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Thomas Jefferson ALS Inviting Louis-Andre Pichon to Dinner after Completing Louisiana Purchase
Thomas Jefferson ALS Inviting Louis-Andre Pichon to Dinner after Completing Louisiana Purchase
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Jefferson Thomas



Thomas Jefferson ALS Inviting Louis-Andre Pichon to Dinner after Completing Louisiana Purchase

 

Single page autograph letter signed, likely an opened bi-fold, 8" x 10". Dated "Oct. 29 . 03", and signed by Thomas Jefferson while President as "Th Jefferson". Expected folds with small residue of the remains of the red wax seal. Near fine with slight grubbyness and tiny separations along fold line. Vibrant strong contrasting ink. Ex. Douglas Rohrman (see Bio below)


 

An incredible ALS written by Jefferson during an important historical period in history. The letter offered here is dated just after the Senate ratified the purchase of Louisiana and, only months after Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on their expedition,  (Jefferson asked Congress to fund an expedition that would cross the Louisiana territory, regardless of who controlled it, and proceed on to the Pacific.). Here Jefferson is inviting Mr. Pichon to dinner in the middle of this intense period of negotiations.


Below are the worldwide tensions and events that led up to the Louisiana purchase and this letter:

 

 

Events of 1803  

January Jefferson sends James Monroe to join Livingston in France.

February Napoleon decides against sending more troops to Saint Domingue and instead orders forces to sail to New Orleans.  

March Napoleon cancels military expedition to Louisiana.  

April 11 Foreign Minister Talleyrand tells Livingston that France is willing to sell all of Louisiana.  

April 12 Monroe arrives in Paris and joins Livingston in negotiations with Finance Minister Barbé-Marbois.

April 30 Monroe, Livingston, and Barbé-Marbois agree on terms of sale: $15 million for approximately 827,000 square miles of territory.

May 18 Britain declares war on France.  

July 4 Purchase is officially announced in United States.

October 20 U.S. Senate ratifies purchase treaty.  

November 30 Spain formally transfers Louisiana to France.  

December 20 France formally transfers Louisiana to United States.  

December 30 United States takes formal possession of Louisiana.

 

 

On October 29, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson, writing in the Third Person to Louis-Andre Pichon, French charge d affaires to the United States, invited Pichon to dine with him. He also addressed a possible misunderstanding.  It was to be a celebratory dinner on the day of congressional passage of enabling legislation by which the Louisiana Purchase would be closed. It would be an historic moment. Jefferson’s foretelling of the purchase’s impact on history is profoundly prophetic: “This little event, of France’s possessing herself of Louisiana, is the embryo of a tornado which will burst on the countries on both sides of the Atlantic and involve in its effects their highest destinies.” The acquisition “...was unquestionably the greatest achievement of the Jefferson presidency and...one of the most consequential executive actions in all American history.”

 

The short note to Pichon is a small memorial to the fast- moving and momentous events in the fall of 1803. It reads:

Th: Jefferson presents his compliments to mr Pichon: he meant to be understood the other evening as asking the favor of him to dine here to-day with messrs Soult & Delile. he did not know till the last night that mr Pichon did not so understand him. he hopes, if he has no engagement he will do him the favor of dining here to-day at half after three.

Oct.29.03.

The events leading up to that dinner reveal a remarkable story. Robert Livingston and James Monroe were dispatched to France by Jefferson to secure the acquisition of New Orleans and “West Florida.” They returned from Paris with the unexpected Louisiana Purchase Treaty. Jefferson faced a constitutional dilemma. The acquisition of New Orleans and West Florida for $2 million was one thing; a treaty for all of the territory encompassed by “Louisiana” for $15 million was quite another matter. Indeed, Livingston and Monroe were surprised when informed by Talleyrand on April 11, 1803, that Napoleon contemplated the sale of all of Louisiana. They acted quickly, seizing what Jefferson would later call a “fugitive occurrence.”  While the French wanted 100 million Francs, the parties eventually settled on 60 million Francs. The treaty was signed nineteen days after the property was defined in its expanded description. However, ratification by the U.S. Congress still remained.

 

As the days slipped by and the idea of a greater Louisiana grew on him, Jefferson began to fear that the French would renege on the treaty. There was also the possibility that Spain would lay claim to the land. Jefferson had to move decisively, especially as the six-month ratification deadline was passing quickly. His anxiety was expressed to Livingston as far back as April 18, 1802, when New Orleans was his main goal. “Every eye in the U.S. in now fixed on this affair of Louisiana. Perhaps nothing since the revolutionary war has produced more uneasy sensations through the body of the nation.” Meanwhile, Jefferson and Madison played contradictory tunes with Pichon, cleverly managing information destined to keep Napoleon and Talleyrand guessing about prospects for ratification.

 

The Federalists argued that the French were offering to sell by a “quit claim” without any warranties of title. It was unclear what, if any, legitimate claim Spain had on the territory. As Jefferson was a strict constructionist and the U.S. Constitution said nothing about direct land acquisition from another country, in keeping with the sanctity of the Constitution precisely as written, he initially looked for a constitutional solution. He drafted two amendments but they proved to be so detailed that his cabinet advised against that strategy; the process would be slow, laborious and invite scrutiny. There was no time for an uncertain outcome.

 

Meanwhile, Livingston reported that Napoleon seemed less enamored with the treaty as time dragged on. Pressure and the counsel of his advisors began to sway Jefferson. “As Jefferson explained to Senator John Breckenridge of Kentucky, he had been placed in the awkward position of a guardian who, when presented with an unprecedented investment opportunity, had decided to act without obtaining the consent of his clients, saying in effect, ‘I thought it my duty to risk myself for you.’ ”  Albert Gallatin, Jefferson’s brilliant secretary of the treasury, argued that the Constitution impliedly allowed the acquisition of land by treaty, and that the president should offer the treaty and the authorization to acquire land to the Senate to ratify. Jefferson’s opponents, the Federalists, opposed the idea of implied powers of the president and the acquisition of land. They preferred that Louisiana be treated as a colony of sorts without full rights to its inhabitants as U.S. citizens, and also the requirement that any states carved out of the purchase be entered into the Union only by unanimous consent.

 

Jefferson countered the Federalist views with pragmatism

and a dose of fear of Napoleon’s ambitions. He would later write to J.B. Colvin: “The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself....” . On October 20, 1803, by a vote of 24-7, the Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty that had been signed in Paris on April 30, 1803. On October 21, Jefferson communicated the treaty to both houses of Congress.14 Breckinridge, Jefferson’s Senate leader, introduced the bill for specific authorization of the purchase based on the terms of the treaty. 15 The authorization passed on October 28 by a vote of 26-6. That same day in Washington, the Americans and the French envoy exchanged ratified copies of the treaty. On October 29, 1803, the same day Jefferson penned the invitation to Pichon, the House of Representatives passed a bill sent from the Senate entitled “An act to enable the President of the United States to take possession of the territories ceded by France to the United States by the Treaty concluded in Paris on the 30"' of April last, and for the temporary government thereof’ with amendments. On Saturday, October 29, the same day that Jefferson wrote his invitation to Pichon, the Senate agreed to the House amendments, and the enabling legislation “carrying into effect the convention” of April 30 was passed by the House by a vote of 85-7. Such was the “done deal” with which Jefferson could toast Mr. Pichon and his learned guests. Jefferson signed the bills into law on Monday, October 31.

 

The enabling legislation authorized the issuance of bonds for the purchase. The United States negotiated a loan with Dutch and British financiers to fund the purchase. 16 Formal transfer of the land took place on March 10, 1804. The official terms encompassed 828,800 square miles, or 53 million acres, for 60 million Francs ($11,250,000) plus cancellation of French debts amounting to 18 million Francs ($3,750,000), a sum of $15,000,000 or approximately 4 cents per acre. The size of the country doubled, and all or part of fifteen states would be created from the immense purchase. “More than any other event in the springtime of the new Republic, the purchase of Louisiana... caused the already buoyant spirits of Americans to soar to new heights of imaginative speculation.”

 

Documentation has not surfaced to reveal the details of Jefferson’s evening with Pichon and the others on October 29, 1803—or if he simply dined alone.  The invited guests that day were typically fascinating, no doubt members of Jefferson’s expansive and erudite circle. “On most afternoons when he was in Washington, Jefferson received his dinner guests at the President’s House at three thirty or four o’clock. He entertained constantly, handsomely, and with a purpose.” For Jefferson, a Francophile of the first order, such a dinner would be both natural and essential to his political and intellectual fabric. The guests alone would be memorable. Soules, the historian that Jefferson never quite convinced to revise his views on America and the war; Delile, the renowned botanist; and Pichon, one of the means by which the purchase was realized. One can only imagine the relief Jefferson would have felt with the purchase pieces having fallen in place, dining with stimulating and challenging individuals.


Ex. Douglas Rohrman:


Rohrman is a member of the Manuscript Society and a past contributor to Manuscripts. He is a long-time collector of United States presidential and political letters. He has practiced law in Chicago since 1966, and is a graduate of Duke and Northwestern Universities.


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