THE Ninth Congress met Dec. 2, 1805. During no period of eight
years did Congress contain a smaller number of remarkable members than
during the two administrations of Jefferson, from 1801 to 1809; and if
the few Federalists in opposition were left out of view, the American
people had in the Ninth Congress hardly a single representative, except
John Randolph, capable of controlling any vote but his own. In the
Senate, when George Clinton took his seat as Vice-President, he saw
before him, among the thirty-four senators, not less than twenty-seven
who belonged to his own party; yet among these twenty-seven Republican
members of the Senate was not one whose name lived. Senator Bradley of
Vermont exercised a certain influence in his day, like Dr. Mitchill of
New York, or Samuel Smith of Maryland, or William B. Giles of Virginia,
or Abraham Baldwin and James Jackson of Georgia. These were the leaders
of the Senate, but they were men whose influence was due more to their
office than to their genius; the Government gave them more weight
than they could give back to it. Breckenridge of Kentucky had become
attorney-general, and his seat was filled by John Adair. In the whole
Senate not a Republican member could be found competent to defend a
difficult financial or diplomatic measure as Gallatin or Madison could
have done it, or would have wished it to be done.
In the House the Administration could count upon equally little
aid. Setting aside John Randolph and Joseph Nicholson, who were
more dangerous than any Federalist of New England to Government,
the huge Republican majority contained no man of note. Its poverty
was startling. Gallatin clung to Randolph as the only member of the
House competent to conduct the public business; and no small part of
Randolph’s arrogance toward his own followers was due to his sense of
intellectual superiority, and to the constant proof that they could do
no business without his aid. Randolph was rarely arrogant in the face
of men whose abilities were superior to his own, or whose will was
stronger; he domineered over those whom he thought his inferiors, but
he liked no contest in which he saw an uncertain hope of victory. In
the Ninth Congress he met no rival in his own party. Massachusetts sent
a new member, from whose oratory much was expected,--a certain Barnabas
Bidwell; “but as a popular speaker he never can stand as the rival of
John Randolph,” was the comment of a Massachusetts senator on listening
to him in the House.[102] New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were
represented by an almost solid mass of Democrats, without a single
leader. Virginia and the other Southern States sent many men of
excellent character and of the best social position to Washington, but
not one who made a national name or who tried to master the details
of public business. Perhaps the ablest new member was Josiah Quincy
of Boston, whose positive temper, marked abilities, and vehement
Federalism made him troublesome to the majority rather than useful in
legislation.
When the House met, it proceeded at once to the election of a Speaker;
and the old feuds of the last session broke out again. Fifty-four
votes were required to elect; and on the first ballot Macon had but
fifty-one. Twenty-seven Republicans voted for Joseph B. Varnum of
Massachusetts, besides others who threw away their votes on candidates
from Virginia and Pennsylvania. Only at the third ballot did Macon get
a majority, and even then he received but fifty-eight votes, while the
full strength of his party was more than one hundred. His first act was
to reappoint Randolph and Nicholson on the Ways and Means Committee,
where a place was also given to Josiah Quincy.
The President’s Message was read December 3, and produced the effect to
be expected. The country received it with applause as a proof of vigor.
In Baltimore, and along the seaboard, it was regarded as equivalent
to a declaration of war against Spain; it stopped trade, raised
insurance, and encouraged piracy. The Federalist press throughout
the country, except the “Evening Post,” affected to admire and praise
it. “Federalism revived!” said the bitter “Washington Federalist;”
“dignified, firm, and spirited.” “This day we have been astonished,”
wrote a correspondent to the “Boston Centinel;”[103] “the President’s
speech is, in principle, almost wholly on the Washington and Adams
system. It has puzzled the Federalists and offended many of the
Democrats. It is in perfect nonconformity to all the former professions
of the party.” The Federalists exaggerated their applause in order to
irritate John Randolph and his friends, who could not fail to see that
the Message strengthened Madison at the expense of the old Republicans.
Jefferson’s private language was not less energetic than his public
message. Among the favorite ideas which the President urged was that
of claiming for America the ocean as far as the Gulf Stream, and
forbidding hostilities within the line of deep-sea soundings.[104] One
of the Massachusetts senators to whom he argued this doctrine inquired
whether it might not be well, before assuming a claim so broad, to wait
for a time when the Government should have a force to maintain it. The
President replied by insisting that the Government, “should squint at
it;”[105] and he lost no chance of doing so. He assured his friends
that no privateer would ever again be permitted to cruise within the
Gulf Stream.[106]
Such an attitude, public and private, roused much interest. Congress
waited anxiously for the promised special message on Spanish affairs,
and did not wait long. December 6, only three days after the Annual
Message was sent in, the special and secret message followed; the House
closed its doors, and the members listened eagerly to a communication
which they expected to be, what it actually was, a turning-point in
their politics.
The Message[107] very briefly narrated the story of the unratified
claims convention, ending in Monroe’s diplomatic misfortunes, and
announced that the Spaniards showed every intention of advancing from
Texas, until they should be repressed by force.
“Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested
with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I
have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force
in any degree which could be avoided. I have barely instructed
the officers stationed in the neighborhood of the aggressions
to protect our citizens from violence, to patrol within the
borders actually delivered to us, and not to go out of them but
when necessary to repel an inroad or to rescue a citizen or his
property.”
Passing next to the conduct of Napoleon, the Message mentioned the
decided part taken by France against the United States on every point
of the Spanish dispute,--
“her silence as to the Western boundary leaving us to infer
her opinion might be against Spain in that quarter. Whatever
direction she might mean to give to these differences, it does
not appear that she has contemplated their proceeding to actual
rupture, or that at the date of our last advices from Paris her
Government had any suspicion of the hostile attitude Spain had
taken here. On the contrary, we have reason to believe that she
was disposed to effect a settlement on a plan analogous to what
our ministers had proposed, and so comprehensive as to remove as
far as possible the grounds of future collision and controversy
on the eastern as well as western side of the Mississippi.
The present crisis in Europe is favorable for pressing such
a settlement, and not a moment should be lost in availing
ourselves of it. Should it pass unimproved, our situation would
become much more difficult. Formal war is not necessary, it is
not probable it will follow; but the protection of our citizens,
the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should
be interposed to a certain degree. It will probably contribute
to advance the object of peace. But the course to be pursued
will require the command of means which it belongs to Congress
exclusively to yield or to deny. To them I communicate every
fact material for their information, and the documents necessary
to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I
look for the course I am to pursue, and will pursue with sincere
zeal that which they shall approve.”
After the reading of this Message the House was more perplexed than
ever. The few Federalists sneered. The warlike tone of the Annual
Message, contradicting their theory of Jefferson’s character, had
already ended, as they believed, in surrender. John Randolph was angry.
He felt that the President had assumed, for Madison’s political profit,
the tone of public bravado toward England and Spain, while Congress
was required to overrule Madison’s bold policy and to impose on the
country what would seem a crouching cowardice of its own. The Message
was at once referred to a special committee of seven members, with
Randolph at its head, his friend Nicholson second in the number, John
Cotton Smith, a vigorous Federalist, coming third; while, whether the
Speaker intended it or not, the only person in the committee on whom
the President could depend for useful service was Barnabas Bidwell, the
new member from Massachusetts. Bidwell’s conversion from Federalism was
but recent, and neither his Federalism nor his democracy was of a kind
that Randolph loved.
To this point the Louisiana precedent was closely followed, and
Randolph seemed to have no excuse for refusing to do in 1805 what he
had done in 1802; yet nothing could be surer than that the Randolph
of 1805 was a very different man from the Randolph of three years
before, as the Republican party of 1805 widely differed from the party
which first elected Jefferson to the Presidency. No double-dealing,
hesitation, or concealment was charged against Randolph. According to
his own story, he called upon the President immediately, and learned,
not without some surprise, that an appropriation of two millions was
wanted to purchase Florida. He told the President without reserve “that
he would never agree to such a measure, because the money had not been
asked for in the Message; that he could not consent to shift upon his
own shoulders or those of the House the proper responsibility of the
Executive; but that even if the money had been explicitly demanded,
he should have been averse to granting it, because, after the total
failure of every attempt at negotiation, such a step would disgrace us
forever,”--with much more to the same effect, which was mildly combated
by Jefferson.[108]
The next day, December 7, the committee met, and Randolph, as he
probably expected, found that Bidwell alone intended to support the
Administration. Bidwell did not venture to act as the direct mouthpiece
of the President, but undertook on his own authority to construe the
Message as a demand for money, and proposed a grant to that effect.
The rest of the committee gravely followed Randolph in professing to
find no such meaning in the Message; Bidwell’s motion had no supporter,
and was promptly overruled. Jefferson’s labored Resolutions, which
Nicholson carried in his pocket for the committee to adopt, were
suppressed; Nicholson returned them the next day to Gallatin, with a
brief expression of his own decided disapproval.[109]
The committee separated, not to meet again for a fortnight; but during
the following week Randolph had several interviews with the President
and Secretary of State. Madison told him “that France would not permit
Spain to adjust her differences with us; that France wanted money, and
that we must give it to her, or have a Spanish and French war.”[110]
If Madison said this he told the truth. Randolph made an unfair use
of the confidential words; for he proclaimed them as his excuse for
declaring a public and personal war on the Secretary of State, which he
waged thenceforward in a temper and by means so revolting as in the end
to throw the sympathies of every unprejudiced man on the side of his
victim.
“From the moment I heard that declaration,” said Randolph
afterward, “all the objections I originally had to the procedure
were aggravated to the highest possible degree. I considered
it a base prostration of the national character to excite one
nation by money to bully another nation out of its property;
and from that moment, and to the last moment of my life, my
confidence in the principles of the man entertaining those
sentiments died, never to live again.”
These words would have carried more conviction had Randolph’s quarrel
with Madison not been of much older date. In truth he wanted a means
to break down the secretary’s chance of election as President, and
he thought to find it here. As he said openly in Congress and in the
press, “his confidence in the Secretary of State had never been very
high, but now it was gone forever.”[111]
The serious charge against Madison was one which Madison alone could
reveal. Down to October 23 he had held Randolph’s view and had
protested against turning the Spanish negotiation into a French job. He
could hardly blame Randolph for adhering to an opinion which had been
held by President and Cabinet until within a few weeks, when they had
abandoned it without explanation or excuse.
Stubbornly refusing to act, Randolph, December 14, mounted his horse
and rode to Baltimore, leaving the President for the moment helpless.
Every hour’s delay shook party discipline, and imperilled Armstrong’s
success. The President appealed to Nicholson; but Nicholson also
disliked the intended policy, and could be persuaded to use his
influence only so far as would enable the committee to act, with the
understanding that its action would be adverse to the President’s
wishes. Although the situation was still secret, it threatened to
become scandalous, and soon became so altogether.
December 21 Randolph returned. As he dismounted at the Capitol, he was
received by Nicholson, who told him of the irritation which his delay
had caused. The committee was instantly called together. As Randolph
went to the committee-room he was met by Gallatin, who put into his
hands a paper headed, “Provision for the purchase of Florida.” Although
Gallatin’s relations with Randolph were friendly, they did not save
the Secretary of the Treasury from a sharp rebuff. Randolph broke out
roughly; he would not vote a shilling for the purchase of Florida; the
President should not be allowed to throw upon Congress the odium “of
delivering the public purse to the first cut-throat that demanded it;”
on the record the Executive would appear as recommending manly and
vigorous measures, while Congress would appear as having forced him to
abandon them, when in fact it was acting all the while at Executive
instigation; “I do not understand this double set of opinions and
principles,--the one ostensible, the other real: I hold true wisdom
and cunning to be utterly incompatible.” With this sweeping censure of
President, Cabinet, and party, Randolph turned his back on Gallatin
and walked to the committee-room. There he had no trouble in carrying
matters with a high hand. Instead of recommending an appropriation, the
committee instructed Randolph to write to the Secretary of War asking
his opinion what force was needed to protect the Southern frontier.
Christmas was then at hand, and not a step had yet been taken. Unless
the spirit of faction could be crushed, not only was the fate of
Madison sealed, but the career of Jefferson himself must end in
failure. Nothing could be done with Randolph, who in a final interview
at the White House, flatly declared “that he too had a character
to support and principles to maintain,” and avowed his determined
opposition to the whole scheme of buying Florida of France. Jefferson,
little as he liked to quarrel, accepted the challenge. Negotiations
then ceased, and a party schism began.
If Randolph could not be overcome in debate, he might at least be
overborne by numbers; if the best part of the old Republican party
went with him, the rank and file of Northern and Western democrats
would remain to support the Administration. Once more the committee was
called together. Bidwell moved to appropriate two millions for foreign
relations; the majority rejected his motion and adopted a report
echoing the warlike tone of the President’s public message, and closing
with a Resolution to raise troops for the defence of the Southern
frontier “from Spanish inroad and insult, and to chastise the same.”
This report was laid before the House by Randolph Jan. 3, 1806, when
two additional Resolutions were immediately moved,--one appropriating
money for extraordinary expenses in foreign intercourse, the other
continuing the Mediterranean Fund for a new term of years; and the
three Resolutions were referred to the House in Committee of the Whole,
with closed doors.
Monday, Jan. 6, 1806, the debate began; and throughout the following
week the House sat in secret session, while Randolph strained every
nerve to break the phalanx of democrats which threatened to overwhelm
him. Perpetually on the floor, he declaimed against the proposed
negotiation at Paris; while Nicholson, unwillingly consenting to vote
for the two millions, said openly that he hoped in God the negotiation
would fail. When at length a vote could be reached, the Administration
carried its point,--seventy-two members supporting the President,
against a minority of fifty-eight; but in this minority was included
no small number of the most respectable Republicans. Twelve of the
twenty-two Virginia members broke away from the President; and for the
first time in a struggle vital to Jefferson’s credit, more than half
the majority consisted of Northern men.
The House having recovered control of the matter, thrust Randolph
aside, rapidly passed a Bill appropriating two million dollars for
extraordinary expenses in foreign relations, and Jan. 16, 1806, sent
it to the Senate by a vote of seventy-six to fifty-four. It was
accompanied by a secret message explaining that the money was intended
for the purchase of Spanish territory east of the Mississippi. The
Senate closed its doors, and with the least possible debate, Feb. 7,
1806, passed the bill, which, February 13, received the President’s
approval. Not until March 13,[112] six months after Armstrong’s
despatch had been written, did Madison at length send to Paris a
public authority for Armstrong to offer France five million dollars for
Florida and Texas to the Colorado,--an authority which should have been
secret and prompt, to be worth sending at all.
Jefferson carried his point; he won a victory over Randolph, and
silenced open resistance within the party; but his success was gained
at a cost hitherto unknown in his experience. The men who were most
obedient in public to his will growled in private almost as fiercely
as Randolph himself. Senator Bradley made no secret of his disgust.
Senator Anderson of Tennessee frankly said that he wished the Devil
had the Bill; that the opposition did not half know how bad it was;
that it was the most pernicious measure Jefferson had ever taken;
“but so it was, so he would have it, and so it must be!”[113] Three
Republican Senators--Bradley, Logan, and Mitchill--absented themselves
at the final vote; four more--Adair, Gilman, Stone, and Sumter--voted
against the Bill, which on its third reading obtained only seventeen
voices in its favor against eleven in opposition. Worse than this,
the malcontents felt that for the first time in the history of their
party the whip of Executive power had been snapped over their heads;
and, worst of all, the New England Federalists took for granted that
Jefferson had become a creature of Napoleon. Of all political ideas
that could gain a lodgment in the public mind, this last was the most
fatal!
That either Jefferson or Madison was led by French sympathies has been
shown to be untrue. Both of them submitted to the violence of all the
belligerents alike, and their eagerness for Florida caused them by
turns to flatter and to threaten Spain, France, and England; but not
even for the sake of Florida would they have taken either a direct or
an indirect part with France. Their unwillingness to offend Napoleon
rose not from sympathy with him, but from the conviction that he alone
could give Florida to the United States without the expense and losses
inevitable in a war. Unhappily the public knew little of what President
Jefferson had done or was doing; and another piece of legislation,
carried through Congress at the same moment with the “Two-million Act,”
went far to fix the Federalists in their belief that the Administration
obeyed the beck and call of the French Emperor.
The Annual Message made no allusion to St. Domingo; no public
announcement had been given that the Executive wished for further
legislation in regard to its trade, when, Dec. 18, 1805, Senator
Logan of Pennsylvania brought forward a Bill to prohibit the trade
altogether. That he acted without concert with Madison was not to be
conceived. Logan privately admitted as his only object the wish of
enabling Madison to tell the French government that the trade was
forbidden, and that the merchants who carried it on did so at their
own peril.[114] The Federalist senators opposed the Bill, and were
joined by several Republicans. General Smith and Dr. Mitchill spoke
against it. The opposition showed that the measure would sacrifice
several hundred thousand dollars of revenue; that it would close the
last opening which the new British policy left for American commerce
with the West Indies; that it would throw the commerce with St. Domingo
wholly into British hands; that it was an attempt to carry out French
objects by American legislation, which would endanger the property and
lives of American citizens in the island; and finally, that it was
done in obedience to Napoleon’s orders. December 27 the Senate called
for the diplomatic correspondence on the subject, and the President
communicated the extraordinary notes in which Talleyrand and Turreau
declared that the commerce “must” not continue. The Senate received
this mandate without protest or remonstrance; and after a long debate
passed the Bill, Feb. 20, 1806, by a party vote of twenty-one to eight.
Of the twenty-seven Republican senators, Stone of North Carolina alone
voted against it. Amid execrations against the Haytian negroes, the
Bill was next forced through the House almost without debate, and Feb.
28, 1806, received the President’s signature.
This law,[115] limited to one year, declared that any American vessel
“which shall be voluntarily carried, or shall be destined to proceed”
to St. Domingo should be wholly forfeited, ship and cargo. Passed in
consequence of Napoleon’s positive order, communicated by the President
to Congress as though to overawe objection, the Act violated the
principles of international law, sacrificed the interests of Northern
commerce, strained the powers of the Constitution as formerly construed
by the party of States-rights, and, taken in all its relations, might
claim distinction among the most disgraceful statutes ever enacted by
the United States government. Nevertheless, this measure, which bore
on its face the birth-mark of Napoleonic features, did in fact owe its
existence chiefly to a different parentage. In truth, the Southern
States dreaded the rebel negroes of Hayti more than they feared
Napoleon. Fear often made them blind to their own attitudes; in this
instance it made them indifferent to the charge of servility to France.
The opportunity to declare the negroes of Hayti enemies of the human
race was too tempting to be rejected; and not only did the Southern
Republicans eagerly seize it, but they persuaded their Northern allies
to support them. John Randolph himself, though then wearying the House
day after day with cries that Madison had sold the honor of the United
States to France, never alluded to this act of subservience, which
would have made any other Administration infamous, and quietly absented
himself at the vote, that he might seem neither to obey Bonaparte’s
mandate nor to oppose the Bill. Of the twenty-six voices against it,
nearly all were Federalists; yet in this curious list, side by side
with Josiah Quincy, Samuel Dana, and John Cotton Smith, stood the
names of Jacob Crowninshield and Matthew Lyon, democrats of the deepest
dye and objects of John Randolph’s bitterest sneers.
The “Two-million Act” and the Act forbidding commerce with St. Domingo
were measures equally necessary for the success of the Florida
purchase. Without conciliating Napoleon at St. Domingo, Jefferson
could not expect his help at Paris. These measures, together with some
appearance of military activity, completed the Executive scheme of
foreign policy in regard to France and Spain; the more difficult task
remained of dealing with England.
When the first news of Sir William Scott’s decision in the case of the
“Essex” arrived in America, the merchants were indignant; and their
anger steadily rose as the confiscation of American ships became more
general, until at length, in December, 1805, Stephen’s pamphlet, “War
in Disguise,” arrived, and was reprinted in the newspapers. By the
close of the year 1805 no one could longer doubt that Great Britain
had, so far as suited her purposes, declared war against the United
States.
The issue was simple. The United States might make war in return, or
submit. Any measure short of open hostilities had unquestionably been
taken into Pitt’s account, and would produce no effect on his policy.
War alone could move him from his purpose; but war would destroy
American commerce and ruin Federalist resources, while any retaliation
short of war would not only prove ineffective, but would injure the
American merchants alone. Their dilemma was so unavoidable that they
could not fail to be caught in it. George Cabot saw their danger
from the first. Much against his will the merchants of Boston placed
him upon a committee to draw a remonstrance to Congress against the
British doctrine of neutral trade. “Our friend Cabot,” wrote Fisher
Ames,[116] “is much, too much, mortified that he is one of them. He
hates hypocrisy, and respects principles; and he dreads lest the
popular feeling should impel the committee to deny what he believes to
be true, or to ask for what he knows to be mischievous.” The Boston
“Memorial,”[117] drawn by James Lloyd, was as cautious as popular
feeling would tolerate, and asked no action from Government except the
appointment of a special mission to strengthen the hands of Monroe at
London; but Cabot signed it with extreme reluctance, and only with
the understanding that it did not represent his personal views. The
Philadelphia “Memorial” closed with stronger language, suggesting that
war must be the result if Great Britain refused redress. The Baltimore
“Memorial,” drawn by William Pinkney, spoke in strong tones, but
offered no advice. Toward the middle of January, 1806, these memorials,
together with others, were sent to Congress by the President, with
a Message inviting the Legislature to take the matter in hand, but
offering no opinion as to the proper course to pursue.[118]
The fears of George Cabot were quickly justified. He chiefly dreaded
the theories of the Republican party, which in his opinion were more
destructive to American commerce than the British doctrines themselves
or the demands of James Stephen. Jefferson and Madison were bent on
testing the theory of the first Inaugural Address,--that commerce was
the handmaid of agriculture; but in the harshest application of the
slave-code of South Carolina or Georgia such treatment as agriculture
proposed to her handmaid would have been rejected as inhuman, for it
was a slow torture.
The theory of peaceable coercion, on which Jefferson relied, had
often been explained as a duel in which either side counted upon
exhausting its opponent by injuring itself. As Madison once said of
the British manufacturers: “There are three hundred thousand souls
who live by our custom: let them be driven to poverty and despair,
and what will be the consequence?” The question was more easily asked
than answered, for in the actual condition of Europe economical laws
were so violently disturbed that no man could venture to guess what
fresh extravagance might result from new delirium; but while the three
hundred thousand Englishmen were starving, three hundred thousand
Americans would lose the profit on their crops, and would idly look
at empty warehouses and rotting ships. English laborers had for many
generations been obliged to submit to occasional suffering; Americans
were untrained to submission. Granting that the Boston merchant, like
the injured Brahmin, should seat himself at the door of the British
offender, and slowly fast to death in order that his blood might stain
the conscience of Pitt, he could not be certain that Pitt’s conscience
would be stimulated by the sacrifice, for the conscience of British
Tories as regarded the United States had been ever languid. Cabot saw
no real alternative between submission to Great Britain and the entire
sacrifice of American commerce. He preferred submission.
The subject in all its bearings quickly came before Congress. Jan.
15, 1806, the Senate referred to a special committee that part of the
President’s Message which related to the British seizures. February
5, General Smith reported on behalf of the committee a series of
Resolutions denouncing these seizures as an encroachment on national
independence, and recommending the prohibition of British woollens,
linens, silks, glass-wares, and a long list of other articles. On this
Resolution the debate began, and soon waxed hot.