Formation of the Union

A >> Albert Bushnell Hart >> Formation of the Union

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[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 Constitution and the laws."
The Massachusetts House voted that the "war is a wanton sacrifice of our
best interests;" and the Governor of Massachusetts informed the President
that since there was no invasion, there was no constitutional 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
Constitution. 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
attitude 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 As the war advanced, these orders were withdrawn, and the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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts would not permit her
militia to pass 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, Massachusetts
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 Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts
legislature containing a declaration taken almost literally from Madison's
Virginia Resolution of 1798 (sec. 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 Massachusetts, 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 assembled at Hartford from Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island, with unofficial representatives from New
Hampshire and Vermont. The head of the Massachusetts 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
Massachusetts. It is a disagreeable circumstance, 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
Constitution 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 Constitution 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 document 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 constitution. 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 (sec. 109); in 1816 there were but thirty-four (sec. 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.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES.--W. E. Foster, _References to Presidential
Administrations_, 15-19; Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History_,
VII. 344, 345, 437-439; J.F. Jameson, _Bibliography of Monroe_ (Appendix
to Oilman's _Monroe_); Channing and Hart, _Guide_, secs. 174-178.

HISTORICAL MAPS.--Nos. 1 and 5, this volume, and No. 1, Wilson, _Division
and Reunion_ (_Epoch Maps_ Nos. 7, 8, and 10); Labberton, _Atlas_, lxvii.;
T. MacCoun, _Historical Geography, Scribner, Statistical Atlas_, Plate 14.

GENERAL ACCOUNTS.--H. Von Holst, _Constitutional History_, I. 273-408; R.
Hildreth, _United States_. VI. 575-713 (to 1821); James Schouler, _United
States_, II. 444-463, III. 1-335; Bryant and Gay, _Popular History_. IV.
244-281; J. B. McMaster, _People of the United States_, IV. (to 1820);
Geo. Tucker, _United States_, III. 146-408; J. T. Morse, _John Quincy
Adams_, 102-164; Ormsby, _Whig Party_, 129-172.

SPECIAL HISTORIES.--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, IX.;
Carl Schurz, _Henry Clay_, I. 137-202; N. P. Gilman, _James Monroe_, 125-
174; F. W. Taussig, _Tariff History_, J. L. Bishop, _American
Manufactures_, II. 146-298; G. F. Tucker, _Monroe Doctrine_, Payne,
_European Colonies_, E. Stanwood, _Presidential Elections_, H. L. Carson,
_Supreme Court_, I. chs. xii.-xiv.; A C. McLaughlin, _Cass_, chs. ii., iv.

CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS.--J. Q. Adams, _Memoirs_, IV.-VI.; Josiah Quincy,
_Figures of the Past_, _Niles Register_, T. H. Benton, _Thirty Years'
View_, I. 1-44; Nathan Sargent, _Public Men, and Events_, I. 17-56; R.
Rush, _Residence at the Court of London_, J. Flint, _Recollections of the
last Ten Years_ (1826); R. Walsh, _Appeal from the Judgment of Great
Britain_ (1819); D. Warden, _Statistical, Political, and Historical
Account of the United States_ (1819); S. G. Goodrich, Recollections, II.
393-436; _The National Intelligencer_; Featon, _Sketches of America_,
_Fifth Report_; works of Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Madison, Woodbury.--
Reprints in F. W. Taussig, _State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff_,
_American History told by Contemporaries_, III.

119. CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL GROWTH (1815).

[Sidenote: Prosperity.]

The population of the United States at the end of the war was about eight
million five hundred thousand, and it was increasing relatively faster in
the South and West than near the seaboard. The return of peace seemed also
a return of prosperity. Short crops abroad revived the demand for American
cereals, so that the surplus accumulated during the war could be sold at
fair prices, and the exports in 1816 ran up to $64,000,000. In 1815,
American shipping recovered almost to the point which it had reached in
1810. The revenue derived from taxation in 1814 was but $11,000,000; in
1816 it was $47,000,000. More than twenty thousand immigrants arrived in
1817. Wealth seemed increasing both in the North and the South.

[Sidenote: National literature.]
[Sidenote: The Clergy.]

Another evidence of the quickening of national life was the beginning of a
new national literature. In 1815 was founded the "North American Review,"
and in an early number appeared Bryant's "Thanatopsis." Already in 1809
had appeared the first work of an American which was comparable with that
of the British essayists,--Washington Irving's "Knickerbocker" History of
New York. His quaint humor was not less appreciated from his good-natured
allusions to the Jeffersonian principle of government "by proclamation."
The hold of the clergy had been much weakened in New England; there had
been a division of the Congregational Church, with the subsequent founding
of the Unitarian branch; and the Jeffersonian principle of popular
government was gaining ground. The people were keen and alert.

[Sidenote: Means of transportation.]
[Sidenote: Steamboats.]

In two respects the war had taught the Americans their own weakness: they
had had poor facilities for transportation, and they had lacked
manufactures of military material. There was a widespread feeling that the
means of intercommunication ought to be improved. The troops on the
northern frontier had been badly provisioned and slowly reinforced because
they could not readily be reached over the poor roads. A system had been
invented which was suitable for the rapid-running rivers of the interior
and for lake navigation: in 1807 Fulton made the first voyage by steam on
the Hudson River. Nine years later a system of passenger service had been
developed in various directions from New York, and a steamer was running
on the Mississippi.

[Sidenote: Rise of manufactures.]
[Sidenote: Foreign competition.]

Manufactures had sprung up suddenly and unexpectedly in the United States.
The restrictive legislation from 1806 to 1812, though it had not cut off
foreign imports, had checked them; and shrewd ship-owners had in some
cases diverted their accumulated capital to the building of factories. In
1812 commerce with England was totally cut off, and importations from
other countries were loaded down with double duties. This indirect
protection was enough to cause the rise of many manufactures, particularly
of cotton and woollen goods. In 1815, the capital invested in these two
branches of industry was probably $50,000,000. On the conclusion of peace
in England and America an accumulated stock of English goods poured forth,
and the imports of the United States instantly rose from $12,000.000 in
1814, to $106,000,000 in 1815. These importations were out of proportion
to the exports and to the needs of the country, and they caused the
stoppage of a large number of American factories. Meanwhile, American
ships had begun to feel the competition of foreign vessels in foreign
trade. Without intending it, the country had drifted into a new set of
economic conditions.

120. THE SECOND UNITED STATES BANK (1816).

[Sidenote: Banks and currency.]

The first evidence of this change of feeling was a demand for the renewal
of the bank which had been allowed to expire in 1811 (sec. 110). The country
had been thrown entirely upon banks chartered by the States; the pressure
of the war had caused their suspension, and the currency and banking
capital of the United States had thus been thrown into complete confusion.
For example, the Farmers Exchange Bank of Gloucester, R. I., was started,
with a capital of $3,000; accumulated deposits so that one of the
directors was able to steal $760,000; and then it failed, with specie
assets of $86.46. In 1811 there were eighty-eight State banks; in 1816
there were two hundred and forty-six.

[Sidenote: Bank bill of 1814.]
[Sidenote: The Bank Act.]

Since the re-charter bill of 1811 had failed by only one vote, Dallas,
Secretary of the Treasury in 1814, again proposed a national bank.
Congress accepted the principle, but an amendment proposed by John C.
Calhoun so altered the scheme that upon Dallas's advice Madison cast his
first important veto against it on Jan. 30, 1815. What Dallas desired was
a bank which would lend money to the government; what Congress planned was
a bank which would furnish a currency based on specie. In the next session
of Congress Madison himself urged the creation of a bank, and this time
Calhoun supported him. The Federalists, headed by Daniel Webster,--
remnants of the party which had established the first national bank,--
voted against it on the general principle of factious opposition. A small
minority of the Republicans joined them, but it was passed without much
difficulty, and became a law on April, 10, 1816.

[Sidenote: Bank charter.]

The bank was modelled on its predecessor (sec. 78), but the capital was
increased from $10,000,000 to $35,000,000, of which the United States
government held $7,000,000. It was especially provided that "the deposits
of the money of the United States shall be made in said bank or branches
thereof." In return for its special privileges the bank agreed to pay to
the government $1,500,000. The capital was larger than could safely be
employed; it was probably intended to absorb bank capital from the State
banks. The prosperity of the country, aided by the operations of the bank,
secured the renewal of specie payments by all the sound banks in the
country on Feb. 20, 1817.

[Sidenote: Loose construction accepted.]

The striking feature in the bank was not that it should be established,
but that it should be accepted by old Republicans like Madison, who had
found the charter of a bank in 1791 a gross perversion of the
Constitution. Even Henry Clay, who in 1811 had powerfully contributed to
the defeat of the bank, now came forward as its champion.

121. INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS (1806-1817).

[Sidenote: Local improvements.]
[Sidenote: Cumberland road.]
[Sidenote: Gallatin's scheme.]

Side by side with the bank bill went a proposition for an entirely new
application of the government funds. Up to this time internal
improvements--roads, canals and river and harbor improvements--had been
made by the States, so far as they were made at all. Virginia and Maryland
had spent considerable sums in an attempt to make the Potomac navigable,
and a few canals had been constructed by private capital, sometimes aided
by State credit. In 1806 the United States began the Cumberland Road, its
first work of the kind; but it was intended to open up the public lands in
Ohio and the country west, and was nominally paid for out of the proceeds
of those public lands. Just as the embargo policy was taking effect,
Gallatin, encouraged by the accumulation of a surplus in the Treasury,
brought in a report, April 4, 1808, suggesting the construction of a great
system of internal improvements: it was to include coastwise canals across
the isthmuses of Cape Cod, New Jersey, upper Delaware and eastern North
Carolina; roads were to be constructed from Maine to Georgia, and thence
to New Orleans, and from Washington westward to Detroit and St. Louis. He
estimated the cost at twenty millions, to be provided in ten annual
instalments. Jefferson himself was so carried away with this prospect of
public improvement that he recommended a constitutional amendment to
authorize such expenditures. The whole scheme disappeared when the surplus
vanished; but from year to year small appropriations were made for the
Cumberland road, so that up to 1812 more than $200,000 had been expended
upon it.

[Sidenote: Calhoun's Bonus Bill.]
[Sidenote: Madison's veto.]

The passage of the bank bill in 1816 was to give the United States a
million and a half of dollars (Section 120). Calhoun, therefore, came
forward, Dec. 23, 1816 with a bill proposing that this sum be employed as
a fund "for constructing roads and canals and improving the navigation of
watercourses." "We are" said he, "a rapidly--I was about to say a
fearfully--growing country.... This is our pride and danger, our weakness
and our strength." The constitutional question he settled with a phrase:
"If we are restricted in the use of our money to the enumerated powers, on
what principle can the purchase of Louisiana be justified?" The bill
passed the House by eighty-six to eighty-four; it was strongly supported
by New York members, because it was expected that the general government
would begin the construction of a canal from Albany to the Lakes; it had
also large support in the South, especially in South Carolina. In the last
hours of his administration Madison vetoed it. His message shows that he
had selected this occasion to leave to the people a political testament;
he was at last alarmed by the progress of his own party, and, like
Jefferson, he insisted that internal improvements were desirable, but
needed a constitutional amendment. The immediate effect of the veto was
that New York, seeing no prospect of federal aid, at once herself began
the construction of the Erie Canal, which was opened eight years later.
[Sidenote: State improvements.] Other States attempted like enterprises;
but the passes behind the Susquehanna and Potomac rivers were too high,
and no permanent water way was ever finished over them.

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