IN such a war the people of the United States had only themselves to
fear; but their dangers were all the more formidable. Had the war
deeply disturbed the conditions of society, or brought general and
immediate distress, government and Union might easily have fallen to
pieces; but in the midst of military disaster and in plain sight of
the Government’s incompetence, the general public neither felt nor
had reason to fear much change in the routine of life. Commerce had
long accustomed itself to embargoes, confiscations, and blockades, and
ample supplies of foreign goods continued to arrive. The people made
no serious exertions; among a population exceeding seven millions, not
ten thousand men entered the military service. The militia, liable to
calls to the limit of one hundred thousand, served for the most part
only a few weeks in the autumn, went home in whole regiments when they
pleased,[338] and in the East refused to go out at all. The scarcity of
men was so great that even among the sea-goingclass, for whose rights
the war was waged, only with the utmost difficulty and long delays, in
spite of bounties and glory, could sailors be found to man half-a-dozen
frigates for a three-months cruise, although the number of privateers
was never great.
The nation as a whole saw nothing of actual warfare. While scarcely
a city in Europe had escaped capture, and hardly a province of that
continent was so remote as not to be familiar with invading armies or
to have suffered in proportion to its resources, no American city saw
or greatly feared an enemy. The rich farms of New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia produced their usual harvests, and except
on exposed parts of the coast the farmers never feared that their
crops might be wasted by manœuvring armies, or their cattle, pigs, and
poultry be disturbed by marauders. The country was vast, and quiet
reigned throughout the whole United States. Except at the little point
of Niagara, occupied by a few hundred scattered farmers, and on the
extreme outskirts of Ohio and Indiana, the occupations and industries
of life followed in the main their daily course.
The country refused to take the war seriously. A rich nation with
seven million inhabitants should have easily put one hundred thousand
men into the field, and should have found no difficulty in supporting
them; but no inducement that the Government dared offer prevailed upon
the people to risk life and property on a sufficient scale in 1812.
The ranks of the army were to be filled in one of two ways,--either
by enlistment in the regular service for five years, with pay at
five dollars a month, sixteen dollars bounty, and on discharge three
months pay and one hundred and sixty acres of land; or by volunteer
organizations to the limit of fifty thousand men in all, officered
under State laws, to serve for one year, with the pay of regular troops
but without bounty, clothed, and in case of cavalry corps mounted, at
their own expense. In a society where the day-laborers’ wages were
nowhere less than nine dollars a month,[339] these inducements were not
enough to supply the place of enthusiasm. The patriotic citizen who
wished to serve his country without too much sacrifice, chose a third
course,--he volunteered under the Act of Congress which authorized the
President to call one hundred thousand State militia into service for
six months; and upon this State militia Dearborn, Hull, Van Rensselaer,
and Smyth were obliged chiefly to depend.
If the war fever burned hotly in any part of the country Kentucky
was the spot. There the whole male population was eager to prove
its earnestness. When Henry Clay returned to Lexington after the
declaration of war, he wrote to Monroe[340] that he was almost alarmed
at the ardor his State displayed; about four hundred men had been
recruited for the regular army, and although no one had volunteered for
twelve months, the quota of six-months militia was more than supplied
by volunteers.
“Such is the structure of our society, however,” continued Clay,
“that I doubt whether many can be engaged for a longer term
than six months. For that term any force whatever which our
population can afford may be obtained. Engaged in agricultural
pursuits, you are well aware that from about this time, when the
crop is either secured in the barn or laid by in the field until
the commencement of the spring, there is leisure for any kind of
enterprise.”
Clay feared only that these six-months militia corps, which had armed
and equipped themselves for instant service, might not be called
out. His friends were destined not to be disappointed, for early in
August pressing letters arrived from Hull’s army at Detroit begging
reinforcements, and the governor of Kentucky at once summoned two
thousand volunteers to rendezvous, August 20, at Newport, opposite
Cincinnati. This reinforcement could not reach Detroit before the
middle of September, and the difficulties already developed in Hull’s
path showed that the war could not be finished in a single campaign of
six months; but the Kentuckians were not on that account willing to
lengthen their term of service even to one year.
The danger revealed by Hull’s position threw a double obstacle in the
way of public energy, for where it did not check, it promised to
mislead enthusiasm, and in either case it shook, if it did not destroy,
confidence in the national government. The leaders of the war party
saw their fears taking shape. Henry Clay wrote without reserve to
Monroe,[341]--
“Should Hull’s army be cut off, the effect on the public mind
would be, especially in this quarter, in the highest degree
injurious. ‘Why did he proceed with so inconsiderable a force?’
was the general inquiry made of me. I maintained that it was
sufficient. Should he meet with a disaster, the predictions of
those who pronounced his army incompetent to its object will
be fulfilled; and the Secretary of War, in whom already there
unfortunately exists no sort of confidence, cannot possibly
shield Mr. Madison from the odium which will attend such an
event.”
Clay was right in thinking that Eustis could not shield Madison; but
from the moment that Eustis could no longer serve that purpose, Clay
had no choice but to shield the President himself. When the threatened
disaster took place, victims like Eustis, Hull, Van Rensselaer, Smyth,
were sacrificed; but the sacrifice merely prepared new material for
other and perhaps worse disasters of the same kind. In Kentucky this
result was most strongly marked, for in their irritation at the
weakness of the national Government the Kentuckians took the war into
their own hands, appointed William Henry Harrison to the command
of their armies, and attempted to conquer Canada by a campaign that
should not be directed from Washington. August 25 Clay described the
feelings of his State by a comparison suggesting the greatest military
misfortunes known in history:[342]
“If you will carry your recollections back to the age of the
Crusaders and of some of the most distinguished leaders of those
expeditions, you will have a picture of the enthusiasm existing
in this country for the expedition to Canada and for Harrison as
commander.”
A week later, September 21, Clay gave another account, even less
assuring, of the manner in which the popular energy was exhausting
itself:--
“The capitulation of Detroit has produced no despair; it has, on
the contrary, awakened new energies and aroused the whole people
of this State. Kentucky has at this moment from eight to ten
thousand men in the field; it is not practicable to ascertain
the precise number. Except our quota of the hundred thousand
militia the residue is chiefly of a miscellaneous character, who
have turned out without pay or supplies of any kind, carrying
with them their own arms and their own subsistence. Parties
are daily passing to the theatre of action; last night seventy
lay on my farm; and they go on, from a solitary individual,
to companies of ten, fifty, one hundred, etc. The only fear
I have is that the savages will, as their custom is, elude
them, and upon their return fall upon our frontiers. They have
already shocked us with some of the most horrid murders. Within
twenty-four miles of Louisville, on the headwaters of Silver
Creek, twenty-two were massacred a few days ago.”
The adventures of these volunteers made part of the next campaign.
Enthusiastic as Kentucky was, few or none of the eight or ten thousand
men under arms offered to serve for twelve months. Excessively
expensive, wasteful, insubordinate, and unsteady, no general dared to
depend on them. No one could be more conscious of the evils of the
system than the Government; but the Government was helpless to invent a
remedy.
“Proofs multiply daily,” wrote Madison to Monroe, September
21,[343] “of the difficulty of obtaining regulars, and of the
fluctuating resource in the militia. High bounties and short
enlistments, however objectionable, will alone fill the ranks,
and then too in a moderate number.”
To dislike of prolonged service even the most ardent Western supporters
of the war added distrust of the Executive. The war Republicans of
the West and South were hardly less vigorous than the Federalists of
Massachusetts and Connecticut in their criticisms of the Government at
Washington. John Graham, chief clerk of the State Department, who went
to Kentucky in September, wrote to Monroe[344] that “great as is the
popularity of the President, it is barely able to resist the torrent
of public opinion against the Secretary of War, who, so far as I can
judge, is universally considered by the people of this country as
incompetent to his present situation.” Clay’s opinion has already been
shown; but the angriest of all the war leaders on hearing of Hull’s
surrender was Senator Crawford of Georgia.
“Such is my want of confidence in the leaders of our forces,” he
wrote to Monroe,[345] “and their directors, Eustis and Hamilton
in the Cabinet, that I am fearful a continuance of the war,
unless it should be for several years, will only add to the
number of our defeats. The only difficulty I had in declaring
war arose from the incompetency of the men to whom the principal
management of it was to be confided. A Secretary of War who,
instead of forming general and comprehensive arrangements
for the organization of his troops and for the successful
prosecution of the campaign, consumes his time in reading
advertisements of petty retailing merchants to find where he may
purchase one hundred shoes or two hundred hats; and a Secretary
of the Navy who, in instructing his naval officers, should make
the supply of the heads of departments with pineapples and other
tropical fruits through the exertions of these officers,--cannot
fail to bring disgrace upon themselves, their immediate
employers, and the nation. If Mr. Madison finds it impossible to
bring his feelings to consent to the dismission of unfaithful
or incompetent officers, he must be content with defeat and
disgrace in all his efforts during the war. So far as he may
suffer from this course he deserves no commiseration, but his
accountability to the nation will be great indeed!”
Harsh as these comments, were, the Secretary of State found no
difficulty in listening to them; indeed, no member of the party was
more severe than Monroe. He visited Jefferson, and apparently Jefferson
agreed with his criticisms:[346]--
“We conferred on the then state of the Departments of War
and Navy, and agreed that whatever might be the merit of the
gentlemen in them, which was admitted in certain respects, a
change in both was indispensable.”
Indeed, Monroe did what no northern Democrat liked to do,--he found
fault with Dearborn.
“Our military operations,” he told Jefferson, “had been
unsuccessful. One army had been surrendered under circumstances
which impeached the integrity of the commander; and to the
north, in the whole extent of the country, so important and
delicately circumstanced as it was, the management had been
most wretched. The command at the important post of Niagara had
been suffered to fall into State hands, and to be perverted
to local and selfish purposes. Van Rensselaer, a weak and
incompetent man with high pretensions, took it. It was late in
the year before General Dearborn left Boston and repaired to
Albany, and had given no impulse to the recruiting business in
the Eastern States by passing through them and making appeals
to the patriotism of the people; and when he took the command
at Albany it was in a manner to discourage all hope of active
operations during the favorable season. The commander ought to
lead every important movement. If intended to attack Montreal,
that being the grand attack, his station was there. If a smaller
blow only could be given, the feint against Montreal should
have been committed to another, while he commanded in person
where real service was to be performed. It was soon seen that
nothing would be done against Lower Canada; General Dearborn
doubtless saw it on his first arrival at Albany, if he did not
anticipate it before he left Boston. Niagara was the object
next in importance, and had he taken the command there he might
and probably would, by superseding little people and conducting
our military operations, have prevented the riotous and
contentious scenes exhibited there, saved the country and the
Government from the disgraceful defeat of Van Rensselaer, and
the more disgraceful and gasconading discomfiture of Smyth. The
experience of the campaign had excited a doubt with many, if not
with all, whether our military operations would prosper under
General Dearborn; ... he was advanced in years, infirm, and had
given no proof of activity or military talent during the year.”
The Secretary of State required nothing less than the retirement
of the two of his colleagues in the Cabinet, and of the general in
chief command of the army. The Secretary of the Treasury, though
less censorious than Clay, Crawford, or Monroe, shared their
opinions. He spoke of Eustis’s incompetence as a matter universally
admitted, and wrote to Jefferson that though the three disasters of
Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth could not with justice be ascribed
to the Secretary of War, “yet his incapacity and the total want
of confidence in him were felt through every ramification of the
public service.”[347] Jefferson abstained from criticising the chief
incompetents, but set no bounds to his vindictiveness against the
unfortunate generals. “Hull will of course be shot for cowardice and
treachery,” he wrote to Madison;[348] “and will not Van Rensselaer be
broke for incapacity?”
The incapacity of Eustis, Hamilton, Dearborn, Hull, Van Rensselaer, and
Smyth pointed directly to the responsible source of appointment,--the
President himself; but in face of a general election Republicans could
not afford to criticise their President, and only in private could they
assail his Cabinet. The Federalists, factious, weak, and unpopular as
they were, expressed the secret opinion of the whole country, and could
be answered by no facts or arguments except military success, which
Madison was admittedly incompetent to win; but perhaps the failure of
his Cabinet, of his generals, and of his troops gave the Federalists
less advantage than they drew from the failures of diplomacy in which
his genius lay. With reasons such as few nations ever waited to collect
for an appeal to arms, Madison had been so unfortunate in making the
issue that on his own showing no sufficient cause of war seemed to
exist. His management was so extraordinary that at the moment when Hull
surrendered Detroit, Great Britain was able to pose before the world
in the attitude of victim to a conspiracy between Napoleon and the
United States to destroy the liberties of Europe. Such inversion of
the truth passed ordinary bounds, and so real was Madison’s diplomatic
mismanagement that it paralyzed one half the energies of the American
people.
Largely if not chiefly owing to these mistakes, the New England
Federalists were able to convince themselves that Jefferson and Madison
were sold to France. From the moment war was declared, the charge
became a source of serious danger. Only one more step was needed to
throw the clerical party of New England into open revolution. If the
majority meant to close their long career by a catastrophe which should
leave the Union a wreck, they had but to try the effects of coercion.
For a time the followers and friends of the Essex Junto had some
reason to hope that matters would quickly come to this pass, for the
declaration of war caused on both sides an outbreak of temper. In
Massachusetts, Governor Strong issued, June 26, a proclamation[349]
for a public Fast in consequence of the war just declared “against the
nation from which we are descended, and which for many generations
has been the bulwark of the religion we profess;” and although such
a description of England would in previous times have scandalized the
clergy, it was received with general assent. The returning members
of Congress who had voted for war met a reception in some cases
offensive and insulting, to the point of actual assault. Two of the
Massachusetts members, Seaver and Widgery, were publicly insulted and
hissed on Change in Boston; while another, Charles Turner, member for
the Plymouth district, and Chief-Justice of the Court of Sessions for
that county, was seized by a crowd on the evening of August 3, on the
main street of Plymouth, and kicked through the town.[350] By energetic
use of a social machinery still almost irresistible, the Federalists
and the clergy checked or prevented every effort to assist the war,
either by money or enlistments. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts,
with Chief-Justice Parsons at its head, advised[351] Governor Strong
that not to Congress or to the President, but to the governor, belonged
the right to decide when the Constitutional exigency existed which
should call the State militia into the service of the United States;
and Governor Strong decided that neither foreign invasion nor domestic
insurrection existed, and that therefore he could not satisfy the
President’s request for the quota of the United States militia to
defend the coast. When, later in the season, the governor called out
three companies for the defence of Eastport and Castine, in Maine, the
chief-justice privately remonstrated, holding that this act yielded the
main point at issue between the State and National government.[352]
General Dearborn’s annoyance at the difficulties thrown in the way of
enlistments was well-founded. By one favorite device, the creation of
fictitious debts, the person enlisting caused himself to be arrested
and bailed. The courts held that while the suit was pending the man
was the property of his bail, and could not be obliged to resume his
military duties.[353] Many such difficulties were created by the
activity of individuals; but organized efforts were made with still
more effect in counteracting the wishes of government. The Federalist
members of Congress issued an Address to their constituents protesting
against the action of Congress in suppressing discussion; and this
address declared the war to be unnecessary and inexpedient. Immediately
after the declaration, the House of Representatives of Massachusetts
issued another Address to the People of the State,[354] declaring the
war to be a wanton sacrifice of their best interests, and asking their
exertions to thwart it.
“To secure a full effect to your object, it will be necessary
that you should meet and consult together for the common
good in your towns and counties. It is in dark and trying
times that this Constitutional privilege becomes invaluable.
Express your sentiments without fear, and let the sound of
your disapprobation of this war be loud and deep. Let it be
distinctly understood that in support of it your conformity to
the requisitions of law will be the result of principle and not
of choice. If your sons must be torn from you by conscription,
consign them to the care of God; but let there be no volunteers
except for defensive war.”
The people at once acted upon the recommendation to hold town-meetings
and county conventions. Among the earliest was a meeting in Essex
County, July 21, Timothy Pickering presiding, which adopted a
declaration drawn by him, closing with his favorite proposal of a
State Convention, to which the meeting chose delegates. This step--a
revival of the old disunion project of 1804--was received with general
favor, and defeated only by the courageous opposition of Samuel
Dexter, who, breaking away from his party associates, attacked the
scheme so vigorously in Boston town-meeting, August 6 and 7, that
though Harrison Gray Otis and other Federalists leaders gave it their
public support, and though the motion itself was carried, the plan was
abandoned.[355] Thenceforward, while towns and counties continued to
adopt addresses, memorials, and resolutions, they avoided committing
themselves to expressions or acts for which the time was not ripe. A
typical memorial among many that were showered upon the President was
adopted by a convention of electors of the county of Rockingham in New
Hampshire, August 5, and was the better worth attention because drawn
by Daniel Webster, who made there his first appearance as a party
leader:--
“We shrink from the separation of the States as an event
fraught with incalculable evils; and it is among our strongest
objections to the present course of measures that they have in
our opinion a very dangerous and alarming bearing on such an
event. If a separation of the States ever should take place,
it will be on some occasion when one portion of the country
undertakes to control, to regulate, and to sacrifice the
interest of another; when a small and heated majority in the
government, taking counsel of their passions and not of their
reason, contemptuously disregarding the interests and perhaps
stopping the mouths of a large and respectable minority, shall
by hasty, rash, and ruinous measures threaten to destroy
essential rights and lay waste the most important interests. It
shall be our most fervent supplication to Heaven to avert both
the event and the occasion; and the Government may be assured
that the tie that binds us to the Union will never be broken
_by us_.”
The conduct of England strengthened the Federalists. After the repeal
of the Orders in Council became known, Monroe, July 27, authorized
Jonathan Russell in London to arrange an armistice, provided the
British government would consent to an informal arrangement in regard
to impressments and blockades. Hardly had these instructions been
sent to England, when from Albany came news that Sir George Prevost
had proposed an armistice and General Dearborn had accepted it. This
act compelled the President either to stop the war and disorganize his
party, or to disapprove Dearborn’s armistice without prejudice to the
armistice which Russell was to negotiate in London, and also without
censure to General Dearborn. To Dearborn the President, as the story
has shown, sent immediate orders for the renewal of hostilities; while
Monroe, in fresh instructions to Jonathan Russell,[356] explained the
disavowal. The explanations given by Monroe were little likely to
satisfy Federalists that the Government honestly wished for peace.
Monroe alleged that the repeal of the Orders in Council did not satisfy
the United States, because the repeal still asserted the principle
underlying the orders, which the United States could not admit; but he
further maintained that any armistice, made before obtaining redress on
the subject of impressments, might be taken as a relinquishment of the
claim to redress, and was therefore inadmissible.
However sound in principle these objections were, they seemed to
declare perpetual war; for until England should be reduced to the
position of Denmark or Prussia, she would not abandon in express terms
either the right of impressment or that of blockade. The probable
effect of a successful war waged on these grounds would give Canada
and the Floridas to the United States as the consequence of aiding
Napoleon to destroy European and English liberties. The Federalist
clergy had little difficulty in convincing their congregations by
such evidence that Madison was bound under secret engagements with
Napoleon; and while Madison planted himself in the Napoleonic position
of forcing war on a yielding people, the British officials in Canada
stood on the defensive, avoided irritation, and encouraged trade and
commerce. American merchant-vessels carried British passes; and most of
them, to the anger of Napoleon, were freighted with supplies for the
British army in Portugal and Spain. The attitude of England would have
been magnificent in its repose had its dignity not been ruffled by the
conduct of Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge, and by the privateers.
While the New England Federalists, taking the attitude of patriots
who strove only to avert impending ruin, made their profit of
every new national disaster, and repressed as well as they could
the indiscretions of their friends, the war party was not so well
disciplined. Democracies in history always suffered from the necessity
of uniting with much of the purest and best in human nature a mass of
ignorance and brutality lying at the bottom of all societies. Although
America was safe for the time from Old World ruin, no political or
military error went so far to disgust respectable people with the
war and its support, as an uprising of brutality which occurred in
Baltimore. Within some twenty years this newest of American cities
had gathered nearly fifty thousand inhabitants, among whom were many
of the roughest characters in America, fit only for privateersmen or
pirates, and familiar with both careers. On the other hand, the State
of Maryland like the State of Delaware contained many conservatives,
who showed their strength every four years by depriving the Republican
candidate for the Presidency of some portion of the State’s electoral
vote. Under their patronage a newspaper called “The Federal Republican”
was published in Baltimore, edited by Jacob Wagner, who had been
chief clerk of the State Department under Secretary Pickering, and
was retained in that office by Secretary Madison until 1807, when he
resigned the place and made use of his knowledge to attack Madison in
the press. As an editor, Jacob Wagner belonged to the extreme wing
of his party, and scrupled at nothing in the way of an assertion or
a slander. His opposition to the war was bitter and unceasing, while
the city of Baltimore shared in the feeling common in the South and
West, that, after the declaration, opposition to the war amounted to
treason and should not be tolerated. June 22, immediately after the
declaration, a well-organized mob deliberately took possession of
Wagner’s printing office and destroyed it, pulling down even the walls,
while the citizens looked on and the mayor confined his exercise of
authority to deprecations.
Wagner removed to the District of Columbia, and began to publish his
paper in Georgetown, where the Government could be made directly
responsible in case of further violence; but his associate, A. C.
Hanson, and several of the Baltimore Federalists, were not disposed
to tolerate the dictation of a mob; and after discussing the matter
a month, some of them determined on an attempt as fool-hardy as it
was courageous.[357] Monday, July 27, the “Federal Republican” was
circulated among its subscribers in Baltimore, purporting to be printed
at 45 Charles Street, though really printed at Georgetown; while about
twenty persons, under the general direction of Henry Lee,--a Virginian
distinguished in the Revolutionary War, and in 1791 governor of his
State,--fortified themselves in the house and waited attack. The same
evening a mob gathered and broke open the door. The garrison fired, and
killed or wounded some of the assailants. The attacking party brought
up a cannon, and a serious battle was about to begin, when the mayor
with a small squadron of cavalry intervened, and persuaded Hanson and
his friends to submit to the civil authority and go to jail to answer
for the blood they had shed. General Lee, General Lingan,--also a
Revolutionary officer,--Hanson, and the other occupants of the house
were marched to the jail through an angry and violent mob. The city was
in commotion, the authorities were helpless, the militia when called
upon did not appear; and that night the mob, consisting chiefly of low
Irish and Germans, entered the jail and took out the prisoners. Some
managed to escape in the confusion; the rest were savagely beaten.
Eight more or less unconscious victims lay all night and till noon
the next day piled on the prison steps, and the crowd, which would
not permit their removal, amused itself by cutting and burning the
sufferers to ascertain whether they were dead. When at last the rioters
permitted them to be removed, General Lingan was in fact dead, General
Lee was crippled, and the others were more or less severely injured.
At that moment, and even long after the heat of temper subsided,[358]
party feeling tended to favor the rioters rather than the Federalists,
who had, as was said, “given aid and comfort to the enemy;” but when
the political effects of the massacre showed themselves, the war party
became aware that a blunder had been committed more serious than any
ordinary crime. The Baltimore massacre recalled the excesses of the
French Revolution, still fresh in men’s minds; and although Democrats
in Pennsylvania and Republicans in Virginia might feel themselves too
strong for disorder, in the North and East the murder of Lingan shook
the foundation of society. Massachusetts and Connecticut looked to
their arms. If their political opinions were to be repressed by such
means, they had need to be unanimous on their own side. The town of
Boston, August 6, declared in strongly worded resolutions[359] that
the riot was “the first fruit of the unnatural and dreadful alliance
into which we have entered in fact, if not in form,” and ordered the
magistrates and citizens to be ready at a moment’s warning, armed and
equipped, to suppress any kind of disorder. Under this excitement, the
Federalists at Rockingham, August 5, talked of disunion, and the rabble
of Plymouth mobbed Turner on the night of August 3. If the majority
alone was to utter opinions, the Republican party north of Pennsylvania
might yet be forced to practise the virtue of silence. Not all the
political and military disasters of the year harmed the Government and
the war more seriously than they were injured by the Baltimore mob.
Under the influence of such passions the Presidential election
approached. Except beyond the mountains the war party was everywhere
a social minority, and perhaps such strength as Madison retained in
the East consisted partly in the popular impression that he was not a
favorite with the authors of the war. The true sentiment of the people,
if capable of expression, was one of fretful discontent; and the sense
of diffused popular restlessness alone explained the obstinacy of De
Witt Clinton in refusing to desist from his candidacy, and still more
the first prominent appearance of Martin Van Buren as manager of the
intrigue for defeating Madison. De Witt Clinton was classed by most
persons as a reckless political gambler, but Martin Van Buren when
he intrigued commonly preferred to intrigue upon the strongest side.
Yet one feeling was natural to every New York politician, whether a
Clinton or a Livingston, Burrite, Federalist, or Republican,--all
equally disliked Virginia; and this innate jealousy gave to the
career of Martin Van Buren for forty years a bias which perplexed his
contemporaries, and stood in singular contradiction to the soft and
supple nature he seemed in all else to show.
No canvass for the Presidency was ever less creditable than that of
De Witt Clinton in 1812. Seeking war votes for the reason that he
favored more vigorous prosecution of the war; asking support from peace
Republicans because Madison had plunged the country into war without
preparation; bargaining for Federalist votes as the price of bringing
about a peace; or coquetting with all parties in the atmosphere of
bribery in bank charters,--Clinton strove to make up a majority which
had no element of union but himself and money. The Federalists held a
conference at New York in September, and in spite of Rufus King, who
was said to have denounced Clinton as a dangerous demagogue in almost
the words used by Hamilton to denounce Aaron Burr ten years before,
after three days debate, largely through the influence of Harrison Gray
Otis, the bargain was made which transferred to Clinton the electoral
votes of the Federalist States. No one knew what pledges were given
by Clinton and his friends; but no man of common-sense who wished to
preserve the government and the Union could longer refuse to vote for
Madison. Only to that extent could the people be said to have reached
any conviction.