HARD TIMES
The phrase "era of good feelings" applied to the Administration of
President Monroe is a misnomer. It is descriptive neither of politics
nor of business and industry, for the historic Democratic party was all
but rent by bitter personal animosities, and the country was prostrated
by a severe industrial crisis.
The first symptoms of hard times appeared in the early months of the
year 1819. Undoubtedly the causes of the crisis were world-wide; but
local conditions go far to explain the industrial collapse in the United
States. All indications point to the conclusion that the country was
experiencing the inevitable reaction from a period of too rapid
commercial expansion and of unsound speculation. The high prices of
commodities after the war had given a sort of fictitious prosperity to
industry and trade, and had encouraged unduly the spirit of commercial
enterprise. On credit easily secured from wild-cat banks, the Western
pioneer had bought lands beyond the purchasing power of his own meager
capital; and the speculator in turn had borrowed money to secure title
to lands which he would unload upon unsuspecting settlers. State banks
had met these demands by liberal issues of notes which were imperfectly
covered by their specie reserves. It needed only a sudden demand for
liquidation to cause widespread distress.
The unwise management of the National Bank may have contributed to the
approaching disaster. The branch banks in the South and West had loaned
freely, issuing notes which were payable at any branch of the National
Bank. Capital was thus diverted from the East to sections of the country
where there was least conservatism in banking. In 1818, the directors of
the Bank became alarmed at the excessive expansion of credit, and issued
instructions which compelled the redemption of notes at the bank where
they were issued. At the same time the branch banks curtailed their
loans. This sudden reversal of policy caused a fearful pressure which
was transmitted from creditor to debtor all along the line.
Every sufferer by the panic was disposed to blame the National Bank for
his misfortunes, particularly as it was common rumor that the directors
of the Bank had speculated in its stock and had used their influence to
cripple local banks. Congress had been obliged to take cognizance of
these charges and to appoint a committee to investigate the condition of
the institution. On the report of this committee, in January, 1819, the
stock of the Bank fell from 140 to 93. The investigation revealed
nothing worse than mismanagement; but a vigorous effort was made in
Congress to revoke the charter.
The widespread hostility of the West and South toward the National Bank
was born at this time. Everywhere it was known as "the Monster." State
after State passed acts to tax the branch banks out of existence. The
decision of Chief Justice Marshall, to be sure, in the famous case of
_M'Culloch_ v. _Maryland_, declared emphatically that the States had no
constitutional power to tax the branches of an institution chartered
under the laws of the United States; nevertheless, the legislature of
Ohio deliberately levied such a tax, and when resistance was offered to
its collection, withdrew the protection of the State from the branch
banks. Feeling themselves the victims of the money power, the people in
many of the Western States resorted to the remedies which were broached
during hard times under the Confederation. Kentucky became notorious by
reason of its laws in behalf of the debtor class. In every Western State
there was a disposition to seek shelter from the operation of federal
law behind the aegis of State rights. The people of these newer
communities were slow to accept the force of precedent in cases decided
by the federal courts. Andrew Jackson voiced this feeling when he became
President. "Mere precedent," said he, "is a dangerous source of
authority, and should not be regarded as deciding questions of
constitutional power, except where the acquiescence of the people and
the States can be considered as well settled."
That there was much real suffering during this panic admits of no doubt.
Niles estimated that not less than twenty thousand persons were seeking
employment in Philadelphia in the summer of 1819, and quite as many
wandering in the streets of New York looking for work. In both cities
soup-houses were established by private charitable societies to relieve
distress in the following winter. In the city of New York, during the
year 1816, over nineteen hundred unfortunates were imprisoned for debt;
and of these, over seven hundred owed less than twenty-five dollars.
But it was not merely the city dweller who felt the pinch of poverty.
Thousands of Western settlers who had purchased land under the Act of
1800, which permitted deferred payments, found themselves insolvent.
More than $21,000,000, one fifth of the national debt, remained unpaid
in the year 1820. To the importunities of these debtors Congress had
yielded from time to time, but it was not until 1821 that it passed the
first general relief act. Those who had not completed their payments
within the prescribed five years were then permitted to give up the land
which they had not paid for, and to apply the payments already made to
the full purchase of the lands which they retained. Arrears of interest
were remitted.
In 1820, Congress passed an act which wrought a far-reaching change in
the disposal of the public domain. The credit system was abolished
outright. After July 1, 1820, land was to be sold for cash at a minimum
price of a dollar and a quarter an acre, and in eighty-acre tracts. A
payment of one hundred dollars, then, would make a settler the owner of
eighty acres in his own right. The prospect of actual ownership of a
small tract made him far less ready to listen to the voice of the
tempter in the form of the speculator, who had heretofore lured him to
make larger purchases on credit than he could ever pay for by the labor
of his hands.
In the midst of this period of financial depression, the Territory of
Missouri applied for admission into the Union. On February 13, 1819,
while an enabling act was under consideration in the House of
Representatives, James Tallmadge, of New York, moved an amendment which
touched Southern interests to the quick. "_And provided_, That the
further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited,
except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted; and that all children born within the said State, after
the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of
twenty-five years."
[Map: Distribution of Slaves 1820]
This bold attempt to prevent the spread of slavery provoked a brief but
momentous debate. Clay left the Speaker's chair to remonstrate, "in the
name of humanity," against a policy which could result, he believed,
only in the misery of the slaves of the South. The lot of the negro
would be vastly improved if the unfortunate people were more widely
dispersed. Taylor, of New York, called this a specious plea. "It is that
humanity," said he, "which seeks to palliate disease by the application
of nostrums, which scatter its seeds through the whole system." To open
the West to slavery would be simply to create an additional demand for
the importation of slaves. Of those Southern Representatives who took
part in this debate, not a man posed as the defender of slavery in the
abstract. Barbour, of Virginia, frankly admitted that slavery "like all
other human things is mixed with good and evil--the latter, no doubt,
preponderating." And Johnson, of Kentucky, maintained that though
slavery might be a necessary evil, "not incompatible with true
religion," even so "slavery must still be a bitter draught."
What rankled in the breasts of all Southern men was the insinuation that
their social system was founded on hypocrisy and tyranny. Tallmadge
commented with biting sarcasm on the willingness of Southern gentlemen
to contribute to missionary enterprises for the uplifting of the
Hottentots and Hindus, and their determination to keep their African
slaves in ignorance. And his colleague contrasted the plantations,
overrun with weeds on one side of Mason and Dixon's line, with the
cultivated farms on the other: in Pennsylvania, he observed "a neat,
blooming, animated, rosy-cheeked peasantry"; in Maryland, "a squalid,
slow-motioned black population." These were barbed shafts which left
sore wounds.
When the Union was formed, African negroes were held in servitude in
all but two of the States. At the time of this debate, slavery had been
abolished, or was on the way to ultimate extinction, in every State
north of Maryland and Delaware. Climate rather than humanitarian
considerations sealed the fate of slavery at the North; and climate, in
the last analysis, fastened African slavery on the South. As the South
became committed to the raising of a staple, and that staple cotton, the
negro was regarded as an indispensable factor in plantation economy.
There were far-sighted individuals, it is true, who deprecated slavery
on humanitarian grounds; but they were, for the most part, citizens of
border States where the profitableness of negro labor was less apparent.
Even in these communities opposition to slavery was tempered by dread of
what emancipation might bring in its train. The history of Santo Domingo
revealed the hideous possibilities of a negro insurrection. No father of
a family could contemplate with equanimity the proximity of a large body
of free, semi-civilized blacks. For a time even prominent slaveholders
favored the aims of the Colonization Society which proposed to deport
emancipated blacks to the African coast. So late as 1820 the Governor of
Virginia recommended an appropriation by the legislature for the
emancipation and removal of the negroes.
Although slavery was a local institution, and regulated by state law,
its existence was recognized by the Federal Convention of 1787. The
arrangement which obtained under the old Confederation, whereby five
slaves were to count as three whites in apportioning representation and
taxes, was continued; the mutual obligation of the States to return
fugitives from justice and labor was distinctly stated in the
Constitution; and the slave trade was permitted to continue at least to
the year 1808.
In 1793, Congress had met its constitutional obligations by enacting a
law for the return of fugitive slaves; and in 1794, Congress passed an
act--"the first national act against the slave trade"--which prohibited
all trade in slaves from the United States to any foreign country. By
the opening of the new century all the States had forbidden the
importation of slaves from abroad. But in 1803, South Carolina again
legalized the slave trade; and in 1805, Congress after a brief
interdiction removed all restrictions upon the importation of slaves
into the Louisiana Territory. The slave trade at once assumed alarming
proportions. It was officially stated that between 1803 and 1807, 39,075
negroes were brought into the port of Charleston. Eighteen hundred of
these unfortunate blacks were imported in American vessels. One half of
the consignees of these slavers were Americans, of whom thirteen were
natives of Charleston and eighty-eight of Rhode Island.
This traffic, coupled with the alarm caused by negro insurrections in
the West Indies, prepared the public mind for positive action, as the
year approached when Congress might constitutionally prohibit the
foreign slave trade. The Act of March 2, 1807, however, only partially
met the expectations of the anti-slavery people. The African slave
trade was forbidden, but negroes illegally imported were to be disposed
of as the legislatures of the several States should determine. There was
reason to fear that the Southern States would neglect to legislate on
this important matter, and that the act would be indifferently enforced.
Moreover, the coastwise slave trade for purposes of sale was not
interdicted, but forbidden only in vessels under forty tons burden.
That the Act of 1807 did not prevent the African slave trade was patent
to every one who knew conditions in the Southern Seaboard States; but
the extent of this traffic can only be surmised. During the debates on
the Missouri Bill, Tallmadge stated that fourteen thousand negroes had
been brought into the country within the last year, and the statement
was not challenged.
When the Missouri controversy was renewed in the session of December,
1819, the number of free States equaled the number of slave States. The
addition of a twenty-third State, then, would unsettle the equilibrium
between the sections in the Senate. A growing antagonism based upon
widely different economic and social organizations was coming to be
felt--felt rather than clearly perceived and openly recognized. In the
year 1800, the two sections had been nearly equal in population; in
1820, the North outnumbered the South by over half a million. This
disparity in numbers had a direct political significance, for the
national House of Representatives was beyond all question controlled by
the delegations from the free States. No great prescience was needed to
warn the South that in self-defense it must maintain the even balance
of sections in the Senate. The contest for Missouri was therefore
essentially "a struggle for sectional domination."
The Tallmadge amendment was passed by the House, but rejected by the
Senate, after a heated debate which convinced Southern statesmen that
there was a distinct anti-slavery sentiment at the North. The
adjournment of Congress threw the whole controversy into the crucible of
public opinion. The latent hostility of men and women with humanitarian
sympathies was at once raised to white heat. Mass meetings in city,
town, and county passed resolutions against the spread of slavery and
the admission of more slave States. Yet it can hardly be said that the
public conscience was deeply touched. The leaven of abolitionism had to
work many years before it could produce results in politics.
The whole question assumed a new guise when Congress met in December,
1820. The people of Maine had held a convention and formed a
constitution, and were now applying for admission as a State. Here was a
free State which would offset Missouri if it were admitted as a slave
State. When the House passed a bill to admit Maine, the Senate promptly
attached to it, as a "rider," a bill for the admission of Missouri
without any prohibition of slavery. It was to this bill that Senator
Thomas, of Illinois, representing a constituency divided against itself
on the subject of slavery, offered an amendment in the nature of a
compromise. He would admit Missouri as a slave State, but prohibit
slavery forever in the rest of the old Province of Louisiana north of
36 deg. 30'. The Senate accepted this amendment and sent the bill to the
House. Here the original Maine Bill was stripped of the rider and the
Thomas amendment by large majorities. Shortly after this vigorous
assertion of independence, the House passed a bill for the admission of
Missouri with the prohibition of slavery. The deadlock seemed complete.
The constitutional aspects of the problem called forth some exceedingly
able argumentation. Those who favored imposing a restriction upon
Missouri argued, plausibly enough, that as Congress was given the power
to admit new States, so it was fully warranted in exercising discretion
and refusing to admit. Precedents existed for imposing restrictions.
Three States carved out of the Northwest Territory had been admitted on
condition that their constitutions should not be repugnant to the sixth
article of the Ordinance of 1787. The State of Louisiana had been
admitted under explicit conditions. It was fully competent for Congress,
by virtue of its authority over Territories, to regulate all the stages
in the process of framing a constitution, and then to give or to
withhold its approval.
The most brilliant argument on the other side was made by William
Pinkney, of Maryland. Conceding that the power of Congress was
discretionary, he insisted that Congress might not exact terms which
would interfere with the results to be accomplished. "What, then," he
asked, "is the professed result? To admit a State into this Union. What
is that Union?... An equal Union between parties equally sovereign....
It is into that Union that a new State is to come. By acceding to it
the new State is placed on the same footing with the original States....
If it comes in shorn of its beams--crippled and disparaged beyond the
original States--it is not into the original Union that it comes.... The
first was a Union _inter pares_; this is a Union between _disparates_,
between giants and a dwarf, between power and feebleness, between full
proportioned sovereignties and a miserable image of power."
Yet there were Senators and Representatives from the North who would not
be diverted from the discussion of the larger sectional and ethical
issues involved in the extension of slavery. Chief among these was Rufus
King, who then represented New York in the Senate. His cogent arguments
made a profound impression. "The great slaveholders in the House," Adams
wrote in his journal, "gnawed their lips and clenched their fists as
they heard him."
[Map: House Vote on the Missouri Compromise March 2, 1820]
Meantime, a joint committee of conference was endeavoring to reconcile
the differences between the House and the Senate. The House was put at a
disadvantage by the approach of March 4--when the consent of
Massachusetts to the admission of Maine would expire. It was finally
agreed that the Senate should pass the bill admitting Maine as a
separate measure, while the House should accept the Missouri Bill with
the Thomas amendment. Missouri, in short, was to come in as a slave
State, but slavery was forever prohibited in the rest of the Louisiana
Purchase north of her southern boundary. An analysis of the voting in
the House of Representatives reveals no clear-cut sectional divisions,
though it forecasts a time when slavery might split parties along
sectional lines. In New England and the Middle States public opinion had
not yet crystallized into inflexible opposition to the spread of
slavery; but the Northwest was distinctly in favor of a restriction upon
Missouri. The Southwest and the South were a unit in desiring the
admission of Missouri as a slave State.
In the fall of 1820, the Missouri question in another form returned to
vex Congress. When the constitution of the State was presented to
Congress, it was found to contain a clause which excluded free negroes.
Again the two houses locked horns. Passions rose again. The work of the
preceding session seemed about to be undone. But under the persuasive
leadership of Henry Clay, a joint committee elaborated a resolution
which was acceptable to both houses. Missouri was to be admitted on the
express condition that the offending clause in her constitution should
never be construed so as to authorize the passing of any law by which
any citizen of any of the States of the Union should be deprived of his
privileges and immunities under the Federal Constitution. The
legislature of Missouri was to give its solemn consent to this
fundamental condition. Then, and not until then, the President was to
declare Missouri a member of the Union. The State complied with the
requirement, though in the same breath protesting that all this was an
empty form, since Congress could not thus bind a State. On August 10,
1821, President Monroe declared Missouri a State of the Union.
In the midst of this exciting controversy, Monroe was reelected
President. Nowhere but in Pennsylvania was there any serious opposition.
Old distinctions of party had so far disappeared that the venerable
ex-President John Adams was chosen as a presidential elector in
Massachusetts, and voted with his fourteen colleagues--who were half
Federalists and half Democrats--for James Monroe. In the electoral count
Monroe lacked only a single vote of a unanimous election.
When the electoral vote was about to be counted, an embarrassing
question arose with regard to the vote of Missouri. As the State had not
yet complied with the condition imposed by Congress, its right to vote
was challenged. Again Clay appeared in his role of compromiser. The
delicate question was adroitly avoided by having the President of the
Senate announce the electoral vote with and without the votes of
Missouri. At last the Missouri question was disposed of; but words had
been uttered which could not be recalled; and wounds had been inflicted
which left scars. The South could never quite forget that it had been
charged with conniving at crime in maintaining slavery. "You have
kindled a fire," said Cobb, of Georgia, to Tallmadge, "which all the
waters of the ocean cannot put out, which seas of blood only can
extinguish."
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
An account of the crisis of 1819 is contained in F. J. Turner's
_Rise of the New West_ (in _The American Nation_, vol. 14, 1906);
a shorter and less satisfactory account in A. M. Simons's _Social
Forces in American History_ (1911). Much information may be
gleaned from the pages of McMaster's history. Detailed information
must be sought in the special studies already cited, such as R. C.
H. Catterall, _The Second Bank of the United States_ (1903), and
P. J. Treat, _The National Land System, 1785-1820_ (1910). From
the vast literature dealing with slavery and the slavery
controversy, the following titles may be selected as especially
important: W. E. B. DuBois, _The Suppression of the African
Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870_ (1896); W.
H. Collins, _The Domestic Slave-Trade_ (1904); A. B. Hart,
_Slavery and Abolition_ (in _The American Nation_, vol. 16, 1906);
N. D. Harris, _The History of Negro Servitude in Illinois_ (1904);
E. R. Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_ (1911); and a number of
monographs in the Johns Hopkins University _Studies_. All the
larger histories discourse with great particularity upon the
Missouri controversy. Contemporary views of the congressional
struggle are presented in J. Q. Adams's _Memoirs_, and in T. H.
Benton's _Thirty Years' View; or, A History of the Working of
American Government, 1820-1850_ (2 vols., 1854).