THE RESULTS OF THE WAR
In a message to Congress transmitting the treaty of peace, President
Madison congratulated the country on the termination of a war "waged
with a success which is the natural result of the wisdom of the
legislative councils, of the patriotism of the people, of the public
spirit of the militia, and of the valor of the military and naval forces
of the country." The verdict of history does not sustain this paean of
victory. "The record, upon the whole," declares Admiral Mahan, "is one
of gloom, disaster, and governmental incompetence, resulting from lack
of national preparation, due to the obstinate and blind prepossessions
of the Government, and, in part, of the people." Public opinion indorsed
the President's estimate of the late struggle.
As a matter of fact, the people of the United States had seen little of
the disasters and ravages of war. All the important battles took place
on the borders. The great mass of the people were undisturbed in their
vocations. There was hardly a day during the war when a farmer could not
till his acres in tranquillity. Not an important city save Washington
was taken during the war. Nor was the loss of life large in proportion
to population. All told, the killed and wounded did not exceed five
thousand men. Napoleon lost nearly two hundred thousand French soldiers
in his disastrous Russian campaign.
American character appeared at its best and at its worst in these three
years of war. Even the British press could not gainsay the
resourcefulness and intelligence of the American soldier and sailor,
though the phrase "Yankee smartness" conveyed also the unpleasant
imputation of trickiness and moral laxity. Wherever conditions permitted
a fair test, the superiority of the American gunner was incontestable.
The greater losses of the British whenever the armies met on even terms
proved the superior marksmanship of the American militiaman. The
adaptation of the fast-sailing schooner to privateering was further
evidence of an alert intellect which was quick to adapt means to ends.
This quality, to be sure, has been bred in every frontier folk by the
very necessities of existence, but it appeared in marked strength in the
American of this time. While the shipbuilders of New England were laying
the keels of these privateers, Robert Fulton was perfecting his
steamboat on the Delaware and Hudson rivers. In the year before the war,
the first steamboat appeared on the Ohio, and before the end of the war
fourteen were plying on Western waters, and opening up a new era in the
American colonization of the continent.
This instinctive adaptation of means to ends was less successful in the
realm of American politics. No celerity could compensate for want of
prevision on the part of the authorities at Washington. The lesson of
the war was not lost upon James Madison, at least. "Experience has
taught us," said he in a message to Congress,--and the words amounted to
a confession of error,--"that neither the pacific dispositions of the
American people nor the pacific character of their political
institutions, can altogether exempt them from that strife which appears,
beyond the ordinary lot of nations, to be incident to the actual period
of the world; and the same faithful monitor demonstrates that a certain
degree of preparation for war is not only indispensable to avert
disaster in the onset, but affords also the best security for the
continuance of peace."
The indirect effects of war were more widely felt. The blockade affected
adversely all the extractive industries upon which the vast majority of
the people in all the States depended. Only New England escaped
unscathed--and the circumstance was not creditable to the section. In
the latter months of 1814 ruin stared the Southern planter in the face.
The lifting of the blockade wrought a transformation. Planters in the
Old Dominion, who could find no market for their tobacco and wheat on
February 13, sold their produce on February 14 at prices which made them
rich again. Flour which had found almost no purchasers at seven and a
half dollars a barrel sold readily at ten. Imported commodities fell in
price correspondingly. Ships put to sea at once laden with the
accumulated produce of two long years. The export trade, which had
fallen to less than $7,000,000, leaped to $46,000,000 between March and
October. Fully two thirds of this wealth accrued to the Southern
planters who raised the three great staples, tobacco, cotton, and rice.
The people of the Middle States shared only moderately in this
prosperity. The value of the wheat and corn which the farmers of
Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey raised for export did not much
exceed that of tobacco alone.
The return of peace brought relief also to the shipping industry of New
England. Vessels which the embargo and the restrictive policy and the
hazards of war had kept in port now put to sea again. But the European
conditions which had created such immense profits for the Yankee skipper
in 1805, 1806, and 1807 had passed away. Foreign ships now bid for the
carrying trade of the Atlantic, and their competition cut down freight
rates to a point which caused melancholy forebodings in the homes of
Boston and Salem shipowners.
The long period of commercial restriction followed by three years of war
caused a dislocation of industry in New England. Capital which had been
invested in shipping now sought larger returns in the manufacture of
those commodities hitherto supplied by British factories. When the
embargo was laid, only fifteen cotton mills were in operation,
representing a capital of about $500,000. Two years later, capital to
the amount of $4,000,000 had been invested in factories which employed
nearly 4000 hands. At the close of the war, $40,000,000 were invested in
cotton mills which consumed 27,000,000 pounds of raw cotton and gave
employment to 100,000 men and women. Hitherto much of the weaving had
been done on hand looms in the farmhouses of New England: only the
spinning had been done by machinery. In 1814, Francis Lowell introduced
the power loom into his mill at Waltham, Massachusetts, and brought the
various processes of cotton manufacturing under one roof. The foundation
of the New England factory system was thus laid before the end of the
war. In the following decade the famous factory towns on the Merrimac
came into existence. The metamorphosis of the section had begun.
The woolen industry received a great impetus in this same period of
artificial stimulation, but it failed to expand with the same rapidity,
owing to the scarcity and cost of the finer grades of wool.
Nevertheless, in the year 1816, about $12,000,000 were invested in the
manufacture of woolen fabrics. Like the cotton industry, this owed its
development to the policy of Presidents from Virginia. It is one of the
ironies of history that Jefferson and Madison should have unwittingly
sacrificed Southern planters to build up industries in the North, and
that New Englanders should have excoriated those worthies for policies
which became the source of New England prosperity.
To these new industries peace spelled disaster. English manufacturers
seized the opportunity to unload the goods which they had been piling up
in their warehouses for years. Importations which had amounted to
$13,000,000 in 1813 rose to the staggering sum of $147,000,000 in 1816.
Not even import duties stemmed the tide, for as Lord Brougham stated in
Parliament, "It was well worth while to incur a loss upon the first
exportation, in order, by a glut, to stifle in the cradle those rising
manufactures in the United States which the war had forced into
existence, contrary to the natural course of things."
In October, 1815, the cotton manufacturers of Rhode Island sent a
memorial to Congress, stating that their one hundred and forty factories
were threatened with destruction by this cut-throat competition. Such
complaints seemed unduly apprehensive; yet before the year closed, most
of the textile mills had shut down. The distress of New England was no
longer feigned. Caught in a process of transition from shipping to
manufacturing, capital could neither advance nor retreat. It was a
legitimate case for governmental aid. Even Jefferson laid aside his
early prepossessions in favor of a simple bucolic life for the American
citizen, and admitted that "to be independent for the comforts of life,
we must fabricate them for ourselves. We must now place the manufacturer
by the side of the agriculturist." Madison, too, departed from the
Virginia faith so far as to recommend sufficient protection of "the
enterprising citizens whose interests are now at stake" to guard them
"against occasional competition from abroad."
Within sight of the blackened walls of the Capitol, in temporary
quarters which it had rented, Congress set its hand to the work of
national reconstruction. Before many months had passed, the new Capitol,
under the supervision of Latrobe, began to rise from the ruins of the
old, a symbol of a new era. On the walls of the rotunda, John Trumbull
painted scenes which were to remind coming generations of the heroic
days of the Revolution, and within its confines was eventually installed
what was left of the library of Congress, with the gaps supplied in part
by Jefferson's private collection, which Congress purchased. The new
nation was not to disdain wholly the finer aspects of life nor to
despise the garnered wisdom of the ages.
In March, 1816, Congress took under consideration a tariff bill which
had been drafted on lines marked out by the new Secretary of the
Treasury, A. J. Dallas, of Pennsylvania. The debates brought out a wide
diversity of interests. Daniel Webster represented admirably the mingled
feelings of his New England constituents when he professed to favor
existing manufactures, but deprecated any action calculated to produce
new industries. He never wished to see the time when the young men of
the country would be forced to close their eyes to heaven and earth, and
open them in the dust and smoke of unwholesome factories. On the other
hand, Calhoun, eschewing a narrow sectionalism, declared that
manufacturing must be encouraged as a wise national policy. "Neither
agriculture, manufactures, nor commerce, taken separately, is the cause
of wealth," said he. "It flows from the three combined and cannot exist
without each." The South showed little of the apprehension which John
Randolph expressed when he cried, "Upon whom bears the duty on coarse
woolens and linens and blankets, upon salt, and all the necessaries of
life?" and answered, "On poor men, and on slaveholders."
The bill which Congress eventually passed fixed somewhat lower duties
than Dallas had advised. A duty of twenty-five per cent was placed on
cotton and woolen goods until June 30, 1819, when it was to be reduced
to twenty per cent. By what was known as the minimum principle, all
cotton fabrics costing less than twenty-five cents a square yard were
held to have cost that amount and were made to pay corresponding duties.
The object of this provision was to exclude from India the coarser and
cheaper cotton textiles which would menace the products of New England
looms. Other important articles were made subject to higher duties, such
as rolled and hammered iron, leather goods, hats, carriages, and
writing-paper. A comparison of these duties with those of the tariff of
1789 shows a marked increase. Where the average duty was seven and one
half per cent in 1789, it was thirty per cent in the tariff of 1816. So
far as the intent of the law is concerned, this tariff act committed the
country to a fiscal policy in which "revenue was subordinated to
industrial needs."
Although the largest vote against the tariff bill came from the South
and Southwest, twenty-three out of fifty-seven Representatives voted for
the bill. New England showed a prepondering opinion in favor of
protection: only ten out of twenty-seven Representatives opposed the
bill. The Representatives of the Middle States ranged themselves
emphatically on the side of protection; and with them stood the
Congressmen from Ohio and Kentucky.
The close of the war found the country with a badly disordered currency
and with a bankrupt treasury. Nowhere were the remedial efforts of
Congress needed more. The condition of the currency was due, in part at
least, to the failure of Congress in 1811 to perceive the regulative
influence of a national bank. By refusing to recharter the United States
Bank, Congress not only deprived the Treasury of an exceedingly valuable
fiscal agent during the war, but also threw the door wide open to
indiscriminate and unregulated state banking. Between 1811 and 1816 the
number of these state institutions increased from eighty-eight to two
hundred and forty-six, all of which exercised the right of issuing notes
with little or no restriction. Inflation followed inevitably. During the
blockade the banks of the Middle and Southern States suffered great
distress by the constant drain of specie to New England and abroad.
After the capture of Washington, practically all banks outside of New
England were forced to suspend specie payments. The country experienced
once more all the evils of a depreciated currency. Southern bank notes
were refused for deposit in Philadelphia banks. Notes of these
institutions in Philadelphia, in turn, were subject to a discount of
twenty-four per cent in Boston. Uncertainty and distrust demoralized
financial operations everywhere.
Wiser by the experience of five years, Congress was now disposed to
establish another national bank. A first bill, however, fell short of
the President's desires and was vetoed. A second bill became law on
April 10, 1816. The provisions of this Bank of the United States
differed in several particulars from that chartered in 1790. Its capital
was three and one half times as large. One fifth of the total capital
of $35,000,000 was to be subscribed by the Government, and the remainder
by individuals. Five of the twenty-five directors were to be appointed
by the President of the United States. The funds of the Government were
to be deposited in the Bank unless the Secretary of the Treasury should
otherwise direct, laying his reasons for any such change before
Congress. In return for the privileges granted in the charter, the Bank
was required to transfer the government funds from place to place
without charge, and to pay $1,500,000 to the Government. On its side the
Government agreed not to charter any other bank except in the District
of Columbia. The circulation of the Bank was limited to the amount of
its capital. Its notes were to be payable on demand in specie and to be
receivable in all payments to the Government.
Such an institution gave promise of serving the Government as a sound
fiscal agent and of assisting materially in the restoration of the
currency to a specie basis. The stock was subscribed promptly by 31,334
individuals, all but three thousand of whom resided in the Middle
States. New England was still reluctant to support the plans of Mr.
Madison; the South had other uses for its capital. To facilitate the
resumption of specie payments, Congress passed a joint resolution, that
after February 20 of the following year (1817), all dues to the
Government should be paid in specie, treasury notes, national bank
notes, or notes of banks payable in the "said currency of the United
States." This was strong medicine for the state banks. Unwilling or
unable to contract their circulation and to call in their loans, the
banks of the Middle States asked to have the date of resumption
deferred, on the ostensible ground that the new bank could not be
organized in time to assist them. The energetic Secretary of the
Treasury disposed of this plea by putting the Bank in operation in
January, 1817. On the date set by Congress the banks very generally
resumed specie payments.
The propulsive force given to the Government by the war seemed likely to
continue. The task of the National Government no longer seemed merely
negative,--to "restrain men from injuring one another," in the
Jeffersonian phrase,--but positive and constructive. Even Madison, in
his annual message of 1815, recommended liberal provision for defense,
more military academies, an improved and enlarged navy, protection to
manufactures, new national roads and canals, and a national university.
He gave his support to Monroe's proposal to fix the peace establishment
at twenty thousand men; and he experienced the unique sensation of
finding himself in advance of his party, which finally agreed upon an
army of ten thousand men. Still more striking evidence of the change
which had passed over the party of Jefferson was its willingness to
retain the entire naval establishment and to appropriate $4,000,000 for
frigates and ships-of-the-line. Clay and Calhoun, speaking for the
younger Republicans, agreed that the greatest danger of the future lay
in weak government. They were not in the least intimidated by the
addition of $80,000,000 to the national debt as the result of war. That
sum represented to their minds simply the price, none too large, of
commercial and industrial independence.
These young aggressive spirits seemed at times quite indifferent to nice
questions of constitutional law. Calhoun dismissed constitutional
objections to a national bank with a wave of the hand: he thought
discussion of such abstract themes "a useless consumption of time." On
introducing his bill for internal improvements, in December, 1816, he
intimated that he did not propose to indulge in metaphysical subtleties
respecting the Constitution. "The instrument was not intended as a
thesis for the logician to exercise his ingenuity on; ... it ought to be
construed with plain good sense." If Clay exhibited more sensitiveness
to constitutional limitations, it was because he had to clear himself
from the charge of inconsistency. In supporting the Bank Bill in 1816 he
frankly confessed that he had changed his mind on the point of
constitutionality. He had believed the incorporation of a bank in 1811
unwarranted by the Constitution; but conditions had changed. What was
then neither necessary nor proper was now both necessary and proper. The
interpretation of the Constitution must always take existing
circumstances into account. If Clay did not add to his reputation as an
expounder of the Constitution by this speech, he represented admirably,
nevertheless, the changes which circumstances had wrought in the
convictions of his associates.
Against these new tendencies John Randolph set himself stark and grim.
"The question is," said he, replying to Calhoun's new nationalism,
"whether or not we are willing to become one great consolidated nation,
or whether we have still respect enough for those old, respectable
institutions [the States] to regard their integrity and preservation as
a part of our policy." Randolph spoke for a generation which was passing
away; but his words touched a responsive chord in the breast of
President Madison. On March 3, 1817, as he was about to leave office, he
sent to Congress a message vetoing the Internal Improvements Bill and
warning his party associates of the danger of latitudinarian views of
the Constitution. This message was Madison's farewell address. It was
thoroughly characteristic of the man and the statesman.
The relaxing of Republican doctrines, and of party ties generally,
divested the presidential election of any real political significance.
The Federalists were thoroughly discredited. As a party they made no
concerted effort to nominate candidates. Virtually, therefore, the
selection of a President rested with the congressional caucus of the
Republican party. The choice lay between two members of the President's
Cabinet: James Monroe, Secretary of State, and William H. Crawford,
Secretary of the Treasury. Governor Tompkins, of New York, was put
forward by enthusiastic partisans from that State, but he was not a
national figure in any sense and commanded no support outside of his
State. Intrigue played a part in this caucus, if contemporary testimony
may be believed. Tradition has it that Martin Van Buren and Peter B.
Porter prevented their New York delegation from voting for Crawford and
thus threw the nomination to Monroe. Governor Tompkins was the choice of
the caucus for Vice-President. No one could safely affirm that these
nominees were the choice of the rank and file of the party. Here and
there public meetings were held to protest against the dictation of the
congressional caucus; but no organized opposition developed. The
campaign proved to be a tame affair. Nowhere was there a real contest.
Only three States, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Delaware, chose
Federalist electors. Not a ripple of excitement stirred the public when
announcement was finally made that Monroe had received 183 electoral
votes and Rufus King, 34. For the fourth time a Virginian had been
raised to the Presidency.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Of the general histories, only that by McMaster contains any great
amount of information bearing on the economic changes wrought by
war and the preceding period of commercial restriction. Adams
summarizes the economic results of war in a single chapter in the
last volume of his work. K. C. Babcock, _The Rise of American
Nationality_ (in _The American Nation_, vol. 13, 1906), attempts
the same task. Besides the manuals on economic history which have
already been mentioned, there are several excellent volumes
dealing with various phases of national life: such as, D. R.
Dewey, _Financial History of the United States_ (1903); F. W.
Taussig, _Tariff History of the United Stales_ (rev. ed., 1913);
R. C. H. Catterall, _The Second Bank of the United Stales_ (1903);
J. L. Bishop, _History of American Manufactures from 1608-1860_ (2
vols., 1861-64); C. W. Wright, _Wool-Growing and the Tariff_
(1910). Among the biographies of statesmen of the new generation,
the best are: G. T. Curtis, _Life of Daniel Webster_ (2 vols.,
1869); W. W. Story, _Life and Letters of Joseph Story_ (2 vols.,
1851); G. Hunt, _John C. Calhoun_ (1908).