Formation of the Union, 1750-1829 Part 20

Several of the supreme and district judges were ardent Federalists, and had expressed strong political opinions from the bench. In February, 1803, the House impeached John Pickering, district judge in New Hampshire; his offence was drunkenness and violence on the bench; but the purpose to intimidate the other judges was unmistakable. Two of them accepted the issue. The Supreme Court had resumed its session only a few days, when, in 1803, Marshall made a decision in the case of Marbury _vs._ Madison.

Marbury was one of Adams's "midnight appointments;" the suit was brought for his commission, which had not been delivered, and was retained by Madison when he became Secretary of State. Marshall decided that "to withhold his commission is an act deemed by the court not warranted by law, but violative of a legal vested right." Upon a technical point, however, the complaint was dismissed.

[Sidenote: Chase trial.]

[Sidenote: Appointments.]

Further defiance came from another justice of the Supreme Court, Samuel Chase of Maryland. His prejudice against Callender on his trial for sedition had exasperated the Republicans (-- 89), and on May 2, 1803, while the Pickering impeachment was impending, Chase harangued the grand jury as follows: "The independence of the national judiciary is already shaken to its foundation, and the virtue of the people alone can restore it.... Our republican const.i.tution will sink into a mobocracy,... the worst of all possible governments." Pickering was convicted March 12, 1804, and on the same day the House impeached Chase. By this time the Republicans had overshot the mark, and notwithstanding Chase's gross partisanship, on March 1, 1805, the impeachment failed for want of a two-thirds vote. The only hope of controlling the Supreme Court was therefore to fill vacancies, as they occurred, with sound Republicans. Three such opportunities occurred in Jefferson's administration. To his great chagrin, the new judges showed themselves as independent, though not as aggressive, as Marshall.

97. THE POLICY OF RETRENCHMENT (1801-1809).

[Sidenote: Federal finance.]

Although the effort to check the power of the judiciary failed, in another direction Jefferson struck out a new and popular policy. Under the Federalists the taxes had increased from $3,600,000 in 1792 to $10,700,000 in 1800. This increase had been more than balanced by the growth of expenditures. The Indian and French wars had brought unexpected expenses upon the government, and the construction of a little navy was still going on, In 1793 the government spent $3,800,000. In 1800 it spent $10,800,000.

Of this amount $6,000,000 went for the army and navy, and $3,000,000 for interest. The deficits had been obscured by a funding system under which payments to the sinking fund were practically made out of borrowed money, so that the debt had risen from $80,000,000 in 1793 to nearly $83,000,000, in 1800.

[Sidenote: Gallatin's finance.]

If peace could be guaranteed, a considerable part of the expenditure could be cut down; and thus taxes might be reduced, and still a surplus be left, out of which to pay instalments on the public debt. In his first annual message the President accordingly advised the reduction of the military and naval forces, and also of the civil officers. Gallatin proceeded to draw up a financial plan: the annual revenue was to be $10,800,000, military expenses were to be cut down to $2,500,000, and the civil expenses to about $1,000,000; the remainder, $7,300,000, was to be devoted to the reduction of the debt.

[Sidenote: Success of the system.]

Neither part of this scheme worked precisely as had been expected. The army indeed underwent what Jefferson called a "chaste reformation;" it was cut down from 4,000 to 2,500 men, to the great discontent of the officers.

The number of vessels in commission was reduced from about twenty-five to seven, and the construction of vessels on the stocks was stopped, so that in 1802 less than $1,000,000 was spent on the navy. Nevertheless, the civil and miscellaneous expenses of the government grew steadily. Under the Federalist administration, the total expenditures in time of peace, exclusive of interest, had never been more than $3,000,000; in 1802 Gallatin spent $3,700,000, and in 1809 $7,500,000. The debt was, however, rapidly diminished, and in 1809 stood at only $45,000,000; nearly half of the interest charge was thus cut off, and for the first time the government found itself with more money than it knew how to use. The taxes had been reduced by a million and a half, by striking off the unpopular direct tax and excise; the loss was more than met by an unexpected increase in the revenue from customs, which in 1808 stood at $16,000,000,

[Sidenote: Drawbacks.]

To reach this result Jefferson and Gallatin deliberately neglected to make ordinary preparations against attack; fortifications were abandoned, skilled officers dismissed, ships allowed to decay at the wharves or on the stocks, and the acc.u.mulation of military material ceased. The only offset to this neglect was the creation of a military school at West Point in 1802, and the training gained by the naval wars against the Barbary powers.

98. BARBARY WARS (1801-1806).

[Sidenote: The navy.]

The Peace Establishment Act of March 3, 1801, authorized the President to sell all the vessels of the navy except thirteen frigates, of which only six were to be kept in commission; and the number of naval officers was reduced from five hundred to two hundred. "I shall really be chagrined,"

wrote Jefferson, "if the water in the Eastern Branch will not admit our laying up the whole seven there in time of peace, because they would be under the immediate eye of the department, and would require but one set of plunderers to take care of them." Events were too much for Jefferson's genial intention. Ever since the Middle Ages the petty Moorish powers on the north coast of Africa had made piracy on the Mediterranean trade their profession. In accordance with the custom of European nations, in 1787 the United States had bought a treaty of immunity with Morocco, and later with Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis. Every payment to one of these nests of pirates incited the others to make increased demands. In May, 1800, the Pasha of Tripoli wrote to the President of the United States: "We could wish that these your expressions were followed by deeds, and not by empty words.... If only flattering words are meant, without performance, every one will act as he finds convenient." Receiving no satisfaction, he declared war upon the United States.

[Sidenote: The pirates subdued.]

One of the first acts of Jefferson's administration was, therefore, to despatch a squadron to blockade Tripoli, and in 1802 he was obliged to consent to a declaration of war by the United States. The frigates were unsuitable, and in 1803 Congress resumed the hated Federalist policy of building a navy. Four new vessels, of a small and handy type, were constructed, and under Commodore Preble, Tripoli was compelled in 1805 to make peace and to cease her depredations. The other Barbary powers were cowed by this exhibition of spirit, and for some years our commerce was undisturbed. The first result of the war was, therefore, that the corsairs were humbled. A far greater advantage to the United States was the skill in naval warfare gained by the officers of the navy. Thenceforward it was impossible to think of shutting the navy up in the Eastern Branch of the Potomac. Naval expenditures slowly increased, and seven years later the good effect was seen in the War of 1812.

99. ANNEXATION OF LOUISIANA (1803).

[Sidenote: Jefferson's political principles.]

Jefferson came into power as a stickler for a limited government, confined chiefly to foreign and commercial affairs. He now entered upon the most brilliant episode of his administration,--the annexation of Louisiana; and that transaction was carried out and defended upon precisely the grounds of loose construction which he had so much contemned.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's colonial system.]

In 1763 France had two flourishing American colonies,--Louisiana and Hayti, the western end of the island of San Domingo. The former province was ceded to Spain (-- 18); the latter, the centre of the French colonial system, was nearly destroyed by a slave insurrection in 1791. When, in 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte became First Consul and virtual dictator, he formed a brilliant scheme of reviving the French colonial empire. The first step was to recover Louisiana; the second was to make peace with England, so as to stop the naval war and release the French resources; the third step was to occupy, first Hayti, and then Louisiana. The three plans were pursued with characteristic rapidity. In October, 1800, the secret treaty of San Ildefonso was negotiated, by which Spain agreed to return Louisiana to France, the condition being that Napoleon should create a kingdom of Etruria for the son-in-law of the king of Spain. In 1802 the Peace of Amiens was made with England.

[Sidenote: Toussaint Louverture.]

A combined French and Spanish squadron had already, October, 1801, carried a great expedition to occupy the whole island of San Domingo, with secret orders to re-establish slavery. Then came an unexpected check: the fleet and the army of ten thousand experienced French troops were unable to break down the resistance of Toussaint Louverture, a native black general who aimed to be the Napoleon of the island. Toussaint was taken; but the army was forced back into a few sea-ports, and almost swept away by disease. The blacks were still masters of the island.

[Sidenote: Alarm of the United States.]

The next step was to have been the occupation of Louisiana. By this time, April, 1802, the news of the cession reached the United States, and drew from Jefferson a remarkable letter. "The day that France takes possession of New Orleans," said he, "fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." As though to justify this outburst of anti-Gallican zeal on the part of the old friend of France, the Spanish Intendant of Louisiana, Oct. 16, 1802, withdrew the so-called "right of deposit" under which Americans on the upper Mississippi had been able to send goods to the sea and to receive return cargoes without the payment of Spanish duty. If the province were to pa.s.s to France with the Mississippi closed, it seemed to Jefferson essential that we should obtain West Florida, with the port of Mobile; and in January, 1803, James Monroe was sent as special envoy to secure this cession. [Sidenote: Louisiana treaty.]

The day after he reached Paris, Livingston, the resident minister, had closed a treaty for the cession, not of West Florida, but of all Louisiana. The inner history of this remarkable negotiation has been brought to light by Henry Adams in his History of the Administration of Jefferson. The check in San Domingo had dampened the colonial ardor of Napoleon; war was about to break out again with England; Napoleon's ambition turned toward an European empire; and he lightly offered the province which had come to him so cheaply. Neither Livingston, Monroe, nor Jefferson had thought it possible to acquire New Orleans; with 880,000 square miles of other territory it was tossed into the lap of the United States as the Sultan throws a purse of gold to a favorite.

[Sidenote: Indefinite boundaries.]

The treaty, dated April 30, 1803, gave to the United States Louisiana, "with the same extent that it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it." The two phrases, instead of explaining each other, were contradictory: Louisiana as it was when France possessed it had included settlements as far east as the Perdido River; Louisiana in the hands of Spain had extended only to the Iberville. The United States had therefore annexed a province without knowing its boundaries. We are now aware that Napoleon had issued orders to occupy the country on the north only as far as the Iberville, but on the south as far as the Rio Grande; at the time France refused to give any information on either point. Hence the United States gave up the claim to Texas, in which there was reason, and insisted on the t.i.tle to West Florida, which was nowhere to be found in the treaty.

100. FEDERAL SCHEMES OF DISUNION (1803-1809).

[Sidenote: Anger of the Federalists.]

[Sidenote: Arguments for annexation.]

The annexation of Louisiana aroused a storm in both hemispheres. The Spanish government vehemently protested, the more because the promised kingdom of Etruria proved to be but a mock princ.i.p.ality. In the United States the Federalists attacked both the annexation and the method of annexation with equal violence. The treaty promised that the people should as soon as possible be admitted as a State into the Union; the balance of power in the government was thus disturbed, and the Federalists foresaw that the influence of New England must diminish. Their const.i.tutional arguments were just such as had been heard from the Republican writers and legislatures in 1798: the const.i.tution, they said, nowhere gives express power to annex territory, and therefore there is no such power; the Union is a partnership, and new members cannot be admitted except by unanimous consent. The Republicans furnished themselves with arguments drawn from the Federal a.r.s.enal: the right to annex territory, they said could be implied from the power to make treaties, from the power to regulate territory, and from the "necessary and proper" clause. Jefferson was not so ready to give up his cherished principles, and proposed a const.i.tutional amendment to approve and confirm the cession. His party friends scouted the idea. The treaty was duly ratified, fifteen millions were appropriated for the purchase, and on Dec. 20, 1803, possession of the territory was given,

[Sidenote: Intrigues with Burr.]

The cup of the Federalists was now full, and a few violent spirits, of whom Timothy Pickering was the leader, suggested that the time had come to withdraw from the Union. They found no hearing among the party at large.

In 1804, therefore, they tried to form a combination with a wing of the New York Republicans controlled by Burr, who had been read out of his party by the Jeffersonian wing. He came forward as an independent candidate for Governor, and asked for the support of the New York Federalists. Hamilton stood out against this movement, and wrote a letter urging his friends not to vote for him. Burr received the Federalist vote, but was defeated, and in his humiliation sent Hamilton a challenge, and killed him in the duel. The affair still further weakened the Federalists; in the national election of 1804 they cast but fourteen votes,--those of Connecticut, Delaware, and Maryland. Even Ma.s.sachusetts voted for Jefferson.

[Sidenote: The Federalists weakened.]

Commerce was still increasing; the Union was growing in extent and importance; neither the interests nor the principles of the people had suffered. The Federalist predictions of danger from Jefferson had not been fulfilled. There were still a few leaders who brooded over a plan of separation; but the strength of the Federalists was now so broken that in 1807 John Quincy Adams, son of the ex-President, and senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, went over to the Republican party.

101. THE BURR CONSPIRACY (1806-1807).

[Sidenote: Burr's schemes.]

The election of 1804 was the last attempt of Aaron Burr to re-enter public life. His private character, already sufficiently notorious, had been destroyed by the murder of Hamilton, and he was a desperate man. In 1805 Burr went West, and was well received by many prominent men, including General Wilkinson, the senior officer of the United States army, and Andrew Jackson, then a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee. His purposes were vague: he planned the establishment of a colony on the new Western lands; he had relations with certain Spanish adventurers who wished the independence of Mexico; he hinted at securing the secession of the Western States, with the aid of the British government. His chief purpose seems to have been to head a revolution in the newly acquired Louisiana.

[Sidenote: Burr's expedition.]

To the rumors that Burr had some desperate and treasonable intention Jefferson paid no attention. In December, 1806, Burr mustered a party of men at Blennerha.s.set's Island, in the Ohio River, and with them floated down the river. Twice attempts were made by local authorities to stop him and prosecute him, but he was allowed to continue, with about a hundred men, till in January, 1807, while on the lower Mississippi, he learned from a newspaper that the President had issued a proclamation directing his capture. He abandoned his men, and shortly afterwards fell into the hands of the authorities, and was sent to Washington for trial.

[Sidenote: Wilkinson's treachery.]