The war fever of 1811 swept far and wide over the country, but even at
its height seemed somewhat intermittent and imaginary. A passion that
needed to be nursed for five years before it acquired strength to break
into act, could not seem genuine to men who did not share it. A nation
which had submitted to robbery and violence in 1805, in 1807, in 1809,
could not readily lash itself into rage in 1811 when it had no new
grievance to allege; nor could the public feel earnest in maintaining
national honor, for every one admitted that the nation had sacrificed
its honor, and must fight to regain it. Yet what honor was to be hoped
from a war which required continued submission to one robber as the
price of resistance to another? President Madison submitted to Napoleon
in order to resist England; the New England Federalists preferred
submitting to England in order to resist Napoleon; but not one American
expected the United States to uphold their national rights against the
world.
Politicians of the old school looked coldly on the war spirit. Nations
like individuals, when driven to choose between desperate courses,
might at times be compelled to take the chances of destruction,
often destroying themselves, or suffering irreparable harm. Yet the
opponents of war could argue that Americans were not placed between
desperate alternatives. They had persevered hitherto, in spite of
their leaders, in the policy of peace; had suffered much injury and
acute mortification, but had won Louisiana and West Florida, had given
democracy all it asked, and had remained in reasonable harmony with the
liberal movement of the world. They were reaping the fruit of their
patient and obstinate husbandry; for Russia and Sweden were about to
fight their battles without reward. Napoleon offered them favors more
or less real, and even England could not long resist the pressure of
her interests. Jefferson’s policy had wrought all the evil it could
cause,--perhaps it had cost the highest price the nation could pay; but
after the nation had suffered the evil and paid the price, it had a
right to the profit. With more force than in 1798, the old Republicans
pleaded that if they should throw aside their principles and plunge
into hostilities with England, they would not only sacrifice the
results of six years’ humiliation, but would throw the United States
athwart the liberal movement of Europe, destroy the hopes of pure
government at home, and with more eagerness than they had shown for
the past ten years in stripping government of its power, must devote
themselves to the task of rebuilding a sovereignty as terrible in peace
as in war.
The moment for fighting, conservatives argued, had come in 1807,
had passed in 1809; and henceforward good policy called only for
perseverance in the course that had been so persistently preferred. Not
merely old Republicans, but an actual majority of the people probably
held these opinions; yet the youthful energy of the nation, which had
at last come to its strength under the shelter of Jefferson’s peaceful
rule, cried out against the cowardice of further submission, and
insisted on fighting if only to restore its own self-respect.
The course of Massachusetts had much to do with changing the current
of opinion. Hitherto this State had barred the way to a British war.
Although the Republican party in Massachusetts several times elected
their candidate for governor by majorities more or less decisive, they
failed to gain full control of the State legislature before 1811. In
1810 they elected Elbridge Gerry and a majority of the representatives,
but they still lacked one vote to give them control of the Senate. In
April, 1811, Gerry succeeded once more, defeating Christopher Gore,
the Federalist candidate, by a majority of three thousand votes; while
the House, which consisted of some six hundred and fifty members,
chose a Republican speaker by a majority of thirty-one. For the first
time the Republicans controlled also a majority, though only of one
vote, in the State Senate. This success, gained in spite of the
unpopular Non-importation Act, gave extraordinary confidence to the
Government, and left the Federalists powerless. Timothy Pickering
lost his seat in the United States Senate, and Speaker Varnum received
it. The Republicans hastened to introduce, and to carry through the
Massachusetts legislature, measures that threatened to upturn the
foundation of Federalist society. Other measures still more radical
were expected. Jefferson’s hopes of reforming Massachusetts were almost
fulfilled; but the success which gave reality to them removed the last
obstacle to war with England.
As the autumn advanced, the Republican newspapers broke into a general
cry for war. The British minister’s refusal to withdraw the Orders in
Council, the return of Pinkney from London, the affair of the “Little
Belt,” the notorious relations between the northwestern Indians and
the British traders,--all served to increase the ill-temper of a
public trying to lash itself into an act it feared. Even the battle
at Tippecanoe, although evidently contrary to British interest, was
charged to British influence. As though England had not already given
cause for a score of wars, the press invented new grievances; and
became as eager to denounce imaginary crimes as to correct flagrant and
chronic wrongs.
The matter of impressments then began to receive the attention which
had never yet been given it. Hitherto neither Government nor people
had thought necessary to make a _casus belli_ of impressments.
Orders in Council and other measures of Great Britain which affected
American property had been treated as matters of vital consequence;
but as late as the close of 1811, neither the President, the Secretary
of State, nor Congress had yet insisted that the person of an American
citizen was as sacred as his property. Impressments occurred daily.
No one knew how many native-born Americans had been taken by force
from the protection of the American flag; but whether the number was
small or great, neither Republican nor Federalist had ventured to say
that the country must at all hazards protect them, or that whatever
rules of blockade or contraband the belligerents might adopt against
property, they must at least keep their hands off the persons of
peaceable Americans whether afloat or ashore. President Madison had
repeated, until the world laughed in his face, that Napoleon no longer
enforced his decrees, and that therefore if England did not withdraw
her blockade, war would result; but he had never suggested that America
would fight for her sailors. When he and his supporters in earnest
took up the grievances of the seamen, they seemed to do so as an
afterthought, to make out a cause of war against England, after finding
the public unwilling to accept the cause at first suggested. However
unjust the suspicion might be, so much truth existed in this Federalist
view of Madison’s course as warranted the belief that if England in
July, 1811, had yielded to the demand for commercial freedom, the
Government would have become deaf to the outcry of the imprisoned
seamen. Only by slow degrees, and in the doubtful form of a political
manœuvre, did this, the worst of all American grievances, take its
proper place at the head of the causes for war.
Winter drew near, finding the public restless, irritable, more than
half afraid of its own boldness, but outspoken at last. British
frigates once more blockaded New York, seizing ships and impressing
men without mercy, while the British prize-courts, after a moment’s
hesitation, declared that the French Decrees were not repealed, and
that American vessels sailing to France were good prize. Under these
irritations the temper of the American press became rapidly worse,
until war was declared to be imminent, and the conquest of Canada
became the favorite topic of newspaper discussion.
Yet the true intentions of the President and his Cabinet were as
uncertain as those of the Twelfth Congress, which had not yet met. A
very large part of the public could not believe war to be possible,
and the Government itself shared so far in the doubt as to wait for
Congress to give the impulse so often refused. When the President and
his Cabinet met in Washington to prepare for the session of Congress
called for November 4, a month earlier than usual, neither the Cabinet
nor the congressmen felt a certainty of the future; and so little did
the outside world believe in war, that Madison, Monroe, and Gallatin
were supposed to be aiming at a diplomatic rather than at a military
victory. In truth they had no well-defined plan. The process by which
a scattered democracy decided its own will, in a matter so serious as
a great and perhaps fatal war, was new to the world; bystanders were
surprised and amused at the simplicity with which the people disputed
plans of war and peace, giving many months of warning and exact
information to the enemy, while they showed no sign of leadership,
discipline, or union, or even a consciousness that such qualities were
needed. Men like Josiah Quincy, Rufus King, John Randolph, and even
Madison and Gallatin, seeing that the people themselves, like the
machine of government they had invented, were incompetent to the work
of war, waited with varied emotions, but equally believing or fearing
that at last a fatal crisis was at hand.
Monroe was far from easy; but he had accepted, as was his wont, the
nearest dominating will, and he drifted without an effort, although
his old friends had already parted company with him. Though obliged to
support the President in holding that Napoleon’s decrees were withdrawn
so that they had ceased to violate the neutral commerce of the United
States, he showed that he did so, not so much because he thought it the
truth, as because England gave him no choice. To Serurier, the French
minister, Monroe made little concealment of his real wishes; and when
Serurier first called at the Department after Monroe’s return from
Virginia, he heard nothing that greatly pleased him.
“I found the Secretary of State,” wrote Serurier, October
23,[122] “nearly in the same state of mind in which I left him
at his departure for Virginia. He told me at the outset that
although the information received by the President during the
last two months had added to his hopes, it had not yet completed
his conviction on the decrees; that he could not believe them
entirely repealed so long as there remained in our ports a
single vessel captured by our privateers since November.... He
pretended that very recent advices from Naples announced an
order sent lately from Paris to sell the American prizes, and
this news had been very disagreeable to the Executive, and had
thrown it into new uncertainties.... He returned again to our
customs-tariff, and the indispensability of its reduction.”
Serurier exerted himself to infuse what he called proper spirit into
the secretary’s temper, complaining that England was actually engaged
in making war on American commerce with France while enjoying all the
advantages of American trade,--
“A very dangerous situation for an alliance, I added, where
all the advantage is for your enemies, and all the loss is for
your friends. Mr. Monroe agreed to all this; but he pretended
that this false position could be viewed only as a transition
to a more decided state of things; that the present situation
was equally burdensome and intolerable to the citizens, and
little suited to the dignity of the Government; that it was
necessary to wait for despatches from Mr. Barlow. Then he fell
back once more on his theme,--that whenever they should be
perfectly satisfied on the side of France, and also of the
Emperor’s friendship, they would certainly adopt very energetic
measures toward England.... ‘We shall not go backward,’ said
Mr. Monroe to me; ‘we shall be inflexible about the repeal of
the Orders in Council. But in order to go further, to bring
us to great resolutions, the Emperor must aid us; private and
public interest must make the same demand. The President does
indeed hold the rudder of the Ship of State; he guides, but it
is public opinion which makes the vessel move. On France depends
the winning of public opinion; and we wish for it, as you can
well conceive that in our position we should.’”
Serurier knew no more than this, which was no more than all the world
could see. The British minister was not so well informed. After an
exchange of notes with Monroe, which left matters where they were,
Foster learned from Monroe, October 30, that the Government was waiting
for Barlow’s despatches, and if these should prove unsatisfactory, some
restriction of French commerce would be imposed by way of retaliation
on the restrictions imposed by Napoleon.[123] Foster hoped for a turn
in affairs favorable to himself, and tried to bring it about, not
only by suggesting to Lord Wellesley the wisdom of concessions from
England, but also by offering a frank and fair reparation for the
“Chesapeake” outrage. He wrote, November 1, to the Secretary of State
renewing the formal disavowal of Berkeley’s unauthorized act, and
offering to restore the men to the vessel from which they had been
taken, with compensation to themselves and families. Somewhat coldly
Monroe accepted the offer. The two surviving seamen were in due time
brought from their prison at Halifax and restored to the deck of the
“Chesapeake” in Boston harbor; the redress was made as complete as such
tardy justice could ever be, but the time had passed when it could
atone for the wrong.
Both Foster and Serurier felt that the people were further advanced
than the Government in hostility to England, and that this was
especially true in the matter of impressments; but no one, even at
the White House, knew certainly what to expect from the new Congress
assembling at Washington Nov. 4, 1811. That this body differed greatly
from any previous Congress was clear, if only because it contained some
seventy new members; but another difference, less easily measured,
was more serious. The active leaders were young men. Henry Clay of
Kentucky, William Lowndes, John Caldwell Calhoun, David R. Williams,
Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, Felix Grundy of Tennessee, Peter
Buell Porter of New York, Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky, had
none of them reached his fortieth year; while Madison and his Cabinet
belonged to a different generation. None of the new leaders could
remember the colonial epoch, or had taken a share in public life except
under the Constitution of 1789, or had been old enough to feel and
understand the lessons taught by opposition to the Federalist rule.
They knew the Federalists only as a faction, more or less given to
treasonable talk, controlling some thirty or forty votes in the House,
and proclaiming with tedious iteration opinions no one cared to hear.
The young war Republicans, as they were called, felt only contempt for
such a party; while, as their acts showed, they were filled with no
respect for the technicalities of their Executive head, and regarded
Gallatin with distrust. Of statesmanship, in the old sense, they took
little thought. Bent on war with England, they were willing to face
debt and probable bankruptcy on the chance of creating a nation, of
conquering Canada, and carrying the American flag to Mobile and Key
West.
After ten years devoted to weakening national energies, such freshness
of youth and recklessness of fear had wonderful popular charm. The
reaction from Jefferson’s system threatened to be more violent than
its adoption. Experience seemed to show that a period of about twelve
years measured the beat of the pendulum. After the Declaration of
Independence, twelve years had been needed to create an efficient
Constitution; another twelve years of energy brought a reaction against
the government then created; a third period of twelve years was ending
in a sweep toward still greater energy; and already a child could
calculate the result of a few more such returns.
Had the majority of the House been in a gentler mood, its choice for
Speaker should have fallen on Macon, once more a sound party man
prepared to support war; but Macon was set aside. Bibb of Georgia, a
candidate of the minority, received only thirty-eight voices, while
seventy-five were given for Henry Clay. Clay was barely thirty-four
years of age, and was a new member of the House; but he was the boldest
and most active leader of the war Republicans. He immediately organized
the committees for war. That on Foreign Relations, the most immediately
important, was put into the hands of Porter, Calhoun, and Grundy.
Military affairs were placed in charge of David R. Williams. Langdon
Cheves became chairman of the Naval Committee. Ezekiel Bacon and Cheves
stood at the head of the Ways and Means.
November 5 the President’s Message was read, and its account of the
situation seemed to offer hardly the chance of peace. England, it
said, had refused the “reasonable step” of repealing its Orders in
return for the extinction of the French Decrees; while the new British
minister had made “an indispensable condition of the repeal of the
British Orders, that commerce should be restored to a footing that
would admit the productions and manufactures of Great Britain, when
owned by neutrals, into markets shut against them by her enemies,--the
United States being given to understand that in the mean time a
continuation of their Non-importation Act would lead to measures of
retaliation.” Instead of repealing the orders, the British government,
“at a moment when least to have been expected,” put them into more
rigorous execution; “indemnity and redress for other wrongs have
continued to be withheld; and our coasts and the mouths of our harbors
have again witnessed scenes not less derogatory to the dearest of our
national rights than vexatious to the regular course of our trade.”
In some respects Madison’s statement of grievances sounded almost
needlessly quarrelsome; yet even in this list of causes which were to
warrant a declaration of war, the President did not expressly mention
impressments, in comparison with which his other grievances sank, in
the afterthought, to insignificance.
Of France, also, the President spoke in language far from friendly.
Although the decrees were revoked, “no proof is yet given,” he said,
“of an intention to repair the other wrongs done to the United States,
and particularly to restore the great amount of American property
seized and condemned under edicts ... founded in such unjust principles
that the reparation ought to have been prompt and ample.” In addition
to this, the United States had much reason to be dissatisfied with
“the rigorous and unexpected restrictions” imposed on their trade with
France, which if continued would lead to retaliation. Not a word did
the Message contain of friendly or even civil regard for the French
government.
Then followed the sentences which could be read only in the sense of an
invitation to war:--
“I must now add that the period has arrived which claims from
the legislative guardians of the national rights a system of
more ample provisions for maintaining them. Notwithstanding
the scrupulous justice, the protracted moderation, and the
multiplied efforts on the part of the United States to
substitute for the accumulating dangers to the peace of the two
countries all the mutual advantages of re-established friendship
and confidence, we have seen that the British Cabinet perseveres
not only in withholding a remedy for other wrongs so long and
so loudly calling for it, but in the execution, brought home
to the threshold of our territory, of measures which, under
existing circumstances, have the character as well as the effect
of war on our lawful commerce. With this evidence of hostile
inflexibility in trampling on rights which no independent
nation can relinquish, Congress will feel the duty of putting
the United States into an armor and an attitude demanded by
the crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit and
expectations.”
The report of Secretary Gallatin, sent to the House November 22, bore
also a warlike character. For the past year Gallatin told a cheerful
story. In spite of the non-importation, the receipts from customs and
other revenue exceeded $13,500,000, while the current expenses had not
reached $8,000,000. If war should be declared, the secretary asked only
for an increase of fifty per cent in the duties, in order to make sure
of a fixed revenue of nine million dollars; and should this increase of
duty be insufficient for the purpose, the deficiency could be supplied
without difficulty by a further increase of duties, by a restoration
of the impost on salt, and by “a proper selection of moderate internal
taxes.” With a revenue of nine million dollars secured, the Treasury
could rely on loans to defray extraordinary expenses, and a few years
of peace would supply the means of discharging the debt incurred.
If this was different finance from that which Gallatin had taught in
other days, and by which he had risen to popularity and power, it was
at least as simple as all that Gallatin did; but the simplicity of
his methods, which was their chief professional merit, caused also
their chief reproach. History showed the financial charlatan to be
popular, not so much because he was dishonest as because he gratified
an instinct for gambling as deep as the instinct of selfishness; and
a common notion of a financier was that of a man whose merit lay in
the discovery of new sources of wealth, or in inventing means of
borrowing without repayment. Gallatin professed to do neither. He did
not recommend the issue of paper money; he saw no secret hoards buried
in the unsold public lands; he would listen to no tricks or devices for
raising money. If money was needed he would borrow it, and would pay
whatever it was worth; but he would not suggest that any device could
relieve the public from taxing itself to pay whatever the public chose
to spend.
“The ability and will of the United States faithfully to perform
their engagements are universally known; and the terms of loans
will in no shape whatever be affected by want of confidence in
either. They must, however, depend not only upon the state of
public credit, and on the ability to lend, but also on the
existing demand for capital required for other objects. Whatever
this may be, the money wanted by the public must be purchased
at its market price.... The most simple and direct is also the
cheapest and safest mode.”
Gallatin instanced, as an extreme case, the borrowing of forty
millions at eight instead of the legal rate of six per cent, which he
declared an inconsiderable difference if compared with the effects of
other modes of raising money. No one whose judgment deserved respect
doubted the correctness of his opinion; but Republican congressmen
had for twelve years denounced the Federalist loan of 1798, when five
millions had been borrowed at eight per cent, and they hardly dared
face their constituents when their own Secretary of the Treasury talked
of borrowing forty millions at the same exorbitant rate. Gently as
Gallatin hinted at “a proper selection of moderate internal taxes,”
they remembered that these internal taxes had broken the Federalist
party to pieces. They were angry with Gallatin for not providing other
means for the war than loans and taxes, and they regarded him as not
unwilling to check and chill the military ardor of the nation.
The President’s Message, as far as it regarded foreign affairs, was
referred in the House, November 11, to a select committee, the chairman
of which was Peter B. Porter, with Calhoun and Grundy to support his
well-known opinions. Although the nature of their report could hardly
be doubted, no one seemed confident that it would be taken seriously.
Macon wrote privately, November 21, to his old friend Joseph Nicholson,
that he was still ignorant of the leaders’ intentions:[124]--
“At this place we are nearly all too wise or too mysterious to
form hasty conclusions; it is, however, probable that there are
not more than five or six opinions among us, varying from open
war to repealing the present restrictive system. I have had but
little communication with the knowing ones, and have in some
degree guessed at the number of different opinions. I am almost
certain that no plan is yet adopted by the leaders in the House.”
Within a week Macon found that a plan was made, but it seemed to come
wholly from the White House. The Secretary of War appeared before
the Committee of Foreign Relations and explained what the President
wanted;[125] at the same time Secretary Monroe communicated to the
French minister the nature of the Executive plan.[126]
“Mr. Monroe added;” wrote Serurier, November 28, “... that
the situation of affairs should leave me no doubt as to his
Excellency’s [the President’s] disposition; that the Government
had lost every illusion as to the repeal of the Orders in
Council, and was decided in adopting measures of rigor; that
we might be assured it would not retreat; that ten thousand
regulars were to be raised and placed at the disposition
of the Executive, with a great number of volunteers; that
the posts would be put in a state of defence, the navy
increased, and merchants authorized to arm for the protection
of their commerce; that this measure, now that our decrees
were withdrawn, could strike at England alone; that the
Administration in taking this resolution had perfectly seen
where it led; that evidently this situation would not last three
months, and would inevitably lead to a decision for which the
country was prepared; that the Committee of Foreign Relations
in the House of Representatives would report within a few days,
and he had no doubt that these measures would pass by a great
majority.”
A few days later Serurier had conversations with Monroe and Madison on
the subject of the Spanish American colonies, whose independence they
agreed to assist not only by moral but also by material aid. The French
minister closed his despatch by adding that Congress was at the moment
listening to the report of the Committee of Foreign Relations. “Mr.
Monroe repeated to me that he considered war as pretty nearly decided.”
If the British minister knew less exactly what was happening behind
the scenes, he still knew enough to alarm him. He reported that
the Government was actively organizing its party in Congress; that
different sets of members met every evening in caucus, and were
instilled with the ideas of the Administration;[127] but that while
the members of the Government were to all appearance still undecided
themselves, it would be rash for other persons to express a decided
opinion. A few days after writing in this doubtful sense, Foster was
electrified by an outburst of temper from Monroe, who told him that
the Government would send no new minister to England, and that it “had
reason to believe Great Britain really wished for war with the United
States.”[128] Monroe added that he felt some difficulty in talking
openly about the views of the Government, as some of his disclosures
might be regarded as menaces. The President, though less warm than the
Secretary, talked not less decidedly:
“He owned to me that the situation of America was very
embarrassing; that anything was better than remaining in such a
state; and though he very strongly asserted the impossibility of
America receding from the grounds she had taken, ... said that
he would ask no sacrifice of principle in Great Britain, and
would have no objection to some conventional arrangement between
the two countries if it should be judged necessary in the event
of the Orders in Council being withdrawn. This was, however,
an indispensable preliminary, for he must consider the French
Decrees as revoked so far as Great Britain had a right to expect
America should require their revocation.”
Although Foster became more nervous from day to day, and showed strong
symptoms of a wish that the Orders in Council might be modified
or withdrawn, neither he nor the President informed the British
government that any other cause of war existed, or that the United
States meant to insist on further concessions. In secret, diplomacy
flattered itself that war would still be avoided; but it reckoned
without taking into account the temper of Congress.