The conditions which rendered possible these various movements were substantially the same, although the immediate causes, or occasions, were different.

In any event the result would ultimately have been the conquest of the Spanish dominions by the armed frontiersmen, and the upbuilding of English-speaking States on Spanish territory.
The American Sympathizers with the French Revolution.
The expedition which at the moment Clark proposed to head took its peculiar shape from outside causes.

At this period Genet was in the midst of his preposterous career as Minister from the French Republic to the United States.

The various bodies of men who afterwards coalesced into the Democratic-Republican party were frantically in favor of the French Revolution, regarding it with a fatuous admiration quite as foolish as the horror with which it affected most of the Federalists.
They were already looking to Jefferson as their leader, and Jefferson, though at the time Secretary of State under Washington, was secretly encouraging them, and was playing a very discreditable part toward his chief.

The ultra admirers of the French Revolution not only lost their own heads, but turned Genet's as well, and persuaded him that the people were with him and were ready to oppose Washington and the Central Government in the interests of revolutionary France.