THE Massachusetts legislature issued, October 17, its invitation to
the New England States for a conference,[407] and on the same day
the newspapers published the despatches from Ghent, to August 20,
containing British conditions of peace,--which required, among greater
sacrifices, a cession of Massachusetts territory, and an abandonment
of fisheries and fishing rights conceded with American independence.
Two counties of the State beyond the Penobscot were then in British
military possession, and a third, Nantucket, was a British naval
station. Yet even under these circumstances the British demands did not
shock the Federalist leaders. Governor Strong, after reading the Ghent
documents October 17, wrote to Pickering at Washington,[408]--
“If Great Britain had discovered a haughty or grasping spirit,
it might naturally have excited irritation; but I am persuaded
that in the present case there is not a member of Congress who,
if he was a member of Parliament, would have thought that more
moderate terms ought in the first instance to have been offered.”
The argument seemed to prove only that members of Congress could also
be haughty and grasping; but Governor Strong thought the British
demands reasonable, and began at once to sound his friends in regard
to the proposed concessions. The following day he wrote[409] that the
Essex people expected to lose the fisheries, but were ready to give up
a portion of Maine to retain them.
Pickering wrote in reply, acquiescing in the proposed barter of
territory for fisheries, and also in the more extravagant British
demands for the Indians and the Lakes. “I was gratified,” said
Pickering,[410] “to find my own sentiments corresponding with yours.”
The leading Federalists united with Pickering and Strong in blaming
the American negotiators and the government for rejecting the British
offers. The same view was taken by the chief Federalist newspaper of
the State, the Boston “Centinel.”[411]
Thus in the November election, a few weeks later, two issues were
impressed on the people of New England. In regard to neither issue did
the Federalist leaders attempt concealment. The people were invited, as
far as the press of both parties could decide the points of dispute,
to express their opinion,--first, whether the British conditions of
peace should have been taken into consideration; second, whether the
States should be represented at the Hartford Convention. The popular
response was emphatic. Everywhere in New England the Republican
candidates were defeated; and the Federalists, encouraged by the
result,--believing the Hartford Convention to be the most popular
action taken by Massachusetts since the State adopted the Federal
Constitution,[412]--prepared to support measures, looking to the
restoration of peace and to the establishment of a new Federal compact
comprising either the whole or a portion of the actual Union.
However varied the wishes of the majority might be, they agreed in
requiring a radical change in the organic law. This intention was
their chief claim to popularity. The Boston “Centinel,” announcing
November 9 the adhesion of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the Hartford
Convention, placed over the announcement the head-line, “Second and
third Pillars of a new Federal Edifice reared.” During November and
December, almost every day, the newspapers discussed the question what
the convention should do; and the chief divergence of opinion seemed to
regard rather the immediate than the ultimate resort to forcible means
of stopping the war. The extremists, represented in the press by John
Lowell, asked for immediate action.
“Throwing off all connection with this wasteful war,”--wrote “A
New England Man” in the “Centinel” of December 17,--“making
peace with our enemy and opening once more our commerce with the
world, would be a wise and manly course. The occasion demands it
of us, and the people at large are ready to meet it.”
Apparently Lowell was right. The people showed no sign of unwillingness
to meet any decision that might be recommended by the convention. As
the moment approached, the country waited with increasing anxiety for
the result. The Republican press--the “National Intelligencer” as
well as the Boston “Patriot”--at first ridiculed the convention, then
grew irritable, and at last betrayed signs of despair. On both sides
threats were openly made and openly defied; but in Massachusetts the
United States government had not five hundred effective troops, and if
the convention chose to recommend that the State should declare itself
neutral and open its ports, no one pretended that any national power
existed in Massachusetts capable of preventing the legislature from
carrying the recommendation into effect if it pleased.
From immediate extravagance Massachusetts was saved by the leaders
who, knowing the popular excitement, feared lest the convention should
be carried too fast into disorder, and for that reason selected
representatives who could be trusted to resist emotion. When George
Cabot was chosen as the head of the State delegation, the character
of the body was fixed. The selection of Cabot did not please the
advocates of action. Pickering wrote to Lowell suggesting doubts
whether Cabot was the fittest choice.[413] Lowell replied that he
shared these doubts, and that in consequence he had been led to oppose
the convention altogether, because it would not withdraw the State
resources from the general government.[414] Cabot, he said, was “most
reluctantly dragged in like a conscript to the duty of a delegate;” he
had always been despondent as to the course of public affairs, and felt
no confidence in the possibility of awakening the people to their true
disease,--which was not the war or the Union, but democracy. Lowell
did not know “a single bold and ardent man” among the Massachusetts or
Connecticut delegates. In the “Centinel” of December 7 he described
Cabot’s tendencies in language evidently intended as a warning to Cabot
himself:--
“There are men who know that our troubles are not the offspring
of this war alone, and will not die with it. But they despair
of relief, and think resistance unavailing. They consider the
people in their very nature democratic, and that nothing but the
severity of their sufferings has driven them from those men and
that system out of which have grown all our evils; that should
they be restored to that state of prosperity which they once
enjoyed, the same passions and opinions would diffuse themselves
through the country, and the same course of conduct be again
followed out.”
Cabot shocked Pickering by expressing all his favorite political views
in one brief question: “Why can’t you and I let the world ruin itself
its own way?”[415] Such a turn of mind was commonly the mark of a
sceptical spirit, which doubted whether the world at best was worth the
trouble of saving; and against this inert and indifferent view of human
affairs New England offered a constant protest. Yet the Massachusetts
delegation to Hartford was in sympathy with Cabot, while the
Massachusetts legislature seemed to sympathize with Pickering. William
Prescott, another member of the delegation, was chiefly remarkable for
prudence and caution; Nathan Dane bore the same stamp; Harrison Gray
Otis took character and color from his surroundings. The Connecticut
delegation--James Hillhouse, Chauncey Goodrich, Roger M. Sherman, and
others--were little likely to recommend “effectual measures.” The
convention consisted of men supposed to be inclined to resist popular
pressure, and Cabot was probably serious in replying to a young friend
who asked him what he was to do at Hartford: “We are going to keep you
young hot-heads from getting into mischief.”[416]
In the Council Chamber of the State House at Hartford the delegates
assembled, December 15, and gave instant evidence of their intention
to discourage appeals to popular emotion. Their earliest steps decided
their whole course. They chose George Cabot as their President, and
they made their sessions secret. Under no circumstances could the
convention have regarded itself as a popular body, for the delegates
numbered only twenty-three persons, mostly cautious and elderly men,
who detested democracy, but disliked enthusiasm almost as much. Two
new members, appointed by popular meetings in New Hampshire, were
next admitted; and toward the close of the sessions another member,
representing the county of Windham in Vermont, was given a seat. Thus
enlarged, the convention over which George Cabot presided numbered
twenty-six members besides the secretary, Theodore Dwight.
Excess of caution helped to give the convention an air of conspiracy,
which warned future conspirators to prefer acting, or appearing to act,
in public. The secrecy of the Hartford conference was chiefly intended
to secure freedom for the exchange of opinion, and also in some degree
to prevent premature excitement and intrusion of popular feeling; but
the secrecy created a belief that the debates would not bear publicity.
Possibly much was said which verged on treasonable conspiracy; but
the members were not men of a class likely to act beyond their
instructions, and they adhered strictly to the practical task imposed
on them. Some years afterward, Harrison Gray Otis, laboring to clear
his political reputation from the stigma of membership, caused the
official journal of the convention to be published; and the record,
though revealing nothing of what was said, proved that nothing was
formally done or proposed which contradicted the grave and restrained
attitude maintained in its public expressions.
On the first day of its meeting the convention appointed a committee to
consider and report upon the business to be done. Chauncey Goodrich,
Otis, and three other members formed this committee, which reported
the next day the points in dispute between the States and the national
government,--the militia power, conscription power, duty and means of
defence, and matters of a like nature. After two days of discussion,
the convention appointed another committee to frame a general project
of measures, and again placed a Connecticut man--Nathaniel Smith--at
its head, with Otis second. Still another committee was appointed,
December 21, to prepare a report showing the reasons which guided the
convention to its results; and of that committee Otis was chairman.
Clearly, Otis took the chief burden of business; and the result could
scarcely fail to reflect in some degree the character of the man as
well as of the body for which he was acting. Though ambitious of
leading, Otis never led. John Lowell described his character, as it
was understood in Boston, perhaps somewhat harshly, for Otis was no
favorite with any class of men who held fixed opinions:[417]--
“Mr. Otis is naturally timid and frequently wavering,--to-day
bold, and to-morrow like a hare trembling at every breeze. It
would seem by his language that he is prepared for the very
boldest measures, but he receives anonymous letters every day
or two threatening him with bodily harm. It seems the other
party suspect his firmness. He is sincere in wishing thorough
measures, but a thousand fears restrain him.”
Otis was the probable author of the report, adopted December 24,
recommending a course to the convention; and he was chairman of the
larger committee to which that report was referred, and within which
the final report--after a discussion lasting from December 24 to
December 30--was framed. The discussions, both in committee and in
convention, took much time and caused some difficulties; but nothing
was ever known of the speeches made, or of the motions proposed, or
of the amendments offered. All the reports were finally adopted by
the convention; and all proposed business then having been finished,
January 5 the convention adjourned without day, authorizing Cabot to
call another meeting at Boston if he should at any time see occasion
for it.
The report, therefore, contained all the information which the
convention intended to make public, and only from that document could
the ultimate object of the members be inferred. It was immediately
published in Connecticut, and at the meeting of the legislatures of
Massachusetts and Connecticut in January it was laid before them for
approval.
Considering the conservative temper of the delegates and their dislike
for extreme measures, the report bore striking evidence of the popular
passion which urged them forward. A few paragraphs in its first pages
showed the spirit of its recommendations, and a few more showed the
effect expected from them:--
“It is a truth not to be concealed that a sentiment prevails
to no inconsiderable extent ... that the time for a change is
at hand.... This opinion may ultimately prove to be correct;
but as the evidence on which it rests is not yet conclusive,
... some general considerations are submitted in the hope of
reconciling all to a course of moderation and firmness which may
... probably avert the evil, or at least insure consolation and
success in the last resort.... A severance of the Union by one
or more States against the will of the rest, and especially in
time of war, can be justified only by absolute necessity.”
Having thus discouraged precipitation, and argued in favor of firm
and moderate measures as a probable means of preserving the Union,
the report sketched the limits of the Union that was to be preserved.
In a paragraph closely following the precedent of the Virginia
Resolutions of 1798, the report asserted the right and duty of a State
to “interpose its authority” for the protection of its citizens from
infractions of the Constitution by the general government. In the
immediate crisis, this interposition should take the form of State laws
to protect the militia or citizens from conscriptions and drafts; of
an arrangement with the general government authorizing the States to
assume their own defence, and to retain “a reasonable portion of the
taxes collected within the said States” for the purpose; and of State
armies to be held in readiness to serve for the defence of the New
England States upon the request of the governor of the State invaded.
Such measures involved the establishment of a New England
Confederation. The proposed union of the New England States for their
own defence ignored any share to be taken by the general government in
the defence of the national territory, and reduced that government to
helplessness. What could be done by New England might be done by all;
and the Federalists assumed that all would be obliged to do it.
If the general government should reject the request for the proposed
arrangement, the ultimate emergency must arise; but with the measures
to be then taken the convention would not interfere.
“It would be inexpedient for this convention to diminish
the hope of a successful issue to such an application by
recommending, upon supposition of a contrary event, ulterior
proceedings. Nor is it indeed within their province. In a
state of things so solemn and trying as may then arise, the
legislatures of the States, or conventions of the whole people,
or delegates appointed by them for the express purpose in
another convention, must act as such urgent circumstances may
then require.”
Besides the measures of urgency which must be immediately accepted by
the national government, the convention recommended seven amendments
to the Constitution; but on these no immediate action was required.
The single issue forced on the government by the convention was that
of surrendering to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island “a
reasonable portion of the taxes collected within said States,” and
consenting to some arrangement “whereby the said States may, separately
or in concert, be empowered to assume upon themselves the defence of
their territory against the enemy.” If the United States government
should decline such an arrangement, the State legislatures were to send
delegates to another convention to meet at Boston, June 15, “with such
powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may
require.”
While the convention was preparing its report, from December 15 to
January 5, the public waited with the utmost curiosity for the result.
Major Jesup, famous at Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane, was then recruiting
for the Twenty-fifth United States Infantry at Hartford, and reported
constantly to the President and War Department; but he could tell
nothing of the convention that was not notorious. His letters were
mere surmises or unmilitary comments on the treasonable intentions of
the meeting.[418] The Federalists knew no more than was known to the
Republicans; but while they waited, they expressed fear only lest the
convention should fall short of their wishes.
“I care nothing more for your actings and doings,” wrote
Gouverneur Morris to Pickering in Congress.[419] “Your decree
of conscriptions and your levy of contributions are alike
indifferent to one whose eyes are fixed on a star in the East,
which he believes to be the day-spring of freedom and glory. The
traitors and madmen assembled at Hartford will, I believe, if
not too tame and timid, be hailed hereafter as the patriots and
sages of their day and generation.”
As far as newspapers reflected public opinion, the people of New
England held the same views as those expressed by Gouverneur Morris.
The Boston “Centinel” contained, December 28, an address to the
Hartford Convention announcing that the once venerable Constitution
had expired: “At your hands, therefore, we demand deliverance. New
England is unanimous. And we announce our irrevocable decree that the
tyrannical oppression of those who at present usurp the powers of the
Constitution is beyond endurance. And we will resist it.” A meeting at
Reading in Massachusetts, January 5, pledged itself to make no more
returns for taxation and to pay no more national taxes until the State
should have made its decision known.
A newspaper paragraph copied by the Federalist press[420] advised
the President to provide himself with a swifter horse than he had at
Bladensburg if he meant to attempt to subjugate the Eastern States.
“He must be able to escape at a greater rate than forty miles a day, or
the swift vengeance of New England will overtake the wretched miscreant
in his flight.” Such expressions of the press on either side were of
little authority, and deserved no great attention; but the language
of responsible and representative bodies could not be denied weight.
Opposition to the convention seemed cowed. Apparently the State was
ready for immediate action; and the convention, in recommending a delay
of six months, risked general disapproval.
While the public was in this temper, the convention adjourned, and its
report was given to the press. No one doubted that moderate men would
approve it. The only persons whose approval was in question were “bold
and ardent” partisans, like Gouverneur Morris, Pickering, and John
Lowell, who wanted instant action. Chiefly for the sake of unanimity,
these men gave in their adhesion. John Lowell hastened to publish his
acquiescence in the convention’s report.[421] Pickering also approved
it, although Pickering’s approval was partly founded on the belief
that the Union was already dissolved, and no further effort in that
direction need be made.
“If the British succeed in their expedition against New
Orleans,” Pickering wrote to Lowell,[422]--“and if they have
tolerable leaders I see no reason to doubt of their success,--I
shall consider the Union as severed.
This consequence I deem inevitable. I do not expect to see a
single representative in the next Congress from the Western
States.”
Governor Strong and Senator Gore also approved the convention’s report.
On receiving it at Washington, January 14, Gore wrote to Strong: “The
result of the Hartford Convention is here, and affords satisfaction
to most if not to all,--to some because they see not the point nor
consequence of the recommendation as relates to taxes.” The point and
consequence of that recommendation were clear to Gore, and he approved
of both.
If any leading Federalist disapproved the convention’s report, he left
no record of the disapproval. In such a case, at such a moment, silence
was acquiescence. As far as could be inferred from any speeches made
or letters written at the time, the Federalist party was unanimous in
acquiescing in the recommendations of the Hartford Convention.
In Massachusetts and Connecticut the acquiescence was express. The
legislature, convened at Boston, January 18, hastened to refer the
convention’s report to a joint committee, which reported, January 24,
Resolutions that the legislature “do highly approve” the proceedings of
the convention, and that State commissioners should immediately proceed
to Washington to effect the arrangement proposed.[423] By a very large
majority of three to one, the legislature adopted the Resolutions,
making the acts of the convention their own. Three commissioners were
quickly appointed,--Harrison Gray Otis at their head,--and in the early
days of February started for Washington.
Massachusetts was then more than ever convinced that it must
peremptorily insist on taking its share of the national revenue into
its own hands. Already the first step toward providing a State army had
plunged the State treasury into financial difficulties, and measures
for defence were stopped until new resources could be obtained. To
the surprise of Governor Strong, the Massachusetts banks, restrained
by their charters, applied to the State government the same rigorous
refusal of credit which they had applied to the national government,
and Strong found himself unable to obtain even the loan of one million
dollars authorized by the legislature at its autumn session. The
miscarriage cast a shade of ridicule on the character of the State
which criticised so severely the failure of the national government
to defend it, and found itself unable to take the first step toward
defence without the aid of the national government, bankrupt and
impotent though it was. Governor Strong sent to the legislature on
the first day of its winter session a message[424] that might have
been sent by Madison to Congress. He reminded the legislature that it
had, by a Resolution of Oct. 11, 1814, authorized a loan of a million
dollars from the banks.
“At that time,” continued Strong’s message, “it was supposed
that there would be no difficulty in procuring the requisite
sums from that source, and the treasurer soon obtained loans to
a considerable amount; but the directors of some of the banks
declared themselves unable to lend, and others have expressed
such reluctance as forbids an expectation that the whole amount
can be obtained in that way during the continuance of the
present cautious operations of the banks.”
The treasurer had obtained $631,000, and with the expenditure of that
sum the work of defence and the organization of the State army ceased.
“The efforts of defensive preparation which were made in this State
the last year,” Governor Strong declared, “will, if continued at the
expense of the Commonwealth, be fatal to our finances.” The necessary
consequence followed, that the State must take the national revenues.
Accordingly the committee of both Houses, to which the subject was
referred, reported[425] an approval of suspending the organization
of State troops “until in virtue of some arrangement to be made with
the national government sufficient funds can be provided for their
pay and support, without recourse to additional taxes.” Under such
circumstances the national government was little likely to surrender
its resources, and every symptom showed that the State then meant to
seize them.
The same committee formally approved the governor’s course in
declining to co-operate with the national government in expelling the
enemy from Maine. The public excuse for the refusal was founded on the
condition of the Treasury. In Federalist society the weightier motive
was supposed to be the wish to leave on the national government the
odium of failure to defend the State.[426]
While Massachusetts sustained the Hartford Convention, and pressed to
an issue the quarrel with the national government, Connecticut acted
with equal zeal in the same sense. The governor, John Cotton Smith, was
an old man, and neither his opinions nor his passions were extreme; but
as far as concerned the Hartford Convention, his views differed little
from those of Pickering and Lowell. He called a special session of the
legislature for January 25, to act on the delegates’ report; and his
speech at the opening of the session would have been taken for irony,
had his moderation of character not been known.[427] “The temperate and
magnanimous course proposed for our adoption cannot fail to allay the
apprehensions which many have professed to entertain, and to enliven
the hopes of all who cherish our national Union, and are disposed to
place it on a solid and durable basis.” The legislature without delay
approved the measures recommended by the convention, and appointed
delegates to accompany those sent from Massachusetts to effect the
proposed arrangement with the government at Washington.
In later times the Hartford Convention was often and vigorously
defended by writers whose works were friendly to the national
government, and whose influence was popular.[428] The wisdom, loyalty,
and patriotism of George Cabot and his associates became the theme
of authors whose authority was above dispute. Nearly always the
defence rested on the argument that popular opinion went beyond the
convention’s report, and that the convention risked its credit by
refusing to advise instant withdrawal from the Union.[429] This view
was apparently correct. The efforts of the moderate Federalists to
praise the moderation of the report, and the labored protests of the
extremists against the possible suspicion that they objected to its
moderation,[430] showed that the convention was then believed to have
offered resistance to what Governor Smith stigmatized as “rash councils
or precipitate measures.” The tone of the press and the elections bore
out the belief that a popular majority would have supported an abrupt
and violent course.
The tone of the minority at the time showed a similar belief that
Massachusetts favored disunion. During all the proceedings of the State
legislatures and the convention, the loyal press and citizens never
ceased to point out the dangerous, treasonable, and absurd results to
be expected from the course pursued. In the Massachusetts Senate John
Holmes of Maine attacked the convention and its doings in a speech
that gave him wide reputation.[431] Threats of civil war were freely
uttered and defied. Among the least violent of Federalists was James
Lloyd, recently United States senator from Massachusetts; and to him
as a man of known patriotism John Randolph addressed a letter, Dec.
15, 1814, remonstrating against the Hartford Convention that day to
meet. Lloyd replied in a letter also published, advising Randolph and
the Virginians to coerce Madison into retirement, and to place Rufus
King in the Presidency as the alternative to a fatal issue.[432] The
assertion of such an alternative showed how desperate the situation was
believed by the moderate Federalists to be.
A long letter of a similar kind was written, Nov. 26, 1814, by Jonathan
Mason to Wilson Cary Nicholas.[433] The opinion of the men among whom
Mason lived was expressly declared by Mason to the effect that “Great
Britain will not treat with Mr. Madison. He must retire, or the country
and the Union are at an end.... This is plain language, but in my soul
I believe it true. We shall not be destroyed to-day or to-morrow, but
it will come; and the end of these measures [of the Administration]
will be disunion and disgrace.”
In the Republican party the belief was universal that the Hartford
Convention could lead only to a New England Confederation; and the
belief was not confined to partisans. An anecdote that George Ticknor
delighted in telling, illustrated the emotion that then agitated men
far beyond the passing and fitful excitements of party politics.
Ticknor, a young Federalist twenty-three years old, wished for letters
of introduction to Virginia, and asked them from John Adams, then a man
of eighty, whose support of the war made him an object of antipathy to
the party he had led.
“When I visited him in Quincy to receive these letters,” related
Ticknor,[434] “I had a remarkable interview with him, which at
the time disturbed me not a little.... Soon after I was seated
in Mr. Adams’s parlor,--where was no one but himself and Mrs.
Adams, who was knitting,--he began to talk of the condition of
the country with great earnestness. I said not a word; Mrs.
Adams was equally silent; but Mr. Adams, who was a man of strong
and prompt passions, went on more and more vehemently. He was
dressed in a single-breasted dark-green coat, buttoned tightly
by very large white metal buttons over his somewhat rotund
person. As he grew more and more excited in his discourse,
he impatiently endeavored to thrust his hand into the breast
of his coat. The buttons did not yield readily; at last he
_forced_ his hand in, saying, as he did so, in a very loud
voice and most excited manner: ‘Thank God! thank God! George
Cabot’s close-buttoned ambition has broke out at last: he wants
to be President of New England, sir!’”
Whether George Cabot wanted it or not, he was in danger of becoming
what John Adams predicted. He was far from being the first man who had
unwillingly allowed himself to be drawn into a position from which
escape was impossible. After going so far, neither leaders nor people
could retreat. The next and easy step of sequestrating the direct and
indirect taxes was one to which the State stood pledged in the event of
a refusal by President Madison and Congress to surrender them. After
such an act, the establishment of a New England Confederation could
hardly be matter of choice.
If so considerable a mass of concurrent testimony did not prove the
gravity of the occasion, as it was understood by the most intelligent
and best-informed men of the time, ample evidence could be drawn from
other sources. William Wirt described the painful anxiety of Madison
as early as the month of October. Throughout Virginia the depression
was akin to despair. John Randolph and Wilson Cary Nicholas gave
expression to it in letters to prominent New Englanders; but Jefferson
in private was still more pronounced in his fears. “The war, had it
proceeded, would have upset our government,” he wrote to Gallatin a
year later,[435] “and a new one, whenever tried, will do it.” George
Ticknor, after obtaining at Quincy his letter of introduction from
John Adams to Jefferson, delivered it at Monticello at a time when the
anxiety for the safety of New Orleans was acute. He found Jefferson
convinced that the city must fall, and Jefferson expressed the
expectation that the British would hold it indefinitely.[436] Pickering
felt the same conviction, and regarded the event as a dissolution of
the Union.
The “Federal Republican” of Baltimore published, January 5, the day
when the Hartford Convention adjourned, a letter from Washington
announcing “an explosion at hand; that the President would be called on
to resign; and there must be peace by that or a future Administration.”
The fall of New Orleans was to be the signal for a general demand that
Madison should resign, and the Federalist press already prepared the
ground by insisting that “Mr. Madison has scarcely raised his little
finger to preserve New Orleans,” and would finally determine to abandon
the State of Louisiana.[437] That Madison’s authority could survive
two such blows as the capture of Washington and the loss of Louisiana
seemed improbable; but that he should resign was impossible, though the
alternative was a collapse of government.
When the month of February arrived, government and people were waiting
with keen apprehension for some new disaster, and the least probable
solution was that England knowing the situation would consent to any
tolerable peace. The “Federal Republican” of January 28, commenting on
the expected bank veto, summed up the consequences, not unfairly from
its point of view, in few words:--
“It is impossible, as Mr. Giles said in his luminous and
eloquent argument upon the measure [of a national bank], that
the government can stand these reiterated shocks.... The
interest upon the public debt remains unpaid, and there exists
not the means, without making the most ruinous sacrifices, to
pay it. The government is in arrears to the army upward of
nine million dollars; to the navy, about four millions.... The
condition of our finances is known to the enemy; and is it
possible he will be such a fool as to give us peace, after the
mortal blow we aimed at him, when he knows we cannot pay the
interest on the public debt, that we cannot pay our army or our
navy, and when he finds us unable to defend any part of the
country at which he strikes?”
[Illustration:
A GENERAL MAP OF THE
SEAT OF WAR IN LOUISIANA
AND WEST FLORIDA,
_Shewing all the fortified points and encampments
of both the American and
British Armies; also the march of Gen.
Jackson’s Army on his expedition
against Pensacola._
BY MAJOR A. LACARRIERE LATOUR.
STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N. Y.]