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Serial Revolutions 1848
Serial Revolutions 1848
Writing, Politics, Form

C LA R E P E TT I TT
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the
University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing
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© Clare Pettitt 2022
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2022
Impression: 1
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system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
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terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,
Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same
condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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ISBN 978–0–19–883041–2
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Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.
Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website
referenced in this work.
For Kitty and Marina
I nostri gioielli
 Acknowledgements

In 1848 Europe became newly conscious of itself. But in Britain,

1848 revealed a schism between ‘Europeans’ and ‘Little Englanders’.
A schism which is still with us: I was researching and writing Serial
Revolutions:1848 across the Brexit referendum and up to the final
throes of Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiations. I finished this book
during the first lockdown caused by the COVID-19 crisis, an
epidemic which pushed Brexit out of the news headlines to reveal
instead the fragility and futility of national boundaries in an
irreversibly globalized world. Just as I was finishing the first draft of
the book, the Black Lives Matter protests started their own serial
global movement. In the US they moved from state to state, in
Europe from country to country, city to city. Unlike the revolutions of
1848, they were largely peaceful and bloodless. But the call to think
politically again about the social was like a déja vue. For nearly two
centuries since Frederick Douglass called out ‘the gross injustice and
cruelty to which [the black woman and man] is the constant victim’,
that cruelty and injustice has shown little sign of abating.1 As
historians, literary critics, academics, and citizens, we need to know
our history better. We need to better understand how European our
‘British’ identity truly is, and how the violence of empire and the
catastrophe of slavery are still determining our modern world. The
nationalisms of 1848 which had briefly seemed to belong to ‘the
people’ were quickly co-opted and they developed into something
much darker in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Now
nationalism seems to have taken deep root. We live with and in
history, and it is not inevitable that the history of today will
necessarily be any less appalling than that of yesterday. But 1848
also generated ideas of universalism, pacifism, feminism, and
different versions of socialism and communism. Returning to 1848,
we can choose to look back on that ‘springtime of the peoples’ as a
moment of tragi-comic failure, obliterated by the brutalities that
followed, or we can look again, and see it as a proleptic moment of
stored potential, an extraordinary series of events that generated
long-distance and sustainable ideas about global citizenship,
international cooperation and a shared and common humanity which
have not yet been fully understood or realized. The springtime of
1848 has been long delayed, but, with some effort, and more
understanding, we can bring its forgotten meanings back to life so
they can blossom and flourish in the present.
I gave very full acknowledgements in the first volume of this
series, Serial Forms: The Unfinished Project of Modernity 1815–
1848, and as this second volume goes to press only eighteenth
months later, I will not reiterate them all here. I would however like
to thank the people who helped me with this particular book in very
specific ways: Caroline Arscott; Mary Beard; Laurel Brake; Trev
Broughton; Christopher Clark; David Edgerton; Bernhard Fulda; Paul
Gilroy; Isobel Hofmeyr; Richard Kirkland; Julia Kuehn; David Laven;
Claire Lawton; Sharon Marcus; Roger Parker; John Stokes; Harriet
Thompson; Mark Turner; Adam Tooze; and Patrick Wright. My
husband, Cristiano Ristuccia, was an inspiration throughout, having
been taught an entirely different version of the history of the
nineteenth century at his school in Rome to the British-imperial
history that was delivered at mine in Manchester. My elder daughter
Kitty helped me with page numbers and references. Of course, all
the views expressed in this work, and any mistakes in the chapters
that follow, are entirely my own.
Part of the book was written while I was on a Leverhulme
Research Fellowship in 2019, and I am extremely grateful to the
Leverhulme Trust for supporting my work, but I am even more
grateful for all that they do to sustain research in the humanities
more generally in this country. I wrote most of Chapters 1, 6, and 7
at Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden and I thank the staff there for
their welcome and hospitality. I want to thank King’s College London
once more for its commitment to research in the humanities, and its
generous contribution towards image reproduction and indexing
costs for this book. And I again thank Johanna Ward and Domniki
Papadimitriou in the Cambridge University Library who welcomed me
back for this second deluge of digital image orders without flinching.
The Bibliothèque nationale de France was also exemplary in dealing
with my many image orders with great care and efficiency in the
midst of a pandemic.
Jacqueline Norton at Oxford University Press has shown an
ambition on my behalf which has been immensely empowering.
Thank you, Jacqueline. The anonymous reader of this book
manuscript for the Press was generous and attentive to the whole
argument, suggesting specific improvements that were spot-on, and
I thank them wholeheartedly for that. Aimee Wright once again
guided the book through the Press with consummate skill and
attention to detail. Howard Emmens copy-edited this book, as he did
my last one, with great erudition and precision and it is much better
for his input. Vasuki Ravichandran and her team at Straive were
impeccably efficient and kept us all to production deadlines. Hardly
anything in this book has been previously published, but an earlier
version of Chapter 10 did appear as ‘Dickens and the Form of the
Historical Present’, in Daniel Tyler (ed.), Dickens’s Style (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 110–36, and it is repurposed
and republished here with the permission of Cambridge University
Press.
I started presenting material that would eventually find its way
into this book in June 2007, when I gave a conference paper on
Dickens in the 1840s in Genoa, Italy. Since then, I have given
plenaries, papers, and seminars about aspects of 1848 at Hong Kong
University and in Venice, at the Media History Seminar in London,
and in Birmingham, New York, Delhi, Exeter, Los Angeles,
Nottingham, Oxford, Surrey, Warwick, and York. In Cambridge, I
have presented material to the Cultural History Seminar, the
Cambridge Italian Research Network Symposium, the French
Department Nineteenth-Century Seminar, and the Cambridge
University Gender Studies Seminar. My thanks to all these very
various audiences for helping me to discover that this was really a
project about Britain, Europe, and America in 1848, and also a
project about Britain, Europe, and America in 2021.

1 Frederick Douglass, ‘“The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro”: Oration
delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, by Frederick Douglass, 5 July
1852’, Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, ed. Philip S. Foner and
Yuval Taylor (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2000), pp. 188–206, p. 196.
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 Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations

Introduction: Why 1848 Matters

1. Revolutionary Tourists

2. Moving Pictures

3. The Ragged of Europe

4. The Inter-National Novel

5. Under Siege

6. Serially Speaking

7. Slavery and Citizenship

8. O bella libertà

9. Forms of the Future

10. The Grammar of Revolution

Flaubert’s Afterword

Bibliography
Index
 List of Illustrations

0.1. Julius Steinmetz, ‘Berlin am 18. und 19. März 1848’ (Meißen,
1848) [Berlin 18–19, March 1848] [Credit: bpk/Deutsches
Historisches Museum, Berlin].
0.2. ‘Alexandre Dumas Borne in Triumph by the People’, Illustrated
London News (11 March 1848): 162. [Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
NPR.C.313].
0.3. Alexandre Lacauchie, ‘Frédérick Lemaître, dans Toussaint-
Louverture’, lithograph (Paris: Martinet, 1850). The white
French actor, Frédérick Lemaître as Toussaint Louverture,
leader of the Haitian revolution in the play of the same name
by Alphonse de Lamartine at the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-
Martin. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.1. [Anonyme], ‘Le Trône Brulé’: ‘The People Burning the Throne
at the Place de la Bastille, 1848’, French lithograph. [Musée de
la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France © Archives
Charmet/Bridgeman Images].
2.2. Nathaniel Currier, ‘The Burning of the Throne Paris 25th
February 1848’. Hand-coloured American lithograph (1848).
This lithograph was produced in France (see Fig. 2.1). It then
travelled swiftly to America, where its caption was offered in
both French and English. [D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts,
Springfield, Mass. USA/Alamy].
2.3. ‘View of the Conflagration of the City of Hamburg’, Illustrated
London News (14 May 1842): 1. [Reproduced by kind
 permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
NPR.C.313].
2.4. ‘Revolution in Prussia: Conflict before the Royal Palace, At
Berlin’, Illustrated London News (1 April 1848): 214.
[Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge
University Library NPR.C.313].
2.5. Masthead, Illustrated London News (London) (8 July 1848).
[Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge
University Library NPR.C.313].
2.6. Masthead, L’Illustration (Paris) (26 juin 1847). [© Bibliothèque
nationale de France].
2.7. Illusterad Tidning (Stockholm), (21 Maj 1859). [Credit: Royal
Danish Library].
2.8. Masthead, Illustrirte Zeitung (Leipzig) (1 Juli 1843). [©
Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.9. Illustreret Tidende (Copenhagen) (12 October 1862). [Credit:
Royal Danish Library].
2.10. Masthead, Il Mondo Illustrato (Turin) (18 dicembre 1847). [©
Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.11. Paul Gavarni, ‘Insurgent Prisoners in Paris Receiving Relief
from their Families’, Illustrated London News (22 July 1848):
33. [Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of
Cambridge University Library NPR.C.313].
2.12. ‘Les femmes et les enfants des insurgés aux portes des
prisones’, L’Illustration (29 juillet 1848): 325. [© Bibliothèque
nationale de France].
2.13. ‘Barricade in the rue St. Martin’, Illustrated London News (4
March 1848). [Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics
of Cambridge University Library NPR.C.313].
2.14. ‘Barricade in der Rue St. Martin in Paris am 23 Februar’,
Illustrirte Zeitung (11 März 1848): 177. [© Bibliothèque
 nationale de France].
2.15. ‘Death of Archbishop of Paris’, Illustrated London News (8 July
1848). [Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of
Cambridge University Library NPR.C.313].
2.16. ‘Tod des Erzbischofs von Paris’, Illustrirte Zeitung (8 Juli 1848).
[© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.17. ‘The Great Sea Serpent of 1848’, Punch, or the London
Charivari 15 (4 November 1848): 193. [Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
T992.b.1.8].
2.18. ‘Apparition du serpent de mer’, Le Charivari (23 décembre
1848), n.p. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.19. ‘Die Große Seeschlange von 1848’, Illustrirte Zeitung (30
Dezember 1848): 436. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.20. ‘Newsvendor on the Boulevards’, Illustrated London News (1
April 1848): 211. [Reproduced by kind permission of the
Syndics of Cambridge University Library NPR.C.313].
2.21. ‘Le marchand des Journaux ambulant’, L’Illustration (10 juin
1848): 229. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.22. ‘Les grandes industries du jour, scènes de moeurs par
Andrieux: ‘Les Crieurs de journaux. – La onzième edition de la
Presse; tirage de l’après-midi’, L’Illustration (1 avril 1848): 68.
[© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.23. ‘Das Reichsministerium’, Illustrirte Zeitung (16 Dezember
1848): 396. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.24. ‘Vue intérieure de la salle de l’Assemblé nationale’,
L’Illustration (13 mai 1848): 169. [© Bibliothèque nationale de
France].
2.25. ‘The French Provisional Government: Louis Blanc, President of
the Operatives’ Commission; Garnier Pages, Minister of
Finance; Armand Marrast, Mayor of Paris’, Illustrated London
 News (18 March 1848): 181–2. [Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
NPR.C.313].
2.26. ‘Portraits of the French Deputies’, Punch, or the London
Charivari xiv (13 May 1848): 203. [Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
T992.b.1.7].
2.27. ‘Interior of a Chamber – a family of insurgents protecting a
barricade in the Rue St Antoine’, Illustrated London News (1
July 1848): 418. [Reproduced by kind permission of the
Syndics of Cambridge University Library NPR.C.313].
2.28. ‘Inneres einer Abeiterstube bei Bertherdigung einer Barricade
in der Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine zu Paris am 23 Juni’.
[‘Inside of a workers’ room while a barricade is being built in
the Rue de Faubourg St. Antoine in Paris on June 23’]
Illustrirte Zeitung (8 Juli 1848). [© Bibliothèque nationale de
France].
2.29. ‘Ruines de la maison rue du faubourg Saint-Antoine, no.29’,
L’Illustration (1–8 juillet 1848): 280. [© Bibliothèque nationale
de France].
2.30. ‘There is no place like home’. Double-page spread. Punch, or
the London Charivari (20 January 1849): 28–9. [Reproduced
by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University
Library T992.b.1.8].
2.31. ‘Où peut-on être mieux qu’au sein de sa Famille’, L’Illustration
(10 février 1849): 373. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.32. ‘Horloge indiquant les heures dans les principals villes du
globe par rapport au méridien de Paris’, L’Illustration (14
octobre 1848): 112. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.33. ‘Die Straßburger-Münsteruhr’, Illustrirte Zeitung (30 Dezember
1848): 433. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
2.34. Télégraphe electro-magnétique du professeur Morse’,
L’Illustration (26 juin 1847): 260. [© Bibliothèque nationale de
France].
2.35. Detail of the masthead of Il Mondo Illustrato (1847). [©
Bibliothèque nationale de France].
3.1. Draner [Jules Renard], Robert Macaire. Ambigu, 1823 & 1880
(Frédéric Lemaître)’. This image, made after the actor’s death
in 1876, commemorates Lemaître in his most famous role at
the Théâtre de l’Ambigu. [© Bibliothèque nationale de
France].
3.2. Honoré Daumier, ‘Caricaturana’ or ‘Robert Macaire’, Le
Charivari (20 août 1836): n.p. This was the first of a series of
a hundred cartoons published in Charles Philipon’s daily paper
between 20 August 1836 and 25 November 1838. [©
Bibliothèque nationale de France].
3.3. Henry Valentin, ‘Theatre de Porte-Saint-Martin. - Le Chiffonier
de Paris, 1er tableau du 2e acte. - Frédérick Lemaître: le père
Jean dans son bouge.’ (1847). [© Bibliothèque nationale de
France].
3.4. Honoré Daumier, ‘Le Chiffonier Philosophe. “Fume, fanfan,
fume…n’y a qu’ la pipe distingue…” (Tout Ce Qu’on Voudra)’ Le
Charivari (28 novembre 1847). [© Bibliothèque nationale de
France].
3.5. ‘Le Chiffon deviendra Papier’ from ‘Une planche
encyclopédique’, publiée avec texte par Le Journal de Mères et
des Enfants à Paris (1850) (‘Rags will become Paper’ from an
educational poster showing the process of paper-making). [©
Bibliothèque nationale de France].
3.6. ‘The Effects of Our Own Revolution’, Punch, or the London
Charivari (25 March 1848): 130. [Reproduced by kind
permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library
T992.b.1.7].
3.7. [Anon.] ‘Dips into the Diary of Barrabas Bolt, Esq.’, Man in the
Moon 3:17 (1848): 243. G.W.M. Reynolds is shown here
fraternizing with a French socialist who resembles caricatures
of the extreme French radical republican Louis Auguste
Blanqui. [Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of
Cambridge University Library T900.e.6.3].
3.8. Ackermann’s Print of Benjamin Haydon, ‘Waiting for The Times
(after an adjourned debate)’ (1831). [© The Trustees of the
British Museum].
3.9. Charles Joseph Traviès de Villers, ‘Caricatures du jour: la
lecture des Mystères de Paris: “Après vous, monsieur, s’il vous
plait!” ’ Le Charivari (7 novembre 1842): n.p. [© Bibliothèque
nationale de France].
3.10. ‘Literature at a Stand’, Punch, or the London Charivari (13
March 1847): 113. [Reproduced by kind permission of the
Syndics of Cambridge University Library T992.b.1.6].
3.11. Map of Castelcicala, G.W.M. Reynolds, The Mysteries of
London (II, CLXXIV). [Reproduced by kind permission of the
Syndics of Cambridge University Library 8700.b.161].
5.1. Arthur Clough’s Rome Notebook, 1846–48. [Reproduced with
the kind permission of Balliol College Oxford archives].
8.1. Giorgio Mignati, ‘Salon at Casa Guidi’ (1861), watercolour.
[Special Collections, F.W. Olin Library, Mills College].
8.2. ‘Quelli che leggono i giornali con comodo. Attualità Caricature
di Japhet’ [Those who read the newspapers in comfort], Il
Mondo Illustrato (18 dicembre 1847): 809. [© Bibliothèque
nationale de France].
8.3. ‘Il Débats messo al Pileri, al caffè dell’Ussaro a Pisa. Attualità
Caricature di Japhet’ [The Débats newspaper put in the pillory,
at the caffè dell’Ussaro in Pisa], Il Mondo Illustrato (18
dicembre 1847): 809. The caffè dell’Ussaro was a meeting
 place in Pisa for intellectuals and supporters of the Italian
national cause. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
8.4. Tiny sketch by Elizabeth Barrett Browning of Piazza San Felice
during the September procession on the first page of a letter
to her sisters Arabella and Henrietta Moulton-Barrett
(Florence, 13 September 1847) The Brownings’
Correspondence 14, p. 307. The editors explain the locations
in the sketch. In the centre, above the crowd: ‘Piazza San
Felice alive & filled with people’; to the right: ‘viva P. IX’; to
the left: ‘The procession ending up at Piazza Pitti’; vertical in
left margin: ‘our palazzo’ [i.e. Casa Guidi]; above in left
margin: ‘via maggio’; top margin: ‘Palace of the Pitti—
surrounded by balconies of stone, most of them thronged’;
below (starting at ‘balconies’): ‘Foreign ladies being admitted
to the top of the great tower’. [Image courtesy of The
Camellia Collections].
8.5. ‘Dove si dovrebbero mandare. Attualità Caricature di Japhet’
[Where they should be sent], Il Mondo Illustrato (18 dicembre
1847): 809. [© Bibliothèque nationale de France].
9.1. ‘The death of Anita Garibaldi at Guiccioli Farm in Mandriole,
near Ravenna, Italy’, The Heroic Life & Career of Garibaldi. A
panel from a moving panorama exhibited in Britain in 1861.
[Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University
Library].
9.2. Odoardo Borrani, Il 26 aprile 1859 in Firenze (1861). [Alinari
Archives, Florence].
9.3. Odoardo Borrani, Le cucitrici di camicie rosse (1863). [Alinari
Archives, Florence].
9.4. Silvestro Lega, Canto di uno stornello (1867). [Alinari Archives,
Florence].
9.5. Odoardo Borrani, L’analfabeta (1869). [Alinari Archives,
Florence].
10.1. Giulio Romano, Frescoed Chamber of Giants: Side Wall,
Palazzo Tè, Mantua (1532–35). [Alinari Archives, Florence].
10.2. Giovanni Battista Castello detto il Bergamasco, La caduta di
Fetonte (1560), Villa di Tobia Pallavicino detta delle Peschiere,
Genova, Italy. [Photograph credit: Carlo Dell’Orto].
10.3. Richard Doyle, ‘Trotty Veck among the Bells’ (1844) Full-page
wood engraving for The Chimes: Third Quarter. [© Bodleian
Libraries, Oxford].
10.4. Richard Doyle, ‘Margaret and her Child’ (1844) Full-page wood
engraving for The Chimes: Fourth Quarter. [© Bodleian
Libraries, Oxford].
10.5. Daniel Maclise, ‘The Tower of the Chimes’ (1844) Full-page
wood engraving for The Chimes. [© Bodleian Library, Oxford].
10.6. Antonio da Correggio, Assunzione della Vergine [The
Assumption of the Virgin] (c.1522–1530) Fresco decorating
the dome of the Cathedral of Parma, Italy. [Alinari Archives,
Florence].
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 List of Abbreviations

AHC Arthur Hugh Clough

AHC Corr. The Correspondence of Arthur Hugh
Clough, ed. Frederick L. Mulhauser,
2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1957)
AHC Remains The Poems and Prose Remains of
Arthur Hugh Clough: with a
selection from his letters and a
memoir, edited by his wife [Blanche
Clough] (London: Macmillan & Co.,
1888)
CD Letters 3 The Letters of Charles Dickens, vol.
3: 1843–1847, ed. Madeline House,
Graham Storey, and Kathleen
Tillotson (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1974)
CD Letters 4 The Letters of Charles Dickens, vol.
4: 1844–1846, ed. Kathleen
Tillotson, pp. 645–7, p. 646
(hereafter)
EBB Elizabeth Barrett Browning
EBB Letters The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, ed. Frederic G. Kenyon
(London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1897)
vol. 1
EBB/RB Recollections Martin Garrett (ed.), Elizabeth
Barrett Browning and Robert
 Browning: Interviews and
Recollections (Basingstoke:
Macmillan Press, 2000)
FD Life and Writings 1 Philip S. Foner (ed.), The Life and
Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol.
1: Early Years, 1817–1849 (New
York: International Publishers, 1950)
FDP1 The Frederick Douglass Papers
1841–1846, ed. John W.
Blassingame et al., Series One, vol.
1
FD Speeches and Writings Frederick Douglass, Selected
Speeches and Writings, ed. Philip S.
Foner, abridged and adapted by
Yival Taylor (Chicago: Lawrence Hill,
1999)
ILN Illustrated London News
JPH James Pope-Hennessy, Monckton
Milnes: The Years of Promise, 1809–
1851 (London: Constable, 1949)
Later Lectures Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson
(eds), The Later Lectures of Ralph
Waldo Emerson 1843–1871, 2 vols
(Athens, GA: University of Georgia
Press, 2010)
MF Margaret Fuller
MF Letters 5 Robert N. Hudspeth (ed.), The
Letters of Margaret Fuller, vol. 5:
1848–1849 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1988)
RWE Ralph Waldo Emerson
RWE JMN 10 The Journals and Miscellaneous
Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson,
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The carrying-trade was not a matter about which Jefferson cared to
quarrel, for he held that Americans should not meddle with a
commerce which did not belong to them; yet the public anger was far
stronger against England than against Spain, and although the
newspapers talked incessantly of a Spanish war, Jefferson soon felt
that he should find great difficulty in preserving a British peace. That
he should incline to a war with Spain in alliance with England was
natural; but under no circumstances, and for no object, did Jefferson
wish for war with Great Britain. From the first he had relied upon his
power to coerce her by peaceable means; and the time had come
when some coercion must be applied. No one could longer doubt
that Pitt meant to keep what he had taken, and that the British policy
was preconcerted with deliberate purpose.
When Merry next called at the State Department he heard
nothing more about the misconduct of Spain or the advantages of a
powerful British navy.
“The lively sensation” produced by the seizures, wrote Merry to
Mulgrave,[92] December 2, “appears to have increased considerably
since I had the honor of writing to your Lordship by the last mail. The
commercial bodies at Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk have held
public meetings on this subject, and come to resolutions to transmit to
the Government of the United States particular statements of the
injuries they allege to be sustaining daily in their trade. I am sorry to
add that those public prints which are considered as the organs of the
Government ... have of late lost sight in a great measure of their
complaints against Spain, with a view, as may be suspected, to excite
and direct the whole national indignation against Great Britain....
“In addition, my Lord, to these circumstances, I have been sorry to
find in my recent conversations with Mr. Madison that he has treated
 this subject in a much more serious light than he had at first
represented it to me. At my last interview with him, two days ago, he
said that he had flattered himself that Mr. Monroe’s remonstrances to
your Lordship would not only have produced the liberation of all the
vessels which should have been detained previously to the 1st
November, but that, as that minister had been promised an answer in
writing to his representations, the reconsideration of the matter which
would probably have taken place before a written answer was given
might have induced his Majesty’s government, if not to give up
entirely, at least to modify to a tolerable degree, the principle upon
which they acted. It was true that the answer in question had not as
yet reached him, nor had he heard lately from Mr. Monroe; but he had
recently received information from an authentic though not an official
quarter, which gave him the strongest reason to apprehend that if any
reply at all in writing should be made on the subject, it would contain
nothing satisfactory.”
Madison raised his tone awkwardly. Mysterious “information from
an authentic quarter” was scarcely sufficient ground for so abrupt a
change, but Merry failed to press him on this point. The secretary
told the British minister that the government of England had
committed “an act of commercial hostility on this country, and that
the citizens of the United States would have a just claim of indemnity
for whatever effective losses they might sustain in consequence of it;
and he feared that these would be very considerable.” He hinted that
measures would be taken to seek redress; and although he did not
then foreshadow these measures, Merry read two days afterward in
the “National Intelligencer” the Resolutions and speech in which
Madison, in the year 1794, had urged commercial restrictions as the
true policy of the United States against the same British outrages.
The motive of republication was plain.
At about the same time Madison finished his pamphlet called
“Examination of the British Doctrine,” which in the course of the
coming session was laid on the desk of every senator and member.
The book was creditable to his literary and scholarly qualities. Clear,
calm, convincing, it left the British government no excuse for its
conduct; but, not without reason, John Randolph objected that as an
argument it was but a shilling pamphlet against eight hundred British
ships of war. That Pitt could occasionally be convinced of his
mistakes was certain; but no reasoners except Napoleon and
Moreau had ever effectually convinced him.
Meanwhile the President prepared his Message. Of all
Jefferson’s writings none had a livelier interest than the Annual
Message at the meeting of the Ninth Congress. The Second
Inaugural, nine months before, prepared the public for new political
opinions; but the Message surprised even those who looked for
surprises. The Second Inaugural seemed to sweep old Republican
principles to the common rubbish-heap of out-worn political toys. The
Message went even further, and seemed to announce that the theory
of foreign affairs on which the Republican Administration began its
career must be abandoned. Jefferson intended it to carry such a
meaning.
“The love of peace,” he wrote to one of his old friends,[93] “which
we sincerely feel and profess, has begun to produce an opinion in
Europe that our government is entirely in Quaker principles, and will
turn the left cheek when the right has been smitten. This opinion must
be corrected when just occasion arises, or we shall become the
plunder of all nations. The moral duties make no part of the political
system of those governments of Europe which are habitually
belligerent.”
The Message began by an allusion to the yellow fever; from
which it quickly turned to discuss the greater scourge of war:—
“Since our last meeting the aspect of our foreign relations has
considerably changed. Our coasts have been infested and our
harbors watched by private armed vessels; some of them without
commissions, some with illegal commissions, others with those of
legal form, but committing piratical acts beyond the authority of their
commissions.... The same system of hovering on our coasts and
harbors, under color of seeking enemies, has been also carried on by
public armed ships, to the great annoyance and oppression of our
commerce. New principles, too, have been interpolated into the law of
nations, founded neither in justice nor the usage or acknowledgment
of nations.... With Spain our negotiations for a settlement of
differences have not had a satisfactory issue.... Propositions for
adjusting amicably the boundaries of Louisiana have not been
acceded to.... Inroads have recently been made into the territories of
Orleans and the Mississippi; our citizens have been seized and their
 property plundered in the very parts of the former which had actually
been delivered up by Spain, and this by the regular officers and
soldiers of that government. I have therefore found it necessary at
length to give orders to our troops on that frontier to be in readiness to
protect our citizens and to repel by arms any similar aggressions in
future. Other details necessary for your full information of the state of
things between this country and that shall be the subject of another
communication. In reviewing these injuries from some of the
belligerent Powers, the moderation, the firmness, and the wisdom of
the Legislature will all be called into action. We ought still to hope that
time, and a more correct estimate of interest as well as of character,
will produce the justice we are bound to expect; but should any nation
deceive itself by false calculations, and disappoint that expectation,
we must join in the unprofitable contest of trying which party can do
the other the most harm. Some of these injuries may perhaps admit a
peaceable remedy. Where that is competent it is always the most
desirable. But some of them are of a nature to be met by force only,
and all of them may lead to it.”
From this preamble the public would naturally infer that measures
of force were to be the object of the special message promised in
regard to Spanish aggressions. As though to leave no doubt on the
subject, the President urged the fortification of seaports, the building
of gunboats, the organization of militia, the prohibition of the export
of arms and ammunition; and added that the materials for building
ships of the line were on hand.
All this formality of belligerent language was little better than
comedy. Jefferson could hardly be charged with a wish to deceive,
since he could not wear the mask of deception. Both friends and
enemies were amused to see how naturally he betrayed objects
which his plan required should be concealed. In the first draft of the
Message, sent for correction to Gallatin, the financial prospect was
as pacific as the diplomatic was warlike; the Message not only
announced a surplus for the coming year, but suggested the
reduction of taxes. Gallatin pointed out that the English seizures
alone would affect the revenue, and any measure of retaliation would
still further diminish it; while the navy had increased its estimates
from six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to one million and
seventy thousand dollars. As for the hint at a reduction of taxes,
Gallatin at once struck it out.[94] “As it relates to foreign nations, it will
certainly destroy the effect intended by other parts of the Message.
They never can think us serious in any intentions to resist, if we
recommend at the same time a diminution of our resources.” The
President made these corrections, and returned the draft for revisal,
with a note:[95]—
“On reviewing what had been prepared as to Great Britain and
Spain, I found it too soft toward the former compared with the latter,
and that so temperate a notice of the greater enormity of British
invasions of right might lessen the effect which the strong language
toward Spain was meant to produce at the Tuileries. I have therefore
given more force to the strictures on Britain.”
In studying “the effect which the strong language toward Spain
was meant to produce at the Tuileries,” Jefferson had in mind the
effect which his strong language produced at the Tuileries in 1803.
He played a game of finesse hardly safe in the face of men like
Godoy, Talleyrand, and Napoleon, whose finesse was chiefly used to
cover force, and was not betrayed or derided by factious opposition
in the press. Besides being unsafe, it was unfair to himself. Jefferson
was an honest man, and in putting on the outward appearance of a
Talleyrand, he resembled an amateur imitating Talma and Garrick.
Gestures and tones alike were unnatural, awkward, and false; they
exposed him to ridicule. If President Jefferson had taken the public
into his confidence, he would have told the people that under no
circumstances would he consent to war; but that if the great Powers
of Europe combined to injure America, she would close her ports,
abandon her commerce, shut herself within her own continent, and
let the world outside murder and rob elsewhere. Such an avowal
implied no disgrace; the policy it proclaimed was the alternative to
war; and as the radical doctrine of the Republican party, the course
was not only that which Jefferson meant to take, but it was that
which he took. The avowal might have invited aggression, and have
been followed by failure; but he would have done better to fail on a
direct issue of principle, than to fail after evading the issue until the
issue itself was lost.
 To carry out his scheme, the President put forward two policies,—
a public and a secret; or, as he called it, an ostensible and a real
one. The warlike recommendations of the Annual Message were the
public and ostensible policy; the real one was to be expressed in a
secret message, announced in advance. To this coming message
the President next turned his attention; but he found himself quickly
involved in complications of his own creating. He had not only to
recommend a double series of measures to Congress, but he had to
frame a double series of replies which Congress was to return to
him. He tried at first to combine the two answers in one. After writing
a secret message asking for money to buy Florida, he drafted a
series of Resolutions[96] which Congress was to adopt in reply to
both messages at once, and in which “the citizens of the United
States, by their Senate and Representatives in Congress
assembled, do pledge their lives and fortunes” to maintain the line of
the Sabine and the free navigation of the Mobile, pending
negotiations, while the President should be authorized to take
whatever unappropriated moneys might lie in the Treasury in order to
carry these Resolutions into effect.
Clearly this would not do; and Gallatin undertook to set the matter
right.
“The apparent difficulty in framing the Resolutions,” he wrote to the
President,[97] “arises from the attempt to blend the three objects
together. The same reasons which have induced the President to
send two distinct messages render it necessary that the public
Resolutions of Congress should be distinct from the private ones; that
those which relate to the war posture of the Spanish affairs, which are
intended to express the national sense on that subject, and to enable
the President to take the steps which appear immediately necessary
on the frontier, should not be mixed with those proceedings calculated
only to effect an accommodation.”
The Secretary of the Treasury frequently corrected his chief, and
still more frequently hinted a correction. Only a few days had passed
since Jefferson had spoken to Gallatin of the “strong language
toward Spain” as “meant to produce an effect at the Tuileries.”
Gallatin ignored this object, and spoke of the strong language toward
Spain as intended to express the national sense, and as restricted in
its bearing to the steps immediately necessary for protecting the
frontier. The difference was worth noting. Evidently Gallatin felt no
great confidence in producing an effect on the Tuileries.
“The course now recommended,” he continued, “is precisely that
which was followed in the Louisiana business when the deposit was
withdrawn. A public Resolution ... was moved by Randolph, and
adopted by the House. A committee in the mean while brought in a
confidential report sufficient to support and justify the President in the
purchase he was going to attempt, and to this an appropriation law in
very general terms was added. To follow a similar course appears not
only best, but will also, as founded on precedent, be the smoothest
mode of doing the business in Congress.”

The President adopted Gallatin’s suggestions.[98] The double

messages breathing war and peace were prepared. The double
answers were sketched out. Congress had only to act with the same
quickness and secrecy which it had shown in the Louisiana
business; and of its readiness to do so, no one in the Cabinet
seemed to doubt.
Yet nations could not so readily as individuals swing about on a
course opposite to that which they had been led to expect. The
American public had been wrought to anger against Spain. Of the
negotiations little was publicly known. Monroe had come, and gone;
the Marquis Yrujo had remonstrated, and had written in newspapers;
but the rights and wrongs of the Spanish dispute remained a mystery
to the public at large, which knew only that Spain had rejected all the
offers made by the United States, had resumed her depredations on
American commerce, and had taken a menacing attitude at Mobile
and on the Sabine. Throughout the year the Republican press had
followed hints from the Government at Washington, all looking
toward a rupture with Spain. The same newspapers had shown at
first a wish to make light of the late British seizures,—a course which
misled the Federalist press into denunciations of England such as
would never have been risked had the party in power not seemed
disposed to apologize for England’s conduct. The country at large
was prepared to hear the President advise a rupture with Spain, and
upon that rupture to found his hope of success in negotiating with
Pitt. The warlike tone of the Annual Message was certain to give
additional strength to this expectation; and Jefferson might have
foreseen that the sudden secret change of tone to be taken
immediately afterward in the special message on Spanish affairs
would produce bewilderment among his followers.
No one could doubt where the confusion would first appear. The
last session had ended in a series of quarrels, in which party
distinctions had been almost forgotten. The summer had done
nothing to reunite the factions; on the contrary, it had done much to
widen the breach. Already the “Aurora” announced that the Yazoo
question was to determine “the relations, the principles, the
characters, and the strength of parties in the next session of
Congress;” and the public knew that the Yazoo question had passed
beyond the stage of rational argument, and had become the test of
personal devotion, the stepping-stone to favor or proscription with
the next President. Three years before the election of 1808
Congress was already torn by a Virginia feud,—a struggle for power
between John Randolph and James Madison.
As though to hurry and prolong this struggle, Jefferson
announced, after his second inauguration, that he should retire at the
close of his term, March 4, 1809. Without expressly recommending
Madison as his successor, his strong personal attachment insured to
the Secretary of State the whole weight of Executive influence. The
whole weight was needed. The secretary, with all his amiable
qualities, was very far from controlling the voice of Virginia. His
strength lay rather among the Northern democrats, semi-Federalists,
or “Yazoo men,” as they were called, who leaned toward him
because he, of all the prominent Virginians, was least Virginian. His
diplomatic triumph in buying Louisiana had given him an easy
advantage over his rivals; but even his reputation might sink with the
failure of the Spanish treaty and the aggression of England.
No one who knew the men, or who had followed the course of
President Jefferson’s first Administration, could feel surprise that
Madison’s character should act on John Randolph as an irritant.
Madison was cautious, if not timid; Randolph was always in
extremes. Madison was apt to be on both sides of the same
question, as when he wrote the “Federalist” and the Virginia
Resolutions of 1798; Randolph pardoned dalliance with Federalism
in no one but himself. Madison was in person small, retiring, modest,
with quiet malice in his humor, and with marked taste for closet
politics and delicate management; Randolph was tall in stature,
abrupt in manner, self-asserting in temper, sarcastic, with a
pronounced taste for publicity, and a vehement contempt for those
silent influences which more practical politicians called legitimate
and necessary, but which Randolph, when he could not control them,
called corrupt. Jefferson soon remarked, in regard to what Randolph
denounced as back-stairs influence, “We never heard this while the
declaimer was himself a back-stairs man.”[99] Just as the criticism
was, no one could deny that Randolph seemed much out of place on
the back-stairs of the White House, whereas Madison seemed to him
in place nowhere else. The Spanish papers, which Randolph must
read, were not likely to increase his respect for the Secretary of
State; while Madison’s candidacy made a counter-movement
necessary for those Virginians who would not be dragged at the
heels of the Northern democracy.
Long before the month of December Randolph foresaw the
coming trouble. The Yazoo men in the Ninth Congress were more
numerous than ever; and they were credited with the wish to eject
Speaker Macon from the chair, and to put some Northern democrat
in Randolph’s place at the head of the Committee of Ways and
Means. Oct. 25, 1805, Randolph wrote to Gallatin from Bizarre:—
“I look forward to the ensuing session of Congress with no very
pleasant feelings. To say nothing of the disadvantages of the place,
natural as well as acquired, I anticipate a plentiful harvest of bickering
and blunders; of which, however, I hope to be a quiet, if not an
unconcerned, spectator.... I regret exceedingly Mr. Jefferson’s
resolution to retire, and almost as much the premature annunciation of
that determination. It almost precludes a revision of his purpose, to
say nothing of the intrigues which it will set on foot. If I were sure that
Monroe would succeed him, my regret would be very much
diminished.”[100]
Intrigue and dissension could not be confined to the House, but
must spread to the Senate, and could hardly fail to affect even the
Cabinet. While Gallatin’s personal sympathies were with Madison,
his political bias was on the opposite side. The old Republicans, with
John Randolph at their head, had steadily protected the Treasury
from jobs and extravagance; without their help Gallatin would lie at
the mercy of the Northern democrats, who were not behind the
Federalists in their willingness to spend money. He might expect an
alliance between the Northern democrats and the Smith faction
which controlled the Navy Department. To such a combination he
must have foreseen that Madison would yield.
In the face of such latent feuds nothing could be more hazardous
than to spring upon Congress, in Madison’s interests, a new,
tortuous, complicated Spanish policy, turning on the secret
assurance that France could be bribed with five million dollars, at the
moment when Congress would be required to begin a commercial
war upon England. Whether Madison was responsible for these
measures or not, his enemies would charge him with the
responsibility; and even without such attacks from his own party, he
was struggling with enemies enough to have crushed Jefferson
himself.
Early in December, all the actors in the drama assembled, to play
another act in a tragi-comedy of increasing interest. With his old
sanguine hopes, but not with all his old self-confidence, the
President watched them slowly arrive,—Democrats, Federalists,
Southern Republicans, all equally ignorant of what had been done,
and what they were expected to do; but more curious, better-
informed, and more sharp-sighted than these, the three diplomatists,
Turreau, Merry, and Yrujo, waiting with undisguised contempt to see
what species of coercion was to be employed against England,
France, and Spain.
To impose on hostile forces and interests the compulsion of a
single will was the task and triumph of the true politician, which had
been accomplished, under difficult conditions, by men of opposite
characters. A political leader might be combative and despotic, or
pliant and conciliatory. The method mattered little, provided it
obtained success,—but success depended more on character than
on manœuvres. In the winter of 1805–1806 President Jefferson dealt
with a problem such as few Americans have been required to solve.
Other Presidents have met with violent opposition both within and
without the ranks of their party; but no other President has been
obliged to face a hostile minority, together with violent factiousness
in the majority, and at the same time a spirit of aggression showing
itself in acts of war from three of the greatest Powers of Europe. By
what resources of skill or character President Jefferson was to
restrain this disorder from becoming chaos, only a prophet could
foretell. If ever the Federalist “crisis” seemed close at hand, it was in
December, 1805. Some energetic impulse could alone save the
country from drifting into faction at home and violence abroad.
All might go well if England, France, and Spain could be obliged
to respect law. To restrain these three governments was Jefferson’s
most urgent need. The three envoys waited to see what act of
energy he would devise to break through the net which had been
drawn about him. Turreau enjoyed most of his confidence; and soon
after the meeting of Congress, at the time when Jefferson was
publicly using “strong language toward Spain,” meant to produce an
effect at the Tuileries, Turreau wrote interesting accounts of his
private conversation for the guidance of Talleyrand and Napoleon;
[101]—

“One may perhaps draw some inferences in regard to the true

sense of the Message from some words which escaped the President
in a private conversation with me. ‘I see with pain,’ he said, ‘that our
people have a tendency toward commerce which no other kind of
interest will be able to balance; we should be essentially agricultural,
and yet agriculture will never be more than a secondary interest
here.’... In a preceding interview the President invited me to a
discussion of Spanish affairs.... After some complaints about Spanish
privateers, and the protection which Spain granted to ours in
particular, Mr. Jefferson expanded on the griefs of the Americans in
regard to some excursions of Spanish patrols beyond the limits
provisionally established, and, in consequence, within the territory of
Louisiana. I replied that doubtless the Spanish government had not
authorized these steps, and that the mistakes of a few subalterns
could not produce serious differences between the two Powers. ‘That
is true; but,’ he added, ‘these Spaniards are so stupid (bêtes), their
government so detested,’ etc. It was not easy to contradict him on this
point. As for the English, his complaints and reproaches have been
much more serious. He has assured me that they have taken five
 hundred American ships; that they could not have done more harm
had they been at war with America; yet that England would in vain try,
as against the Americans, to destroy neutral rights. ‘In that respect,’
added Mr. Jefferson, ‘we have principles from which we shall never
depart; our people have commerce everywhere, and everywhere our
neutrality should be respected. On the other hand, we do not want
war,—and all this is very embarrassing.’”
Turreau’s comment on these words may have affected the policy
of Napoleon, as it must certainly have had weight with Talleyrand:—
“If your Excellency was not already acquainted with the man and
his government, this last phrase would be enough to enable you to
judge the one and the other.”
 CHAPTER VI.
The Ninth Congress met Dec. 2, 1805. During no period of eight
years did Congress contain a smaller number of remarkable
members than during the two administrations of Jefferson, from 1801
to 1809; and if the few Federalists in opposition were left out of view,
the American people had in the Ninth Congress hardly a single
representative, except John Randolph, capable of controlling any
vote but his own. In the Senate, when George Clinton took his seat
as Vice-President, he saw before him, among the thirty-four
senators, not less than twenty-seven who belonged to his own party;
yet among these twenty-seven Republican members of the Senate
was not one whose name lived. Senator Bradley of Vermont
exercised a certain influence in his day, like Dr. Mitchill of New York,
or Samuel Smith of Maryland, or William B. Giles of Virginia, or
Abraham Baldwin and James Jackson of Georgia. These were the
leaders of the Senate, but they were men whose influence was due
more to their office than to their genius; the Government gave them
more weight than they could give back to it. Breckenridge of
Kentucky had become attorney-general, and his seat was filled by
John Adair. In the whole Senate not a Republican member could be
found competent to defend a difficult financial or diplomatic measure
as Gallatin or Madison could have done it, or would have wished it to
be done.
In the House the Administration could count upon equally little
aid. Setting aside John Randolph and Joseph Nicholson, who were
more dangerous than any Federalist of New England to
Government, the huge Republican majority contained no man of
note. Its poverty was startling. Gallatin clung to Randolph as the only
member of the House competent to conduct the public business; and
no small part of Randolph’s arrogance toward his own followers was
due to his sense of intellectual superiority, and to the constant proof
that they could do no business without his aid. Randolph was rarely
arrogant in the face of men whose abilities were superior to his own,
or whose will was stronger; he domineered over those whom he
thought his inferiors, but he liked no contest in which he saw an
uncertain hope of victory. In the Ninth Congress he met no rival in his
own party. Massachusetts sent a new member, from whose oratory
much was expected,—a certain Barnabas Bidwell; “but as a popular
speaker he never can stand as the rival of John Randolph,” was the
comment of a Massachusetts senator on listening to him in the
House.[102] New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were
represented by an almost solid mass of Democrats, without a single
leader. Virginia and the other Southern States sent many men of
excellent character and of the best social position to Washington, but
not one who made a national name or who tried to master the details
of public business. Perhaps the ablest new member was Josiah
Quincy of Boston, whose positive temper, marked abilities, and
vehement Federalism made him troublesome to the majority rather
than useful in legislation.
When the House met, it proceeded at once to the election of a
Speaker; and the old feuds of the last session broke out again. Fifty-
four votes were required to elect; and on the first ballot Macon had
but fifty-one. Twenty-seven Republicans voted for Joseph B. Varnum
of Massachusetts, besides others who threw away their votes on
candidates from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Only at the third ballot
did Macon get a majority, and even then he received but fifty-eight
votes, while the full strength of his party was more than one hundred.
His first act was to reappoint Randolph and Nicholson on the Ways
and Means Committee, where a place was also given to Josiah
Quincy.
The President’s Message was read December 3, and produced
the effect to be expected. The country received it with applause as a
proof of vigor. In Baltimore, and along the seaboard, it was regarded
as equivalent to a declaration of war against Spain; it stopped trade,
raised insurance, and encouraged piracy. The Federalist press
throughout the country, except the “Evening Post,” affected to admire
and praise it. “Federalism revived!” said the bitter “Washington
Federalist;” “dignified, firm, and spirited.” “This day we have been
astonished,” wrote a correspondent to the “Boston Centinel;”[103]
“the President’s speech is, in principle, almost wholly on the
Washington and Adams system. It has puzzled the Federalists and
offended many of the Democrats. It is in perfect nonconformity to all
the former professions of the party.” The Federalists exaggerated
their applause in order to irritate John Randolph and his friends, who
could not fail to see that the Message strengthened Madison at the
expense of the old Republicans. Jefferson’s private language was
not less energetic than his public message. Among the favorite ideas
which the President urged was that of claiming for America the
ocean as far as the Gulf Stream, and forbidding hostilities within the
line of deep-sea soundings.[104] One of the Massachusetts senators
to whom he argued this doctrine inquired whether it might not be
well, before assuming a claim so broad, to wait for a time when the
Government should have a force to maintain it. The President replied
by insisting that the Government, “should squint at it;”[105] and he
lost no chance of doing so. He assured his friends that no privateer
would ever again be permitted to cruise within the Gulf Stream.[106]
Such an attitude, public and private, roused much interest.
Congress waited anxiously for the promised special message on
Spanish affairs, and did not wait long. December 6, only three days
after the Annual Message was sent in, the special and secret
message followed; the House closed its doors, and the members
listened eagerly to a communication which they expected to be, what
it actually was, a turning-point in their politics.
The Message[107] very briefly narrated the story of the unratified
claims convention, ending in Monroe’s diplomatic misfortunes, and
announced that the Spaniards showed every intention of advancing
from Texas, until they should be repressed by force.
“Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with
the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought
it my duty to await their authority for using force in any degree which
could be avoided. I have barely instructed the officers stationed in the
neighborhood of the aggressions to protect our citizens from violence,
to patrol within the borders actually delivered to us, and not to go out
of them but when necessary to repel an inroad or to rescue a citizen
or his property.”
 Passing next to the conduct of Napoleon, the Message
mentioned the decided part taken by France against the United
States on every point of the Spanish dispute,—
“her silence as to the Western boundary leaving us to infer her
opinion might be against Spain in that quarter. Whatever direction she
might mean to give to these differences, it does not appear that she
has contemplated their proceeding to actual rupture, or that at the
date of our last advices from Paris her Government had any suspicion
of the hostile attitude Spain had taken here. On the contrary, we have
reason to believe that she was disposed to effect a settlement on a
plan analogous to what our ministers had proposed, and so
comprehensive as to remove as far as possible the grounds of future
collision and controversy on the eastern as well as western side of the
Mississippi. The present crisis in Europe is favorable for pressing such
a settlement, and not a moment should be lost in availing ourselves of
it. Should it pass unimproved, our situation would become much more
difficult. Formal war is not necessary, it is not probable it will follow;
but the protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country,
require that force should be interposed to a certain degree. It will
probably contribute to advance the object of peace. But the course to
be pursued will require the command of means which it belongs to
Congress exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I communicate every
fact material for their information, and the documents necessary to
enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I look for
the course I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere zeal that which
they shall approve.”
After the reading of this Message the House was more perplexed
than ever. The few Federalists sneered. The warlike tone of the
Annual Message, contradicting their theory of Jefferson’s character,
had already ended, as they believed, in surrender. John Randolph
was angry. He felt that the President had assumed, for Madison’s
political profit, the tone of public bravado toward England and Spain,
while Congress was required to overrule Madison’s bold policy and
to impose on the country what would seem a crouching cowardice of
its own. The Message was at once referred to a special committee of
seven members, with Randolph at its head, his friend Nicholson
second in the number, John Cotton Smith, a vigorous Federalist,
coming third; while, whether the Speaker intended it or not, the only
person in the committee on whom the President could depend for
useful service was Barnabas Bidwell, the new member from
Massachusetts. Bidwell’s conversion from Federalism was but
recent, and neither his Federalism nor his democracy was of a kind
that Randolph loved.
To this point the Louisiana precedent was closely followed, and
Randolph seemed to have no excuse for refusing to do in 1805 what
he had done in 1802; yet nothing could be surer than that the
Randolph of 1805 was a very different man from the Randolph of
three years before, as the Republican party of 1805 widely differed
from the party which first elected Jefferson to the Presidency. No
double-dealing, hesitation, or concealment was charged against
Randolph. According to his own story, he called upon the President
immediately, and learned, not without some surprise, that an
appropriation of two millions was wanted to purchase Florida. He told
the President without reserve “that he would never agree to such a
measure, because the money had not been asked for in the
Message; that he could not consent to shift upon his own shoulders
or those of the House the proper responsibility of the Executive; but
that even if the money had been explicitly demanded, he should
have been averse to granting it, because, after the total failure of
every attempt at negotiation, such a step would disgrace us
forever,”—with much more to the same effect, which was mildly
combated by Jefferson.[108]
The next day, December 7, the committee met, and Randolph, as
he probably expected, found that Bidwell alone intended to support
the Administration. Bidwell did not venture to act as the direct
mouthpiece of the President, but undertook on his own authority to
construe the Message as a demand for money, and proposed a
grant to that effect. The rest of the committee gravely followed
Randolph in professing to find no such meaning in the Message;
Bidwell’s motion had no supporter, and was promptly overruled.
Jefferson’s labored Resolutions, which Nicholson carried in his
pocket for the committee to adopt, were suppressed; Nicholson
returned them the next day to Gallatin, with a brief expression of his
own decided disapproval.[109]
 The committee separated, not to meet again for a fortnight; but
during the following week Randolph had several interviews with the
President and Secretary of State. Madison told him “that France
would not permit Spain to adjust her differences with us; that France
wanted money, and that we must give it to her, or have a Spanish
and French war.”[110] If Madison said this he told the truth. Randolph
made an unfair use of the confidential words; for he proclaimed them
as his excuse for declaring a public and personal war on the
Secretary of State, which he waged thenceforward in a temper and
by means so revolting as in the end to throw the sympathies of every
unprejudiced man on the side of his victim.
“From the moment I heard that declaration,” said Randolph
afterward, “all the objections I originally had to the procedure were
aggravated to the highest possible degree. I considered it a base
prostration of the national character to excite one nation by money to
bully another nation out of its property; and from that moment, and to
the last moment of my life, my confidence in the principles of the man
entertaining those sentiments died, never to live again.”
These words would have carried more conviction had Randolph’s
quarrel with Madison not been of much older date. In truth he wanted
a means to break down the secretary’s chance of election as
President, and he thought to find it here. As he said openly in
Congress and in the press, “his confidence in the Secretary of State
had never been very high, but now it was gone forever.”[111]
The serious charge against Madison was one which Madison
alone could reveal. Down to October 23 he had held Randolph’s
view and had protested against turning the Spanish negotiation into
a French job. He could hardly blame Randolph for adhering to an
opinion which had been held by President and Cabinet until within a
few weeks, when they had abandoned it without explanation or
excuse.
Stubbornly refusing to act, Randolph, December 14, mounted his
horse and rode to Baltimore, leaving the President for the moment
helpless. Every hour’s delay shook party discipline, and imperilled
Armstrong’s success. The President appealed to Nicholson; but
Nicholson also disliked the intended policy, and could be persuaded
to use his influence only so far as would enable the committee to act,
with the understanding that its action would be adverse to the
President’s wishes. Although the situation was still secret, it
threatened to become scandalous, and soon became so altogether.
December 21 Randolph returned. As he dismounted at the
Capitol, he was received by Nicholson, who told him of the irritation
which his delay had caused. The committee was instantly called
together. As Randolph went to the committee-room he was met by
Gallatin, who put into his hands a paper headed, “Provision for the
purchase of Florida.” Although Gallatin’s relations with Randolph
were friendly, they did not save the Secretary of the Treasury from a
sharp rebuff. Randolph broke out roughly; he would not vote a
shilling for the purchase of Florida; the President should not be
allowed to throw upon Congress the odium “of delivering the public
purse to the first cut-throat that demanded it;” on the record the
Executive would appear as recommending manly and vigorous
measures, while Congress would appear as having forced him to
abandon them, when in fact it was acting all the while at Executive
instigation; “I do not understand this double set of opinions and
principles,—the one ostensible, the other real: I hold true wisdom
and cunning to be utterly incompatible.” With this sweeping censure
of President, Cabinet, and party, Randolph turned his back on
Gallatin and walked to the committee-room. There he had no trouble
in carrying matters with a high hand. Instead of recommending an
appropriation, the committee instructed Randolph to write to the
Secretary of War asking his opinion what force was needed to
protect the Southern frontier.
Christmas was then at hand, and not a step had yet been taken.
Unless the spirit of faction could be crushed, not only was the fate of
Madison sealed, but the career of Jefferson himself must end in
failure. Nothing could be done with Randolph, who in a final interview
at the White House, flatly declared “that he too had a character to
support and principles to maintain,” and avowed his determined
opposition to the whole scheme of buying Florida of France.
Jefferson, little as he liked to quarrel, accepted the challenge.
Negotiations then ceased, and a party schism began.