Treason, page 13
“I suppose it will work out.”
“Yes, perhaps—but Dolley, much more important, to make them citizens against their will but deny them the rights of citizens, this is a recipe for trouble.”
“What rights?”
“Those of a citizen. Self-government. The right to vote. The right not to be taxed without representation.” She raced on. “I asked Jimmy at the open house. He had asked me if I thought they would resist. I said no— they’ll be thrilled to enter the Union as a new state with all a state’s rights and privileges, elect congressmen and senators—and he broke in to say none of that will happen. Do you know the government that is planned?”
Dolley nodded.
“So you know—you appoint this governor who doesn’t speak the language, he names a governing council of his own choice, it promulgates laws but he can veto them at will and his veto can’t be overridden, he can discharge any or all of the council members the moment they displease him and then just rule by fiat for as long as he likes—good God, Dolley, that’s just what they’ve had under the Spanish military. They’re insular, you know, but not so insular they haven’t heard the glories of American democracy shouted to the heavens. You take them over against their will, make them citizens but deny them the rights of citizens, and you expect them not to make trouble?”
Dolley’s expression looked frozen. “You’re getting into areas that don’t concern you,” she said.
“They do concern me! I’m taking ships in there, I’m known as “the American” now, they’ll turn to me—or on me—”
“Yes,” Dolley’s voice sharp now, “you have business concerns, I understand that. But there are bigger fish to fry here than any business—”
“No! That’s not right, not fair. You owe me insight on where I stand, where New Orleans stands.”
“Owe?” It was a warning that Danny deeply resented.
“Yes, owe!” she shouted. “My husband died on the rotunda floor while we were fighting to win the presidency for Mr. Jefferson over Burr. You weren’t there, you were down on the plantation waiting for Jimmy’s father to die, but I was there. And Carl was. And over the noise, all the shouting as the dam against Jefferson broke, I heard him calling me and turned to see him going down. And all he said was, ‘It hurts, oh, it hurts!” He didn’t have time to know he was dying, didn’t have time to tell me he loved me, to hear me tell him I loved him, he was gone, gone—”
She was crying openly now, tears streaming, voice clogged, not giving a damn about any propriety. “So don’t tell me I don’t have the right to ask any damned thing I want to ask! And in New Orleans, too, you sent me to persuade my uncle to go to Paris to tell the traders there they’d lose everything they’d invested in New Orleans if Napoleon triggered war, and do you think it was easy? He the leading trader, a power whose word pretty well tends to be law in New Orleans, proud as a peacock, stubborn Irishman-cum-stubborn Frenchman who looks on America as vulgarity personified—I stood there in his study and clubbed him into submission with logic, and if Zulie hadn’t chimed in on my side it never would have worked. No one but that wonderful woman could have swung him around. Dolley, I’ve served, and don’t you tell me I haven’t, don’t tell me I haven’t the right—”
Dolley was furious. Standing here in her own study, her pile of French novels awaiting her pleasure, being harangued—yes, doubtless Danny did have the right, but that didn’t mean—
She stood with her fists clenched and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, anger making her face harsh as rough-cut stone, and it struck her she never wanted to see herself looking so. For a moment this increased her anger and then she caught herself and turned to stare from the window, fists opening, breathing slowing, getting control of herself. Yes, Danny did have a right if anyone did. And yes, she was desperately trying to keep a business alive as a woman in a climate that considered a woman’s place solely in the home or in the fields and did everything it could to impede her. Yes, if riots started in New Orleans, if it tried to resist Wilkinson’s troops, if it succeeded with Spain’s help in breaking away, all that Danny Mobry had fought to preserve would be gone. And men everywhere would say, See, women can’t run things, can’t give seamen orders, women belong in the bed or the home or the fields.
But what could she say? She knew exactly why Tom had wanted to put such tight restrictions on self-government in New Orleans. Jimmy had explained it, his loyalty to Tom keeping him from even hinting whether he agreed or was just following orders. These were people who had never had self-government and couldn’t really be expected to understand that self-government depends on the self-control of the citizenry. Look what happened in France only a decade ago—the country New Orleanians call their own even if they’ve never been there. Democracy was strangled by citizen excess within a year.
How could we be sure it would work? And what could we do if it didn’t? In other words, the American leaders were afraid, though she didn’t say that to Jimmy, it being pointless to agitate him when nothing could be changed. But those were the questions, and she couldn’t really disagree. Nor could she tell Danny in so many words that her people weren’t to be trusted. She tried to explain gently, watching anger build in Danny and feeling steadily more uncomfortable herself.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t trust the people there,” she said. Of course, that was a lie. It was exactly that we didn’t trust them. She saw a cynical expression settle on Danny. “But you have to admit, they have little to no experience in democracy. How could they, under a French and then a Spanish king, soldiers in control of the daily aspects of their lives, what they might and might not do laid out by royal decree, no one asking them their opinion. Then suddenly they’re free, they vote as they please, they want this and that, they order—”
“They go mad, in other words. Think the whole world has changed.”
“Well, something like that. Wouldn’t they?”
“Why would they? They’re not fools. And the soldiers would be there to control elements that went out of control.”
“Well, I’m sure it won’t be for long. Give them a little while—”
“A month, you mean? Or two?”
“Uh ... you see, it takes time—”
“A year? Five years, ten?”
“Surely not that long, but you see, until they prove themselves—”
“Why must they prove themselves? They didn’t ask to be Americans. We got them, now we say you must prove yourselves.”
“But look what happened in France—”
“Dolley, really, I love this country and I love its democracy—look, I can tell you or anyone else or everyone that I think the government is all wrong and no knock will come in the dark of the night. But what I hear you saying, you’re afraid to offer it to any beyond your accepted crowd.”
“No, I—”
“You’re saying the end justifies the means. You fear repercussions in Louisiana so it’s all right to deny freedom.”
“I am not saying the end justifies the means,” Dolley shouted. Then, hesitating, since that was exactly what she was saying, added, “Well, maybe for a little while. Maybe it’s necessary once in a while ....”
“I think your own philosophy is at fault,” Danny said, voice now soft, almost gentle. “The end doesn’t justify the means, at least in this situation it doesn’t. There is no reason to expect trouble if the people are given freedom, certainly not trouble beyond what Wilkinson and five hundred troops could handle. But in denying them the freedom you take for granted, you offer them deadly insult, you tell them they are too stupid or too venal to live as you do, they must prove themselves to reach your ennobled state. I believe this sets up much greater danger, and down the road a year or two—or even sooner—you may have trouble that will dwarf any excesses of freedom you might find now.”
Dolley couldn’t—wouldn’t—give Danny the real answer. Tom simply had been afraid to risk passing freedom to those who had never known it. That was all there was to it, and Jimmy hadn’t tried or hadn’t tried very hard to dissuade him. A mistake? Perhaps. A fallacy of logic or philosophy? Perhaps. Likely to cost them down the road, as Danny feared? Very possibly. But there it was.
As she saw Danny out she said she would pass this on to Jimmy. And she would, but she knew it would make no difference. Things take on a life of their own. Tom was afraid and he was both an admirer of France and a veteran of French culture, having lived in France at least a decade. Was he right? Was Danny right? Who could say? In the end things are simply done and someone always finds a mistake in one way or another. But the essence of governing is deciding, and this decision had been made.
Maybe Danny sensed this without being told. As she stepped off the veranda she said in a small voice, “Wish us all well, Dolley. We’ll see rough days ahead.”
EIGHT
Boston, fall 1803
When John Quincy Adams became the senior senator from Massachusetts he seemed to have driven a wedge between himself and his family. Between himself and his father, really; the others didn’t matter so much. His brothers’ opinions could be readily dismissed and his mother tended to be critical anyway. But he treasured the bond of intellect with his father.
Now his support of the Louisiana Purchase had brought it all to a head and though the trip from Washington to Boston meant jolting over frozen ruts for a couple of weeks each way, he knew he must go. That Boston newspapers and fellow Federalists were attacking him wasn’t important; the editors were asses and fellow Federalists were scarcely better. But now they were calling him a faithless son who toadied to the very men who had cast his father into oblivion. That he must counter.
Of course losing to Mr. Jefferson three years before had been a brutal blow to the old man. Fussy, often tedious, usually argumentative, too fond of instructing others, John Adams nevertheless had served his country well. He found the final repudiation nearly unbearable and the family rallied around him.
But, as the son reminded himself on the lurching, shuddering trip north, his own career had shattered unnoticed in his father’s ruin. He had spent a decade abroad as an American diplomat; it was his insightful reporting that allowed his father to sidestep the war with France that Federalist radicals sought, for which you’d think the people might have shown a little more gratitude. In the fury of defeat his father had ordered him home. If he’d been left in place he thought President Jefferson would have reconfirmed him, for they were old friends; in years past, when the two families were still close, Mr. Jefferson had served as informal mentor to the young John Quincy as they walked the streets of Paris together. So with a new wife and child, young Adams came back to the dubious prospect of earning a living in Boston where ten years of diplomatic experience were worth approximately the breath it took to ridicule them. He opened a law practice though he hated the lawyer’s life and began making the quarrels of common men his own, he who had dined with kings and prime ministers and whose reports had averted war. It meant skulking about courthouse halls angling for business, all under the strain of appearing both a gentleman and an eager attorney. Then politics beckoned ...
But the Adams clan was disillusioned with politics. A people who would repudiate the greatest man in America didn’t deserve an Adams. Of course this was fine talk but John Quincy noted that the family wasn’t hustling across the common in hot pursuit of a citizen not at all interested in paying his bill now that his cow had been recovered. The family barely forgave him when he was elected to the state senate and was horrified when he campaigned among fellow senators for election to the United States Senate. His brothers wouldn’t speak and his mother was cold. He found that a constraint he had not surmounted had arisen between him and his father, some native New England reticence barring him from forcing it into the open. But now, thundering along in a rattling, jouncing coach, breath frosting, a cape clutched to his shoulders over his coat, he knew he must have it out.
At Boston he rented a livery horse, but riding to Quincy he let the horse slow to a walk. At a stream he dismounted and sat on a stone as the horse cropped grass. Presently it broke wind and the gassy odor struck Adams as metaphor for his own hesitations, and he mounted and rode on. His mother opened the door. She hugged him but he sensed reserve as well. Louisa, little George, the baby—were they all well?
“I’ve come to talk to Father,” he said.
“Well, it’s about time!” Then her tone softened. “I’m glad you’ve come; he needs to see you.” All at once he saw how hard this had been for her, her nose sharper, her face under the white lace cap more lined, and he put his arm around her thin shoulders and whispered, “I love you, Ma.”
“Oh, go on with you,” she said, but her smile told him how he’d pleased her, and her voice softened as she knocked on the study door, and said, “Here’s Johnny come to see you, dear.”
His father clasped his hand and drew him into an embrace. But when the talk proved aimless John Quincy blurted, “I’ve decided to support the Louisiana Purchase.”
“So I understand.”
That was no help. “Do you disapprove?” he asked.
“Mr. Jefferson had no choice—Napoleon on the Mississippi is unthinkable. Your position is quite proper. Federalist opposition shows the bankruptcy of their thinking.”
All this was delivered in quick bursts absent the warmth of old. John Quincy swallowed. “The Federalists are saying—”
His father snorted. “They can’t see beyond their noses. Nor can Mr. Jefferson. I see endless trouble ahead. A nation doubling its size overnight—can that fail to disrupt? Countless unknowns—will the people of New Orleans rebel? They didn’t ask to be Americans; mariners touching here tell me New Orleans folk were delighted to go back to France and they detest Americans. Will some pirate come out of the swamps—the notorious Lafittes, perhaps—and lead them to fight for independence? Split off the whole West, not just the new possessions, and make a new country, Cincinnati to New Orleans? Odd if we had to fight for what we thought we’d purchased, eh?”
“General Wilkinson is going there with five hundred men.”
His father gave him a sardonic smile. “Wilkinson, now. Just the man. He’s already quite familiar with New Orleans.”
“The rumors ... taking Spanish gold for years.”
“None provable, though. Twice I was ready to cashier him but the evidence collapsed. And he fights like a cornered ferret when he’s challenged. Thoroughly nasty man.”
John Quincy cleared his throat. “So your concern about the purchase is whether the people there—”
“More—it shakes the whole country. It certainly worries people here. When that vast territory fills with voters, why, New England will be but a tail on the dog and will have about that much say in directing the dog’s nose. The new will orient to the middle states and the South, slave country, not to the manufacturing Northeast. Incredibly dangerous, in other words, but not taking it would have been worse. Thank God we could buy it instead of fighting for it.”
“You know the Federalists are attacking me on this?”
His father laughed. “You expected otherwise?”
“All right,” he said, laughing too, “I didn’t. But they act like mad dogs. Timothy Pickering blackens me wherever he goes. You know how he is.”
“Unfortunately,” his father said. Pickering had led Alexander Hamilton’s attack on the elder Adams that in the end had helped assure Jefferson’s election.
“Pickering is a scoundrel.” His father’s anger boiled over. “Consider his attacks an inverse measure of your worth.”
That was well and good, but his father remained cool and remote, so he said, “They’re saying obscene things, you know.” He sighed. “God, there’s such hatred—I know politics is full of strong feelings, but this implacable hatred seems new.”
John Adams sighed. “Compounded of rage and fear in equal measure, leavened with surprise.”
Surprise? They’d had years to get used to the change in government. As had, for that matter, his father. But as if he’d read the son’s expression, the father said, “They never believed it could happen; this late they’re still reeling. And fear, yes, because with the world turned upside down who knows what disasters may unfold. And, curious though it sounds, rage because the Democrats haven’t done all the terrible things predicted. It’s like a betrayal—everyone knew they were insane sycophants of the French, addicted to mad dog revolution, everyone was sure they would destroy the country, and here they’ve kept the old Federalist establishment in good shape, changed it only slightly, everything going smoothly, and now with the nation agog over this purchase, Mr. Jefferson appears sure of reelection when all along Federalists assumed it would be theirs after four years of Democratic ruin. You see? The Democrats betrayed them by not falling into the ruin Federalists predicted for them. Of course they’re furious.”
He laughed for the first time, throwing his arms over his head and stretching. “So Timothy Pickering’s great hope comes down to none other than John Randolph of Virginia.”
The radical Democrat who kept the House in turmoil with his volatile explosions? “I’ve met him now,” John Quincy said, “and he seems a bit mad.”
“More than a bit, I’m sure. Democrats are terrified of his tongue. Canny as the devil, with an unerring sense for opponents’ vulnerabilities—and I hear he hates Jefferson more than he hates Federalists. Sees Jefferson as Judas betraying the Democratic revolution by his restraint. Keeping the bank when they’d talked of abandoning it. Refusing to shatter the economy. Holding federal power when they wanted all power returned to the states. Keeping Federalist officeholders in place— that galled the Democratic radicals the most, denying them the spoils. They’re Pickering’s hope—if they can wrest control from Jefferson and Madison they’ll drive their party into the ground.”
“And if they don’t, what then?”
“Oh, many things could sink this administration. Revolt in Louisiana. The Lafittes or some other mad adventurer peeling the West off into a new country. What do you suppose Brother Burr will do now that Tom and Jimmy have ruined him—roll over and play dead? Suppose Great Britain forces us into the fight against Napoleon. This expedition to the Pacific, Lewis and Clark—suppose they’re wiped out, disappear, never come back? Suppose Britain decides to defend its interest in the Pacific Northwest—do we want to fight Canada? Or a naval disaster after the Democrats have gutted army and navy in behalf of their low-cost-government philosophy. But with the likes of Mr. Pickering as his opposition he’s probably safe. Why, Pickering’s extremism might keep Mr. Jefferson in office all by itself—now, that would be a jest!”
