PEACEABLE COERCION
The so-called Peace of Amiens in 1801 proved to be only an interlude in
the wars of France with Europe. Within two years hostilities were
renewed which closed only with the battle of Waterloo. In the course of
this prolonged conflict Napoleon won and lost for France the ascendency
in central and western Europe, but Great Britain remained throughout
mistress of the seas. The commerce of France and of Holland and Spain,
which had become virtually her dependencies, was almost driven from the
seas. For their foodstuffs and colonial supplies, more than ever in
demand as war devastated the fields of Europe, these nations had to look
to vessels flying neutral flags. The export trade of the United States,
which had fallen from $94,000,000 in the year 1801 to $55,800,000 in
1803, rapidly recovered until in 1805 it passed the high-water mark of
the earlier year. More than half of this trade was in products of the
tropics, for while the direct trade between the West India colonies and
Europe was forbidden by the so-called "Rule of 1756," American shippers
carried on a lucrative traffic which was virtually direct. Products
brought from the West Indies to American ports were promptly reshipped
as part of American stock to European ports; and the British courts had
held that this importation had broken the voyage. When once import
duties had been paid in an American port, the courts refused to inquire
what thereafter became of the cargo and whether in fact rebates were
given on exportation.
In midsummer of 1805 occurred a reversal of British policy. In the case
of the Essex, which had made the voyage from Charleston to London with
colonial produce from Martinique, a British admiralty court ruled for
the first time that the payment of import duties was not sufficient
proof of _bona fide_ importation, because of the practice in the United
States of repaying duties on exportation. Other seizures followed that
of the Essex, to the consternation of American shippers. Insurance rates
on cargoes were doubled and doubled again within a year. Early in 1806,
Monroe, then Minister to England, wrote in protest to the British
Ministry that "about one hundred and twenty vessels had been seized,
several condemned, all taken from their course, detained, and otherwise
subjected to heavy losses and damages." But Monroe could not obtain any
concession of principle or promise of indemnity.
The policy which the Secretary of State was known to favor was that of
coercing England through restrictions upon trade. The implications of
this policy were suggested by his often-quoted remark touching upon the
dependence of British manufacturers: "There are three hundred thousand
souls who live by our custom: let them be driven to poverty and despair,
and what will be the consequences?" He lost no opportunity to urge upon
his party associates the need of passing retaliatory legislation
against Great Britain. It was well known, of course, that the President
would support any fair application of his theory of peaceable coercion.
At first there was a general disposition to try the effect of an
embargo; but more prudent counsels prevailed when the news of Trafalgar
reached America. Congress finally adopted, in April, 1806, a
non-importation bill, which was to become effective eight months later.
There was some point to Randolph's criticism when he declared it to be
"a milk-and-water Bill. A dose of chicken broth to be taken nine months
hence"; for the act prohibited only the importation of such English
goods as could be manufactured in the United States or procured
elsewhere. Such a measure was not likely to make the manufacturers of
England quail. In the mean time, the Administration was to accomplish
what it might by direct negotiation with the British Ministry, using
this Nicholson Act as a covert threat. Much against his will, Jefferson
had to nominate another envoy to act with Monroe. His choice fell upon
William Pinkney, of Maryland. The friends of Madison were not unwilling
to humiliate Monroe, whose presidential aspirations might interfere with
Madison's succession, for Jefferson had let it be known as early as the
summer of 1805 that he did not seek a reelection.
A few days after Congress adjourned occurred the Leander episode. This
frigate was one of several British war vessels whose presence in
American waters was a constant menace to merchantmen and an insult to
the National Government. From time to time they appeared off Sandy Hook,
lying in wait for American vessels which were suspected of carrying
British seamen who had fled from the hard conditions of service on ships
of war. An American merchantman was likely at any time to be stopped by
a shot across her bow and to be subjected to the humiliation of a visit
from a search crew. On April 25, 1806, the Leander, in rounding up a
merchantman, fired a shot which killed the helmsman of a passing
coasting sloop. The incident or accident threatened to assume the
proportions of a _casus belli_.
The practice of impressment was an old grievance which seemed to
Americans devoid of any justification. From the British point of view
there was much to be said in extenuation of the practice. It should not
be forgotten that Great Britain was locked in a life-and-death struggle
with a mighty antagonist, and that she had need of every able seaman.
Owing to the rigorous life on board of men-of-war, every ship's crew was
likely to be depleted by desertions whenever she touched at an American
port. Jack Tar found life much more agreeable on an American
merchantman; and he rarely failed to procure the needful naturalization
papers or certificates which would give him a claim to American
citizenship. The right of expatriation was not at this time conceded by
the British Government. Once an Englishman, always an Englishman.
Surely, then, British commanders might claim their own seamen on the
high seas. Officially, at least, they never claimed the right to impress
American seamen. Yet where differences of speech were so slight, the
provocation so strong, and the needs of the navy so great, search crews
were not always careful to distinguish between Britishers and Yankees.
The United States never admitted the justice of these claims. To concede
the right of search on the high seas was to admit a vast extension of
British jurisdiction. As early as 1792, Jefferson had stated the
principle for which the United States had consistently contended: "The
simplest rule will be that the vessel being American shall be evidence
that the seamen on board of her are such." The principle was never
accepted by any British ministry. The practice of impressment continued
to harass each succeeding administration. In 1806, a crisis seemed at
hand. Madison reported to the House of Representatives the names of nine
hundred and thirteen persons who appeared to have been impressed from
American vessels. How many of these were British deserters under
American names, it is impossible to say. The number reported by Madison
is at least an index to the sense of injury which the nation felt.
When President Jefferson sent Pinkney to join Monroe in securing a
comprehensive treaty with Great Britain, which should restore West India
trade to its old condition and provide indemnity for the American
vessels condemned in the admiralty courts, he set down, as a _sine qua
non_ in his instructions, the renunciation by the British Government of
the practice of impressment. It was an ultimatum which expressed a truly
national feeling; but with the consciousness of power which the
domination of the high seas gave, the British commissioners treated
this ultimatum, somewhat contemptuously, as an impossible and
unwarranted demand. The American mission should have ended then and
there; but on obtaining assurances that greater care would be exercised
in impressing seamen, Monroe and Pinkney determined to disregard their
instructions. Negotiations were continued and culminated in a treaty,
December 1, 1806, which ran counter to the injunctions of the President
in every particular. He refused to submit the document to the Senate.
Nevertheless, he permitted Madison to draft new instructions for the
commissioners, in the hope that the treaty could be made a basis for
further negotiations. While these new instructions were crossing the
ocean, a disaster occurred which brought the United States and Great
Britain to the verge of war.
In the early months of 1807, some French frigates had run up Chesapeake
Bay to escape a British squadron. Relying on what Jefferson pleasantly
termed the hospitality of the United States, these British men-of-war
dropped anchor in Lynnhaven Bay, near Cape Henry, where they could watch
the passage through the capes. From one of these British vessels a boat
crew of common seamen made their escape to Norfolk. Just at this time
the new frigate Chesapeake, which had been partially fitted out at the
navy yard at Washington for service in the Mediterranean, dropped down
to Hampton Roads to receive her complement of guns and provisions for a
three years' cruise.
[Map: Tonnage of the United States 1807]
On June 22, the Chesapeake passed out through the capes, preceded by the
Leopard, a British frigate of fifty guns. When they were well out on
the high seas, the Leopard drew alongside the Chesapeake and signaled
that she had a message for Commodore Barron. This message proved to be
an order from Admiral Berkeley at Halifax, instructing commanders of
British vessels who fell in with the Chesapeake to search her for
deserters. The American commander denied that he had deserters on board
and refused to allow the search. Almost immediately the Leopard
approached with her gundecks cleared for action. Unaware of his danger
Commodore Barron had not called his crew to quarters. The Leopard opened
fire and poured three broadsides into the helpless American vessel,
killing three men and wounding eighteen others. After fifteen minutes
Barron hauled down his flag to spare his crew from needless sacrifice,
and suffered the British commander to search the dismantled Chesapeake.
Four alleged deserters were found and taken away, three of whom
subsequently were proved to be American citizens. The Leopard then
returned to the squadron off Cape Henry, while the Chesapeake limped
back to Hampton Roads.
Had the President chosen to go to war at this moment, he would have had
a united people behind him. But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial
character. His proclamation ordering all armed British vessels out of
American waters and suspending intercourse with them if they remained,
was so moderate in tone as to seem almost pusillanimous. John Randolph
called it an apology. Instead of demanding unconditional reparation for
this outrage, Madison instructed Monroe to insist upon an entire
abolition of impressments as "an indispensable part of the
satisfaction." The astute Canning, who had become Foreign Secretary in
the new Portland Ministry, took advantage of this confusion of issues to
evade the demand for reparation until popular passion in the United
States had subsided. It was not until November that Canning took active
measures. He then sent a special commissioner to the United States in
the person of George Rose.
The instructions which Rose carried with him to Washington, in January,
1808, were anything but conciliatory. As a preliminary to any
negotiations, he was to demand the recall of the President's
proclamation of July 2, and an explicit disavowal of Commodore Barron's
conduct in encouraging desertion from His Majesty's navy. The United
States was also to give assurances that it would prevent the recurrence
of such causes as had provoked the display of force by Admiral Berkeley.
That the Administration should have continued negotiations after the
full purport of these instructions was disclosed, seems incredible; but
it was not until the middle of February that Madison awoke to the fact
that the United States was being invited to "make as it were an
expiatory sacrifice to obtain redress." Yet another month passed before
Rose was given to understand that his mission was futile. By this time
public attention was engrossed in the contest for neutral rights.
Before the close of the year 1806, Napoleon was master of central Europe
and in a position to deal his premeditated blow at the commercial
ascendency of England. A fortnight after the terrible overthrow of
Prussia at Jena, he made a triumphal entry into Berlin. From this city
he issued, on November 21, the famous decree which was his answer to the
British blockade of the continent. Since the British had determined to
ruin neutral commerce by an illegal blockade, so the preamble read,
"whoever deals on the continent in English merchandise favors that
design and becomes an accomplice." All English goods henceforth were to
be lawful prize in any territory held by the troops of France or her
allies. The British Isles were declared to be in a state of blockade.
Every American or other neutral vessel going to or coming from the
British Isles, therefore, was subject to capture.
The British Ministry took up the gauntlet. An order in council of
January 7, 1807, forbade neutral trade between ports under the control
of France or her allies; a second order, November 11, closed to neutrals
those European ports under French control "as if the same were actually
blockaded," but permitted vessels which first entered a British port and
paid port duties to sail to any continental port. Only one more blow
seemed needed to complete the ruin of American commerce. It fell a month
later, December 17, 1807, when Napoleon issued his Milan Decree.
Henceforth any vessel which submitted to be searched by an English
cruiser or which paid any tonnage duty to the British Government or
which set sail for any British port was subject to capture and
condemnation as lawful prize. Such was to be the maritime code "until
England returned to the principles of international law which are also
those of justice and honor."
American commerce was now, indeed, between the hammer and the anvil. The
Nicholson Non-Importation Act, which had been twice suspended and which
had only just gone into effect (December 14), seemed wholly inadequate
to meet this situation. It had been designed as a coercive measure, to
be sure, but no one knew precisely to what extent it would affect
English trade. The time had come for the blow which Jefferson and his
advisers had held in reserve. On December 18, the President sent to
Congress a message recommending "an immediate inhibition of the
departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States." The
Senate responded by passing a bill (which Jefferson probably drafted)
through its three stages in a single day; the House passed the measure
after only two days of debate; and on December 22, the Embargo Act
received the President's signature.
The temper of those who supported the embargo was reflected by Senator
Adams, of Massachusetts, who was reported to have said: "The President
has recommended the measure on his high responsibility. I would not
consider, I would not deliberate; I would act." Yet there were members
of Congress who were not prepared to accept the high authority of the
President. The vote in the House of Representatives indicates that
opinion was divided in Adams's own State. Boston with its environs and
the interior counties were opposed to the embargo. New York was also
divided, though here the commercial areas favored the measure. Maryland
showed a like division of opinion. Connecticut was a unit in opposing
the President's policy.
What was the measure which was accepted almost without discussion on
"the high responsibility" of the President? So far as it was defended at
all, it was presented as a measure for the protection of American ships,
merchandise, and seamen. It forbade the departure of all ships and
vessels in the ports of the United States for any foreign port, except
vessels under the immediate direction of the President. Foreign armed
vessels were exempted as a matter of course from the operation of this
act; so also were all vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods at
the time when the act was passed. Coasting vessels were to give bonds
double the value of vessel and cargo to re-land their goods, wares, or
merchandise in some port of the United States.
American shippers were so little appreciative of the protection offered
by a benevolent Government that they evaded the embargo from the very
first. Foreign trade was lucrative in just the proportion that it was
hazardous. If some skippers obeyed, the profits were so much the greater
for the less conscientious. Under guise of engaging in the coasting
trade, many a ship's captain with the connivance of the owner landed his
cargo in a foreign port. A brisk traffic also sprang up by land across
the Canadian border.
[Map: House Vote on the Embargo December 21, 1807]
All pretense that the embargo was designed to protect American commerce
had now to be abandoned. Jefferson did not attempt to disguise his
purpose to use the embargo as a great coercive weapon against France and
Great Britain. Congress passed supplementary acts and suffered the
President to exercise a vast discretionary power which was strangely at
variance with Republican traditions. "When you are doubtful," wrote the
President with reference to coasting vessels, "consider me as voting for
detention." "We find it necessary," he informed the governors of the
States, "to consider every vessel as suspicious which has on board any
article of domestic produce in demand at foreign markets." Governors of
those States which consumed more wheat than they produced were to issue
certificates to collectors of ports stating the amount desired. The
collectors in turn were to authorize merchants in whom they had
confidence to import the needed supplies. Nor did the President hesitate
to put whole communities under the ban when individual shipowners were
suspected of engaging in illicit trade. He so far forgot his horror of a
standing army that he asked Congress for an addition to the regular army
of six thousand men. Congress had already made an appropriation of
$850,000 to build gunboats. It now appropriated a million and a quarter
for fortifications and for the equipment of the militia.
Through the long summer of 1808, President Jefferson waited anxiously
for the effects of coercion to appear. The reports from abroad were not
encouraging. The effects of the embargo upon English economy are even
now a matter of conjecture. In the opinion of Mr. Henry Adams, the
embargo only fattened the shipowners and squires who devised the orders
in council, and lowered the wages and moral standard of the laboring
classes by cutting off temporarily the importation of foodstuffs and the
raw material for British manufacturers. When Pinkney approached Canning
with the proposal that England should revoke her orders upon the
withdrawal of the embargo, he was told, with biting sarcasm, that "if it
were possible to make any sacrifice for the repeal of the embargo
without appearing to deprecate it as a measure of hostility, he [His
Majesty] would gladly have facilitated its removal as a measure of
inconvenient restriction upon the American people." The blow aimed at
Great Britain had missed its mark.
From the first Napoleon had welcomed the embargo as a measure likely to
contribute to the success of his continental system. On April 17, 1808,
he issued a decree from Bayonne ordering the seizure of all American
vessels in French ports. It was argued ingeniously that since they were
abroad in violation of the embargo, they were not _bona fide_ American
vessels, but presumptively British, and therefore subject to capture. To
accept the aid of the French Emperor in enforcing a policy which was
intended to coerce his action, was humiliating to the last degree.
Armstrong wrote to Madison that in his opinion the coercive force of the
embargo had been overrated. "Here it is not felt, and in England ... it
is forgotten."
The importance of the embargo, Jefferson never tired of repeating, was
not to be measured in money. If the brutalities of war and the
corruption incident to war could be avoided by this alternative, the
experiment was well worth trying. Yet Jefferson himself was startled by
the deliberate and systematic evasions of the law. "I did not expect,"
he confessed, "a crop of so sudden and rank growth of fraud and open
opposition by force could have grown up in the United States." Moreover,
the cost of the embargo was very great. The value of exports fell from
$108,000,000 in 1807 to $22,000,000 in the following year. The national
revenue from import duties was cut down by one half.
The embargo bore down with crushing weight upon New England, where
nearly one third of the ships engaged in the carrying trade were owned.
The shipbuilding industry languished, as well as all the industries
subsidiary to commerce. Even the farmers suffered as the embargo
continued. A temporary loss of their market could have been borne with
some degree of equanimity, but not an indefinite loss, for imported
goods now began to rise in price, adding to the general distress.
The economic distress of New England, however, cannot be measured by the
volume of indignant protest. The Federalist machine never worked more
effectively than when it directed this unrest and diverted it to
partisan purposes. Thomas Jefferson's embargo was made to seem a
vindictive assault upon New England. The Essex Junto, with Timothy
Pickering as leader, spared no pains to convince the unthinking that
Jefferson was the tool or the dupe of Napoleon, who was bent upon
coercing the United States into war with Great Britain. The spring
election of 1808 gave the measure of this reaction in Massachusetts. The
Federalists regained control of both houses of the state legislature,
and forced the resignation of Senator John Quincy Adams, who had broken
with his party by voting for the embargo, and who had incurred the
undying enmity of of the Essex Junto by defending the policy of the
Administration.
In the midst of what Jefferson called "the general factiousness,"
following the embargo, occurred a presidential election. Jefferson was
not a candidate for reelection. His fondest hope now was that he might
be allowed to retire with honor to the bosom of his family. Upon whom
would his mantle fall? Madison was his probable preference; and Madison
had the doubtful advantage of a formal nomination by the regular
congressional caucus of the party. But Monroe still considered his
chances of election good; and Vice-President George Clinton also
announced his candidacy. Both Monroe and Clinton represented those
elements of opposition which harassed the closing months of the
Administration. Contrary to expectation, the Federalists did not ally
themselves with Clinton, but preferred to go down in defeat under their
old leaders, Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King. With the opposition
thus divided, Madison scored an easy victory; but against him was the
almost solid vote of a section. All the New England States but Vermont
cast their electoral votes for the Federalist candidates.
Before the end of the year the failure of the embargo was patent to
every fair-minded observer. The alternatives, war or submission, were
not pleasant to contemplate. From force of habit the party in power
looked to Jefferson for leadership; but since Madison's election, he had
assumed the role of "unmeddling listener," not wishing to commit his
successor to any policy. The abdication of Jefferson thus left the party
without a leader and without a program at a most critical moment.
Under the circumstances it was easier to continue the embargo than to
face the probability of war. Gallatin had already urged the need of more
stringent laws for the enforcement of the embargo,--laws which he
admitted were both odious and dangerous. On January 9, 1809, Congress
passed the desired legislation. Thereafter coasting vessels were obliged
to give bonds to six times the value of vessel and cargo before they
were permitted to load. Collectors were authorized to refuse permission
if in their opinion there was "an intention to violate the embargo."
Only loss at sea released a shipowner from his bond. In suits at law
neither capture nor any other accident could be pleaded. Collectors at
the ports and on the frontiers were authorized to seize goods which were
"apparently on their way toward the territory of a foreign nation." And
for such seizures the collectors were not liable in courts of law. The
army, the navy, and the militia were put at their disposal.
The "Force Act" was the last straw for the Federalists of Massachusetts.
Town after town adopted resolutions which ran through the whole gamut of
partisan abuse. The General Court of Massachusetts resolved that it
would cooperate with other States in procuring such amendments to the
Constitution as were necessary to obtain protection for commerce and to
give to the commercial States "their fair and just consideration in the
government of the Union." Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut, flatly
declined to allow the militia to assist the collectors in the
enforcement of the embargo, holding that the act to enforce the embargo
was unconstitutional, "interfering with the state sovereignties, and
subversive of the guaranteed rights, privileges, and immunities of the
citizens of the United States." The legislature rallied to the support
of the governor with resolutions which breathe much the same spirit as
the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.
The incessant bombardment by the New England towns was too much for
Jefferson's equanimity. "I felt the foundation of the government shaken
under my feet by the New England townships," he said in after years. His
control over his own party was gone. Northern Republicans combined with
Federalists to force the repeal of the embargo through Congress; and on
March 1, 1809, with much bitterness of spirit, Jefferson signed the bill
that terminated his great experiment. Instead of interdicting commerce
altogether, Congress suspended intercourse with France and Great Britain
after March 15 and until one or the other of the offenders repealed its
obnoxious orders. Meantime, American vessels were free to pick up what
trade they could with other nations.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
The historical writings of Henry Adams are indispensable aids to
an understanding of the foreign policy of Jefferson. On the effect
of the embargo, Channing, _The Jeffersonian System_, takes sharp
issue with Adams. There is a mass of valuable data on social
history in the third volume of McMaster, _History of the People of
the United States_. E. L. Bogart, _Economic History of the United
States_ (1913); Katherine Coman, _Industrial History of the United
States_ (1913); and C. D. Wright, _Industrial Evolution of the
United States_ (1907), are manuals containing much valuable
matter. The brief introductions to the chapters in G. S.
Callender, _Selections from the Economic History of the United
Slates_ (1909), are always illuminating. The foreign policy of
Jefferson and Madison is extensively reviewed in A. T. Mahan, _Sea
Power in its Relations to the War of 1812_ (2 vols., 1905).