With these words Jefferson closed his mouth on this subject forever. Although his future silence led many of his friends to think that he ended by altering his opinion, and by admitting that his purchase of Louisiana was constitutional, no evidence showed the change; but rather one is led to believe that when in later life he saw what he called the evils of construction grow until he cried against them with violence almost as shrill as in 1798, he felt most strongly the fatal error which his friends had forced him to commit, and which he could neither repudiate nor defend. He had declared that he would acquiesce with satisfaction in making blank paper of the Constitution. A few weeks later, Oct. 17, 1803, Congress met. The President’s Message had little to say of domestic affairs. The Kaskaskia Indians had sold their territory to the United States, the revenue had again exceeded the estimate, more than three millions of debt had been paid within the year. Much was said about war in Europe and the rights and duties of neutrals, about gunboats which were no longer needed, and about the unsettled boundary in Maine and at the Lake of the Woods, but not a word about the constitutional difficulties raised by the Louisiana treaty. “With the wisdom of Congress it will rest,” said Jefferson, “to take those ulterior measures which may be necessary for the immediate occupation and temporary government of the country, for its incorporation into our Union, for rendering the change of government a blessing to our newly adopted brethren, for securing to them the rights of conscience and of property, for confirming to the Indian inhabitants their occupancy and self-government.” These were the points of his proposed amendment; but he gave no sign of his opinion that Congress was incompetent to deal with them, and that the Senate was equally incompetent to make the treaty valid. There were good reasons for silence. Not only were Livingston’s letters alarming, but the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, the friend and benefactor of the Administration, sent to Madison one protest after another against the sale of Louisiana.[78] He quoted St.-Cyr’s letter of July, 1802, which bound France not to alienate the province, and he declared that France had never carried out the conditions of contract in regard to Tuscany, and therefore could not rightfully treat Louisiana as her own. A probable war with Spain stared Jefferson in the face, even if Bonaparte should raise no new difficulties. The responsibility for a mistake was great, and no one could blame Jefferson if he threw his burden on Congress. CHAPTER V.