American point of view, it is an attempt to enforce in war, a wrong which we are unable to prevent in peace-an attempt to which this country cannot submit without being false to the idea that underlies its existence as a nation. The American government is based on the principle that governments derive 'their just powers from the consent of the governed.' Your colonial theory, and your Rule of 1756 are based upon the principle that 'might makes right,' that the power of the mother country gives it the right to dispose of its colonists without regard to their interests."

QUESTIONS.

1. Why did France wish to leave the United States in doubt as to the extent of the Louisiana territory?

2. How did Spain get possession of West Florida?

3. State and criticize Livingston's reasoning to show that West Florida belonged to the United States.

Spain?

4. What was the Mobile Act and what effect did it have on

5. Why did not Jefferson recommend commercial restrictions against Spain and France?

6. Why was he disposed to seek an alliance with England?

7. What was the Rule of the War of 1756 ?

8. State and discuss the principle upon which it was based.

9. In 1805, Madison wrote a letter to Jefferson containing the following passage: "If she (France) should persist in disavowing her right to sell West Florida to the United States, and above all can prove it to have been the mutual understanding with Spain that West Florida was no part of Louisiana,* it will place

*Italics are mine.

our claim on very different ground-such probably as would not be approved by the world, and such certainly as would not with that approbation be maintained by force. If our right be good against Spain at all, it must be supported by those rigid maxims of technical law which have little weight in national questions generally, and none at all when opposed to the principles of universal equity." Discuss it.

10. September 30, 1805, Madison wrote to Jefferson: "At Paris, I think Armstrong ought to receive instructions to extinguish in the French government every hope of turning our controversy with Spain into a French job, public or private. ' What did he mean? Was his subsequent action in harmony with this statement?

CHAPTER XXX.

CONQUERING WITHOUT WAR.

HE presidential election of 1804 had resulted in an

THE

overwhelming victory for the Republicans. Jef ferson and George Clinton received one hundred and sixty-two out of a total of one hundred and seventy-six votes. But this victory of the Republicans was not a victory for Republicanism. According to Republicanism, the general government had no domestic functions to perform, it was only the foreign branch of our governmental system. But the doctrine of State's Rights had never in any Federalist administration been more completely disregarded than in the purchase of Louisiana, and in the laws providing for taking possession of it, and for its government. The great Republican victory, therefore, was only a proof that large numbers of men who had been Federalists in 1800 believed that Jefferson was sincere when he said that every difference of opinion was not a difference of principle-that there was not, after all, any radical difference between Federalism and Republicanism. His second administration undeceived them. In his second administration, Jefferson proved the strength of his conviction that at least, in some cases, commercial restrictions could be relied on as a substitute for war. The issue of his attempt to put this

theory into practice, decided the fate of Jeffersonian Republicanism. By the close of his first administration, there was nothing left of it except its theory of foreign concerns; by the close of his second, that also was gone.

Foreign ministers to the United States were familiar with Jefferson's aversion to war. Louis Marie Turreau, the first minister from France to the United States since Adet's recall, had hardly been in the country six months before he was able to state with great accuracy the policy and aims of the government. July 9, 1805, he wrote a dispatch to Talleyrand containing the following paragraph: "The Federal government * * * will avoid every serious difference which might lead to aggression, and will constantly show itself an enemy to war. But does the system of encroachment which prevails here agree with a temper so pacific? Certainly not, at first sight; and yet, unless circumstances change, the United States will succeed in reconciling the contradiction. To conquer without war is the first fact in their politics."

Turreau himself was teaching Jefferson that the policy of conquering without war had its inconveniences, even in case it was successful. Three times during his first year at Washington he

mands.

dared to transmit the commands of Na- Napoleon's compoleon to the President of the United States.

The President was urging certain claims of the government against the court of Spain; Napoleon, through Turreau, told him he must abandon them. When General Moreau was on the point of visiting the United States, Turreau, obeying the orders of Napoleon, wrote Madison that his (Moreau's) arrival and residence in the United States "should be marked by no demonstration which passes the bounds of hospitality."* When Napoleon learned that a bill, introduced at the suggestion of Madison through the influence of Turreau, providing that no trade, whether armed or unarmed, should be carried on by Americans with San Domingo-had failed to pass, he was in a great rage. San Domingo was a French colony which had thrown off the yoke of France and Napoleon was unable to subdue it. Wishing to get the help of the United States, he had directed Turreau to request the American government to stop all American trade with San Domingo. When Napoleon learned that the bill, introduced through complaisance to him, had failed to pass, he ordered Talleyrand to say to Armstrong that the trade was "shameful," and that it was "time" for it "to stop." Talleyrand wrote Armstrong, that this system "must last no longer," and Turreau, in a note to Madison, repeated the phrase "must last no longer."+

This time Congress was obedient. The last day of

*MSS. State department Archives.

†State Papers, II, 726.