Formation of the Union, 1750-1829 Part 24

[Sidenote: New England disaffected.]

As at New Orleans, so throughout the war, the greater part of the fighting was done by State militia hastily a.s.sembled, imperfectly disciplined, and serving only for short terms. From the beginning, however, the New England States had refused to furnish militia on the call of the general government. They did not interfere with volunteer recruiting, and Ma.s.sachusetts alone supplied as many troops as came from Virginia and North and South Carolina; but they declined officially to take part in offensive military operations. The war was very unpopular to the New Englanders because of the great losses to their commerce, and because they paid more than half the expense; nor had New England any sympathy with that invasion of Canada which was so popular in the West.

[Sidenote: Militia refused.]

As soon as war broke out, the Secretary of War authorized General Dearborn to summon twenty thousand militia from the New England States. Care was taken in sending the call to ask for small detachments of the militia, so as to rid the United States of the general militia officers appointed by the States. The result of these combined causes was that the Governor of Connecticut refused to send militia, declaring that he must "yield obedience to the paramount authority of the Const.i.tution and the laws."

The Ma.s.sachusetts House voted that the "war is a wanton sacrifice of our best interests;" and the Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts informed the President that since there was no invasion, there was no const.i.tutional reason for sending the militia. New Hampshire took similar ground, and the governor of Rhode Island congratulated the legislature on the possession of two cannon, with which that State might defend itself against an invader. On Nov. 10, 1813, Governor Chittenden of Vermont ordered the recall of a brigade which had been summoned outside the boundary of the State, declaring it to be his opinion that "the military strength and resources of this State must be reserved for its own defence and protection exclusively."

[Sidenote: National government hampered.]

[Sidenote: New England attacked.]

The general government had no means of enforcing its construction of the Const.i.tution. It did, however, withdraw garrisons from the New England forts, leaving those States to defend themselves; and refused to send them their quota of the arms which were distributed among the States. This att.i.tude was so well understood that during the first few months of the war English cruisers had orders not to capture vessels owned in New England. As the war advanced, these orders were withdrawn, and the territory of Ma.s.sachusetts in the District of Maine was invaded by British troops. An urgent call for protection was then made upon the general government; but even in this crisis Ma.s.sachusetts would not permit her militia to pa.s.s under the control of national military officers.

115. SECESSION MOVEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND (1814).

[Sidenote: Federalist successes.]

[Sidenote: Opposition to the war.]

More positive and more dangerous opposition had been urged in New England from the beginning of the war. Besides the sacrifice of men, Ma.s.sachusetts furnished more money for the war than Virginia. In the elections of 1812 and 1813 the Federalists obtained control of every New England State government, and secured most of the New England members of Congress. The temper of this Federalist majority may be seen in a succession of addresses and speeches in the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature. On June 15, 1813, Josiah Quincy offered a resolution that "in a war like the present, waged without justifiable cause and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that conquest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military or naval exploits which are not immediately connected with the defence of our sea-coast and soil." As the pressure of the war grew heavier, the tone in New England grew sterner. On Feb. 18, 1814, a report was made to the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature containing a declaration taken almost literally from Madison's Virginia Resolution of 1798 (-- 90), that "whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of the State oppressed by cruel and unauthorized laws, this legislature is bound to interpose its power and wrest from the oppressor his victim."

[Sidenote: Impotence of Congress.]

[Sidenote: Resistance threatened.]

The success of the British attacks in August and September, 1814, seemed to indicate the failure of the war. Congress met on September 19 to confront the growing danger: but it refused to authorize a new levy of troops; it refused to accept a proposition for a new United States Bank; it consented with reluctance to new taxes. The time seemed to have arrived when the protests of New England against the continuance of the war might be made effective. The initiative was taken by Ma.s.sachusetts, which, on October 16 voted to raise a million dollars to support a State army of ten thousand troops, and to ask the other New England States to meet in convention.

[Sidenote: A convention called.]

On Dec. 15, 1814, delegates a.s.sembled at Hartford from Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, with unofficial representatives from New Hampshire and Vermont. The head of the Ma.s.sachusetts delegation was George Cabot, who had been chosen because of his known opposition to the secession of that State. As he said himself: "We are going to keep you young hot-heads from getting into mischief." The expectation throughout the country was that the Hartford convention would recommend secession, Jefferson wrote: "Some apprehend danger from the defection of Ma.s.sachusetts. It is a disagreeable circ.u.mstance, but not a dangerous one.

If they become neutral, we are sufficient for one enemy without them; and, in fact, we get no aid from them now."

[Sidenote: Hartford Convention.]

[Sidenote: Secession impending.]

After a session of three weeks, the Hartford Convention adjourned, Jan.

14, 1815, and published a formal report. They declared that the Const.i.tution had been violated, and that "States which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own decisions." They submitted a list of amendments to the Const.i.tution intended to protect a minority of States from aggressions on the part of the majority. Finally they submitted, as their ultimatum, that they should be allowed to retain the proceeds of the national customs duties collected within their borders. Behind the whole doc.u.ment was the implied intention to withdraw from the Union if this demand were not complied with. To comply was to deprive the United States of its financial power, and was virtually a dissolution of the const.i.tution. The delegates who were sent to present this powerful remonstrance to Congress were silenced by the news that peace had been declared.

116. THE PEACE OF GHENT (1812-1814).

[Sidebar: Russian mediation.]

[Sidebar: American commissioners sent.]

Three months after the war broke out, the Russian government had offered mediation; it regretted to see the strength of the English allies wasted in a minor contest with America. Madison eagerly seized this opportunity, and on May 9, 1813, Gallatin and Bayard were sent as special commissioners. On arriving in Russia they found that the British government had refused the offer of mediation. The immediate effect was to take Gallatin out of the Treasury, and he was followed by Secretary Campbell, to whose incompetence the financial impotence of the war is partly due. Toward the end of 1813 an offer of direct negotiation was made by the British government, and John Quincy Adams, Jonathan Russell, and Henry Clay were added to the negotiators. The absence of Clay, who had exercised such influence as Speaker of the House, accounts for the apathy of Congress in 1814.

[Sidebar: The effect of European peace.]

[Sidenote: Impressment.]

It was not until Aug. 8, 1814, that the commissioners finally met English commissioners at Ghent. Of the grievances which had brought on the war, most had been removed by the European peace: neutral vessels were no longer captured; the blockade of American ports in time of peace was not likely to be resumed; and the impressment of American seamen ceased because the English navy was reduced. The two countries were therefore fighting over dead questions. The Americans, however, naturally desired, in making peace, to secure a recognition of the principles for which they had gone to war; and the British had now no other enemy, and were incensed at the temerity of the little nation which had attempted to invade Canada and had so humiliated England at sea. Gradually, the commissioners began to find common ground. Gallatin reported to the home government that in his judgment no article could be secured renouncing the right to impress British subjects wherever found. With a heavy heart, Madison consented that that point should be omitted from the treaty.

[Sidenote: The war unpopular in England.]

[Sidenote: Effect of American defence.]

During 1814 great pressure was put upon the British government to make peace, on account of the loss inflicted by American privateers. The war was costing England about ten million pounds sterling a year, and no definite result had been gained except the capture of a part of Maine and of the American post of Astoria in Oregon. The Americans were unable to make headway in Canada; the English were equally unable to penetrate into the United States. Wellington was consulted, and reported that in his judgment the British could hope for no success without naval superiority on the lakes. The brave resistance of the Americans at Fort Erie and Plattsburg had won the respect of the great military commander. The ministry, therefore, resolved upon peace.

[Sidenote: Territory.]

[Sidenote: Fisheries.]

[Sidenote: The treaty signed.]

The first question to settle was that of territory. The British consented to restore the territory as it had been before the war; some attempt was made to create a belt of frontier neutral territory for the Indians who had been allies of the British, but that point was also abandoned. Next came the question of the fisheries: the British held that the American rights had been lost by the war; Clay insisted that the British right of navigation of the Mississippi had also been forfeited, and that the fisheries might therefore be sacrificed as a "matter of trifling moment."

Adams stood out for the fisheries, and the result was that neither question was mentioned in the treaty. In 1818 a special convention was negotiated, defining the fishery rights of the United States. Upon these general lines agreement was at last reached, and the treaty was signed Dec. 24, 1814, several weeks before the battle of New Orleans.

117. POLITICAL EFFECTS OF THE WAR (1815).

[Sidenote: No gain from the war.]

[Sidenote: National pride.]

After nearly three years of war, the expenditure of one hundred millions of dollars, the loss of about thirty thousand lives, the destruction of property, and ruinous losses of American vessels, the country stood where it had stood in 1812, its boundary unchanged, its international rights still undefined, the people still divided. Yet peace brought a kind of national exaltation. The naval victories had been won by officers and men from all parts of the Union, and belonged to the nation. The last struggle on land, the battle of New Orleans, was an American victory, and obliterated the memory of many defeats. President Madison, in his annual message of 1815, congratulated the country that the treaty "terminated with peculiar felicity a campaign signalized by the most brilliant successes."

[Sidenote: Training of soldiers.]

One noteworthy effect of the war had been the development of a body of excellent young soldiers. Winfield Scott distinguished himself in the Niagara campaigns, and rose eventually to be the highest officer of the American army. William Henry Harrison's military reputation was based chiefly on the Indian battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, but it made him President in 1840. Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans brought him before the people, and caused his choice as President in 1828. The national pride was elated by the successes of American engineers, American naval architects, American commodores, and volunteer officers like Jacob Brown, who had finally come to the front.

[Sidenote: Extrication from European politics.]

The end of the war marks also the withdrawal of the United States from the complications of European politics. From 1775 to 1815 the country had been compelled, against its will, to take sides, to ask favors, and to suffer rebuffs abroad. During the long interval of European peace, from 1815 to 1853, the United States grew up without knowing this influence.

Furthermore, the field was now clear for a new organization of American industries. The profits of the shipping trade had not been due so much to American enterprise as to the greater safety of foreign cargoes in neutral bottoms. When this advantage was swept away, American shipping languished, and its place was taken by manufacturing.

[Sidenote: Decay of the Federalist party.]

[Sidenote: Persistence of Federalist principles.]

[Sidenote: Gain in national spirit.]

The most marked result of the war was the absorption of the Federalist Party, which at once began, and in five or six years was complete. In the election of 1812 eighty-nine votes had been cast for the Federalist candidate (-- 109); in 1816 there were but thirty-four (-- 123); in 1820 there was not one. This did not mean that Federalist principles had decayed or been overborne; the real reason for the extinction of that party was that it lived in the ranks of the Republican party. When Jefferson in 1801 said, "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists,"

he expressed what had come to be true in 1815. The great principles for which the Federalists had striven were the right of the federal government to exercise adequate powers, and its duty to maintain the national dignity: those principles had been adopted by the Republicans. John Randolph was almost the only leader who continued to stand by the Republican doctrine enunciated by Jefferson when he became President.

Jefferson himself had not scrupled to annex Louisiana, to lay the embargo, and to enforce it with a severity such as Hamilton would hardly have ventured on. Madison had twice received and used the power to discriminate between the commerce of England and of France; and during the war the nation had reimposed federal taxes and adopted Federalist principles of coercion. James Monroe, Secretary of State at the end of Madison's administration, and candidate for the Presidency in 1816, was in his political beliefs not to be distinguished from moderate Federalists like James A. Bayard in 1800. The Union arose from the disasters of the War of 1812 stronger than ever before, because the people had a larger national tradition and greater experience of national government, and because they had accepted the conception of government which Washington and Hamilton had sought to create.

CHAPTER XI

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REORGANIZATION (1815-1824).

118. REFERENCES.