It is one of the strange paradoxes of our time that the author of the
Declaration of Independence, to whose principle of self-determination
the world seems again to be turning, should now be regarded as a
self-confessed pacifist, with all the derogatory implications that lurk
in that epithet. The circumstances which made him a revolutionist
in 1776 and a passionate advocate of peace in 1807 deserve some
consideration. The charge made by contemporaries of Jefferson that his
aversion to war sprang from personal cowardice may be dismissed at once,
as it was by him, with contempt. Nor was his hatred of war merely an
instinctive abhorrence of bloodshed. He had not hesitated to wage naval
war on the Barbary Corsairs. It is true that he was temperamentally
averse to the use of force under ordinary circumstances. He did not
belong to that type of full-blooded men who find self-expression in
adventurous activity. Mere physical effort without conscious purpose
never appealed to him. He was at the opposite pole of life from a man
like Aaron Burr. He never, so far as history records, had an affair
of honor; he never fought a duel; he never performed active military
service; he never took human life. Yet he was not a non-resistant. "My
hope of preserving peace for our country," he wrote on one occasion, "is
not founded in the Quaker principle of nonresistance under every wrong."
The true sources of Jefferson's pacifism must be sought in his
rationalistic philosophy, which accorded the widest scope to the
principle of self-direction and self determination, whether on the part
of the individual or of groups of individuals. To impose one's will upon
another was to enslave, according to his notion; to coerce by war was
to enslave a community; and to enslave a community was to provoke
revolution. Jefferson's thought gravitated inevitably to the center of
his rational universe--to the principle of enlightened self-interest.
Men and women are not to be permanently moved by force but by appeals
to their interests. He completed his thought as follows in the letter
already quoted: "But [my hope of preserving peace is founded] in the
belief that a just and friendly conduct on our part will procure
justice and friendship from others. In the existing contest, each of the
combatants will find an interest in our friendship."
It was a chaotic world in which this philosopher-statesman was called
upon to act--a world in which international law and neutral rights had
been well-nigh submerged in twelve years of almost continuous war. Yet
with amazing self-assurance President Jefferson believed that he held in
his hand a master-key which would unlock all doors that had been shut
to the commerce of neutrals. He called this master-key "peaceable
coercion," and he explained its magic potency in this wise:
"Our commerce is so valuable to them [the European belligerents] that
they will be glad to purchase it when the only price we ask is to do
us justice. I believe that we have in our hands the means of peaceable
coercion; and that the moment they see our government so united as that
they can make use of it, they will for their own interest be disposed to
do us justice."
The idea of using commercial restrictions as a weapon to secure
recognition of rights was of course not original with Jefferson, but
it was now to be given a trial without parallel in the history of
the nation. Non-importation agreements had proved efficacious in
the struggle of the colonies with the mother country; it seemed not
unreasonable to suppose that a well-sustained refusal to traffic in
English goods would meet the emergency of 1807, when the ruling of
British admiralty courts threatened to cut off the lucrative commerce
between Europe and the West Indies. With this theory in view, the
President and his Secretary of State advocated the NonImportation Bill
of April 18, 1806, which forbade the entry of certain specified goods of
British manufacture. The opposition found a leader in Randolph, who now
broke once and for all with the Administration. "Never in the course of
my life," he exclaimed, "have I witnessed such a scene of indignity and
inefficiency as this measure holds forth to the world. What is it? A
milk-and-water bill! A dose of chicken-broth to be taken nine months
hence!... It is too contemptible to be the object of consideration,
or to excite the feelings of the pettiest state in Europe." The
Administration carried the bill through Congress, but Randolph had
the satisfaction of seeing his characterisation of the measure amply
justified by the course of events.
With the Non-Importation Act as a weapon, the President was confident
that Monroe, who had once more returned to his post in London, could
force a settlement of all outstanding differences with Great Britain. To
his annoyance, and to Monroe's chagrin, however, he was obliged to send
a special envoy to act with Monroe. Factious opposition in the Senate
forced the President to placate the Federalists by appointing William
Pinkney of Maryland. The American commissioners were instructed
to insist upon three concessions in the treaty which they were to
negotiate: restoration of trade with enemies' colonies, indemnity for
captures made since the Essex decision, and express repudiation of the
right of impressment. In return for these concessions, they might hold
out the possible repeal of the Non-Importation Act! Only confirmed
optimists could believe that the mistress of the seas, flushed with the
victory of Trafalgar, would consent to yield these points for so slight
a compensation. The mission was, indeed, doomed from the outset, and
nothing more need be said of it than that in the end, to secure any
treaty at all, Monroe and Pinkney broke their instructions and set aside
the three ultimata. What they obtained in return seemed so insignificant
and doubtful, and what they paid for even these slender compensations
seemed so exorbitant, that the President would not even submit the
treaty to the Senate. The first application of the theory of peaceable
coercion thus ended in humiliating failure. Jefferson thought it best
"to let the negotiation take a friendly nap"; but Madison, who felt
that his political future depended on a diplomatic triumph over England,
drafted new instructions for the two commissioners, hoping that the
treaty might yet be put into acceptable form. It was while these new
instructions were crossing the ocean that the Chesapeake struck her
colors.
James Monroe is one of the most unlucky diplomats in American history.
From those early days when he had received the fraternal embraces of the
Jacobins in Paris and had been recalled by President Washington, to the
ill-fated Spanish mission, circumstances seem to have conspired against
him. The honor of negotiating the purchase of Louisiana should have been
his alone, but he arrived just a day too late and was obliged to
divide the glory with Livingston. On this mission to England he was not
permitted to conduct negotiations alone but was associated with William
Pinkney, a Federalist. No wonder he suspected Madison, or at least
Madison's friends, of wishing to discredit him. And now another
impossible task was laid upon him. He was instructed to demand not
only disavowal and reparation for the attack on the Chesapeake and the
restoration of the American seamen, but also as "an indispensable part
of the satisfaction" "an entire abolition of impressments." If the
Secretary of State had deliberately contrived to deliver Monroe into
the hands of George Canning, he could not have been more successful, for
Monroe had already protested against the Chesapeake outrage as an act of
aggression which should be promptly disavowed without reference to the
larger question of impressment. He was now obliged to eat his own
words and inject into the discussion, as Canning put it, the irrelevant
matters which they had agreed to separate from the present controversy.
Canning was quick to see his opportunity. Mr. Monroe must be aware, said
he, that on several recent occasions His Majesty had firmly declined to
waive "the ancient and prescriptive usages of Great Britain, founded on
the soundest principles of natural law," simply because they might come
in contact with the interests or the feelings of the American people. If
Mr. Monroe's instructions left him powerless to adjust this regrettable
incident of the Leopard and the Chesapeake, without raising the other
question of the right of search and impressment, then His Majesty
could only send a special envoy to the United States to terminate the
controversy in a manner satisfactory to both countries. "But," added
Canning with sarcasm which was not lost on Monroe, "in order to avoid
the inconvenience which has arisen from the mixed nature of your
instructions, that minister will not be empowered to entertain... any
proposition respecting the search of merchant vessels."
One more humiliating experience was reserved for Monroe before his
diplomatic career closed. Following Madison's new set of instructions,
he and Pinkney attempted to reopen negotiations for the revision of the
discredited treaty of the preceding year. But Canning had reasons of his
own for wishing to be rid of a treaty which had been drawn by the late
Whig Ministry. He informed the American commissioners arrogantly that
"the proposal of the President of the United States for proceeding to
negotiate anew upon the basis of a treaty already solemnly concluded and
signed, is a proposal wholly inadmissible." His Majesty could therefore
only acquiesce in the refusal of the President to ratify the treaty. One
week later, James Monroe departed from London, never again to set foot
on British soil, leaving Pinkney to assume the duties of Minister at
the Court of St. James. For the second time Monroe returned to his own
country discredited by the President who had appointed him. In both
instances he felt himself the victim of injustice. In spite of his
friendship for Jefferson, he was embittered against the Administration
and in this mood lent himself all too readily to the schemes of John
Randolph, who had already picked him as the one candidate who could beat
Madison in the next presidential election.
From the point of view of George Canning and the Tory squirearchy whose
mouthpiece he was, the Chesapeake affair was but an incident--an unhappy
incident, to be sure, but still only an incident--in the world-wide
struggle with Napoleon. What was at stake was nothing less than
the commercial supremacy of Great Britain. The astounding growth of
Napoleon's empire was a standing menace to British trade. The overthrow
of Prussia in the fall of 1806 left the Corsican in control of Central
Europe and in a position to deal his long premeditated blow. A fortnight
after the battle of Jena, he entered Berlin and there issued the famous
decree which was his answer to the British blockade of the French
channel ports. Since England does not recognize the system of
international law universally observed by all civilized nations--so the
preamble read--but by a monstrous abuse of the right of blockade has
determined to destroy neutral trade and to raise her commerce and
industry upon the ruins of that of the continent, and since "whoever
deals on the continent in English goods thereby favors and renders
himself an accomplice of her designs," therefore the British Isles are
declared to be in a state of blockade. Henceforth all English goods were
to be lawful prize in any territory held by the troops of France or
her allies; and all vessels which had come from English ports or from
English colonies were to be confiscated, together with their cargoes.
This challenge was too much for the moral equilibrium of the squires,
the shipowners, and the merchants who dominated Parliament. It dulled
their sense of justice and made them impatient under the pinpricks which
came from the United States. "A few short months of war," declared the
Morning Post truculently, "would convince these desperate [American]
politicians of the folly of measuring the strength of a rising, but
still infant and puny, nation with the colossal power of the British
Empire." "Right," said the Times, another organ of the Tory Government,
"is power sanctioned by usage." Concession to Americans at this crisis
was not to be entertained for a moment, for after all, said the Times,
they "possess all the vices of their Indian neighbors without their
virtues."
In this temper the British Government was prepared to ignore the United
States and deal Napoleon blow for blow. An order-in-council of January
7, 1807, asserted the right of retaliation and declared that "no vessel
shall be permitted to trade from one port to another, both which ports
shall belong to, or be in possession of France or her allies." The
peculiar hardship of this order for American shipowners is revealed
by the papers of Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, whose shrewdness and
enterprise were making him one of the merchant princes of his time. One
of his ships, the Liberty, of some 250 tons, was sent to Lisbon with a
cargo of 2052 barrels and 220 half-barrels of flour which cost the
owner $10.68 a barrel. Her captain, on entering port, learned that flour
commanded a better price at Cadiz. To Cadiz, accordingly, he set sail
and sold his cargo for $22.50 a barrel, winning for the owner a goodly
profit of $25,000, less commission. It was such trading ventures as this
that the British order-in-council doomed.
What American shipmasters had now to fear from both belligerents was
made startlingly clear by the fate of the ship Horizon, which had sailed
from Charleston, South Carolina, with a cargo for Zanzibar. On the way
she touched at various South American ports and disposed of most of
her cargo. Then changing her destination, and taking on a cargo for the
English market, she set sail for London. On the way she was forced to
put in at Lisbon to refit. As she left to resume her voyage she
was seized by an English frigate and brought in as a fair prize,
since--according to the Rule of 1756--she had been apprehended in an
illegal traffic between an enemy country and its colony. The British
prize court condemned the cargo but released the ship. The unlucky
Horizon then loaded with an English cargo and sailed again to Lisbon,
but misfortune overtook her and she was wrecked off the French coast.
Her cargo was salvaged, however, and what was not of English origin was
restored to her owners by decree of a French prize court; the rest of
her cargo was confiscated under the terms of the Berlin decree. When the
American Minister protested at this decision, he was told that "since
America suffers her ships to be searched, she adopts the principle
that the flag does not cover the goods. Since she recognizes the absurd
blockades laid by England, consents to having her vessels incessantly
stopped, sent to England, and so turned aside from their course, why
should the Americans not suffer the blockade laid by France? Certainly
France recognizes that these measures are unjust, illegal, and
subversive of national sovereignty; but it is the duty of nations to
resort to force, and to declare themselves against things which dishonor
them and disgrace their independence." * But an invitation to enter the
European maelstrom and battle for neutral rights made no impression upon
the mild-tempered President.
* Henry Adams, History of the United States, IV, p. 110.
It is as clear as day that the British Government was now determined,
under pretense of retaliating upon France, to promote British trade with
the continent by every means and at the expense of neutrals. Another
order-in-council, November 17, 1807, closed to neutrals all European
ports under French control, "as if the same were actually blockaded,"
but permitted vessels which first entered a British port and obtained a
British license to sail to any continental port. It was an order which,
as Henry Adams has said, could have but one purpose--to make American
commerce English. This was precisely the contemporary opinion of the
historian's grandfather, who declared that the "orders-in-council, if
submitted to, would have degraded us to the condition of colonists."
Only one more blow was needed, it would seem, to complete the ruin of
American commerce. It fell a month later, when Napoleon, having overrun
the Spanish peninsula and occupied Portugal, issued his Milan decree of
December 17, 1807. Henceforth any vessel which submitted to search
by English cruisers, or paid any tonnage duty or tax to the English
Government, or sailed to or from any English port, would be captured and
condemned as lawful prize. Such was to be the maritime code of France
"until England should return to the principles of international law
which are also those of justice and honor."
Never was a commercial nation less prepared to defend itself against
depredations than the United States of America in this year 1807. For
this unpreparedness many must bear the blame, but President Jefferson
has become the scapegoat. This Virginia farmer and landsman was not
only ignorant and distrustful of all the implements of war, but utterly
unfamiliar with the ways of the sea and with the first principles of
sea-power. The Tripolitan War seems to have inspired him with a single
fixed idea--that for defensive purposes gunboats were superior to
frigates and less costly. He set forth this idea in a special message
to Congress (February 10, 1807), claiming to have the support of
"professional men," among whom he mentioned Generals Wilkinson and
Gates! He proposed the construction of two hundred of these gunboats,
which would be distributed among the various exposed harbors, where
in time of peace they would be hauled up on shore under sheds, for
protection against sun and storm. As emergency arose these floating
batteries were to be manned by the seamen and militia of the port.
What appealed particularly to the President in this programme was the
immunity it offered from "an excitement to engage in offensive maritime
war." Gallatin would have modified even this plan for economy's sake.
He would have constructed only one-half of the proposed fleet since the
large seaports could probably build thirty gunboats in as many days, if
an emergency arose. In extenuation of Gallatin's shortsightedness, it
should be remembered that he was a native of Switzerland, whose navy
has never ploughed many seas. It is less easy to excuse the rest of the
President's advisers and the Congress which was beguiled into accepting
this naive project. Nor did the Chesapeake outrage teach either Congress
or the Administration a salutary lesson. On the contrary, when in
October the news of the bombardment of Copenhagen had shattered the
nerves of statesmen in all neutral countries, and while the differences
with England were still unsettled, Jefferson and his colleagues decided
to hold four of the best frigates in port and use them "as receptacles
for enlisting seamen to fill the gunboats occasionally." Whom the gods
would punish they first make mad!
The 17th of December was a memorable day in the annals of this
Administration. Favorable tradewinds had brought into American ports a
number of packets with news from Europe. The Revenge had arrived in
New York with Armstrong's dispatches announcing Napoleon's purpose to
enforce the Berlin decree; the Edward had reached Boston with British
newspapers forecasting the order-in-council of the 11th of November.
This news burst like a bomb in Washington where the genial President
was observing with scientific detachment the operation of his policy of
commercial coercion. The Non-Importation Act had just gone into effect.
Jefferson immediately called his Cabinet together. All were of one mind.
The impending order-in-council, it was agreed, left but one alternative.
Commerce must be totally suspended until the full scope of these new
aggressions could be ascertained. The President took a loose sheet of
paper and drafted hastily a message to Congress, recommending an embargo
in anticipation of the offensive British order. But the prudent Madison
urged that it was better not to refer explicitly to the order and
proposed a substitute which simply recommended "an immediate inhibition
of the departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States,"
on the ground that shipping was likely to be exposed to greater dangers.
Only Gallatin demurred: he would have preferred an embargo for a
limited time. "I prefer war to a permanent embargo," he wrote next
day. "Government prohibitions," he added significantly, "do always more
mischief than had been calculated." But Gallatin was overruled and the
message, in Madison's form, was sent to Congress on the following day.
The Senate immediately passed the desired bill through three readings
in a single day; the House confirmed this action after only two days
of debate; and on the 22d of December, the President signed the Embargo
Act.
What was this measure which was passed by Congress almost without
discussion? Ostensibly it was an act for the protection of American
ships, merchandise, and seamen. It forbade the departure of all ships
for foreign ports, except vessels under the immediate direction of the
President and vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods. Foreign
armed vessels were exempted also as a matter of course. Coasting ships
were to give bonds double the value of vessel and cargo to reland their
freight in some port of the United States. Historians have discovered
a degree of duplicity in the alleged motives for this act. How, it is
asked, could protection of ships and seamen be the motive when all of
Jefferson's private letters disclose his determination to put his theory
of peaceable coercion to a practical test by this measure? The criticism
is not altogether fair, for, as Jefferson would himself have
replied, peaceable coercion was designed to force the withdrawal of
orders-in-council and decrees that menaced the safety of ships and
cargoes. The policy might entail some incidental hardships, to be sure,
but the end in view was protection of American lives and property.
Madison was not quite candid, nevertheless, when he assured the British
Minister that the embargo was a precautionary measure only and not
conceived with hostile intent.
Chimerical this policy seemed to many contemporaries; chimerical it has
seemed to historians, and to us who have passed through the World
War. Yet in the World War it was the possession of food stuffs and raw
materials by the United States which gave her a dominating position in
the councils of the Allies. Had her commerce in 1807 been as necessary
to England and France as it was "at the very peak" of the World War,
Thomas Jefferson might have proved that peaceable coercion is an
effective alternative to war; but he overestimated the magnitude and
importance of the carrying trade of the United States, and erred still
more grievously in assuming that a public conscience existed which would
prove superior to the temptation to evade the law. Jefferson dreaded war
quite as much because of its concomitants as because of its inevitable
brutality, quite as much because it tended to exalt government and to
produce corruption as because it maimed bodies and sacrificed human
lives. Yet he never took fully into account the possible accompaniments
of his alternative to war. That the embargo would debauch public morals
and make government arbitrary, he was to learn only by bitter experience
and personal humiliation.
Just after the passage of this momentous act, Canning's special envoy,
George Rose, arrived in the United States. A British diplomat of the
better sort, with much dignity of manner and suave courtesy, he was
received with more than ordinary consideration by the Administration.
He was commissioned, every one supposed, to offer reparation for
the Chesapeake affair. Even after he had notified Madison that his
instructions bade him insist, as an indispensable preliminary, on the
recall of the President's Chesapeake proclamation, he was treated with
deference and assured that the President was prepared to comply, if he
could do so without incurring the charge of inconsistency and disregard
of national honor. Madison proposed to put a proclamation of recall in
Rose's hands, duly signed by the President and dated so as to correspond
with the day on which all differences should be adjusted. Rose consented
to this course and the proclamation was delivered into his hands. He
then divulged little by little his further instructions, which were such
as no self-respecting administration could listen to with composure.
Canning demanded a formal disavowal of Commodore Barron's conduct in
encouraging deserters from His Majesty's service and harboring them on
board his ship. "You will state," read Rose's instructions, "that
such disavowals, solemnly expressed, would afford to His Majesty a
satisfactory pledge on the part of the American Government that the
recurrence of similar causes will not on any occasion impose on His
Majesty the necessity of authorizing those means of force to which
Admiral Berkeley has resorted without authority, but which the continued
repetition of such provocations as unfortunately led to the attack upon
the Chesapeake might render necessary, as a just reprisal on the part
of His Majesty." No doubt Rose did his best to soften the tone of these
instructions, but he could not fail to make them clear; and Madison, who
had conducted these informal interviews, slowly awoke to the real nature
of what he was asked to do. He closed further negotiations with the
comment that the United States could not be expected "to make, as it
were, an expiatory sacrifice to obtain redress, or beg for reparation."
The Administration determined to let the disavowal of Berkeley suffice
for the present and to allow the matter of reparation to await further
developments. The coercive policy on which the Administration had
now launched would, it was confidently believed, bring His Majesty's
Government to terms.
The very suggestion of an embargo had an unexpected effect upon American
shipmasters. To avoid being shut up in port, fleets of ships put out to
sea half-manned, half-laden, and often without clearance papers. With
freight rates soaring to unheard-of altitudes, ship-owners were willing
to assume all the risks of the sea--British frigates included. So little
did they appreciate the protection offered by a benevolent government
that they assumed an attitude of hostility to authority and evaded the
exactions of the law in every conceivable way. Under guise of engaging
in the coasting trade, many a ship landed her cargo in a foreign port;
a brisk traffic also sprang up across the Canadian border; and Amelia
Island in St. Mary's River, Florida, became a notorious mart for illicit
commerce. Almost at once Congress was forced to pass supplementary acts,
conferring upon collectors of ports powers of inspection and regulation
which Gallatin unhesitatingly pronounced both odious and dangerous. The
President affixed his signature ruefully to acts which increased
the army, multiplied the number of gunboats under construction, and
appropriated a million and a quarter dollars to the construction of
coast defenses and the equipment of militia. "This embargo act," he
confessed, "is certainly the most embarrassing we ever had to execute.
I did not expect a crop of so sudden and rank growth of fraud and open
opposition by force could have grown up in the United States."
The worst feature of the experiment was its ineffectiveness. The
inhibition of commerce had so slight an effect upon England that when
Pinkney approached Canning with the proposal of a quid pro quo--the
United States to rescind the embargo, England to revoke her
orders-in-council--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 would gladly
have facilitated its removal AS A MEASURE OF INCONVENIENT RESTRICTION
UPON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE." By licensing American vessels, indeed,
which had either slipped out of port before the embargo or evaded the
collectors, the British Government was even profiting by this measure of
restriction. It was these vagrant vessels which gave Napoleon his excuse
for the Bayonne decree of April 17, 1808, when with a stroke of the pen
he ordered the seizure of all American ships in French ports and
swept property to the value of ten million dollars into the imperial
exchequer. Since these vessels were abroad in violation of the embargo,
he argued, they could not be American craft but must be British ships in
disguise. General Armstrong, writing from Paris, warned the Secretary of
State not to expect that the embargo would do more than keep the United
States at peace with the belligerents. As a coercive measure, its effect
was nil. "Here it is not felt, and in England... it is forgotten."
Before the end of the year the failure of the embargo was patent to
every fair-minded observer. Men might differ ever so much as to the harm
wrought by the embargo abroad; but all agreed that it was not bringing
either France or England to terms, and that it was working real hardship
at home. Federalists in New England, where nearly one-third of the ships
in the carrying trade were owned, pointed to the schooners "rotting
at their wharves," to the empty shipyards and warehouses, to the idle
sailors wandering in the streets of port towns, and asked passionately
how long they must be sacrificed to the theories of this charlatan in
the White House. Even Southern Republicans were asking uneasily when the
President would realize that the embargo was ruining planters who could
not market their cotton and tobacco. And Republicans whose pockets were
not touched were soberly questioning whether a policy that reduced the
annual value of exports from $108,000,000 to $22,000,000, and cut the
national revenue in half, had not been tested long enough.
Indications multiplied that "the dictatorship of Mr. Jefferson" was
drawing to a close. In 1808, after the election of Madison as his
successor, he practically abdicated as leader of his party, partly out
of an honest conviction that he ought not to commit the President-elect
by any positive course of action, and partly no doubt out of a less
praiseworthy desire not to admit the defeat of his cherished principle.
His abdication left the party without resolute leadership at a critical
moment. Madison and Gallatin tried to persuade their party associates
to continue the embargo until June, and then, if concessions were
not forthcoming, to declare war; but they were powerless to hold the
Republican majority together on this programme. Setting aside the
embargo and returning to the earlier policy of non-intercourse, Congress
adopted a measure which excluded all English and French vessels and
imports, but which authorized the President to renew trade with
either country if it should mend its ways. On March 1, 1809, with much
bitterness of spirit, Thomas Jefferson signed the bill which ended his
great experiment. Martha Jefferson once said of her father that he
never gave up a friend or an opinion. A few months before his death, he
alluded to the embargo, with the pathetic insistence of old age, as "a
measure, which, persevered in a little longer... would have effected its
object completely."