POLITICS AND STATE RIGHTS
The circumstances of his election made the position of President Adams
one of very great difficulty. He alluded to his embarrassment in his
first message to Congress. "Less possessed of your confidence in advance
than any of my predecessors," said he, "I am deeply conscious of the
prospect that I shall stand more and oftener in need of your
indulgence." It is doubtful, however, if even he appreciated the
momentum of the forces which were already combining to discredit his
administration. In October, the legislature of Tennessee had again
nominated Jackson for the Presidency, and he had accepted the nomination
as a summons to wage war upon the forces of evil in high places. The
campaign of 1828, indeed, had already begun: and it was to be a campaign
of personal vindication as well as of popular rights.
Under similar circumstances most men would have made sure of the loyalty
of their constitutional advisers, at least, but Adams flattered himself
that he could carry on a non-partisan administration. The results were
disastrous, for at least two of the Cabinet were not above using the
patronage of office to further the cause of Jackson. In his laudable
desire not to allow the Government to become "a perpetual and
unintermitting scramble for office," Adams refused to make removals in
the civil service on partisan grounds, yet he retained in office
underlings who labored incessantly in the cause of the opposition.
Equally impolitic was the attitude of the President toward questions of
public policy in his first message to Congress. Just when the opposition
was in a fluid state and the winds of conflicting doctrines were
ruffling the surface of national politics, Adams gave utterance to
opinions on the functions of government which were bound to alienate
many of his followers. Entertaining no doubts as to constitutional
limitations upon the powers of the National Government, he advocated not
only the construction of roads and canals, but the establishment of
observatories and a national university. His program included
governmental aid to the arts, mechanical and literary, and to the
sciences, "ornamental and profound." He was prepared to give
encouragement not only to manufacturing but to agriculture and to
commerce. Many of these were objects which President Jefferson had
recommended to the consideration of Congress in 1806; but whereas he had
urged the adoption of amendments to the Constitution which would
authorize Congress to provide for roads and canals and education, Adams
seemed oblivious to the limitations of the Constitution. In much alarm
Jefferson suggested to Madison the desirability of having Virginia adopt
a new set of resolutions, bottomed on those of 1798, and directed
against the acts for internal improvements. In March, 1826, the general
assembly declared that all the principles of the earlier resolutions
applied "with full force against the powers assumed by Congress" in
passing acts to protect manufactures and to further internal
improvements. That the Administration would meet with opposition in
Congress, whatever its program might be, was a foregone conclusion. The
only question was whether the diverse and mutually hostile factions
which had followed the fortunes of Crawford, Calhoun, and Jackson could
coalesce into a consistent opposition. The first test occurred when the
Administration proposed the Panama mission.
The overthrow of the authority of Spain in South America had left the
way clear for the long-projected union of the republics. Early in the
year 1825, the ministers of Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia waited on
Clay to learn whether the United States would accept an invitation to a
great council or congress which had been called by the revolutionist
Bolivar, now President of Colombia. The project appealed strongly to
Clay. A league of young republics in the New World to offset the Holy
Alliance in Europe was, as his biographer remarks, "one of those large,
generous conceptions well calculated to fascinate his ardent mind." The
imagination of the President was not so easily touched: he instructed
Clay to inquire more particularly into the purposes of the congress.
The condition of affairs in the countries bordering on the Caribbean
Sea--the American Mediterranean--was such, indeed, as to justify extreme
caution in dealing with the Latin-American republics. It was matter of
common knowledge that Colombia and Mexico had designs upon Cuba, the
last of the Spanish outposts in the New World. So long as Spain
continued at war with her old colonies, the United States was bound to
be uneasy about the fate of Cuba and Porto Rico. Even if the islands
were liberated by the republican armies of Central and South America,
they were likely to fall a prey to some European power. The appearance
of a French fleet off the coast of Cuba during the summer of 1825 gave
point to these not unwarranted apprehensions. It was rumored that Cuba
was to be made the basis for an expedition against Mexico in behalf of
Spain. This episode prompted Clay to make strong representations to
France that the United States could not consent to the occupation of
Cuba by any other European power.
When, then, a formal invitation came to participate in the Panama
Congress, the Administration determined to seize the occasion to
exercise a wholesome restraint by friendly advice upon the assembled
delegates of the republics, and at the same time to ascertain their
purposes. In asking the Senate to confirm the nomination of two
delegates, however, the President voiced his own expectation of what the
Congress would be and do, rather than the purposes of Bolivar and his
associates. The occasion would be favorable, the President intimated,
for the discussion of commercial reciprocity, of neutral rights, and of
principles of religious liberty. An alliance with the Latin-American
republics was not contemplated. On the contrary, the delegates from the
United States would urge "an agreement between all of the parties
represented at the meeting, that each will guard by its own means
against the establishment of any future European colony within its
borders." At this stage in its evolution the Monroe Doctrine was not
understood to include any obligation on the part of the United States to
police the territories of the lesser republics of the New World.
The instructions given to the envoys leave no doubt as to the intentions
of the Administration. Every possible endeavor was to be made to
dissuade Colombia and Mexico from their designs upon Cuba and Porto
Rico. The recognition of Hayti as an independent state was to be
deprecated. In short, the _status quo_ in the Caribbean Sea was to be
maintained; and throughout, the congress was to be regarded as a
diplomatic conference and in no wise as a convention to constitute a
permanent league of republics.
Nevertheless, the opposition in Congress persisted in misrepresenting
the President's purposes. It was pointed out that the republics to the
south very generally believed that the United States was pledged by
Monroe's message to make common cause with them when their independence
was threatened. "Are we prepared," asked Hayne, of South Carolina, "to
send ministers to the Congress of Panama for the purpose of making
effectual this pledge of President Monroe as construed by the present
administration and understood by the Spanish-American states?" With
greater sincerity Southern Representatives protested against
participating in a congress which proposed to discuss the suppression
of the slave trade and the future of Hayti. "Slavery in all its
bearings," said Hayne, "is a question of extreme delicacy, concerning
which there is but one safe rule either for the States in which it
exists or for the Union. It must ever be treated as a domestic question.
To foreign governments the language of the United States must be that
the question of slavery concerns the peace and safety of our political
family, and that we cannot allow it to be discussed." Least of all, he
continued, could the United States touch the question of the
independence of Hayti in connection with revolutionary governments which
had marched to victory under the banner of universal emancipation and
which had permitted men of color to command their armies and enter their
legislative halls.
In the end the Administration had its way and the nominations were
confirmed; but the delay was most unfortunate. On their way to the
Isthmus, one of the delegates died, and the other arrived too late to
take part in the congress. From the viewpoint of domestic politics, the
controversy over the mission was only an incident in the evolution of a
party within the bosom of the Democratic party. The animus of the
opposition is revealed in the often-quoted remark of Martin Van Buren,
who was trying to drill the varied elements in the Senate into a
coherent organization: "Yes, they have beaten us by a few votes, after a
hard battle; but if they had only taken the other side and refused the
mission, we should have had them."
Of far more serious import than this factional opposition in Congress
was the resistance which the authorities of Georgia offered to the
National Administration in the matter of Indian lands. On March 5, 1825,
the Senate ratified the Treaty of Indian Springs with the Creek Indians,
which provided for the cession of practically all the lands of the tribe
between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. For years the planters of
Georgia had coveted these fertile tracts, awaiting with impatience the
negotiations of the Federal Government with the reluctant Indians.
Although the title to the lands was not to pass to Georgia until
September 1, 1826, Governor Troup ordered them to be surveyed with a
view to their immediate occupation. Meantime, well-founded charges were
current that the treaty had been made by a faction among the Creeks,
without the consent of the responsible chiefs. President Adams at once
ordered the state authorities to desist from their survey; but the
governor replied that Georgia was convinced of the validity of the
treaty and fully determined to enter into possession of her own. The
tone of the governor's letter was ominous. Nevertheless, the President
instituted negotiations for a new treaty. The diplomatic shifts resorted
to by the Indian agents in this instance were not above suspicion, but
the President seemed to entertain no misgivings, for he assured the
Senate that the new Treaty of Washington (January 24, 1826) was the will
and deed of "the chiefs of the whole Creek Nation." The grant left the
Indians still in possession of some lands west of the Chattahoochee.
The feelings of all loyal Georgians were outraged by the course of the
Administration. The legislature protested against the Treaty of
Washington as "illegal and unconstitutional," and denounced the
President's action as "an instance of dictation and federal supremacy
unwarranted by any grant of powers to the General Government." "Georgia
owns exclusively the soil and jurisdiction of all the territory within
her present chartered and conventional limits," read the resolutions of
December 22, 1826. "She has never relinquished said right, either
territorial or jurisdictional, to the General Government."
The ebullient governor hardly needed the indorsement of the legislature.
He pushed on the surveys to the limits set by the original treaty. But
the surveyors soon met with resistance from the Indians; and the Indians
appealed to the President. The Secretary of War then notified Troup that
the President felt himself compelled to employ all the means under his
control to maintain the faith of the nation and to carry the treaty into
effect. Governor Troup replied defiantly that the "military character of
the menace" was well understood. "You will distinctly understand,
therefore, that I feel it my duty to resist to the utmost any military
attack.... From the first decisive act of hostility, you will be
considered and treated as a public enemy, and with less repugnance
because you, to whom we might constitutionally have appealed for our
defense against invasion, are yourselves the invaders, and, what is
more, the unblushing allies of the savages whose course you have
adopted." He at once issued orders to the state military officers to
hold the militia in readiness to repel any invasion of the soil of
Georgia.
The tension which had now become acute was relieved by the intelligence
that the President had ordered the Indian agent to the Creeks to resume
negotiations for the cession of the rest of their lands. The governor
hastened to point out jubilantly that the President had beaten a
retreat. Meantime, the President had laid the whole matter before
Congress in a special message. A committee of the House advised the
purchase of the rest of the Indian lands, but in the mean time the
maintenance of the terms of the Treaty of Washington. A committee of the
Senate, however, with Benton as chairman, took an opposite view of the
situation, and deprecated any action looking toward the coercion of a
sister State. A treaty concluded with the Creeks in November, 1827,
fortunately satisfied all parties and put an end to this exciting
controversy--a controversy in which the President had played a lone and
not very successful hand.
In this same year (1827), another Indian problem of even greater
perplexity arose. The Cherokees of northwestern Georgia, who were ruled
by a group of intelligent half-breeds, declared themselves one of the
sovereign and independent nations of the earth, and drafted a
constitution which completely excluded the authority of the State of
Georgia. Again, in no uncertain language, Georgia asserted her title to
all the lands within her limits, regarding the Indians simply as
"tenants at her will"; but before the controversy reached an acute
stage Adams had surrendered the Presidency to General Andrew Jackson,
who had only contempt for Indian rights when they fell athwart the
purposes of honest white settlers.
In the midst of these protestations against federal intervention, the
legislature of Georgia sounded a note of defiance also in the matter of
the tariff. It was "their decided opinion an increase of Tariff duties
will and ought to be RESISTED by all legal and constitutional means."
Just what should be "the mode of opposition" they would not pretend to
say, but for the present they would content themselves with "the
peaceable course of remonstrating with Congress." This rather ominous
protest was inspired by the demands of certain manufacturers and
politicians who had assembled in convention at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,
in the summer of 1827.
The woolen industry had profited least of all those which had been
protected by the Tariff of 1824. Not only had the slight advance in
rates been offset by the increase of the duty on raw wool, but the
effect of English competition in 1825 had been most depressing to the
woolen trade. A tariff bill to meet the wishes of the wool-growers and
woolen manufacturers had passed the House early in 1827, but had been
defeated in the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President. The
convention at Harrisburg was designed to create a public sentiment in
favor of the protected interests and to bring pressure from various
sources to bear upon Congress. The failure of the tariff bill in the
spring session had impressed upon woolen manufacturers the necessity of
securing allies.
The recommendations of the convention at Harrisburg were comprehensive.
Higher duties all along the line, from wool to glass, were urged. But
that which the promoters of the convention had most at heart was the
extension to woolens of the minimum principle already applied to cotton
fabrics. According to their demands, the _ad valorem_ duty on woolens
should range from forty to fifty per cent, assessed on minimum
valuations of fifty cents, two dollars and a half, four dollars, and six
dollars a yard. That is to say, goods valued at less than fifty cents a
yard were to be treated as though they had a value of fifty cents; and
all between fifty cents and two dollars and a half, as though they were
worth two dollars and a half; and so on--a system which offered a high
degree of protection to the cheaper fabrics in each group.
[Map: House Vote on Tariff Bill April 22, 1828]
The high hopes of the protectionists were only partially realized. In
the following session of Congress, economic interests became badly
tangled with political. The President and the greater part of his
supporters were protectionists. Indeed, it was openly charged by the
opposition that the Harrisburg Convention was a device of the Adams men
to promote his reelection. The opposition, on the other hand, was far
from united on the tariff question. The only affinity between Southern
planters and their Northern allies in the Middle and Western States was
hostility to the Administration. According to Calhoun, who in after
years made a frank avowal of his part in the intrigue, the opposition
determined to frame a tariff bill with a general high level of
duties to satisfy the Middle and Western States, but to increase
the duties on raw material which New England manufacturers needed. All
the stanch Jackson men were to unite in forcing this bill to a passage
without amendment. At the last moment, however, the Southern group were
to part company with their allies and to vote against the bill. The
Representatives from New England, and the supporters of the
Administration generally, would of course vote against the bill also,
and so compass its defeat. The odium would then fall upon the Adams men,
while the Jackson men could pose as the only whole-hearted advocates of
protection; and, finally, not the least factor in Calhoun's
calculations, the South would escape the toils of high protection. There
was only one hitch in this cleverly planned game. To the consternation
of the plotters, enough New England Representatives swallowed the bitter
dose to enact the bill.
The "tariff of abominations" deserves all the abuse which has been
heaped upon it. Shapen in political iniquity, it bore upon its face the
marks of its origin. High duties for which no one had asked were imposed
on certain raw material like pig and bar iron, and hemp, the better
quality of which was always in demand and never produced in the United
States. Items like the increased duty on molasses and the heavy duty on
sail-duck were added to make the bill distasteful to New England. But
the woolen industry suffered the most grievous disappointment. Instead
of the minimum principle advocated by the Harrisburg Convention, the Act
of 1828 established a minimum of one dollar between the minimal points
of fifty cents and two dollars and a half. Whereas the proposed rate
would have fixed a prohibitory duty on woolens costing about a dollar a
yard, the act allowed only a duty of forty-five per cent. "The dollar
minimum," as one of the aggrieved manufacturers put it, "was planted in
the very midst of the woolen trade."
Again the Middle States and the States of the Ohio Valley united in
support of the protective principle. New England was divided against
itself. Political considerations weighed heavily with those New
Englanders who like Webster voted for the bill. John Randolph hardly
exaggerated when he declared that "the bill referred to manufactures of
no sort or kind, except the manufacture of a President of the United
States."
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
To the bibliography at the close of the preceding chapter only a few
titles need be added. The foreign policy of the Adams Administration
is well described in F. E. Chadwick's _The Relations of the United
States and Spain_ (1909). The stages in the Indian controversy may
be traced in U. B. Phillips's _Georgia and State Rights_ (American
Historical Association, _Report_, 1901), and in E. J. Hardin's _Life
of George M. Troup_ (1859). E. M. Shepard, _Martin Van Buren_
(1888), and T. D. Jervey, _Robert Y. Hayne and His Times_ (1909),
are important biographies. Josiah Quincy's _Figures of the Past_
(1883) contains some interesting sketches of Washington society,
while N. Sargent's _Public Men and Events_ (2 vols., 1875) supplies
an abundance of political gossip.