Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlands


and security to our frontier. With the Floridas in our possession, our forti-
fcations completed, Orleans, the great emporium of the west, is secure. The
Floridas in the possession of a foreign power, you can be invaded, your forti-
fcations turned, the Mississippi reached, and the lower country reduced.*

 Jackson's belief that the public would be mollified for the loss
of Texas by other acquisitions proved correct. Even the western
Senators voted for the treaty. Niles' Weekly Register gave Jack-
son credit for the influence which his Florida campaign had had
on the Spaniards:
 Something, at last, has resulted from our long negotiations with Spain-in
which, by the bye, we apprehend that gen. Jackson has acted as a powerful
mediator;--M rLOmDAS Am c=zo. We shall hear great grumblings about
this on the other side of the Atlantic, and hope that matters are so fixed that
we may get possession before the intrigues of jealous foreigners can interfere
to prevent the ratiieation of a bargain which they have not any right to
meddle with. The fact has long been evident, that sovereignty over these coun-
tries was needful to our peace and quietness, and that we would possess them
by fair or foul mesas-by treaty or by force. We have preferred the former,
and Spain has happily agreed to do that which her own interest prompted-
for the Floridas, though so valuable to us, have always been a real ineumbranee
on her.'

 The National Register, a journal which had supported William
 J. Crawford' for the presidency against Monroe in 1816, rejoiced
 in even broader terms, calling the yielding of Texas
 ... fully justified by the session of the Floridas by Spain,... for the first time,
 our government begins to see its way to the Northern Pacific Ocean with any
 thing like a clear and definite view of sovereignty.... It is thus we stride,
 from object to object; and shall eventually light upon the banks of the river
 Columbia and the shores of the Paeifie What magnifient prospects open
 upon us !
 Clay's opposition, previously mentioned as a source of anxiety
 for Adams, seems to have been dictated largely by his antagonism
 toward Jackson and toward the administration, with which the
 hero of New Orleans was then on good terms. Congress had just de-
 clined (in votes taken on February 8, 1819) to censure Jackson for
 his Florida escapade, after a series of debates which developed
 into spectacular social events and drew to the House the largest
 crowds it had ever entertained. Clay's diatribe against Jackson had
 been the feature of this discussion, but even he agreed that the
 Spanish officials in Florida deserved punishment.'