| In this year (1786) was revived the
question of the closure, by treaty, of
the Mississippi river to American
commerce. In May, 1785, Gardoqui
appeared as Spain's representative to
negotiate a treaty of commerce with
Secretary Jay, and in July the latter
was authorized by Congress to carry
forward parleys. Washington thought this
was a mistake, and that the true policy
was to wait until actual settlements
were far advanced toward the
Mississippi, with the western people in
a strategic position to impose their
will upon Spain. "I may be singular in
my ideas, but they are these: to open a
door to, and make easy the way for those
settlers to the westward (who ought to
advance regularly and compactly) before
we make any stir about the navigation of
the Mississippi."1 Henry
Lee was of like mind. In a letter to
Washington he said: "the moment our
Western Country becomes populous and
capable, they will seize by force what
may have been yielded by treaty."
But the question was pressed, and at
the instance of the commercial classes
of the East. A severe depression was
felt by them at this time as a result in
part of the clogging of the channels of
foreign commerce; and they turned for
relief to the advocacy of a treaty that
would admit of a freer trade with Spain
and her possessions. Rufus King, of
Massachusetts, expressed the belief that
if the free navigation of the river were
secured the East and West must separate,
since the commerce of the West would
follow the current of that stream.
Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina,
saw separation threatening from another
direction: "Should it [the right of
navigation] be surrendered. . . can the
western people be blamed for immediately
throwing themselves into Spanish arms
for that protection and support which
you have denied them? Is it not to be
clearly seen, by those who will see,
that the policy of Spain in thus
inducing us to consent to the surrender
of navigation for a time, is, that she
may use it for the purpose of separating
the interests of the inhabitants of the
Western Country entirely from us and
making it subservient to her own
purposes? Will it not produce this? When
once this right is ceded, no longer can
the United States be viewed as the
friend or parent of the New States, nor
ought they to be considered in any other
light than that of their oppressors."2
Jefferson wrote to Madison in
January, 1787, of Jay's project, giving
quite the true view of the situation: "I
never had any interest westward of the
Alleghany, and never will have any. But
I have had great opportunities of
knowing the character of the people who
inhabit that country. And I will venture
to say that the act which abandons the
navigation of the Mississippi, is an act
of separation between the Eastern and
Western Country. It is a relinquishment
of five parts out of eight of the
territory of the United States; an
abandonment of our fairest subject for
the payment of our public debts and the
chaining of those debts on our necks in
perpetuum. If they declare themselves a
separate people, we are incapable of a
single effort to retain them. Our
citizens can never be induced, either as
militia or as soldiers, to go there to
cut the throats of their own brothers
and sons. . . They [the Westerners] are
able already to rescue the navigation of
the Mississippi out of the hands of
Spain."
In the same letter, Jefferson
expressed the opinion that a little
rebellion now and then was a good thing,
and as necessary in the political world
as storms in the physical.3
Timothy Bloodworth, of North
Carolina, pointed out in an official
letter from Congress to Governor
Caswell, that the Eastern States would
receive the benefits of the commercial
clauses in the sale of their fish and
oil, while tobacco, a staple commodity
of the South, was excluded, though the
purchase price for the treaty was to be
paid for by the South and West by the
closing of the river. Then with his eye
on Carolina's western possessions, he
remarked that a pernicious consequence
irreparably connected with the measure
would be the alienation of the citizens,
and the depreciation of the land, on the
western waters.4
To this representative of North Carolina
the success of Jay's proposal would mean
the consolidation of all factions in
Franklin and on the Cumberland against
the people of the seaboard; and the
depreciation in value of the immense
holdings of transmontane lands of
Carolinians. The passing of political
control of the West from North Carolina
would imperil tides claimed by her
citizens covering 3,736,493 acres of
choice land; not to speak of the State's
control of ungranted parts of the
trans-Alleghany regions.
It is significant that just at the
time that plans for the Federal
Constitution were being projected,
threats of secession were so freely
uttered from diverse sources. No closure
of the Mississippi meant separation to
the East; closure justified secession on
the part of the South and West. The
issue took a sectional color. Otto wrote
Vergennes in September, 1786, that he
feared that the heat engendered between
the sections would lead to yet more open
advocacy of disunion. This French
diplomatist saw the issue in its true
light. "The fertile plains of the
interior would always attract a
considerable number of the inhabitants
of the different States, and it would be
easier to stay a torrent than the
constant flow of this population. . . .
This emigration doubly enfeebles New
England, since on the one hand it
deprives her of industrious citizens,
and on the other it adds to the
population of the Southern States. These
new territories will gradually form
themselves into separate governments."5
Early in 1787 a Southern newspaper
advocated that separation take the form
of erecting four new nations on the
ruins of the Confederation — one of the
four to be comprised of the Southern
States; another to be founded in
Trans-Alleghania.6
___________
1 Sparks, Writings of Washington, IX,
102, 172.
2 Debate on Jay's proposal, August 16,
1786, in American Historical Review, IX,
825.
3 January 30, 1787, 7efferson's Writings
(Ford ed) V, 256.
4 N. C. State Records, XXII, 902.
5 Otto to Vergennes, Bancroft, History
of the Constitution, II, Appendix, 389.
6 Quoted in Massachusetts Centinel, of
Apr. 18, 1787. |
