As these tidings began to spread, the Western country was thrown into a state of feverish excitement and anxiety. Grave fears were entertained of the purposes of Napoleon, and a sentiment of hostility to France began to develop. Alexander Hamilton, in a series of newspaper articles, advocated the policy of taking immediate possession of New Orleans and the Floridas. Such a course would lead inevitably to a war with France and Spain, and to alliance with Great Britain, an event congenial to Federalist policy. The Western excitement was in tensified by the action of the Spanish intendant, Don Juan Morales, closing the port of New Orleans.
Congress convened December 10, 1802, and the ad ministration was subjected to fierce attacks from the Federalist minority. The leaders of this party joined the Western war cry, aiming to force on Jefferson a choice between adopting the Federalist policy of hostility with France and Spain or a breach with his Western allies. Jefferson, however, was not to be coerced nor deceived. He was firm in his own course, and it was well for the country that he was firm. His policy was not only right, it was successful. The dilemma on which the Federalists sought to impale him was skillfully avoided. This political Scylla and Charybdis had left a middle space wide enough to admit of safe passage, and Jefferson had learned from Ovid, in media tutissimus ibis.
War could be delayed for some hostile act of France, while the attachment of the Western people to the Re publican party and their confidence in Jefferson were too firm to be easily shaken. The temper of the West was plainly shown in the debates upon the resolutions introduced into the Senate by Mr. Robert Ross, of Pennsylvania, February 16, 1803. These resolutions authorized the President "to take immediate possession" of New Orleans; to call into service the militia of South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi Territory; to employ the military and naval forces of the
