WHILE Dallas struggled with Congress to obtain the means of
establishing a currency in order to pay the army, Monroe carried on a
similar struggle in order to obtain an army to pay. On this point, as
on the financial issue, Virginian ideas did not accord with the wishes
of Government. The prejudice against a regular army was stimulated
by the evident impossibility of raising or supporting it. Once more
Jefferson expressed the common feeling of his Virginia neighbors.[374]
“We must prepare for interminable war,” he wrote to Monroe,
October 16. “To this end we should put our house in order by
providing men and money to an indefinite extent. The former may
be done by classing our militia, and assigning each class to the
description of duties for which it is fit. It is nonsense to
talk of regulars. They are not to be had among a people so easy
and happy at home as ours. We might as well rely on calling down
an army of angels from heaven.”
As Jefferson lost the habits of power and became once more a Virginia
planter, he reverted to the opinions and prejudices of his earlier life
and of the society in which he lived. As Monroe grew accustomed to the
exercise and the necessities of power, he threw aside Virginian ideas
and accepted the responsibilities of government. On the same day when
Jefferson wrote to Monroe that it was nonsense to talk of regulars,
Monroe wrote to Congress that it was nonsense to talk of militia. The
divergence between Monroe and Jefferson was even greater than between
Dallas and Eppes.
“It may be stated with confidence,” wrote Monroe to
Congress,[375] “that at least three times the force in militia
has been employed at our principal cities, along the coast and
on the frontier, in marching to and returning thence, that would
have been necessary in regular troops; and that the expense
attending it has been more than proportionately augmented from
the difficulty if not the impossibility of preserving the same
degree of system in the militia as in the regular service.”
In Monroe’s opinion a regular force was an object “of the highest
importance.” He told the Senate committee that the army, which was only
thirty-four thousand strong on the first of October, should be raised
to its legal limit of sixty-two thousand, and that another permanent
army of forty thousand men should be raised for strictly defensive
service. In the face of Jefferson’s warning that he might as well call
down an army of angels from heaven, Monroe called for one hundred
thousand regular troops, when no exertions had hitherto availed to
keep thirty thousand effectives on the rolls.
The mere expression of such a demand carried with it the train of
consequences which the people chiefly dreaded. One hundred thousand
troops could be raised only by draft. Monroe affirmed the power as well
as the need of drafting. “Congress have a right by the Constitution,”
he said, “to raise regular armies, and no restraint is imposed on the
exercise of it.... It would be absurd to suppose that Congress could
not carry this power into effect otherwise than by accepting the
voluntary service of individuals.” Absurd as it was, such had been
the general impression, and Monroe was believed to have been one of
the most emphatic in maintaining it. “Ask him,” suggested Randolph,
“what he would have done, while governor of Virginia and preparing to
resist Federal usurpation, had such an attempt been made by Mr. Adams
and his ministers, especially in 1800. He _can_ give the answer.”
Doubtless the silence of the Constitution in respect to conscription
was conclusive to some minds in favor of the power; but the people
preferred the contrary view, the more because militia service seemed to
give more pay for less risk.
The chance of carrying such a measure through Congress was not
great, yet Monroe recommended it as his first plan for raising men.
He proposed to enroll the free male population between eighteen and
forty-five years of age into classes of one hundred, each to furnish
four men and to keep their places supplied.[376] The second plan
varied from the first only in the classification, not in the absence
of compulsion. The militia were to be divided into three sections
according to age, with the obligation to serve, when required, for a
term of two years. A third plan suggested the exemption from militia
service of every five militia-men who could provide one man for
the war. If none of these schemes should be approved by Congress,
additional bounties must be given under the actual system. Of the four
plans, the secretary preferred the first.
The Senate committee immediately summoned Monroe to an interview. They
wished an explanation of the failure in the recruiting service, and
were told by Monroe that the failure was chiefly due to the competition
of the detached militia for substitutes.[377] The military committee
of the House then joined with the military committee of the Senate in
sounding the members of both bodies in order to ascertain the most
rigorous measure that could be passed. According to the report of Troup
of Georgia, chairman of the House committee,[378] they “found that no
efficacious measure, calculated certainly and promptly to fill the
regular army, could be effectually resorted to. Measures were matured
and proposed by the [House] committee, but were not pressed on the
House, from the solemn conviction that there was no disposition in the
Legislature to act finally on the subject.”
Yet the issue was made at a moment of extreme anxiety and almost
despair. In October, 1814, the result of the war was believed to
depend on the establishment of an efficient draft. The price of United
States six-per-cents showed better than any other evidence the opinion
of the public; but the military situation, known to all the world,
warranted deep depression. Sir George Prevost, about to be succeeded
by an efficient commander,--Sir George Murray,--was then at Kingston
organizing a campaign against Sackett’s Harbor, with an army of twenty
thousand regular troops and a fleet that controlled the Lake. Another
great force, military and naval, was known to be on its way to New
Orleans; and the defences of New Orleans were no stronger than those of
Washington. One half the province of Maine, from Eastport to Castine,
was already in British possession.
To leave no doubt of England’s intentions, despatches from Ghent,
communicating the conditions on which the British government offered
peace, arrived from the American commissioners and were sent, October
10, to Congress. These conditions assumed rights of conquest.
The British negotiators demanded four territorial or proprietary
concessions, and all were vital to the integrity of the Union. First,
the whole Indian Territory of the Northwest, including about one third
of the State of Ohio, two thirds of Indiana, and nearly the entire
region from which the States of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan were
afterward created, was to be set aside forever as Indian country under
British guaranty. Second, the United States were to be excluded from
military or naval contact with the Lakes. Third, they had forfeited
their rights in the fisheries. Fourth, they were to cede a portion of
Maine to strengthen Canada.
These demands, following the unparalleled insult of burning Washington,
foreshadowed a war carried to extremities, and military preparations
such as the Union had no means ready to repel. Monroe’s recommendations
rested on the conviction that the nation must resort to extreme
measures. Dallas’s financial plan could not have been suggested except
as a desperate resource. Congress understood as well as the Executive
the impending peril, and stood in even more fear of it.
Under these circumstances, when Troup’s committee refused to act, Giles
reported, on behalf of the Senate committee, two military measures.
The first, for filling the regular army, proposed to extend the
age of enlistment from twenty-one to eighteen years; to double the
land-bounty; and to exempt from militia duty every militia-man who
should furnish a recruit for the regular service.
The second measure, reported the same day, November 5, purported to
authorize the raising an army of eighty thousand militia-men by draft,
to serve for two years within the limits of their own or an adjoining
State.[379] The provisions of this measure were ill-conceived,
ill-digested, and unlikely to answer their purpose. The moment the
debate began, the bill was attacked so vigorously as to destroy
whatever credit it might have otherwise possessed.
Of all the supporters of the war, Senator Varnum of Massachusetts was
one of the steadiest. He was also the highest authority in the Senate
on matters pertaining to the militia. When Giles’s bill came under
discussion November 16, Varnum began the debate by a speech vehemently
hostile to the proposed legislation. He first objected that although
the bill purported to call for an army of eighty thousand men, “yet in
some of the subsequent sections of it we find that instead of realizing
the pleasing prospect of seeing an ample force in the field, the force
is to be reduced to an indefinite amount,--which contradiction in
terms, inconsistency in principle, and uncertainty in effect, cannot
fail to produce mortification and chagrin in every breast.” Varnum
objected to drafting men from the militia for two years’ service
because the principle of nine months’ service was already established
by the common law. If the nation wanted a regular force, why not make
it a part of the regular army without a system of drafting militia
“unnecessary, unequal, and unjust?” The machinery of classification
and draft was “wholly impracticable.” The limit of service to adjoining
States abandoned the objects for which the Union existed. The proffered
bounties would ruin the recruiting service for the regular army; the
proffered exemptions and reductions in term of duty left no permanency
to the service. The bill inflicted no penalties and charged no officers
with the duty of making the draft. “I consider the whole system as
resolving into a recommendation upon the patriotism of the States and
Territories and upon the patriotism of the classes.”
The justice of Varnum’s criticism could not fairly be questioned. The
bill authorized the President “to issue his orders to such officers of
the militia as he may think proper,” and left the classification and
draft in the hands of these militia officers. Every drafted man who had
performed any tour of duty in the militia since the beginning of the
war was entitled to deduct a corresponding term from his two years of
service; and obviously the demand created for substitutes would stop
recruiting for the regular army.
Hardly had Varnum sat down when Senator Daggett of Connecticut spoke.
“The bill,” said the Connecticut senator, “is incapable of being
executed, as well as unconstitutional and unjust. It proceeds
entirely upon the idea that the State governments will lend
their aid to carry it into effect. If they refuse, it becomes
inoperative. Now, sir, will the Executives, who believe it a
violation of the Constitution, assist in its execution? I tell
you they will not.”
Every member of the Senate who heard these words knew that they
were meant to express the will of the convention which was to meet
at Hartford within a month. The sentiment thus avowed was supported
by another New England senator, whose State was not a party to the
Convention. Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire was second to no one in
legal ability or in personal authority, and when he followed Daggett
in the debate, he spoke with full knowledge of the effect his words
would have on the action of the Hartford Convention and of the State
executives.
“In my opinion,” he said, “this system of military conscription
thus recommended by the Secretary of War is not only
inconsistent with the provisions and spirit of the Constitution,
but also with all the principles of civil liberty. In atrocity
it exceeds that adopted by the late Emperor of France for the
subjugation of Europe.... Such a measure cannot, it ought not to
be submitted to. If it could in no other way be averted, I not
only believe, but I hope, it would be resisted.”
Mason pointed to the alternative,--which Massachusetts was then
adopting, as the necessary consequence of refusing power to the
government,--that the States must resume the powers of sovereignty:
“Should the national defence be abandoned by the general
government, I trust the people, if still retaining a good
portion of their resources, may rally under their State
governments against foreign invasion, and rely with confidence
on their own courage and virtue.”
At that time the State of Massachusetts was occupied for one hundred
miles of its sea-coast by a British force, avowedly for purposes of
permanent conquest; and the State legislature, October 18, refused to
make an inquiry, or to consider any measure for regaining possession
of its territory, or to co-operate with the national government for
the purpose,[380] but voted to raise an army of ten thousand men.
The object of this State army was suggested by Christopher Gore, the
Federalist senator from Massachusetts who followed Mason in the debate.
In personal and political influence Gore stood hardly second to Mason,
and his opinions were likely to carry the utmost weight with the
convention at Hartford. With this idea necessarily in his mind, Gore
told the Senate,--
“This [bill] is the first step on the odious ground of
conscription,--a plan, sir, which never will and never ought to
be submitted to by this country while it retains one idea of
civil freedom; a plan, sir, which if attempted will be resisted
by many States, and at every hazard. In my judgment, sir, it
should be resisted by all who have any regard to public liberty
or the rights of the several States.”
These denunciations were not confined to New England. Senator
Goldsborough of Maryland, also a Federalist, affirmed that the
sentiment of abhorrence for military duty was almost universal:--
“Sir, you dare not--at least I hope you dare not--attempt a
conscription to fill the ranks of your regular army. When
the plan of the Secretary of War made its appearance, it was
gratifying to find that it met with the abhorrence of almost
every man in the nation; and the merit of the bill before you,
if such a measure can be supposed to have merit at all, is
that it is little else, as regards the militia, than a servile
imitation of the secretary’s plan.”
Nevertheless, when Goldsborough took his seat the Senate passed the
Militia Bill by a vote of nineteen to twelve,--Anderson of Tennessee
and Varnum of Massachusetts joining the Federalists in opposition. The
Regular Army Bill, which was in effect a bill to sacrifice the regular
army, passed November 11, without a division. Both measures then went
to the House and were committed, November 12, to the Committee of the
Whole.
Ordinarily such a measure would have been referred to the Military
Committee, but in this instance the Military Committee would have
nothing to do with the Senate bill. Troup, the chairman, began the
debate by denouncing it.[381] The measure, he said, was inadequate to
its object. “It proposed to give you a militia force when you wanted,
not a militia, but a regular force.... You have a deficiency of
twentyodd thousand to supply. How will you supply it? Assuredly the
[Regular Army] bill from the Senate will not supply it. No, sir, the
recruiting system has failed.” On the nature of the force necessary
for the next campaign Troup expressed his own opinion and that of his
committee, as well as that of the Executive, in language as strong as
he could use at such a time and place. “If, after what has happened,
I could for a moment believe there could be any doubt or hesitation
on this point, I would consider everything as lost; then indeed there
would be an end of hope and of confidence.” Yet on precisely this point
Congress showed most doubt. Nothing could induce it to accept Troup’s
view of the necessity for providing a regular army. “The bill from the
Senate,” remonstrated Troup, “instead of proposing this, proposes to
authorize the President to call upon the States for eighty thousand raw
militia; and this is to be our reliance for the successful prosecution
of the war! Take my word for it, sir, that if you do rely upon it (the
military power of the enemy remaining undivided) defeat, disaster, and
disgrace, must follow.”
The House refused to support Troup or the President. Calhoun was first
to yield to the general unwillingness, and declared himself disposed
to accept the Senate bill as a matter of policy. Richard M. Johnson,
though sympathizing with Troup, still preferred to accept the bill as
the only alternative to nothing: “If it was rejected, they would have
no dependence for defence but on six months’ militia.”[382] On the
other hand, Thomas K. Harris of Tennessee protested that if the British
government had it in their power to control the deliberations of
Congress, they could not devise the adoption of a measure of a military
character better calculated to serve their purposes. The people, he
said, were in his part of the country prepared to make every sacrifice,
and expected Congress, after the news from Ghent, to do its share; but
Congress was about to adopt a measure of all others the best calculated
to prolong the war.[383]
While the friends of the government spoke in terms of open
discouragement and almost despair of the strongest military measure
which Congress would consent to consider, the Federalists made no
concealment of their wishes and intentions. Daniel Webster used
similar arguments to those of his friend Jeremiah Mason in the Senate,
affirming that the same principle which authorized the enlistment of
apprentices would equally authorize the freeing of slaves,[384] and
echoing pathetic threats of disunion.[385] Other Federalists made no
professions of sadness over the approaching dissolution of government.
Artemas Ward of Massachusetts spoke December 14, the day before the
Hartford Convention was to meet, and announced the course which events
were to take:[386]--
“That the Treasury is empty I admit; that the ranks of the
regular army are thin I believe to be true; and that our country
must be defended in all events, I not only admit but affirm.
But, sir, if all the parts of the United States are defended, of
course the whole will be defended. If every State in the Union,
with such aid as she can obtain from her neighbors, defends
herself, our whole country will be defended. In my mind the
resources of the States will be applied with more economy and
with greater effect in defence of the country under the State
governments than under the government of the United States.”
Such avowals of the intent to throw aside Constitutional duties were
not limited to members from New England. Morris S. Miller of New York
made a vehement speech on the failure of national defence, and declared
the inevitable result to be “that the States must and will take care
of themselves; and they will preserve the resources of the States for
the defence of the States.”[387] He also declared that conscription
would be resisted, and echoed the well-remembered declamation of Edward
Livingston against the Alien Bill in 1798, when the Republican orator
prayed to God that the States would never acquiesce in obedience to the
law.
“This House,” replied Duvall of Kentucky, “has heard discord and
rebellion encouraged and avowed from more than one quarter.” Indeed,
from fully one fourth of its members the House heard little else. Under
the shadow of the Hartford Convention the Federalist members talked
with entire frankness. “This great fabric seems nodding and tottering
to its fall,” said Z. R. Shipherd of New York, December 9;[388] “and
Heaven only knows how long before the mighty ruin will take place.”
J. O. Moseley of Connecticut “meant no improper menace” by predicting
to the House, “if they were determined to prosecute the war by a
recourse to such measures as are provided in the present bill, that
they would have no occasion for future committees of investigation into
the causes of the failure of their arms.”[389] The latest committee
of investigation had recently made a long report on the capture of
Washington, carefully abstaining from expressing opinions of its own,
or imputing blame to any one, and Moseley’s remark involved a double
sneer. None of these utterances were resented. Richard Stockton of
New Jersey was allowed unanswered to denounce in measured terms the
mild Militia Bill then under debate, from which the committee had
already struck the term of two years’ service by substituting one year;
and Stockton concluded his fine-drawn arguments by equally studied
menace:[390]--
“This bill also attacks the right and sovereignty of the
State governments. Congress is about to usurp their undoubted
rights,--to take from them their militia. By this bill we
proclaim that we will have their men, as many as we please, when
and where and for as long a time as we see fit, and for any
service we see proper. Do gentlemen of the majority seriously
believe that the people and the State governments will submit
to this claim? Do they believe that all the States of this
Union will submit to this usurpation? Have you attended to the
solemn and almost unanimous declaration of the legislature of
Connecticut? Have you examined the cloud arising in the East? Do
you perceive that it is black, alarming, portentous?”
The Resolution of the Connecticut legislature to which Stockton
referred was adopted in October, and authorized the governor in case
of the passage of the Militia Bill to convoke the General Assembly
forthwith, to consider measures “to secure and preserve the rights and
liberties of the people of this State, and the freedom, sovereignty,
and independence of the same.”[391] Stockton’s speech was made December
10, and “the cloud arising in the East,” as he figured the Hartford
Convention, was to take form December 15. The Republican speakers
almost as earnestly used the full influence of these national fears
to rouse the energies of the House. They neither denied nor disguised
the helplessness of government. All admitted dread of approaching
disaster. Perhaps C. J. Ingersoll was the only member who declared that
the war had been successful, and that Americans need no longer blush
to be Americans; but Ingersoll disliked the Militia Bill as cordially
as it was disliked by Troup or Varnum, and voted for it only because
“something must be done.”[392]
“When our army,” said Samuel Hopkins of Kentucky, in closing the
debate, “is composed of a mere handful of men, and our treasury
empty so that it cannot provide for this gallant handful;
when an enemy, powerful and active, is beating against our
shores like the strong wave of the ocean; when everything is
at stake,--... surely such is not the moment for parsimonious
feelings in raising taxes, or for forced constructions to defeat
the means for raising men.”
Notwithstanding every effort of the war-leaders, the opposition
steadily won control over the House. Daniel Webster during his entire
lifetime remembered with satisfaction that he shared with Eppes the
credit of overthrowing what he called Monroe’s conscription.[393]
December 10, at Eppes’s motion, the House voted by a majority of
sixty-two to fifty-seven to reduce the term of service from two years
to one.[394] A motion made by Daniel Webster to reduce the term to six
months was lost by only one voice, the vote standing seventy-eight to
seventy-nine.[395] The bill passed at last, December 14, by a vote of
eighty-four to seventy-two, in a House where the true war majority was
forty-six. When the Senate insisted on its provision of two years’
service, Troup, in conference committee, compromised on eighteen
months. Then the House, December 27, by a vote of seventy-three to
sixty-four, rejected the report of its conference committee. The next
day, December 28, in the Senate, Rufus King made an unpremeditated
motion for indefinite postponement. Some members were absent; no debate
occurred. The question was immediately put, and carried by a vote of
fourteen to thirteen.[396] The effect of this action was to destroy the
bill.
With this failure the attempt to supply an army was abandoned, and
Congress left the government to conduct the war in 1815, as in 1814,
with thirty thousand regular troops and six months’ militia. Monroe’s
effort to fill the ranks of the army ended in doubling the land-bounty;
in authorizing the enlistment of minors, who had till then been
enlisted without authorization; and in exempting from militia duty such
persons as should furnish a recruit for the regular army.[397] The
prospect was remote that such inducements could do more than repair
the waste of the actual force; but the government was unable to pay a
larger number even if the force could be raised, and Monroe was obliged
to prepare for the next campaign with such slight means of defence as
remained to him. The last effort to induce the House to consider a
serious method of raising troops was made February 6, and was referred
to the Committee of the Whole, with a tacit understanding that the
ordinary process of recruiting was not to be disturbed.[398] According
to the returns in the adjutant-general’s office, the whole number of
men--non-commissioned officers, privates, musicians, and artificers,
present or absent, sick or well--in the regular army Feb. 16, 1815,
was thirty-two thousand one hundred and sixty. During the previous
two months it had remained stationary, the returns of December, 1814,
reporting thirty-two thousand three hundred and sixty men. Nothing
showed a possibility of greatly increasing the force by the means
prescribed by Congress.
The navy requiring little new legislation, readily obtained the
little it asked. Almost the first Act of the session, approved Nov.
15, 1814, authorized the purchasing or building of twenty sixteen-gun
sloops-of-war. Another Act of Feb. 7, 1815, created a Board of
Commissioners for the navy to discharge all the ministerial duties of
the secretary, under his superintendence.
This legislation, with the various tax-bills, comprised all that was
accomplished by Congress between the months of September and February
toward a vigorous prosecution of the war. For the navy the prospect
of success in the coming year was sufficiently fair, and privateering
promised to be more active than ever; but the army was threatened with
many perils. The most serious of all dangers to the military service
of the Union was supposed by Federalists to be the establishment of
armies by the separate States. The attempt to establish such an army
by Massachusetts in time of peace had been one of the causes which
led to the Constitution of 1789;[399] and at the close of 1814,
when Massachusetts voted to raise an army of ten thousand men, the
significance of the step was more clearly evident than in the time of
the Confederation.
The State of Massachusetts might be supposed to act in a spirit of
hostility to the Constitution; but no such motive actuated States
outside of New England. If they followed the same course, they did
so because the national government was believed to be incompetent to
the general defence. Of all the States Massachusetts alone possessed
considerable resources, and could command both credit and specie; yet
the creation of a State army of ten thousand men overburdened her
finances, and obliged her to claim her share of the national revenues.
No other State could expect to support an army without immediate
financial trouble. Yet Governor Tompkins of New York recommended to the
legislature in September the establishment of a State army of twenty
thousand men,[400] and the legislature passed Acts for the purpose. The
legislature of Pennsylvania took a similar measure into consideration.
The legislature of Maryland passed an Act for raising five thousand
State troops. Virginia decided also to create a State army, with two
major-generals. South Carolina passed a law for raising a brigade of
State troops, and appointed the officers. Kentucky took measures for
raising a State army of ten thousand men.
The national government, unable to create an efficient army of its
own, yielded to necessity, and looked already to the State armies as
levies to be taken into the national service in case of need. The
States, on their side, unable to bear the expense of separate armies,
expected to be relieved of the burden by the national government. Yet
for the moment the States, however deficient their means might be,
seemed better able than the general government not only to raise men
but to support them. In January, 1815, the financial resources of the
government were exhausted, so that the Treasury could not meet the
drafts drawn by Major-General Jackson and the pressing demands of
the paymaster at New Orleans. The Secretary of War was obliged to go
from bank to bank of Washington and Georgetown asking, as a personal
favor, loans of their bank-notes already depreciated about fifty per
cent. So desperate, according to Monroe’s account, was the situation
that his success depended on adding his own guaranty to that of the
government.[401] At no time of his life were Monroe’s means sufficient
to supply his private needs, and nothing could express so strongly his
sense of national bankruptcy as the assertion that his credit was
required to support that of the United States.[402]
The State armies were the natural result of such a situation. Congress
could not resist the movement, and passed an Act, approved Jan. 27,
1815, authorizing the President to receive into the national service a
certain proportion of the State troops, not exceeding forty thousand
men in the aggregate. Little was said in debate on the bearings of
the Act, which seemed to concede the demand of Massachusetts that
the States should be allowed to raise troops at the expense of the
United States. The Hartford Convention had then met, deliberated, and
adjourned. Its report had been published, and among its demands was one
that “these States might be allowed to assume their own defence.” The
Federalists considered the Act of Jan. 27, 1815, as a “full and ample”
concession of the demand.[403] Senator Gore wrote to Governor Strong,
January 22, while the measure was before the President, commenting on
the financial and military expedients of Dallas and Monroe:[404]
“These appear to me the spasms of a dying government.... The
bill authorizing the raising of State troops by the States,
and at the expense of the United States, according to the
plan sent you some time since, has passed both Houses. Thus
one part of the recommendation of the Hartford Convention
seems to be adopted. The other,--that to authorize the States
to receive the taxes,--will probably be more difficult to be
attained. The accession to this seems not to accord with Mr.
Monroe’s intimation in your letter, or rather in his letter
to you. Indeed, if they have fears of the State governments,
one can hardly account for this government’s authorizing the
States to raise and keep in pay, at the expense of the United
States, troops which may be used for purposes hostile to, or not
conformable with, the views of the paymaster.”
The accession to the principle of State armies which surprised
Gore could be explained only by the government’s consciousness of
helplessness. Gore was somewhat careful to express no opinion of the
probable consequences, but other Federalists spoke with entire candor.
Timothy Pickering expected a division of the Union.[405] Less extreme
partisans looked only to a dissolution of government. A year afterward,
in the calmer light of peace and union, Joseph Hopkinson, a very
distinguished Federalist of Philadelphia, not deluded like the New
Englanders by local pride or prejudice, declared publicly in Congress
the common conviction of his party on the probable consequences of
another year of war:[406]
“The federal government was at the last gasp of existence.
But six months longer and it was no more. ... The general
government would have dissolved into its original elements; its
powers would have returned to the States from which they were
derived; and they doubtless would have been fully competent to
their defence against any enemy. Does not everybody remember
that all the great States, and I believe the small ones too,
were preparing for this state of things, and organizing their
own means for their own defence?”
Calhoun contradicted Hopkinson and denied his assertions; but on that
subject Hopkinson was at least an equal authority. Calhoun knew well
his own State, but he knew little of New England; and he had yet to
learn, perhaps to his own surprise, how easily a section of the Union
could be wrought to treason.