Secret Messages for Urgent Priorities

"Jefferson borrowed the next part of his plan from Gallatin. For only the second time in his presidency, he wrote a secret message to Congress. This choice hinted at his urgency, but Jefferson focused the text on a popular and bipartisan policy, a policy he wanted Congress to continue: Native trading posts. These posts, he wrote, provided America with a peaceful way to acquire land, “which the rapid increase of our numbers will call for.” They could even help with New Orleans by lining the Mississippi’s American side with “the means of its own safety.”"

"After the vote, Jefferson worked harder than ever. He wrote a flurry of letters—at least eight in seven days, each one marked confidential. He returned to the other diplomats, using the same script he’d tried on Irujo. This time, it worked. “He is ambitious in his character of a man of letters,” the British official wrote. But he assumed the Americans were more interested in the Gulf Coast than the Pacific Northwest, and he issued a passport. The French diplomat asked if Irujo had signed off. Jefferson considered this and then said he “ought to.” That was good enough for the Frenchman, who simply copied the passport from his British counterpart."