ON APRIL 11, 1803, the same day that Napoleon confided to his advisors his readiness to sell Louisiana, Foreign Minister Talleyrand invited Minister Robert Livingston to his Paris mansion. Livingston went expecting nothing but more double-talk. For over a year, he had been urging Talleyrand to persuade Bonaparte to sell East and West Florida and New Orleans to the United States. He was astonished when Talleyrand asked him if he was interested in buying all of Louisiana.
As if he were talking to a four-year-old, the Foreign Minister explained that without New Orleans, Louisiana was more or less worthless to France. How much would the American government be willing to pay for the whole territory? The dazed Livingston suggested 20 million francs. That was much too low, Talleyrand said. Perhaps he should think it over and contact him tomorrow. Livingston slowly realized the Foreign Minister was serious.
The day before Livingston heard this astounding offer, he had received a letter from Envoy Extraordinary James Monroe, telling him he had landed at Le Havre. Livingston’s reply was anything but a warm welcome. He had been infuriated by Monroe’s appointment, which he considered a reflection on his abilities. He told Monroe the situation looked hopeless. Only if President Jefferson had already seized New Orleans by force was there any hope of progress toward a negotiated settlement. Otherwise, war seemed inevitable.
Thanks to Talleyrand, Livingston saw a chance to make Monroe even more superfluous. When the new envoy arrived in Paris on April 13, Livingston greeted him with just enough politeness to allay any suspicion of what he had in mind. During dinner, Finance Minister Barbe-Marbois made an unexpected appearance and told Livingston he was eager to talk with him. When Monroe said he wanted to join the conversation, Livingston claimed it would be inappropriate. The Envoy Extraordinary had not yet been presented to Foreign Minister Talleyrand. Monroe was infuriated. He had heard about the Louisiana offer from his friend Fulwar Skipwith, and suspected Livingston was trying to close the deal without his help.
It was a first glimpse of the huge political importance of the Louisiana Territory. Both men sensed that whoever got the credit for buying it would have a very good chance of becoming a future president of the United States. The next day, Livingston bargained privately with Marbois and settled on a price of 60 million francs—about $16 million. There were many details to settle, and Monroe, once introduced to Tallyrand, joined the discussions. Simultaneously, he wrote a letter to Secretary of State Madison, accusing Livingston of trying to elbow him out of the negotiations.
Monroe wrote an even more whining letter to President Jefferson, telling him his health was bad but he was soldiering on—and thanking him for a warning to be “on my guard.” Against whom, it was not clear—perhaps Talleyrand—or Livingston. Monroe assured the President he was “exerting my best energies in the cause in which I came…If I contribute in any degree to aid your administration in the confirmation of the just principles on which it rests, and promotion of the liberty and happiness of my country, it will prove…a delightful mission to me.”1
Hoping to improve his standing with Madison and Jefferson, Monroe tried to badger the French into lowering their price. Livingston reluctantly went along. The Americans first claimed 40 million francs was their top figure, then 50 million. Marbois became more than a little frantic. He warned them Napoleon could change his mind at any moment. He knew Admiral Decres and Bonaparte’s two brothers were telling the First Consul the sale was a huge mistake.
Finally, Marbois lost patience and told them if they did not accept the 60 million francs to which Livingston had agreed in the opening round, the deal was off. The envoys took deep breaths—they were not authorized to spend this huge sum—$250,000,000 in modern money—and said yes. On May 2, 1803, they signed a treaty that added 828,000 square miles to the American nation.
Finance Minister Marbois swiftly arranged with Baring Brothers, one of London’s premier banks, and an Amsterdam bank, Hope and Company, to loan the money to the United States. Thanks to Hamilton’s financial system, America’s international credit was still the best in the world. The British government went along, telling themselves American possession of Louisiana was better than having a Napoleonic presence so close to their restless French subjects in Canada.
Within two weeks, France and Britain were again at war. Napoleon went to considerable trouble to announce the ratification of the Louisiana treaty by his puppet legislature on the same day that the guns began to boom. Without a fleet to defend Louisiana, the Man of Destiny did not want to leave any ground for considering the colony as “still French.”2
In their negotiations with the French, Monroe and Livingston left unspoken another large worry. What would President Jefferson think of acquiring this huge territory? There was not a word in the Constitution that so much as mentioned the possibility of such an event. Would he—could he—turn his back on his belief in strict construction of the national charter? Would the President have to admit that President Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton were right when they insisted on the Constitution’s implied powers?
Unaware that Louisiana was now American property, in Washington, D.C., President Jefferson was in the midst of another reversal of his political principles. The man who invented the term “Anglomany” for anyone even suspected of having favorable thoughts toward Great Britain asked his cabinet to tell him whether he should seek an alliance with the nation he had hated and denounced for three decades. The cabinet voted 3-2 in favor of seeking the alliance. Secretary of State James Madison commissioned James Monroe to go to London and begin negotiations.3
Almost three months had passed since Monroe had embarked for France. The Mississippi remained closed to American commerce. The Federalist press, led by Alexander Hamilton’s Evening Post, published story after story, mocking and denouncing President Jefferson’s timid inaction. Then came news that sent Jefferson into a paroxysm of joy. The Spanish ambassador informed him that Spain was restoring America’s privileges in New Orleans.
The President saw a chance to teach the American people a lesson in the power of diplomacy. “To have seized New Orleans as our Federal maniacs wished” would have cost $100 million dollars and “countless lives,” he triumphantly declared.
Jefferson seemed to have forgotten that the governor of the Mississippi Territory had told him he could overwhelm the token force of Spanish troops in New Orleans with two thousand militiamen. Also not mentioned was Secretary of State Madison’s discovery that the restoration of New Orleans was described only as an “act of benevolence” of the Spanish king. There was no reference to the 1795 treaty, which had given American rights as well as privileges in the port. The Spanish, still assuming French ownership would soon be a fact, were simply arranging things so the blame for another closure—if Napoleon were so inclined—would rest on France.
For the next two months, the western states remained calm and Federalists were reduced to grumbling. Late in June, Secretary of State Madison received the letter Minister Robert Livingston had written on April 13, telling him that France was offering all of Louisiana. Madison immediately gave his wholehearted approval to making the purchase.
The Secretary of State swiftly informed the President, who began leaking the news to Democratic-Republican newspapers. The first announcement came in that Federalist stronghold, Boston, where, on June 30, the Independent Chronicle trumpeted “LOUISIANA CEDED TO THE UNITED STATES!” On July 3, confirmation reached Secretary of State Madison in a letter from the retiring Minister to Britain, former New York Senator Rufus King, enclosing a letter from Monroe and Livingston, announcing the success of their negotiations.
Madison rushed the news to President Jefferson, who, in turn, sent it by messenger to the editor of the National Intelligencer, which had become a semi-official administration organ. On July 4, the paper published the electrifying news and citizens from the District of Columbia and from Virginia and Maryland rushed to the President’s mansion to join a marvelously timed celebration. On the steps of his residence, a beaming Jefferson, flanked by his cabinet, announced the news.
The National Intelligencer gave President Jefferson all the credit for the stupendous acquisition, striking a note that would be repeated again and again in the next few months by Democratic-Republican orators and newspapers. “We have secured our rights by pacific action. Truth and reason have been more powerful than the sword,” the editor declared. Other papers expanded this approach. The Boston Independent Chronicle declared: “The wise, seasonable and politic negotiation of the President, approved and confirmed by Congress, has gloriously terminated to the immortal honor of the friends of peace and good government and to the utter disappointment of the factious and turbulent throughout the union.”
The flabbergasted Federalists now proceeded to cooperate with the President’s demolition of their party. They pooh-poohed Louisiana, without bothering to find out what the average voter thought of the purchase. Orator Fisher Ames complained that “we are to give money of which we have too little for land of which we already have too much.” Another called Louisiana “a great waste,” a wilderness peopled only by wolves and wandering Indians. When the details of the treaty became public, other Federalist leaders were even more exercised. The Boston Columbian Centinel cried: “THE ADDITION OF LOUISIANA IS ONLY A PRETENCE FOR DRAWING AN IMMENSE SUM OF MONEY FROM US.”
One of the few federalists who kept his head was Alexander Hamilton. In the New York Evening Post, he praised the acquisition. It coincided with his vision of America’s destiny as the world’s most powerful nation. But Hamilton shrewdly concluded that President Jefferson deserved no credit for this vast expansion. “Every man possessed of the least candour and reflection” would see that “unforeseen and unexpected circumstances” were responsible, rather than any “wise or vigorous measures” by the President.
Hamilton did not realize he was talking about aedes egypti. In 1803, no one knew the source of the devastating outbreaks of yellow fever that had wrecked the French army in Santo Domingo—and decimated Philadelphia and other cities. At one point, Jefferson blamed the disease on crowding and lack of sanitation, and declared that cities would soon be a thing of the past.
For Hamilton, the best explanation was “the kind interpositions of an overruling Providence.” There is a hint of sadness, even regret in these words. The ex-secretary of the treasury may have foreseen that President Thomas Jefferson was about to overshadow President George Washington for decades to come.
In Paris, Robert Livingston was a disappointed man. He arranged for friends to publish his memorial to Talleyrand, arguing against the wisdom of France’s trying to colonize Louisiana. He tried to alter the record of when he first discussed the purchase with Talleyrand, making it before Monroe had landed at Le Havre. But he could not escape the date of his exultant letter to Secretary of State Madison about Talleyrand’s offer on August 13—the day Monroe arrived in Paris.
Monroe, perhaps advised by the canny Madison, avoided arguing back. Instead, he humbly declared in a letter to Virginia’s senators that he deserved no special credit for Louisiana. Napoleon’s decision to sell was entirely the product of President Jefferson’s masterful diplomacy. Madison chimed in, criticizing Livingston for not waiting until Monroe reached Paris before negotiating. If they had joined forces “under the solemnity of a joint and extraordinary embassy,” they might have won a lower price. It need hardly be added that these were words that Monroe felt free to circulate to his supporters.
Livingston had let more than a few friends know that he hoped Jefferson would drop the tainted Aaron Burr and ask the Hudson River aristocrat to be his vice president in 1804. That would position Livingston to run for president in 1808—a possibility that collided with the ambitions of both Madison and Monroe.
Another Livingston gave everyone a glimpse of the political hardball these self-proclaimed Virginia idealists were ready to play. Robert Livingston’s brother, Edward, was mayor of New York. In the summer of 1803, he discovered a clerk in his office had embezzled a shocking amount of money. He asked Jefferson’s attorney general, Levi Lincoln, if he could have a stay on repaying it. The answer was an icy no. Mayor Livingston had to resign and sell every piece of property he owned to come up with the cash. He had some very harsh words to say about President Jefferson’s ingratitude for his family’s support in the 1800 elections.4
In his presidential mansion, Thomas Jefferson was having thoughts that might nullify all these political maneuvers. At a cabinet meeting on July 16, 1803, he told his chief advisors that he felt the Constitution should be amended before they could include Louisiana in the union. He asked them what they thought of a proposed amendment, which he had circulated among them. It was a long, complicated affair that would have divided Louisiana into white and Indian territories.
The cabinet officers hemmed and hawed. It was apparent that no one, including James Madison, agreed with the President. They pointed out that the treaty required ratification within six months of its signing in Paris. That meant the United States had to sign it by October 30. There was no way that an amendment could be circulated and voted on by the seventeen states now in the Union in the next two and a half months.
President Jefferson semi-backed down. He called Congress into special session on October 17. He ordered William C.C. Claiborne, governor of the Mississippi Territory, to summon some of his militiamen to occupy New Orleans. He told General James Wilkinson to support him with a detachment of regulars. But the president continued to fuss over an amendment. In a long letter to his friend Senator John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, he proposed a new plan.
Jefferson admitted there was no time for a prior constitutional amendment. “The fugitive occurrence” of Napoleon’s offer (a covert admission that he had had nothing to do with it) made acceptance a virtual necessity for “the good of their country.” But he wondered if after the treaty was ratified, he should ask Congress to join him in an appeal to the nation to approve it with a constitutional amendment.5
A letter from Robert Livingston changed everyone’s mind. Napoleon seemed close to deciding against the sale. He was grousing that the banks were too slow in delivering the bonds that would pay for the territory. Also worrisome was an explosion of wrath from Spain, because Napoleon had violated his solemn promise not to cede Louisiana to a third party. Livingston urged President Jefferson to “let nothing prevent you from immediate ratification.”
The President rushed a letter to Senator Breckinridge, begging him to say nothing about an amendment. Cabinet members got letters imposing the same silence. Even after these precautions, the man who loved to legislate wrote another, shorter draft of an amendment and sent it to his cabinet. Again, they told him it was a waste of time.
Then came a clincher. Senator Wilson Cary Nicholas of Virginia, Jefferson’s collaborator on the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, had heard about the proposed amendment. He begged the President to forget it. The Democratic-Republicans in Congress were splitting into “Old” Republicans and “National” Republicans. The Old Republicans were the radicals that Chief Justice John Marshall had called terrorists. Cary said if they heard about an amendment, they might refuse to approve the treaty.
An agitated President Jefferson, flung back to losing so many arguments with Hamilton during President Washington’s presidency, exclaimed that implied powers reduced the Constitution to “blank paper.” But there was no other justification for the Louisiana Purchase. It was the death knell of his strict construction theory—a largely invisible triumph that pleased at least one watchful critic, Alexander Hamilton.6
On October 17, 1803, Congress convened in special session. The President sent them a carefully worded message, urging the Senate’s approval of the treaty, and requesting the House to approve the $16 million price. He credited the acquisition of Louisiana to the “enlightened government of France”—praise of First Consul Bonaparte’s dictatorship that must have caused at least a modicum of pain for a man who had seen the French Revolution as the birth of a worldwide triumph of liberté. Also extolled was “uncontrolled navigation” of the Mississippi and the elimination of “all dangers to our peace.” The President declared he was relying on “the wisdom of Congress” to validate his decision.
Ironically, the man who wrote the message was President Washington’s former ghostwriter, James Madison. He made sure there was no hint of constitutional scruples anywhere in the smooth prose. The Senate, led by Senator Wilson Cary Nicholas, approved the treaty the day after they read it. An attempt by the Federalists to call for all the pertinent papers was instantly crushed, and the solons voted their approval by an overwhelming 24–7.
The House of Representatives was a different story. The Old Republicans were in force there. When Federalist Roger Griswold of Connecticut called for background papers, Majority Leader John Randolph tried to silence him with an immediate vote. It passed by a hairbreadth 59-57. The next day, Griswold mentioned the word that the President had tried so hard to suppress. He asked how they could approve the treaty without a constitutional amendment. The “federal village” was apparently not that different from the Washington, D.C metropolis of the twenty-first century, with its inability to conceal secrets.
Griswold added an attack from another angle. How could the Jeffersonians incorporate the people living in Louisiana into the Union? Louisiana should be governed as a territory, the way the British ruled Jamaica or India. A desperate Majority Leader Randolph repudiated this argument with the rhetorical equivalent of a roundhouse right to Griswold’s Federalist chin. He declared the Constitution’s implied powers gave the government the power to incorporate Great Britain or France, if the opportunity arose. He called for a vote and the Democratic-Republicans, irritated by Griswold’s tone of Federalist superiority, agreed to pay Napoleon his $16 million by a party line vote of 90–25. In New York, we can be sure Alexander Hamilton gleefully declared strict construction was now dead, embalmed, and buried.
Another argument erupted in the Senate when the solons discussed implementing the treaty. Former Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, now a Massachusetts senator, claimed that accepting Louisiana required the unanimous vote of every state in the Union. Some Democratic-Republicans, with their frequent apostrophes to the will of the people, were flustered by this contention. Senator Breckinridge of Kentucky’s answer was as unconstitutional as an American politician could get: he warned all and sundry that if the treaty were rejected, the western states would secede from the Union and start their own country. The vote was 24–5 for implementing the treaty.
Knowing how crucial time had become, President Jefferson rushed a copy of the ratified treaty to Chargé Pichon. He exchanged it with a copy he had received from Paris. Pichon then hired messengers to take the confirmation of the sale to New Orleans, along with orders to hand over the city and the territory to the United States. Meanwhile, Jefferson persuaded Congress to authorize a call for eighty thousand militiamen to overcome any and all resistance that might erupt in Louisiana. Postmaster Gideon Granger launched an early version of the pony express to get the necessary documents to Natchez, where the American army of occupation was assembling.
Accompanying the documents was a proclamation by the federal government, warning against resisting the army. Rumors had reached Washington, D.C. of a possible uprising in New Orleans. Along with threats of meeting force with overwhelming force, the author—possibly Secretary of State Madison—tried to calm the restless locals with soothing words. He described President Jefferson as “a philosopher who prefers justice to conquest.” With their cooperation, the kindhearted President would make Louisiana “a garden of peace.”
For the next seven weeks, President Jefferson and everyone else in Washington, D.C. fretted over what might be happening in New Orleans. On Christmas Day came hopeful news. Spain had handed over the territory to the French on November 30, with no resistance. This was a huge relief. Thanks to Pichon, there was no doubt that the French would comply with the treaty. Now the only question to be answered was whether the citizens of New Orleans would greet the U.S. army of occupation under General Wilkinson with cheers or gunshots.
While the Americans fretted, on Santo Domingo the final chapter of Napoleon’s 1802 invasion was unfolding. Until Bonaparte declared war on England, there seemed to be at least a possibility of victory. Reinforced by another fifteen thousand men, General Donatien de Rochambeau was gradually regaining control of the situation. When news of the renewed global war reached the Caribbean, the British West Indies fleet headed for the island. They blasted French-held seaports and smuggled guns and ammunition to the black rebels.
In August 1803, a desperate Rochambeau asked President Jefferson for a loan of $100,000 to save “the most beautiful possession of France.” With the Louisiana treaty on his desk, Jefferson did not reply. By October, Rochambeau was telling Pichon he needed a million francs a month to buy food and ammunition for his men. Once more, Jefferson and Madison ignored the French entreaties. A month later, with the French army reduced to eight thousand men (aedes egypti was still at work), Rochambeau surrendered his troops to the British fleet cruising offshore. It would be hard to imagine a more humiliating end to Napoleon’s dream of a restored French colonial empire.
In New Orleans, the new French ruler, Prefect Pierre Clement Laussat, informed his mixture of French and Spanish subjects that they would soon be U.S. citizens. The Frenchman said that “the advent of war” [between France and England] had been the reason First Consul Napoleon has sold the territory to President Jefferson. He hailed the transaction as a “pledge of friendship” between the United States and France. He urged the Louisianans to participate in U.S. politics and foresaw a time when they could become a “preponderating influence” in the American government.
In Natchez, General James Wilkinson told Governor Claiborne that there was no need for the six thousand militia he was about to summon for the march to New Orleans. Wilkinson had visited New Orleans a few months earlier and cast a trained eye on the pathetic Spanish garrison of three hundred soldiers. On any given day, half of them were either in prison or in the hospital being treated for venereal disease and similar disorders of garrison life. These were the men that President Jefferson claimed it would have cost $100 million to conquer. Wilkinson ordered 450 U.S. regulars to board boats and join him and Governor Claiborne for a voyage down the Mississippi to the soon-to-be “Queen City” at the mouth of the mighty river.
Wilkinson was looking forward to conferring with Spanish officials in New Orleans. They were $20,000 behind in their secret service payments to him. Spain was as bankrupt as Bonaparte had been before he sold Louisiana. The General was delighted with President Jefferson’s purchase. He was sure it guaranteed all his back pay and a lot more cash to come. The acquisition brought the Americans much too close to the gold mines of Mexico. Madrid would be eager to get his advice on how to keep the wild men of the West at bay.
The General and his regulars met no resistance. They were soon standing at attention in the riverside Place d’Armes while the French tricolor came down and the Stars and Stripes ascended the official flagpole. The soldiers fired a volley, saluting the occasion, and cannon boomed on dozens of Americans ships anchored in the river. A cheer rose from a small group of Americans in the watching crowd. A French eyewitness reported it only made “more gloomy the silence and quietness” of the rest of the spectators. Prefect Laussat summed up the prevailing emotion by bursting into tears.
Once more, Postmaster Granger’s early version of the Pony Express went to work. Riding day and night, one of their durable band reached Washington, D.C. with the good news on January 14, 1804. President Jefferson instantly informed the National Intelligencer and sent an exultant message to Congress. The newspaper struck the leitmotif of the celebration in its rapturous editorial: “Never have mankind contemplated so vast and important an accession of empire by means so pacific and just.”7
Ignored by these words were the thousands of blacks who had died fighting to defend Santo Domingo against Napoleon’s army. The means by which they—with the help of aedes egypti—had enabled America to acquire Louisiana were neither pacific nor just. One wonders what Americans would have said if they had known that France’s imperial venture had had President Jefferson’s enthusiastic approval.
In the next few days, the Intelligencer published numerous fictionalized reports of how delighted the citizens of Louisiana were to become Americans. On Friday, January 26, over a hundred Democratic Republican politicians, led by the President, Vice President, and the cabinet, gathered at Stelle’s Hotel on Capitol Hill for a celebratory banquet. While three cannon from the Navy Yard shook the windows with a salute, a band played a new song, “Jefferson’s March,” written for the occasion. A chorus sang an ode of praise for the President. Its signature stanza was:
To Jefferson, belov’d of heaven
May golden peace be ever given.8
It is hard to resist noting all these acclamations were a trifle “monarchical.” If such tributes had been paid to President Washington, letters from Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe would have flung that term in all directions. Benjamin Franklin Bache and James Thomson Callender would have published indignant essays. Philip Freneau would have again emerged from the wilds of South Jersey to screech his alarm.
After the President and Vice President left the banquet, a toast was drunk to Jefferson. It was prefaced by three cheers. Someone suggested a toast to Vice President Burr. There were no cheers. Not a few senators and congressmen declined to drink it. Relations between Aaron Burr and the President had been sliding downhill for some time. There was talk of the Vice President forming a third party, composed of Federalists and moderate Democratic-Republicans who were put off by the rhetoric of the radical branch of the party.
A lot of people, including President Jefferson, were watching the Vice President closely. When a Federalist senator, a colleague of ex-Secretary of State Pickering, told Burr that New England planned to secede and form a separate nation, the Vice President did not say a word against the idea. Senator William Plumer of New Hampshire became convinced that the Vice President not only thought such a severance would take place—“he thought it was necessary that it should.” Behind these words and plans was a growing fear of “imperial Virginia,” as one Federalist leader put it. The Old Dominion and her southern satellite states would be in charge of settling and governing Louisiana, reducing the rest of the country to a mere appendage.9
Ignoring these gloomy Federalist prophets, the Democratic-Republicans continued to celebrate Louisiana. In late January 1804, no less than five hundred splendidly dressed men and woman gathered for a ball in nearby Georgetown. On the rear wall was a huge illuminated portrait of President Jefferson, framed by military flags. Hard-pressed to see Republican simplicity in this opulent crowd, the National Intelligencer said the “plain unblemished walls” were a statement unto themselves. They were devoid of “spectacles that celebrate the achievements of warriors.” The words left little doubt that the President’s admirers were determined to elevate their hero to a level of reverence well above that enjoyed by that well-known warrior, the late George Washington.
Few Americans paid any attention to the stupendous preparations to invade England that Napoleon Bonaparte was undertaking in France, with the help of America’s $16 million payment for Louisiana. In camps around the port of Boulogne, on the English Channel, “The Army of England” was already two hundred thousand men strong. Elsewhere, almost as many workmen were building two thousand flatboats, each equipped with a cannon, to blast their way through defenses on British beaches. All Europe watched with awe as frenzied visions of total victory coruscated through France. The disaster of Santo Domingo was as forgotten as the abandoned army in Egypt.
A few thoughtful men in America—especially men with military experience, such as Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton—feared that soon after Napoleon dictated a humiliating peace in London’s St. James Palace, the Man of Destiny would have fresh thoughts about a new world to conquer on the other side of the Atlantic. He would have no difficulty persuading a terrified Spain to cede the Floridas to him. With most of its navy still fighting Muslim pirates in the Mediterranean, the United States would be unable to prevent the arrival of a large part of the Army of England in this strategic territory. President Jefferson’s gunboats, with their thin planking and low decks, would be helpless to prevent it. A single frigate had the firepower of forty gunboats.
East Florida occupied some two hundred miles of the east bank of the Mississippi. It would be a simple matter for the French to close the river for some reason—perhaps a failure to salute their flag on one of the forts erected along the shore. It would help to have the commander of the American Army on the First Consul’s payroll. If the United States chose war, General Wilkinson would be an artful collaborator in marching his regulars and militiamen into a catastrophic defeat. Talleyrand’s “wall of brass” would rise along the Mississippi, and the Man of Destiny would soon be celebrating the “liberation” of France’s captive brethren in Canada. As for President Jefferson’s treaty purchasing Louisiana—it would become an amusing scrap of paper in the archives of the French empire.10