ble crisis, should it occur, to do exactly what was done, that Monroe was sent charged with his verbal instructions.'

Mr. Madison's reply (as Secretary of State) to the communication of May 13th, was worded with peculiar care, its object being, without giving offence to Mr. Livingston, to dissent from the statement that the ministers had acted contrary to any previous views or wishes of their Government, or had taken a step which had not been "contemplated" by their Government, or one which they had not been expected to promptly and eagerly adopt if available. After expressing the unequivocal approbation of the Government for the proceedings of the ministers, he said:

"This approbation is in no respect precluded by the silence of your commission and instructions. When these were made out, the object of the most sanguine was limited to the establishment of the Mississippi as our boundary. It was not presumed that more could be sought by the United States, either with a chance of success, or perhaps without being suspected of a greedy ambition, than the island of New Orleans and the two Floridas; it being little doubted that the latter was, or would be comprehended in the cession from Spain to France. To the acquisition of New Orleans and the Floridas, the provision was, therefore, accommodated. Nor was it to be supposed that in case the French government should be willing to part with more than the territory on one side of the Mississippi, an arrangement with Spain for restoring to her the territory on the other side, would not be preferred to a sale of it to the United States. It might be added, that the ample views of the subject carried with him by Mr. Monroe, and the confidence felt that your judicious management would make the most [of?] favorable occurrences, lessened the neces

1 We could, had we esteemed it in the least degree necessary, have brought an abundance of other proofs that Jefferson's eye was steadily on Louisiana. And how accurately he foresaw the approaching crisis which would place the game in our hands, will appear by the following letter, written before the intelligence of a warlike move in Europe had reached the United States. It also derives much additional significance from the fact that it was addressed to Claiborne, the Governor of the Territory (Mississippi) adjoining the French possessions. It was intended to prepare that officer's mind, and through him the minds of the American borderers, for the issue of swift-coming war, if negotiations failed. He wrote (May 24th, 1803):

"I consider war between France and England as unavoidable. The former is much averse to it, but the latter sees her own existence to depend on a remodification of the face of Europe, over which France has extended its sway much farther since than before the treaty of Amiens. That instrument is therefore considered as insufficient for the general security; in fact, as virtually subverted, by the subsequent usurpations of Bonaparte on the powers of Europe. A remodification is therefore required by England, and evidently cannot be agreed to by Bonaparte, whose power, resting on the transcendent opinion entertained of him, would sink with that on any retrograde movement. In this conflict, our neutrality will be cheaply purchased by a cession of the island of New Orleans and the Floridas; because taking part in the war, we could so certainly seize and securely hold them and more. And although it would be unwise in us to let such an opportunity pass by of obtaining the necessary accession to our territory even by force, if not obtainable otherwise, yet it is infinitely more desirable to obtain it with the blessing of neutrality rather than the curse of war.

2 July 29th.

sity of multiplying provisions for every turn which your negotiations might possibly take."

He then very quietly mentioned that it was the tenor of Mr. Livingston's own dispatches which had "left no expectation of any arrangement with France, by which an extensive acquisition was to be made, unless in a favorable crisis of which advantage should be taken."

Is it asked if we entertain any doubt that Monroe, with his verbal instructions, would have concurred readily in a treaty based on the President's formal and official offer, that is, on the separate acquisition of the Floridas and New Orleans? No such doubt is entertained. No question is made that the President and the American people would have rested satisfied with that acquisition for a generation to come. But it is not probable that the President expected his official demand would be complied with, and no more. If So, he sent Monroe to France for nothing, and much of his letter to him of January 13th, 1803, is wholly unmeaning gibberish. Undoubtedly he hoped for a more favorable arrangement. Undoubtedly he verbally instructed Monroe to acquire as much territory as practicable. Undoubtedly Monroe would never have signed a treaty which did not obtain more than New Orleans-and France did not, as it proved, own the Floridas. After reading the President's letter to Livingston, of April 18th, 1802, it would be absurd to declare that he did not "contemplate" the acquisition of Louisiana, that he did not solely originate the idea, that he did not originate and put in motion the train of causes by which it was accomplished.

Monroe, with his customary steady discretion and modesty, kept silent as to his share of the merit of this negotiation. Jefferson's temptation to speak was stronger. The opposition, with its usual variety and diversity of grounds of attack, insisted-first, that the purchase was inexpedient, unconstitutional, and disgraceful in its character; secondly, that it was the result of "good luck," and was wholly unforeseen and unthought of; thirdly, that Livingston's energy and tact had broken away from instructions to rescue a feeble and irresolute Administration. The President did once or twice hint to very confidential correspondents that if all the facts were before the public, it would be shown that the ministers had not been compelled to take any

unauthorized or unexpected responsibility; and he also hinted that Monroe was entitled to a full share of credit for what had been accomplished.' Beyond this he coolly let the newspaper trumpet blare on and reduce him to a secondary attitude to those who, if they had executed well, had acted only as his instruments. He had conceived the design-he had foreseen the occasion— he had even given the signal to strike when the occasion came.

It was no ordinary triumph of which he omitted to claim the glory. When from the bema of the Pnyx the flashing eye of Demosthenes glanced from the upturned faces of the people of Athens to the scenes of those heroic achievements which he invoked them to emulate, it looked beyond the Gulf of Salamis and the plain of Marathon. Parnes, in whose rocky gorge stood Phyle, towered before him in the north, and in the south the heights on whose southern bases broke the waves of the Egean. Almost the whole land of Attica lay under his vision, and near enough to have its great outlines distinguishable. What a world was clustered within that compass!

The land of Attica, whose sword shook and whose civilization conquered the world, had the superficial area and about one third the agricultural productiveness of a moderate sized county in any of the American States which have been erected in the province of French Louisiana.'

No conqueror who has trod the earth to fill it with desolation and mourning, ever conquered and permanently amalgamated with his native kingdom, a remote approach to the same extent of territory.

But one kingdom in Europe equals the extent of one of its present States. Germany supports a population of thirty-seven millions of people. All Germany has a little more than the area of two-thirds of Nebraska; and, acre for acre, less tillable

For example, the President wrote General Gates, July 14th, 1803: "I find our opposition is very willing to pluck feathers from Monroe, although not fond of sticking them into Livingston's coat. The truth is, both have a just portion of merit; and were it necessary or proper, it would be shown that each has rendered peculiar services, and of important value. These grumblers, too, are very uneasy lest the Administration should share some little credit for the acquisition, the whole of which they ascribe to the accident of war. They would be cruelly mortified could they see our files from May, 1801, the first organization of the Administration, but more especially from April, 1802. They would see, that though we could not say when war would arise, yet we said with energy what would take place when it should arise. We did not, by our intrigues, produce the war; but we availed ourselves of it when it happened."

Attica contains not to exceed seven hundred square miles. This is below the average size of counties in most of the American States.

The State of Nebraska contains 335,882 square miles.

land. Louisiana, as densely populated in proportion to its natural materials of sustentation as parts of Europe, would be capable of supporting somewhere from four to five hundred millions of people.' The whole United States became capable, by this acquisition, of sustaining a larger population than ever occupied Europe.

The purchase secured, independently of territory, several prime national objects. It gave us that homogeneousness, unity and independence which is derived from the absolute control and disposition of our commerce, trade and industry in every department, without the hindrance or meddling of any intervening nation between us and any natural element of industry, between us and the sea, or between us and the open market of the world. It gave us ocean boundaries on all exposed sides, for it left Canada exposed to us and not us to Canada. It made us indisputably and forever (if our own Union is preserved) the controllers of the western hemisphere. It placed our national course, character, civilization and destiny solely in our own. hands. It gave us the certain sources of a not distant numerical strength to which that of the mightiest empires of the past or present is insignificant.

A Gallic Cæsar was leading his armies over shattered kingdoms. His armed foot shook the world. He decimated Europe. Millions on millions of mankind perished, and there was scarcely a human habitation from the Polar Seas to the Mediterranean, where the voice of lamentation was not heard over slaughtered kindred, to swell the conqueror's strength and "glory!" And the carnage and rapine of war are trifling evils compared with its demoralizations. The rolling tide of conquest subsided. France shrunk back to her ancient limits. Napoleon died a repining captive on a rock of the ocean. The stupendous tragedy was played out; and no physical results were left behind but decrease, depopulation and universal loss.

A republican President, on a distant continent, was also seeking to aggrandize his country. He led no armies. He shed not a solitary drop of human blood. He caused not a tear

Its area, not including Texas (afterwards improperly surrendered from the purchase) and the region west of the Rocky Mountains, is not far, probably, from a million of square miles. But for all practical purposes and results, the purchase extended beyond the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific; and Texas should have been ours without a reannexation.

of human woe. He bent not one toiling back lower by governmental burdens. Strangest of political anomalies (and ludicrous as strange to the representatives of the ideas of the tyrannical and bloody past), he lightened the taxes while he was lightening the debts of a nation. And without interrupting either of these meliorations for an instant-without imposing a single new exaction on his people-he acquired, peaceably and permanently for his country, more extensive and fertile domains than ever for a moment owned the sway of Napoleon-more extensive ones than his gory plume ever floated over.

Which of these victors deserves to be termed "glorious?"

Yet, with that serene and unselfish equanimity, which ever preferred his cause to his vanity, this more than conqueror allowed his real agency in this great achievement to go unexplained to the day of his death, and to be in a good measure attributed to mere accident, taken advantage of quite as much by others as by himself. He wrote no laurelled letter.' He asked no Triumph.

An erroneous expression of Mr. Livingston, or one at least which has conveyed erroneous impressions, has been pointed out. What were the precise ideas which possessed his mind at the moment we cannot undertake to say. It is probable the dispatch was hastily written amidst the excitement of great events. The particular remark under notice must have been uttered without special consideration. We are not aware that he ever reiterated the statement. We suppose him to have been laboring possibly under a little pique, and like other men to have been disposed to claim his full share of credit where he momentarily felt that his capacity had been questioned. He is conceded to have been an able man, who discharged his assigned duty well. He, beyond all question, was an upright man, who would have uttered no intentional misrepresentation to benefit himself or injure another. No blame is affixed to him for a casual mistake. We could not possibly suppose it was deliberate had it come from a vastly inferior man, because a moment's recollection would have told him he was writing for the eyes of

The Roman generals affixed laurel to their dispatches, and also to the spears and javelins of their soldiery on winning a victory. "Laurus Romanis præcipuè lætitiæ victoriarumque nuntia additur literis, et militiam lanceis pilisque."—(Pliny, lib. xv. s. 30.)