Read A Wilderness So Immense Online
Authors: Jon Kukla
9.
James Madison to Daniel Clark, July 20, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 202.
10.
Livingston and Monroe to Madison, May 13, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
4: 601–2.
11.
Ibid., 602.
12.
Ibid., 602–3.
13.
Notes of cabinet meetings, May 7, 1803-November 19, 1805, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress.
14.
Ibid.
15.
Ibid.
16.
Ibid; John Breckinridge to Thomas Jefferson, September 10, 1803,
Territorial Papers,
47–48.
17.
Pichón to Talleyrand, July 7, 1803, Van Meter, “A Noble Bargain,” 181–82; George William Erving to James Madison, May 16, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 7–8.
18.
James Monroe to James Madison, May 14, 1803, ibid., 4: 611; Erving to Madison, August 31, 1801, ibid., 2: 38–40. Founded by Fisher Ames and other
Federalists associated with the old Essex Junto, the
Palladium
was intended as a national voice for the party of the “rich and wise and good.” Its mission was to “whip Jacobins as a gentleman would a chimney-sweeper, at arm’s length, and keeping aloof from the soot”; Winfred E. A. Bernhard,
Fisher Ames: Federalist and Statesman, 1758–1808
(Chapel Hill, 1965), 332–33; Fisher Ames to Jeremiah Smith, December 14, 1802, William B. Allen, ed.,
Works of Fisher Ames
(rev. ed., Indianapolis, 1983), 1451. For Rufus King’s political ambitions see Theodore Sedgwick to Alexander Hamilton, January 27, 1803, Harold C. Syrett, ed.,
Papers of Alexander Hamilton
(New York, 1979), 26: 79–80; Ernst,
Rufus King,
274–87.
19.
Erving to Madison, May 16, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 8.
20.
Adair, “Hamilton on the Louisiana Purchase, [July 5, 1803,]” 273–74, 277.
21.
Ibid., 274–75, 278.
22.
Ibid., 276.
23.
Ibid.
24.
Columbian Centinel,
July 3, 1803, quoted in Van Meter, “A Noble Bargain,” 184–85. Ames’s brother, an avid Republican, revealed the identity of Fabricius in his diary; Charles Warren,
ed., Jacobin and Junto, or Early American Politics as Viewed in the Diary of Dr. Nathaniel Ames,
1758–1822 (Cambridge, Mass., 1931), 162. In light of David Hackett Fischer’s corrections in “The Myth of the Essex Junto,”
WMQ,
3d ser,21 (1964): 191–235, it should be noted that Fisher Ames described himself “as one of the Essex Junto” in a letter to Jeremiah Smith, February 16, 1801;
Works of Fisher Ames,
1408. Elisha P. Douglass, “Fisher Ames, Spokesman for New England Federalism,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
103 (1959): 693–715, is a good survey of Ames’s career.
25.
Columbian Centinel,
July 3, 1803, quoted in Van Meter, “A Noble Bargain,” 184–85.
26.
Ames to Dwight, March 19, 1801; Ames to King, February 23, 1802; Ames to Christopher Gore, October 3, 1803; “The Dangers of American Liberty” (emphasis added);
Works of Fisher Ames,
1409, 1427, 130, 1463, 160.
27.
“The Republican X,” August 30, 1804; “Monitor,” April 17, 1804;
Works of Fisher Ames,
263, 266, 268, 225; Kevin M. Gannon, “Escaping ‘Mr. Jefferson’s Plan of Destruction’: New England Federalists and the Idea of a Northern Confederacy, 1803–1804,”
Journal of the Early Republic
21 (2001): 423–24. Based on the census of 1790, Essex attorney Nathan Dane attributed thirteen of the south’s forty-four seats in Congress (and the same number of electoral votes) to the representation of slaves under the three-fifths clause; Andrew Jay Johnson III, “The Life and Constitutional Thought of Nathan Dane” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1964), 81.
28.
Ames to Thomas Dwight, October 31, 1803;
Works of Fisher Ames,
1468–69; Abraham Ellery to Alexander Hamilton, October 25, 1803, Syrett, ed.,
Hamilton Papers,
26: 166–67; Josiah Quincy to Oliver Wolcott, September 5, 1803, Robert A. McCaughey,
Josiah Quincy, 1772–1864: The Last Federalist
(Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 30–31; Samuel Taggart, An Oration Delivered at Conway, July 4, 1804 (Northampton, Mass., 1804), 7–8, quoted in James M. Banner, Jr.,
To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789–1815
(New York, 1970), 111.
29.
Higginson to Pickering, November 22, 1803, J. Franklin Jameson, ed., “Letters of Stephen Higginson, 1783–1804,”
Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1896
(Washington, D.C., 1897), 1: 837.
30.
Johnson, “Life and Constitutional Thought of Nathan Dane,” 85; Richard E. Welch, Jr.,
Theodore Sedgwick, Federalist: A Political Portrait
(Middletown, Conn., 1965), 242–43; Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, July 10, 1804, in Joanne B. Freeman, ed.,
Alexander Hamilton: Writings
(New York, 2001), 1022.
31.
Thomas Jefferson to Martin Van Buren, June 29, 1824; I am indebted to John P. Kaminski for a transcript of this letter in which Jefferson wrote “that for thirty years past, [Pickering] has been industriously collecting materials for vituperating the characters he had marked for his hatred.”
32.
Notebook, 1827 (Pickering Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1: 216); Pickering to Fisher Ames, March 11, 1806; Pickering to James McHenry, January 5, 1811; and Pickering to James McHenry, December 29, 1808; all quoted in Edward Hake Phillips, “Timothy Pickering’s ‘Portrait’ of Thomas Jefferson,”
Essex Institute Historical Collections
92 (1958): 309.
33.
Gannon, “Escaping ‘Mr. Jefferson’s Plan,’” 434. Throughout the first quarter of the nineteenth century, four out of five members of Congress lived in boardinghouses occupied
only
by colleagues from their state or region. Men who lived and dined together overwhelmingly voted together. James Sterling Young’s study of roll-call votes revealed that congressmen living in the same boardinghouse voted either unanimously or with one dissent three times out of four (74.2 percent) and senators four times out of five (83.3 percent); Young,
Washington Community, 1800–1828,
101–5.
34.
Pickering to Richard Peters, December 24, 1803; Pickering to George Cabot, January 29, 1804; Henry Adams,
Documents Relating to New-England Federalism, 1800–1815
(Boston, 1905), 338–42.
35.
Everett Somerville Brown, ed.,
William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807
(New York, 1923), 6–9; Lynn W Turner,
William Plumer of New Hampshire, 1759–1850
(Chapel Hill, 1962), 133–50, and Plumer to Bradbury Cilley, January 15, 1804, quoted 138.
36.
Tapping Reeve to Uriah Tracy, February 7, 1804, Adams,
Documents Relating to New-England Federalism,
342–43; Mary-Jo Kline and Joanne Wood Ryan et al., eds.,
Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr
(Princeton, 1983), lx-lxi; Gannon, “Escaping ‘Mr. Jefferson’s Plan,’” 437.
37.
Roger Griswold to Oliver Wolcott, March 11, 1804; Adams,
Documents Relating to New-England Federalism,
355–58.
38.
Plumer’s Memorandum,
517–18; Gannon, “Escaping ‘Mr. Jefferson’s Plan,’” 438–39; Milton Lomask,
Aaron Burr: The Years from Princeton to Vice President, 1756–1805
(New York, 1979), 336–42. For evidence that the separatists’
dealings with Burr were known to the likes of Hamilton and King, see Rufus King’s memorandum of the April 4 meeting between Burr and Griswold, dated April 5 and based on King’s conversations with Griswold, Wolcott, or both; Kline and Wood,
Papers of Aaron Burr,
862–65.
39.
Gannon, “Escaping ‘Mr. Jefferson’s Plan,’” 440; William Keteltas to Aaron Burr, February 27, 1804, Kline and Wood,
Papers of Aaron Burr,
844–46; Syrett, ed.,
Hamilton Papers,
26: 187–90.
40.
New York City Commercial Advertiser,
April 14, 1804, quoted in Kline and Wood,
Papers of Aaron Burr,
842; Thomas Fleming,
Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America
(New York, 1999), 231–33.
41.
Lomask,
Aaron Burr, 1756–1805,
343; Gannon, “Escaping ‘Mr. Jefferson’s Plan,’” 440; James Cheetham, in the
American Citizen,
May 5, 1804, quoted in Fleming,
Duel,
253.
42.
Fleming,
Duel,
231–33, quoted from documents printed in Harold C. Syrett and Jean G. Cooke, eds.,
Interview in Weehawken: The Burr-Hamilton Duel, As Told in the Original Documents
(Middletown, Conn., 1960), 48; Lomask,
Aaron Burr, 1756–1805,
343–48.
43.
Fleming,
Duel,
283–99; “It is not to be denied,” Hamilton had written in a note not found until after his death, “that my animadversions on the political principles, character and views of Col. Burr have been extremely severe, and on several occasions I, in common with many others, have made very unfavourable criticisms on particular instances of the private conduct of this gentleman”; Lomask,
Aaron Burr, 1756–1805,
352–53.
44.
Fleming,
Duel,
301–17; Joanne B. Freeman,
Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic
(New Haven, 2001), 159–98.
45.
Fleming,
Duel,
301–17; Alexander Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, July 10, 1804, in Freeman, ed.,
Alexander Hamilton: Writings,
1022.
46.
Banner,
To the Hartford Convention,
353–56; Charles Raymond Brown,
The Northern Confederacy According to the Plans of the “Essex Junto,” 1796–1814
(Princeton, 1915); John Quincy Adams quoted in Gannon, “Escaping ‘Mr. Jefferson’s Plan.’”
47.
Timothy Pickering to John Lowell, January 23 and January 24, 1815, in Adams,
Documents Relating to New-England Federalism,
423–26.
48.
Turner,
William Plumer,
111–12; Jefferson to Dickinson, August 9, 1803; Jefferson to Breckinridge, August 12, 1803, Paul Leicester Ford, ed.,
The Works of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1905), 10: 7, 29.
49.
The treaty and Jefferson’s attempts to draft a suitable amendment are printed in my Appendixes B and D.
50.
“Theramanes,” II and V,
Columbian Centinel and Massachusetts Federalist,
November 13 and 23, 1803; “American,”
New-York Evening Post,
December 24, 1803; and “Incredulis,”
New England Repertory,
July 16, 1803; quoted in Weiss, “Domestic Opposition to the Louisiana Purchase,” 144–48;
Columbian Centinel and Massachusetts Federalist,
November 12, 1803, quoted in Mary Isabelle Deen, “Public Response to the Louisiana Purchase: A Survey
of American Press and Pamphlets, 1801–1804 (M.A. thesis, University of Virginia, 1972), 17.
51.
Bernard W. Sheehan,
Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian
(Chapel Hill, 1973), 243–50.
52.
Jefferson to Indian agent Benjamin Hawkins, August 13, 1786; Jefferson to Claiborne, May 24, 1803; Jefferson to Harrison, February 27, 1803, quoted in Christian B. Keller, “Philanthropy Betrayed: Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Origins of Federal Indian Removal Policy,”
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
144 (2000): 39, 58.
53.
Draft amendment, Appendix D; Jefferson to Gates, July 11, 1803; Jefferson to Dickinson, August 9, 1803; Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
10: 12–14, 29. Jefferson described the same plan to Kentucky senator John Breckinridge on August 12, 1803; ibid., 7; Keller, “Philanthropy Betrayed,” 59–6o.
54.
Jefferson to William Henry Harrison, February 27, 1803, Keller, “Philanthropy Betrayed,” 39–40, 60.
55.
Address to the Chiefs of the Choctaw Indians, October 17, 1820, Harold D. Moser et al., eds.,
Papers of Andrew Jackson,
vol. 4,
1816–1820
(Knoxville, 1994), 394; Keller, “Philanthropy Betrayed,” 66. For the aftermath of Jefferson’s policy shift see David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler,
Old Hickory’s War: Andrew Jackson and the Quest for Empire
(Mechanicsburg, Penn., 1996) and Robert V. Remini,
Andrew Jackson and His Indian Wars
(New York, 2001).
56.
Livingston to Madison, June 3, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 52–53.
57.
Livingston to Jefferson, June 2, 1803, Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress; Monroe to Madison, June 3, 1803; and Livingston to Madison, June 25, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 541n, 55, 120.
58.
Harry Ammon,
James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity
(Charlottesville, 1971), 221; Monroe to Madison, August 15, August 31, 1803,
Madison Papers: State,
5: 310–11, 363–67; Stuart Gerry Brown, ed.,
The Autobiography of James Monroe
(Syracuse, 1959), 187–92; Philip Ziegler,
The Sixth Great Power: A History of One of the Greatest of All Banking Families, the House of Barings, 1762–1929
(New York, 1988), 70–73.
59.
Jefferson to Gates, July 11, 1803; Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
10: 13.
60.
Jefferson to Breckinridge, Jefferson to Madison, and Jefferson to Thomas Paine, August 18, 1803; Jefferson to Lincoln, August 30, 1803, Ford, ed.,
Works of Thomas Jefferson,
10: 7–10.
61.
Jefferson to Nicholas, September 7, 1803, ibid., 10–11.
62.
John Rutledge, Jr., to Harrison Grey Otis, October 1, 1803, quoted in Alexander DeConde,
This Affair of Louisiana
(New York, 1976), 186; R. Earl McClendon, “Origin of the Two-Thirds Rule in Senate Action upon Treaties,”
AHR
36 (1930–1931): 768–72.