THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION
OF
JAMES MADISON
1809–1813
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
BY
HENRY ADAMS.
VOLS. I. AND II.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON.
1801–1805.
VOLS. III. AND IV.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF JEFFERSON.
1805–1809.
VOLS. V. AND VI.--THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF MADISON.
1809–1813.
VOLS. VII., VIII., AND IX.--THE SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF
MADISON. 1813–1817. WITH AN INDEX TO THE ENTIRE WORK.
(_In Press._)
HISTORY
OF THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DURING THE FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF
JAMES MADISON
BY HENRY ADAMS
VOL. V.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1890
_Copyright, 1890_
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SUBSIDENCE OF FACTION 1
II. ALIENATION FROM FRANCE 22
III. CANNING’S CONCESSIONS 42
IV. ERSKINE’S ARRANGEMENT 66
V. DISAVOWAL OF ERSKINE 87
VI. FRANCIS JAMES JACKSON 109
VII. NAPOLEON’S TRIUMPH 133
VIII. EXECUTIVE WEAKNESS 154
IX. LEGISLATIVE IMPOTENCE 176
X. INCAPACITY OF GOVERNMENT 199
XI. THE DECREE OF RAMBOUILLET 220
XII. CADORE’S LETTER OF AUGUST 5 241
XIII. THE MARQUESS WELLESLEY 262
XIV. GOVERNMENT BY PROCLAMATION 289
XV. THE FLORIDAS AND THE BANK 316
XVI. CONTRACT WITH FRANCE 338
XVII. DISMISSAL OF ROBERT SMITH 359
XVIII. NAPOLEON’S DELAYS 380
XIX. RUSSIA AND SWEDEN 404
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
CHAPTER I.
THE “National Intelligencer,” which called public attention
only to such points of interest as the Government wished to accent,
noticed that President Madison was “dressed in a full suit of cloth
of American manufacture” when he appeared at noon, March 4, 1809,
under escort of the “troops of cavalry of the city and Georgetown,”
amid a crowd of ten thousand people, to take the oath of office at the
Capitol. The suit of American clothes told more of Madison’s tendencies
than was to be learned from the language of the Inaugural Address,
which he delivered in a tone of voice so low as not to be heard by
the large audience gathered in the new and imposing Representatives’
Hall.[1] Indeed, the Address suggested a doubt whether the new
President wished to be understood. The conventionality of his thought
nowhere betrayed itself more plainly than in this speech on the
greatest occasion of Madison’s life, when he was required to explain
the means by which he should retrieve the failures of Jefferson.
“It is a precious reflection,” said Madison to his anxious
audience, “that the transition from this prosperous condition
of our country to the scene which has for some time been
distressing us, is not chargeable on any unwarrantable views,
nor as I trust on any voluntary errors, in the public councils.
Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights or the repose
of other nations, it has been the true glory of the United
States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to entitle
themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling
their neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality.
If there be candor in the world, the truth of these assertions
will not be questioned; posterity at least will do justice to
them.”
Since none of Madison’s enemies, either abroad or at home, intended to
show him candor, his only hope was in posterity; yet the judgment of
posterity depended chiefly on the course which the new President might
take to remedy the misfortunes of his predecessor. The nation expected
from him some impulse toward the end he had in mind; foreign nations
were also waiting to learn whether they should have to reckon with a
new force in politics; but Madison seemed to show his contentment with
the policy hitherto pursued, rather than his wish to change it.
“This unexceptionable course,” he continued, “could not avail
against the injustice and violence of the belligerent Powers.
In their rage against each other, or impelled by more direct
motives, principles of retaliation have been introduced equally
contrary to universal reason and acknowledged law. How long
their arbitrary edicts will be continued, in spite of the
demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been given
by the United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to
induce a revocation of them, cannot be anticipated. Assuring
myself that under every vicissitude the determined spirit and
united councils of the nation will be safeguards to its honor
and essential interests, I repair to the post assigned me, with
no other discouragement than what springs from my own inadequacy
to its high duties.”
Neither the actual world nor posterity could find much in these
expressions on which to approve or condemn the policy of Madison,
for no policy could be deduced from them. The same iteration of
commonplaces marked the list of general principles which filled the
next paragraph of the Address. Balancing every suggestion of energy
by a corresponding limitation of scope, Madison showed only a wish
to remain within the limits defined by his predecessor. “To cherish
peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having corresponding
dispositions” seemed to imply possible recourse to war with other
nations; but “to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable
accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to
arms” seemed to exclude the use of force. “To promote by authorized
means improvements friendly to agriculture, to manufactures, and to
external as well as internal commerce” was a phrase so cautiously
framed that no one could attack it. “To support the Constitution,
which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in
its authorities,” seemed a duty so guarded as to need no further
antithesis; yet Madison did not omit the usual obligation “to respect
the rights and authorities reserved to the States and to the people,
as equally incorporated with, and essential to, the success of the
general system.” No one could object to the phrases with which the
Address defined Executive duties; but no one could point out a syllable
implying that Madison would bend his energies with sterner purpose to
maintain the nation’s rights.
At the close of the speech Chief-Justice Marshall administered the
oath; the new President then passed the militia in review, and in the
evening Madison and Jefferson attended an inauguration ball, where
“the crowd was excessive, the heat oppressive, and the entertainment
bad.”[2] With this complaint, so familiar on the occasion, the day
ended, and President Madison’s troubles began.
About March 1, Wilson Cary Nicholas had called on the President elect
to warn him that he must look for serious opposition to the expected
appointment of Gallatin as Secretary of State. Nicholas had the
best reason to know that Giles, Samuel Smith, and Leib were bent on
defeating Gallatin.
“I believed from what I heard he would be rejected,” wrote
Nicholas two years afterward;[3] “and that at all events, if he
was not, his confirmation would be by a bare majority. During my
public service but one event had ever occurred that gave me as
much uneasiness: I mean the degradation of the country at that
very moment by the abandonment of [the embargo].”
The two events were in fact somewhat alike in character. That Gallatin
should become Secretary of State seemed a point of little consequence,
even though it were the only remaining chance for honorable peace; but
that another secretary should be forced on the President by a faction
in the Senate, for the selfish objects of men like Samuel Smith and
Giles, foreboded revolution in the form of government. Nicholas saw
chiefly the danger which threatened his friends; but the remoter peril
to Executive independence promised worse evils than could be caused
even by the overthrow of the party in power at a moment of foreign
aggression.
The effort of Giles and Smith to control Madison had no excuse.
Gallatin’s foreign birth, the only objection urged against him,
warranted doubt, not indeed of his fitness, but of difficulty in
obliging European powers to deal with a native of Geneva, who was
in their eyes either a subject of their own or an enemy at war; but
neither Napoleon nor King George in the year 1809 showed so much regard
to American feelings that the United States needed to affect delicacy
in respect to theirs; and Gallatin’s foreign birth became a signal
advantage if it should force England to accept the fact, even though
she refused to admit the law, of American naturalization. Gallatin’s
fitness was undisputed, and the last men who could question it were
Giles and Samuel Smith, who had been his friends for twenty years,
had trusted their greatest party interests in his hands, had helped
to put the Treasury under his control, and were at the moment keeping
him at its head when they might remove him to the less responsible
post of minister for foreign affairs. Any question of Gallatin’s
patriotism suggested ideas even more delicate than those raised by
doubts of his fitness. A party which had once trusted Burr and which
still trusted Wilkinson, not to mention Giles himself, had little
right to discuss Gallatin’s patriotism, or the honesty of foreign-born
citizens. Even the mild-spoken Wilson Cary Nicholas almost lost his
temper at this point. “I honestly believe,” he wrote in 1811, “if all
our _native_ citizens had as well discharged their duty to their
country, that we should by our energy have extorted from both England
and France a respect for our rights, and that before this day we should
have extricated ourselves from all our embarrassments instead of having
increased them.” The men who doubted Gallatin’s patriotism were for the
most part themselves habitually factious, or actually dallying with
ideas of treason.
Had any competent native American been pressed for the Department
of State, the Senate might still have had some pretext for excluding
Gallatin; but no such candidate could be suggested. Giles was alone in
thinking himself the proper secretary; Samuel Smith probably stood in
the same position; Monroe still sulked in opposition and discredit;
Armstrong, never quite trusted, was in Paris; William Pinkney and J. Q.
Adams were converts too recent for such lofty promotion; G. W. Campbell
and W. H. Crawford had neither experience nor natural fitness for the
post. The appointment of Gallatin not only seemed to be, but actually
was, necessary to Madison’s Administration.
No argument affected the resistance of Giles and Samuel Smith, and
during the early days of March Madison could see no means of avoiding
a party schism. From that evil, at such a stage, he shrank. While the
subject still stood unsettled, some unknown person suggested a new
idea. If Robert Smith could be put in the Treasury, his brother Samuel
would vote to confirm Gallatin as Secretary of State. The character of
such a transaction needed no epithet; but Madison went to Robert Smith
and offered him the Treasury.[4] He knew Smith to be incompetent, but
he thought that with Gallatin’s aid even an incompetent person might
manage the finances; and perhaps his astuteness went so far as to
foresee what was to happen,--that he should deal with the Smiths on
some better occasion in a more summary manner. Madison’s resemblance
to a cardinal was not wholly imaginary.[5]
While Robert Smith went to inquire into the details of Treasury
business before accepting the offered post, the President consulted
with Gallatin, who rejected the scheme at once. He could not, he said,
undertake the charge of both departments; the President would do better
to appoint Robert Smith Secretary of State, and leave the Treasury as
it was. Madison seized this outlet of escape. He returned to Robert
Smith with the offer of the State Department, which Smith accepted.
In making this arrangement Madison knew that he must himself supply
Smith’s deficiencies; but stronger wills than that of Madison had
yielded to party discontent, and he gained much if he gained only time.
The true victim of the bargain was Gallatin, who might wisely have
chosen the moment for retiring from the Cabinet; but after declining an
arrangement in his favor, he could not fairly desert the President, who
had offered to sacrifice much for him, and he was too proud to avow a
personal slight as the motive of his public action. Weakened already by
the unexpected decline of his influence in the Senate, his usefulness
was sure to be still further lessened by the charge of clinging to
office; but after weighing the arguments for retirement he decided to
remain,[6] although he could not, even if he would, forget that the
quarrel which had been forced upon him must be met as vigorously as it
was made.
The War and Navy Departments remained to be filled. Dearborn, who had
continued in the War Department chiefly to oblige President Jefferson,
retired in the month of February to become Collector of the port of
Boston. As his successor, Madison selected William Eustis, of Boston,
who had served in Congress during Jefferson’s first Administration.
Eustis was about fifty-six years old; in the Revolutionary War he
had filled the post of hospital surgeon, and since the peace he had
practised his profession in Boston. Little could be said of the
appointment, except that no other candidate was suggested who seemed
better qualified for the place.[7]
To succeed Robert Smith at the Navy Department, Madison selected Paul
Hamilton, of South Carolina. Nothing was known of Hamilton, except that
he had been governor of his State some ten years before. No one seemed
aware why he had attracted the President’s attention, or what qualities
fitted him for the charge of naval affairs; but he appeared in due time
at Washington,--a South Carolinian gentleman, little known in society
or even to his colleagues in the government, and little felt as an
active force in the struggle of parties and opinions.
From the outset Madison’s Cabinet was the least satisfactory that
any President had known. More than once the Federalist cabinets had
been convulsed by disagreements, but the Administration of Madison
had hardly strength to support two sides of a dispute. Gallatin
alone gave it character, but was himself in a sort of disgrace. The
Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of the
Navy, overshadowed in the Cabinet by Gallatin, stood in a position
of inevitable hostility to his influence, although they represented
neither ideas nor constituents. While Gallatin exacted economy,
the army and navy required expenditures, and the two secretaries
necessarily looked to Robert Smith as their friend. Toward Robert
Smith Gallatin could feel only antipathy, which was certainly shared
by Madison. “We had all been astonished at his appointment,” said Joel
Barlow two years afterward;[8] “we all learned the history of that
miserable intrigue by which it was effected.” Looking upon Robert
Smith’s position as the result of a “miserable intrigue,” Gallatin
could make no secret of his contempt. The social relations between
them, which had once been intimate, wholly ceased.
To embroil matters further, the defalcation of a navy agent at Leghorn
revealed business relations between the Navy Department and Senator
Samuel Smith’s mercantile firm which scandalized Gallatin and drew
from him a sharp criticism. He told Samuel Smith that the transactions
of the firm of Smith and Buchanan were the most extraordinary that
had fallen within his knowledge since he had been in the Treasury,
and had left very unfavorable impressions on his mind.[9] Smith was
then struggling for a re-election to the Senate, and felt the hand
of Gallatin as a chief obstacle in his way. The feud became almost
mortal under these reciprocal injuries; but Samuel Smith gained all his
objects, and for the time held Gallatin and Madison at his mercy. Had
he been able to separate them, his influence would have had no bounds,
except his want of ability.
Yet Madison was always a dangerous enemy, gifted with a quality
of persistence singularly sure in its results. An example of this
persistence occurred at the moment of yielding to the Smiths’
intrigues, when, perhaps partly in the hope of profiting by his
sacrifice, he approached the Senate once more on the subject of the
mission to Russia. February 27, the nomination of William Short to
St. Petersburg had been unanimously rejected. March 6, with the
nominations of Robert Smith and William Eustis to the Cabinet,
Madison sent the names of J. Q. Adams as minister at St. Petersburg,
and of Thomas Sumter as minister to Brazil. He asked the Senate to
establish two new missions at once. March 7 the Senate confirmed all
the other nominations, but by a vote of seventeen to fifteen, adhered
to the opinion that a mission to Russia was inexpedient. Both Giles
and Samuel Smith supported the Government; but the two senators
from Pennsylvania, the two from Kentucky, together with Anderson of
Tennessee and William H. Crawford, persisted in aiding the Federalists
to defeat the President’s wish. Yet the majority was so small as to
prove that Madison would carry his point in the end. Senators who
rejected the services of Gallatin and John Quincy Adams in order to
employ those of Robert Smith, Dr. Eustis, and Governor Hamilton could
not but suffer discredit. Faction which had no capacity of its own,
and which showed only dislike of ability in others, could never rule a
government in times of danger or distress.
After thus embarrassing the President in organizing his service
the Senate rose, leaving Madison in peace until May 22, when the
Eleventh Congress was to meet in special session. The outlook was more
discouraging than at the beginning of any previous Administration.
President Jefferson had strained his authority to breaking, and the
sudden reaction threw society as well as government into disorder. The
factiousness at Washington reflected only in a mild form the worse
factiousness elsewhere. The Legislature of Massachusetts, having
issued its Address to the People, adjourned; and a few days afterward
the people, by an election which called out more than ninety thousand
votes, dismissed their Republican governor, and by a majority of two or
three thousand chose Christopher Gore in his place. The new Legislature
was more decidedly Federalist than the old one. New Hampshire effected
the same revolution. Rhode Island followed. In New York the Federalists
carried the Legislature, as they did also in Maryland.
Even in Pennsylvania, although nothing shook the fixed political
character of the State, the epidemic of faction broke out. While the
legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut declared Acts of Congress
unconstitutional, and refused aid to execute them, the legislature
of Pennsylvania authorized Governor Snyder to resist by armed force
a mandate of the Supreme Court; and when the United States marshal
attempted to serve process on the person of certain respondents at the
suit of Gideon Olmstead, he found himself stopped by State militia
acting under orders.
In a country where popular temper had easier means of concentrating
its violence, government might have been paralyzed by these proofs
of low esteem; but America had not by far reached such a stage, and
dark as the prospect was both within and without, Madison could safely
disregard dangers on which most rulers had habitually to count. His
difficulties were only an inheritance from the old Administration,
and began to disappear as quickly as they had risen. At a word
from the President the State of Pennsylvania recovered its natural
common-sense, and with some little sacrifice of dignity gave way. The
popular successes won by the Federalists were hardly more serious than
the momentary folly of Pennsylvania. As yet, the Union stood in no
danger. The Federalists gained many votes; but these were the votes
of moderate men who would desert their new companions on the first
sign of a treasonable act, and their presence tended to make the party
cautious rather than rash. John Henry, the secret agent of Sir James
Craig, reported with truth to the governor-general that the Federalist
leaders at Boston found disunion a very delicate topic, and that “an
unpopular war ... can alone produce a sudden separation of any section
of this country from the common head.”[10] In public, the most violent
Federalists curbed their tongues whenever the Union was discussed, and
instead of threatening to dissolve it, contented themselves by charging
the blame on the Southern States in case it should fall to pieces.
Success sobered them; the repeal of the embargo seemed so great a
triumph that they were almost tempted into good humor.
On the people of New England other motives more directly selfish began
to have effect. The chief sources of their wealth were shipping and
manufactures. The embargo destroyed the value of the shipping after
it had been diminished by the belligerent edicts; the repeal of the
embargo restored the value. The Federalist newspapers tried to prove
that this was not the case, and that the Non-intercourse Act, which
prohibited commerce with England, France, or their dependencies, was
as ruinous as embargo itself; but the shipping soon showed that
Gottenburg, Riga, Lisbon, and the Spanish ports in America were
markets almost as convenient as London or Havre for the sale of
American produce. The Yankee ship-owner received freights to Europe
by circuitous routes, on the accumulations of two years in grain,
cotton, tobacco, and timber, of the whole United States, besides the
freights of an extended coast-trade. Massachusetts owned more than a
third of the American registered tonnage, and the returns for 1809
and 1810 proved that her profits were great. The registered tonnage
of Massachusetts employed in foreign trade was 213,000 tons in 1800,
and rose to 310,000 tons in 1807 before the embargo; in 1809 it rose
again to 324,000; in 1810 it made another leap to 352,000 tons. The
coasting trade employed in 1807 about 90,000 tons of Massachusetts
shipping which was much increased by the embargo, and again reduced by
its repeal; but in 1809 and 1810 this enrolled shipping still stood far
above the prosperous level of 1807, and averaged 110,000 tons for the
two years.[11]
Such rapid and general improvement in shipping proved that New
England had better employment than political factiousness to occupy
the thoughts of her citizens; but large as the profits on freights
might be, they hardly equalled the profits on manufactures. In truth,
the manufactories of New England were created by the embargo, which
obliged the whole nation to consume their products or to go without.
The first American cotton mills, begun as early as 1787, met with so
little success that when the embargo was imposed in 1807, only fifteen
mills with about eight thousand spindles were in operation, producing
some three hundred thousand pounds of yarn a year. These eight thousand
spindles, representing a capital of half a million dollars, were
chiefly in or near Rhode Island.
The embargo and non-importation Acts went into effect in the last
days of 1807. Within less than two years the number of spindles was
increased, or arrangements were made for increasing it, from eight
thousand to eighty thousand.[12] Nearly four million dollars of capital
were invested in mills, and four thousand persons were in their employ,
or expected soon to be employed in them. The cotton cost about twenty
cents a pound; the yarn sold on an average at about $1.12½ a pound.
Besides these mills, which were worked mostly by water but partly by
horsepower, the domestic manufacture of cotton and linen supplied
a much larger part of the market. Two thirds of the clothing and
house-linen used in the United States outside of the cities was made in
farm-houses, and nearly every farmer in New England sold some portion
of the stock woven every year by the women of his household. Much of
this coarse but strong flaxen material, sold at about fifteen or
twenty cents a yard by the spinner, was sent to the Southern
States.[13]
While the cotton and linen industries of the North became profitable,
the manufactures of wool lagged little behind. William Whittemore,
who owned the patent for a machine which manufactured wool and cotton
cards, reported from Cambridge in Massachusetts, Nov. 24, 1809, that
only the want of card-wire prevented him from using all his machines
to the full extent of their power.[14] “Since the obstructions to
our foreign trade, the manufactures of our country have increased
astonishingly,” he wrote. “The demand for wool and cotton cards
the present season has been twice as great as it has been any year
preceding.” Scarcity of good wool checked the growth of this industry,
and the demand soon roused a mania among farmers for improving the
breed of sheep. Between one hundred and three hundred per cent of
profit attended all these industries, and little or no capital was
required.
All the Northern and Eastern States shared in the advantages of this
production, for which Virginia with the Western and Southern States
paid; but in the whole Union New England fared best. Already the
development of small industries had taken place, which, by making a
varied aggregate, became the foundation and the security of Yankee
wealth. Massachusetts taxed her neighbors on many small articles
of daily use. She employed in the single manufacture of hats four
thousand persons,--more than were yet engaged in the cotton mills.
More than a million and a half of hats were annually made, and three
fourths of these were sold beyond the State; between three and four
million dollars a year flowed into Massachusetts in exchange for hats
alone.[15] At Lynn, in Massachusetts, were made one hundred thousand
pairs of women’s shoes every year. The town of Roxbury made eight
hundred thousand pounds of soap. Massachusetts supplied the country
with cut-iron nails to the value of twelve hundred thousand dollars a
year. Connecticut supplied the whole country with tin-ware.
New industries sprang up rapidly on a soil and in a climate where the
struggle of life was more severe than elsewhere in the Union, and where
already capital existed in quantities that made production easy. One
industry stimulated another. Women had much to do with the work, and
their quickness and patience of details added largely to the income of
New England at the cost of less active communities. Their hands wove
most of the cotton and woollen cloths sent in large quantities to the
West and South; but they were inventors as well as workmen. In 1801,
when English straw-bonnets were in fashion, a girl of Wrentham, not
far from Boston, found that she could make for herself a straw-hat as
good as the imported one. In a few months every girl in the county of
Norfolk made her own straw-bonnet; and soon the South and West paid two
hundred thousand dollars a year to the county of Norfolk for straw hats
and bonnets.[16]
At no time could such industries have been established without
the stimulus of a handsome profit; but when Virginia compelled
Massachusetts and the Northern States to accept a monopoly of the
American market, the Yankee manufacturer must have expected to get, and
actually got, great profits for his cottons and woollens, his hats,
shoes, soap, and nails. As though this were not more than enough,
Virginia gave the Northern shipowners the whole freight on Southern
produce, two thirds of which in one form or another went into the hands
of New England shipbuilders, shippers, and merchants. Slowly the specie
capital of the Union drifted towards the Banks of Boston and New Haven,
until, as the story will show, the steady drain of specie eastward
bankrupted the other States and the national government. Never, before
or since, was the country so racked to create and support monopolies
as in 1808, 1809, and 1810, under Southern rule, and under the system
of the President who began his career by declaring that if he could
prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under
the pretence of protecting them, they must become happy.[17] The navy
and army of the United States were employed, and were paid millions of
dollars, during these years in order to shut out foreign competition,
and compel New England at the cannon’s mouth to accept these enormous
bribes.
The Yankee, however ill-tempered he might be, was shrewd enough to
see where his profit lay. The Federalist leaders and newspapers
grumbled without intermission that their life-blood was drained to
support a negro-slave aristocracy, “baser than its own slaves,” as
their phrase went; but they took the profits thrust upon them; and
what they could not clutch was taken by New York and Pennsylvania,
while Virginia slowly sank into ruin. Virginia paid the price to
gratify her passion for political power; and at the time, she paid it
knowingly and willingly. John Randolph protested almost alone. American
manufactures owed more to Jefferson and Virginians, who disliked them,
than to Northern statesmen, who merely encouraged them after they were
established.
These movements and tendencies were rather felt than understood amid
the uproar of personal and local interests; but the repeal of the
embargo had the effect intended by the Virginians,--it paralyzed
Pickering and the party of forcible resistance. New England quickly
turned from revolutionary thoughts while she engaged in money-making;
and as though the tide of fortune had at last set in Madison’s favor, a
stroke of his diplomacy raised the tottering Administration to a sudden
height of popularity such as Jefferson himself had never reached.