter announcing that trade withSanto Domingo was henceforth limited to ports controlledby France. He hoped Madison would publish a statementin support of this policy.

Madisons answer was a masterpiece of evasion. He saidit was very difficult to control the national spirit of anation as commercially minded as the United States. TheSouthern states might support such an embargo becausethey feared the rebellious message LOuverture personi-fied. But the Northern states, already rather hostile to theSouth, would violate it with impunity to sell their productsto LOuvertures regime.

The charg all but begged for a loan of at least a millionfrancs. Madison stared at Pichon as if he had gone insane.A loan was out of the question, the secretary of state said.It would cause a huge uproar in Congress, which wasextremely jittery about the ratification of the clause in theTreaty of Mortefontaine in which the United States aban-doned the claims of U.S. merchants for their losses in theQuasi-War.

A desperate Pichon went to the White House andpleaded with Jefferson for a loan, implicitly reminding himof his promise to starve Toussaint. The charg came awayfrom this meeting with renewed hope. He told Foreign


c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 29


Minister Talleyrand that the president had spoken to himwith the language of sincerity and marked interest. Jef-ferson promised to consult with members of Congresswho were coming to one of his dinner parties to considerwhat could be done.

Pichons hopes soon plummeted. He heard nothingfrom Jefferson or Republican congressmen eager to helpFrance. Instead, he was approached by a number of Fed-eralist legislators who urged him to take a stronger standagainst the Jefferson administration over the way they weretreating Leclercs army. Pichon had no trouble figuring outthat these politicians were only trying to embarrass thepresident and his secretary of state.

Meanwhile, General Leclerc was fighting an all-out waron Santo Domingo. At first, things seemed to go well forthe French. The Spanish section of the island was quicklyoccupied, with the help of the local white population.Some black garrisons surrendered to advancing Frenchbrigades. In ten days Leclerc had captured all of the keycoastal ports and forts and was preparing an offensive intothe interior. But Toussaint LOuverture remained beyondhis grasp, and another black general, Jean JacquesDessalines, rampaged through the countryside, slaughter-ing every white person he foundand any black ormulatto who tried to help them.

An attempt at negotiations failed and on February 18,1802, Leclerc launched an offensive against LOuver-tures interior stronghold, Gonaives. After some hardfighting and heavy losses on both sides, several black gen-erals switched their allegiance and supported Leclerc. The

c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 30

French commander added to the threat of his oncomingbayonets lavish promises of money and power to thosewho joined him in a pacified Santo Domingo.

On February 23, LOuverture ambushed a Frenchforce of five thousand men a few miles from Gonaives. Fora while the French teetered on the brink of a rout. Buttheir commander, General Donatien de Rochambeau (sonof the general who was George Washingtons partner atYorktown) rescued the situation with a moment ofbravado. Tossing his hat into the ranks of the oncomingblacks, he shouted: My comrades, you will not leave yourgenerals hat behind! The French infantry wheeled andsoon had LOuvertures men on the run. The next day theFrench stormed Gonaives and burned it.

Leclerc was losing menas many as two thousand in asingle battle. Also, for the first time he noticed a strange ill-ness creeping through his army. Soldiers weakened withoutwarning; in a day they were too sick to walk. Then cameblack vomit, yellowing skin, convulsions, and death. Nei-ther Leclerc nor anyone else realized that this yellowfever was produced by a tiny female mosquito nowknown to scientists as Aedes aegypti.

Breeding in pools of stagnant water in cities, towns, andarmy camps, Aedes triggered devastating epidemics in theCaribbean, South America, and tropical Africa, with deathrates as high as 85 percent. But the French commanderpressed his offensive. He was as determined and ruthless ashis imperious brother-in-law. Soon other black generalsnotably Henri Christopheswitched sides.

On May 1 Toussaint LOuverture agreed to peace


c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 31


terms: He would give up power and retire with arespectable bodyguard to a plantation in the interior. Hisgenerals and officers would receive equivalent ranks in theFrench army, which soon became 50 percent black.

Why did Toussaint surrender? Probably because helearned that Napoleon had signed a definitive treaty ofpeace with the British at Amiens. This left Toussaint and hissoldiers at the mercy of Bonapartes vastly superior num-bers and weaponry. The black leader capitulated, hoping toget the best possible deal from Leclerc. LOuverturesmurderous second in command, Dessalines, sullenlyaccepted similar terms on May 6, 1802.

For a few weeks an uneasy truce prevailed on SantoDomingo. It did not last because Aedes aegypti was hard atwork, decimating the French regiments. Noting Leclercsgrowing weakness, a watchful LOuverture began intrigu-ing for a comeback. But Leclerc was watching him, too.Lured to a nearby plantation without his usual armedescort, the black leader was seized, thrown on a ship, anddeported to France as a common criminal. There,Napoleon deposited him in a damp, freezing dungeon in afortress in the Jura Mountains on the Swiss frontier, whereLOuverture died a year later.

President Jefferson was stunned by Toussaints surren-der and abrupt removal. Not quite able to believe thenews, he wondered if it were the other way aroundthatLeclerc had surrendered. The White House would havewelcomed that news. It was vivid evidence of how muchthe presidents attitude had changed since he made his ful-some promise to Pichon the previous July.

c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 32

Jeffersons change also reflected a new development onthe diplomatic front. On May 6, 1802, Tobias Lear hadmade an unexpected appearance in Secretary of StateMadisons office. General Leclerc had expelled him fromSanto Domingo for protesting the imprisonment of twoU.S. ship captains who had aroused Leclercs ire. One ofthem had been accused of slandering the French army inAmerican newspapers because of his report of the san-guinary seizure of Cap Francois.

More shocking was what Lear had learned from talkingto officers in Leclercs army: In France, republicanism wasexploded. France needed a king now, and the man thesoldiers were backing was, to no ones surprise, NapoleonBonaparte. President Jeffersons long love affair with theFrench Revolution was coming to an ironic close.


c03.qxd 4/15/03 9:10 AM Page 33

4Frustration All Around

In France, Minister Plenipotentiary Robert R. Livingstondemanded an interview with Foreign Minister Talleyrand.The New York aristocrat bluntly asked if Spain had retro-ceded Louisiana to France. Talleyrand looked him in theeye and with practiced chicanery denied that any suchtransaction had occurred. Undaunted, Livingston pro-ceeded to put pressure on the foreign minister as if theanswer had been affirmative.

There were still some $5 million in unsettled U.S.claims against France that were outside the boundaries ofthe Quasi-War damages renounced in the Treaty of Morte-fontaine. Livingston used the claims as a weapon in thisopening clash with Talleyrand. The minister suggested thatthe French give West Florida and New Orleans to theUnited States, and the U.S. government would undertaketo settle the claims out of its own affluent pockets.

None but spendthrifts satisfy their debts by selling theirlands, Talleyrand curtly replied. He paused and addedsomething significant. But it is not ours to give.

34

c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 34

The foreign minister was admitting that, thus far, theFrench had not persuaded the Spanish to cede either Westor East Florida. There was a powerful faction at the Span-ish court that opposed giving Louisiana or the Floridas toNapoleon. It was led by former foreign minister Manuelde Godoy, once the lover of Queen Dona Maria Luisa.Thus far in 1802, pliable King Carlos IV had yet to signthe legal documents transferring the huge western territoryto France. Napoleon, growing impatient, told his ambas-sador to warn the queen and Godoy that if this system [ofdelay] is continued . . . it will terminate in a thunderbolt.

Nevertheless, Livingston had no difficulty confirmingthe eventual transfer of Louisiana. It was the talk of theParis salons. Several publishers had brought out booksextolling this new western empire. Louisiana is a veryfavorite measure here, Livingston told Madison.

Irritated and frequently frustrated, Livingston nonethe-less retained his fondness for France and the French peo-ple. At times his letters were a veritable rhapsody of praisefor their joie de vivre, their good manners, and the beautyof their women. The French were the happiest people hehad ever encountered, he said, because they made womenthe rosy links in their society.

But when Livingston attended an official dinner atwhich everyone, male and female, was bedecked in gor-geous finery worthy of a royal court, he experienced theodd sensation of being out of place because he was toorepublican for Napoleonic France. Livingston told Secre-tary of State Madison that he was playing down hisdemocracy and was careful not to criticize any aspect of

F R U S T R A T I O N A L L A R O U N D 35

c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 35


this new authoritarian state, in which people from all walksof life had the opportunity to seek their fortunesas longas they were willing to surrender the right to speak theirminds.

This balancing act was a tribute to Livingstons diplo-matic talents. But behind the scenes he did not hesitate tocontinue to oppose the French acquisition of Louisiana.When Talleyrand rebuffed his offer to buy West Florida,Livingston returned with an even more ambitious pro-posal. Would France agree to sell to the United States all ofLouisiana north of the Arkansas River? That would permitFrance to retain New Orleans and the ports on the Gulf ofMexico to check British power in the Caribbean. Mean-while, the Americans would become a buffer betweenthese French possessions and the British in Canada.

When Talleyrand rejected this proposal, Livingstonapproached the British ambassador to France, Lord Whit-worth, and tried to get him excited about the threat posedby a Napoleonic army in the Mississippi Valley. If they weresuddenly yearning for the lost province of Louisiana,wasnt it logical to assume a similar desire would bedirected at Canada? Livingston also went to work on theSpanish ambassador, muttering dark warnings in his earabout the likelihood of a French descent on Mexico.Finally, Livingston wrote to Rufus King in London andurged him to stir up British opposition to the retrocession.

All these seemingly good ideas came to naught. TheBritish were so desperate for peace that they professed anear indifference to Napoleons colonial ambitions. Thenew prime minister, Henry Addington, was reducing the

c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 36

royal army to forty thousand men, beaching much of theroyal navy, and junking the income tax that had fundedBritains war machine. When Rufus King queried the newforeign secretary, Lord Hawkesbury, about the Frenchacquiring Louisiana, he received a perfunctory highlyinteresting.

This indifference was truly dismaying news. There wasapparently no hope of playing off one superpower againstthe other. The United States was on its own against theFrench juggernaut.

In Washington, D.C., an increasingly anxious Jeffersondecided to put new pressure on the French with a letter toLivingston. It was sent via a special envoy, Pierre Samuel DuPont de Nemours, who had emigrated to the United Statesin 1799 and begun a number of businesses that would makehis name famous in the coming decades. Du Pont wasreturning to France to raise capital for his companies, andsaid he was more than willing to approach Napoleon onthe United States behalf.

Jeffersons letter gave Du Pont severe doubts aboutbeing the presidents messenger. Jefferson had left itunsealed, giving the Frenchman carte blanche to read it.The message opened with the literary equivalent of anartillery barrage:

The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain toFrance . . . completely reverses all the politicalrelations of the U.S. and will form a new epoch inour political course . . . There is on the globe onesingle spot, the possessor of which is our natural and


c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 37


habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through whichthe produce of three-eighths of our territory mustpass to market, and from its fertility it will ere longyield more than half our whole produce and morethan half our inhabitants. . . . The day that Francetakes possession of N Orleans . . . seals the union ofthe two nations who in conjunction can maintainexclusive possession of the ocean. From thatmoment, we must marry ourselves to the British fleetand nation.

Jefferson explained to Livingston his opening para-graphs were not intended as a menace but as a frankstatement of the political situation in America. Every eyein the United States is now fixed on this affair of Louisiana.Perhaps nothing since the revolutionary war has producedmore uneasy sensations through the body of the nation.

Jefferson went on to reiterate his desire for peace andunderstanding with France. He noted the strong sympa-thies for the French republic that still existed in the mindsof many Americans. There was only one way for France toretain this sympathy: sell the Floridas and the city of NewOrleans to the United States.

In a separate letter to Du Pont, Jefferson took an eventougher line. He told the Frenchman that the sale of theFloridas and New Orleans would only be a palliation. Thepresident insisted that Frances occupation of Louisianawould be an enormous mistake. It would eventually triggera war between France and the United States that the Britishwould enter as a U.S. ally. This was not a development

c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 38

Jefferson welcomed. He reminded Du Pont of how longand fervently he had professed his friendship for France.He was being open with Du Pont because he hoped thatthe impromptu envoy would be able to impress the Frenchgovernment more effectively than Livingston, whom Tal-leyrand was treating as a person of no consequence.

A final metaphor communicated how deeply the situa-tion was agitating the president. Louisiana might seem nomore than a mere make weight, a speck in the settlementof peace terms between England and France. But it wasthe embryo of a tornado which will burst on the countrieson both sides of the Atlantic and involve in its effect theirhighest destinies. The letter to Livingston was so impor-tant that the president begged Du Pont to make sure thatMadame Du Pont would deliver it with her own hands ifanything happened to him during the Atlantic voyage.

Du Pont totally disagreed with the tone and implicationsof Jeffersons letter. For one thing, he was certain it wouldoffend Napoleon, whose patronage he had hoped to obtainon his visit. One did not make threats to the conqueror ofEurope: To say, Give us this land or else we will take it isnot at all convincing. Napoleon, and every other French-man, would instinctively say: We will defend it.

As for marrying the United States to the British fleetand nation, Du Pont was even more appalled. That wouldbe leading the United States into a trap. He insisted thatthe British detest and always will detest the UnitedStates because they were rivals for commercial supremacyon the ocean. An alliance would inevitably lead to perse-cutions that would drive the United States back into the


c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 39


arms of France after wasting millions of dollars and thou-sands of lives in a pointless war.

Moreover, the Peace of Amiens made it clear that theBritish were sick of war and not inclined to marry theirdiminished fleet to anyone. Napoleon would only con-clude from Jeffersons letter that the American presidentwas bluffingand that he was not very good at this brandof international diplomacy. There is little doubt that Du Pont was correct on all points.

His French patriotism aroused, Du Pont advised Jeffer-son that if he hoped to negotiate with France, he had bet-ter start by declaring the United States had no interest inthe west bank of the Mississippi. He added a sermon onthe aggressive tendencies of the United States. There wasno question in Du Ponts mind that a great many westernAmericans were eager to conquer Mexico.

After discussing a number of alternatives, Du Pontsuggested a strikingly original solution to the oncomingconfrontation with France: buy Louisiana and the Floridas.There was no point in appealing to past friendship and theimportance of the worlds only republics remaining atpeace with each other. The sole answer to an amicablesolution was money.

Du Pont urged Jefferson to calculate how much a warwould costthe expense of building warships, organizingan army, paying sailors and soldiersand offer France areasonable sum for Louisiana and the Floridas. No matterhow high the price might climb in the bargaining, it wouldstill be cheaper than a war, and the conquest would bepoisoned neither by hatred nor by human blood.

c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 40

Du Ponts reply forced Jefferson to do some hasty back-tracking. In another letter, he denied he was threateningFrance. It is as if I saw a storm tomorrow and advised myfriend not to embark on the ocean today, he claimed.Clinging to his metaphor, he argued that foreseeing thestorm did not make him the cause of it. Nor was hiswarning a threat because the storm was not produced bymy will. Totally capitulating to Du Ponts injured Frenchpatriotism, the president confessed he was all too aware ofthe danger of an alliance with Great Britain. It wouldonly be better than to have no friend, he wrote.

By this time, there was not much left of the letter toLivingston. Confusing matters still more, the presidentdashed off a letter to the minister that would go throughthe regular mail, in which he wrote that the letter Du Pontwould deliver was not to be construed as a sign that he wasready to go to war. He also admitted that he might haveventured into the province of the secretary of stateevidence that Jefferson knew how badly he needed thecool intellect of James Madison to navigate these shoalwaters.

Aside from temperament, is there an explanation forJeffersons erratic behavior? A probable answer is the fero-cious attacks on his policies and reputation by aggressiveFederalist editors who were hoping to undo the Republi-cans narrow victory in 1800. This was a new experiencefor this thin-skinned man and his party. When the Feder-alists were in power, it was the Republican newspapers thathad been on the attack, and Jefferson had covertly partic-ipated in not a few of their assaults.


c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 41


In the spring of 1802, one of the Republican editorswho had led the press campaign against the Federaliststurned on the president and began giving him a veryunpleasant taste of this partisan medicine. Scottish-bornJames Callender thought Jefferson should reward him forhis previous services by making him postmaster of Rich-mond. When the president demurred, Callender beganpublishing in the Richmond Recorder Jeffersons indiscreetletters of earlier years, in which he praised Callender for hissmears of Presidents Adams and Washington and enclosedsubstantial checks to keep the calumnies coming.

Also very much in the fray was the New York EveningPost, a newspaper founded by Alexander Hamilton. ThePost tirelessly warned readers that Jeffersons drastic reduc-tions of the navy and army, inspired by the inviolable anduniversal peace promised in the Treaty of Mortefontaine,were endangering the nations safety. In the Federalist bas-tion of Massachusetts, the New England Palladiumspewed even nastier venom on the democratic emperorand his supposed Republican simplicity, which was sup-ported by a hundred toiling slaves at Monticello. AsLouisiana became a topic of concern throughout thecountry, the Federalists roasted Jefferson and his party fortheir past pro-French sympathies and wondered sarcasti-cally how they would deal with these new neighbors, whopreferred to settle most disputes with the bayonet.

On May 1, 1802, Secretary of State James Madison senta letter to Robert Livingston that was drenched in gloom.Louisiana becomes daily more and more a source ofpainful apprehensions. Livingstons latest letters had

c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 42

made it clear that no hope remains that France mightabandon the project. Madison could only urge Livingstonto return to the attack, reminding Talleyrand that theworst events are to be apprehended if France wentahead. Livingston should also renew his effort to buy theFloridas and New Orleans. While the secretary of statedeclined to name a price, the United States would considerthe purchase a most precious acquisition and great lib-erality would be displayed to consummate the sale.

The melancholy tone made it clear that Madison didnot have much hope that anything would come of thisdiplomacy. With Santo Domingo all but conquered, thereseemed to be little that the United States could do to pre-vent Napoleon Bonaparte from building Talleyrands wallof brass in the great valley of the Mississippi River.


c04.qxd 4/15/03 9:11 AM Page 43

5Aedes Aegyptito the Rescue

On Santo Domingo, yellow fever continued to decimateGeneral Leclercs army. He managed to conceal its impactand maintain an appearance of strength. But he dependedmore and more heavily on the support of the black gener-als who had switched to his side, especially HenriChristophe and Jean Dessalines.

On June 11, 1802, Leclerc wrote to Napoleon: If theFirst Consul wishes to have an army in Santo Domingo inthe month of October, he must have it sent from France.By that month, the harried general estimated his twenty-thousand-man force would have dwindled to four thou-sand demoralized troops. The ravages of sickness here aretoo great for words. Not a day passes without my beingtold of the death of someone whom I have cause to regretbitterly.

Leclerc said his own health was declining rapidly. Mancannot work here much without risking his life . . . the

44

c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 44

government must seriously think of sending me a succes-sor. It is quite impossible for me to remain more than sixmonths. By that time, he hoped to be able to hand overthe colony in a state of peace. But he gloomily added thathis health was so wretched he wondered if he could lastthat long.

Into this delicate situation exploded stunning newsfrom France. Napoleon Bonaparte had decided to reinsti-tute slavery on Guadaloupe and, when the time seemedright, on Santo Domingo. In the meantime, the slave tradewas again authorized on both islands. Worst of all was aclause in the law that henceforth barred men of color ormulattoes from calling themselves citizens of France. Thisprivilege had played a vital role in keeping the islands tensof thousands of mulattoes on the side of the whites.

Bonaparte had yielded to pressure from refugee plantersfrom Santo Domingo and from numerous merchants in LeHavre and other French ports who had grown rich on theslave trade. His wife, Josephine, who was born in Mar-tinique and whose family had owned a sugar plantation onSanto Domingo, was also rumored to have played a part inthe decision to restore slavery.

Toussaint LOuverture had persuaded many formerslaves to return to the sugarcane fields to work as drafteesin the service of the state. They had done so reluctantly,and had not reacted well to his seizure and deportation.When the news of their possible reenslavement reachedthem, they rose in fury at this betrayal of the revolutionspromise of liberty. French soldiers and civilians wereattacked everywhere on the island.

A E D E S A E G Y P T I T O T H E R E S C U E 45

c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 45


General Leclerc was amazed by the ferocity of theblacks assaults. They die with incredible fanaticismtheylaugh at death; it is the same with the women, hereported. The astonished French commander concludedhe would have to kill everyone above the age of twelve, apolicy he proceeded to put into brutal practice. But it didnot prevent whole regions of Santo Domingo fromremaining in violent insurrection.

By August 6, a demoralized Leclerc virtually accusedNapoleon of being the source of his woes. I entreatedyou, Citizen Consul, to do nothing which would makethem anxious about their liberty until I was ready, hewrote. That moment was rapidly approaching. But thelaw authorizing the slave trade and reestablishing slavery inGuadaloupe destroyed the moral force Leclerc had triedto establish as a spokesman of the French Revolutionsideals. Now, he could do nothing by persuasion. I candepend only on force and I have no troops.

Bluntly, the distraught general told his brother-in-lawthat he would have to send a new army and above allmoney. That potent word sent bitterness swelling throughLeclercs soul. He inveighed against being left withoutfunds as I have in a country where purchases are made onlyfor their weight in gold. With money he also might havegot rid of much discontent by bribing some black leaders.

If the first consul had been a witness to the difficultieshe had overcome and the results he had obtained, Leclercwrote, Bonaparte too would be grieved to see all that Ihave done here on the point of being destroyed. Still,Leclerc had hopes of succeeding by brute force. I make

c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 46

terrible examples, and since terror is the only resource leftto me, I employ it. In the town of Tortuga, he hangedsixty out of four hundred fifty rebels. Now everythingthere was in perfect order.

But the situation was worsened by merchants and for-mer plantation owners who were arriving daily fromFrance, thinking the island was pacified. They spoke ofnothing but buying slaves, further enraging the blacks. Italmost seemed as if there was a general conspiracy to pre-vent the restoration of San[to] Domingo to the Republic.

Leclercs own health continued to decline. Although hevowed to serve Napoleon with the same zeal he had dis-played in other campaigns, he was now so weak that hewas no longer able to ride a horse. You must send me asuccessor, he warned the first consul. With 60 percent ofhis officers dead, Leclerc saw no one on the island whocould replace him. If Napoleon continued to abandon usto ourselves, Santo Domingo would be lost and oncelost you will never regain it.

Further worsening Leclercs situation was the revisedpolicy that Secretary of State James Madison had institutedtoward Santo Domingos civil war. The U.S. governmentmade no attempt to stop American merchants from trad-ing with the black rebels, shipping them guns and ammu-nition as well as food. The enraged French threatened tosend captured blacks to the United States, where theywould spread slave revolts throughout the South.

The infernal French at this moment are vomiting alltheir wretched blacks upon our coast, reported oneSoutherners letter reprinted in a Washington paper. The


c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 47


story turned out to be a Federalist fiction aimed at influ-encing the 1802 congressional elections.

In June 1802, relations between France and the UnitedStates were aggravated by an extremely hostile articlepublished in the Gazette de France, a newspaper that wasregarded as the French governments mouthpiece. Thearticle descanted on how the French army in SantoDomingo had found in U.S. ships well-oiled guns andammunition destined for the black rebels. What wasbehind this betrayal of Jeffersons promise to help Franceregain the colony? Unquestionably it was the UnitedStates ambition to rule over the new world and to placeunder its yoke all the West-India colonies.

There was only one way to prevent this obnoxious new-comer from achieving such power, the Gazette articlecontinued: Frances acquisition of Louisiana would createan impenetrable barrier to America expansion and be acounterpoise to the domination of the United States.Talleyrands wall of brass was still alive and well in theFrench vision of a regained colonial empire.

The article created a sensation when it reached theUnited States. Federalist newspapers called Jeffersonsadministration weak and naive. They were doing nothingabout this looming threat of a hostile Napoleonic France.It made the Jeffersonians policy of reducing the countrysarmy and navy look more idiotic with every passing day.The situation was not improved by statements supposedlymade by angry French officers on Santo Domingo thatwhen the French army got to Louisiana, it would bringthe United States to its senses.

c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 48

Secretary of State Madison called in Charg dAffairesPichon for some very tough talk. The Gazette de Francearticle seemed to imply that France was planning to try tosplit up the United States. Madison told him the schemewould not work. The Westerners and the Easterners shareda common language and the same political ideals. Even ifthe strategy succeeded, the secretary added, the Atlanticstates would remain strong and such meddling wouldmake them Frances inveterate enemy.

President Jefferson followed up this lecture with anequally blunt conversation. He warned Pichon that for tenyears France had been pursuing an anti-American foreignpolicy. If they kept it up now, with a friend of France in theWhite House, the policy would inevitably end up makingan alliance with Great Britain universally popular in thecountry.

Poor Pichon was already a very unhappy man. GeneralLeclerc had not only blamed him for his failure to obtainmoney and supplies from the United States. He had alsowrathfully accused him of being more devoted to the U.S.government than to France. Infuriated by Pichons adviceto tread lightly with the Americans, Leclerc had called hima miserable, a fripon who was probably making money onthe side from the trifling amount of supplies he had man-aged to buy.

Although Pichon saw his diplomatic career collapsingbefore his eyes, he stubbornly sent his government theadvice he thought it needed. He tore into the article in theGazette de France, which was almost certainly sponsoredby Talleyrand. France was pursuing a ruinous policy


c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 49


toward the United States. Instead of preferring a strongand independent ally to help them oppose the power ofEngland, they were talking about repressing their growthby force.

This policy, he concluded, would throw the Americansinevitably under the hand of England. Pichon urged Tal-leyrand, and by implication Napoleon, to pay more atten-tion to the reports he kept sending them of the UnitedStates amazing growth. It was far wiser to be resigned totheir future power and thus acquire the merit of approv-ing what the force of events will give them in spite of us.

In Europe, meanwhile, the ingenious Minister Plenipo-tentiary Livingston had developed another angle of attack.When rumors swirled through Paris of how badly thingswere going in the conquest of Santo Domingo, the NewYork grandee wrote an unctuously sympathetic letter to Tal-leyrand, expressing his concern that General Leclercs wife,Napoleons beautiful sister, Pauline, was being exposed tothe unhealthy climate of the island during the hot season.

Livingston wondered if Madame Leclerc would be inter-ested in retreating to New York City for a few months. Hisbrother, Edward Livingston, was the mayor, and theambassador assured Talleyrand that Edward would behappy to lend Madame Leclerc his town house, which wasin the best and the healthiest situation in that city. Onthe other hand, if she preferred a country residence,Pauline would be more than welcome in his own DutchessCounty mansion, Clermont, on the majestic Hudson River.

Livingston never received a reply to this artful invita-tion. Pauline remained in Santo Domingo. Livingston later

c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 50

said that he hoped the suggestion would stir gratitude inthe first consuls heart, if Talleyrand passed it on. It wasalso a sly way of telling the foreign minister that Livingstonknew the creation of Talleyrands wall of brass was notgoing as smoothly as Bonaparte had predicted.

Undeterred by the foreign ministers snub, Livingstonwent to work on a far more ambitious communication,nothing less than a state paper analyzing the futility ofFrances acquisition of Louisiana. This memorial was anargument aimed not at Bonaparte but at the men aroundhim, and at other thoughtful Frenchmen whose opinionsmight influence the governments policy.

An overseas colony, Livingston argued, was only valu-able if a country had surplus population to send to it orsurplus capital to invest in it. France had neither. A chronicshortage of capital was crippling that countrys attempt tobecome a manufacturing nation in competition with Eng-land. Worse, overseas colonies had to be guarded at greatexpense in men and money from hostile powers.

Moreover, ten years of warfare had so badly damagedFrances West Indies possessions, in particular SantoDomingo, that millions would have to be invested inslaves, buildings, and agricultural equipment to makethem productive again. Livingston boldly predicted thatages will elapse before Santo Domingo will cease to drainthe wealth & strength of France without an equivalentreturn. Other overseas colonies in South America (FrenchGuyana) and in the East Indies also needed capital invest-ment to make them profitable.

All this information led to the pertinent question: What


c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 51


use was Louisiana to France? Livingstons answer was:worse than nothing. Developing the vast territory wouldrequire a staggering investment in slaves to clear the land.That meant a far slower return on the invested capital oncethe land began to produce. Then there was the question ofwhat would be grown: Many of its commodities, such assugar, were already being produced in huge quantities inthe West Indies. As for lumberthe northern Americanstates exchanged it with the French West Indies formolasses, which the Americans turned into rum. Since theisland colonies did not make rum, the molasses was other-wise useless, so for all practical purposes, the lumber wasacquired free of charge. Lumber from Louisiana woulddestroy this thriving trade.

What about populating Louisiana with French emi-grants? That, too, would require a huge initial investment.It would be ten or even twenty years before those peoplewould begin to create a profitable economy. Would they bea market for French exports? Not likely. French winewould not survive long in a hot climate. And shippingFrench goods up the Mississippi to western Americans wasa very expensive way to transport anything. The costcould not compete with goods pouring into the West fromBritish and U.S. merchants in Philadelphia and New York,who had a burgeoning network of canals linking localrivers that enabled them to sell on cheap & easy terms.

Livingston next turned to the danger of a collisionbetween France and the United States on the Mississippi.The mere threat of such an event was likely to create anatmosphere of hostility toward France, sharply reducing

c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 52

U.S. enthusiasm for its products. Livingston saw only onesolution to the problem: France should sell the port ofNew Orleans to the United States at once, reserving forherself the perpetual right of entry. No American wouldobject to this provision. The sale would be an act of gen-erosity and wisdom that would guarantee the warmest pos-sible friendship between the United States and France. Inyears to come, perhaps a colonized Louisiana wouldbecome a place where French manufacturers would be ableto sell their goods to their U.S. friends.

The American minister had his memorial translated intoFrench and ordered twenty copies from a printer, distrib-uting them to influential Frenchmen in Napoleon Bona-partes entourage. It was a neat way for Livingston to givethe back of his hand to Talleyrand and his stonewallingtactics. The memorial was an artful document. The firsthalf, the devastating critique of the value of Louisiana toFrance, was nicely masked by the second part, the pie-in-the-sky vision of Louisianas prosperity if Napoleondecided to sell New Orleans to keep the Americans happy.

There was only one thing wrong with this well-thought-out essay: it was unlikely to have any impact on NapoleonBonaparte, a man who did not think in terms that hadmeaning to ordinary people. Profit and loss were far lessimportant than an extension of his imperious will whichhad become synonymous in his mindand in the minds ofmillions of his followerswith French power in all parts ofthe world.

This reality became ominously clear to Livingston andmany other people in August 1802, when a blatantly


c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 53


engineered plebiscite made Bonaparte first consul for life.A majority of the French people voted against the idea.But Napoleons younger brother, Lucien Bonaparte, theminister of the interior, threw out the no votes andannounced that the Man of Destiny had won, 3,600,000to 8,374. Anyone who objected was swiftly taken into cus-tody by Joseph Fouche, the ruthless minister of police.

A discouraged Livingston wrote to Secretary of StateMadison in September: There never was a government inwhich less could be done by negotiation than hereThereis no people, no legislature, no councilorsOne man iseverything.

c05.qxd 4/15/03 9:12 AM Page 54

6The Dying General

On Santo Domingo, the military situation continued todeteriorate. In mid-September, General Leclerc wrote adespairing letter to Napoleon. For the past four months hehad survived in his horrible situation by adroitness.He had no army worth mentioning. Yellow fever waskilling 100 to 120 men a day and a great part of theblack troops he had seduced from their allegiance to Tous-saint had deserted him. The rebels had seized control ofthe mountainous part of the island, and the generals onlyhope of ousting them was a war of extermination whichwill cost me many men.

After reiterating his need for reinforcements and money,Leclerc again urged Bonaparte to select his successor. Headded that he was thinking seriously of quitting thiscolony without waiting to hear from the first consul. Noordinary general would display such effrontery to hiscommander in chief. Leclerc was taking advantage of hisstatus as Napoleons brother-in-law.

I leave this [letter] to go back to my bed, where I am

55

c06.qxd 4/15/03 9:13 AM Page 55


hoping not to stay long, Leclerc concluded, underscoringhis weakened health. This optimism about an early recov-ery soon proved to be unjustified. On November 2, 1802,the dashing General Leclerc died on Santo Domingo.

This bad news only made First Consul Bonaparte moregrimly determined to take Santo Domingo and Louisianaas well, according to his original plan. He shipped moretroops to the embattled island and made General Donatiende Rochambeau their commander. He ordered a separatetwenty-thousand-man expedition to Louisiana to prepareto sail under the command of another highly regardedgeneral, Claude Perrin Victor.

the louisiana purchase

Documents