All winter Congress waited for the result of Rose’s negotiation. The
huge majority, without leadership, split by divergent interests, a
mere mob guided from the White House, showed little energy except for
debate, and no genius except for obedience.
The first political effect of the embargo was shown in the increased
virulence of debate. The Act of December 22, passed on the spur of the
moment, was powerless to prevent evasions in the seaports, and left
untouched the trade with Canada and Florida. A supplementary Act was
necessary; but to warrant a law for stopping all commerce by sea and
land, the Government could no longer profess a temporary purpose of
protecting ships, merchandise, and seamen, but must admit the more
or less permanent nature of the embargo, and the policy of using it
as a means of peaceable coercion. The first Supplementary Act passed
Congress as early as January 8, but applied only to coasting and
fishing vessels, which were put under heavy bonds and threatened with
excessive penalties in case of entering a foreign port or trading in
foreign merchandise. Finding that this measure was not effective,
and that neither England nor France showed a sign of relaxing the
so-called system of retaliation, Government was obliged to complete
its restrictions. February 11 the House instructed its Committee
of Commerce to inquire what further legislation was necessary “to
prevent the exportation of goods, wares, and merchandise of foreign
or domestic growth or manufacture to any foreign port or place.” The
committee instantly reported a bill; and as Rose’s negotiation broke
down, February 19 the House went into committee to debate a second
supplementary Embargo Act, which was to stop by land and sea all
commerce with the world.
The next day, February 20, Barent Gardenier of New York, who surpassed
Josiah Quincy in hatred of the Administration, attacked the new bill
in a speech which showed much rough power and more temper. He said
with force that between the original embargo and this Supplementary
Act no connection existed. The one was an embargo, the other was
non-intercourse; and he charged that the original embargo was a
fraud, intended to trick the country into a permanent system of
non-intercourse:--
“The more the original measure develops itself, the more I am
satisfied that my first view of it was correct; that it was a sly,
cunning measure; that its real object was not merely to prevent our
vessels from going out, but to effect a non-intercourse. Are the
nation prepared for this? If you wish to try whether they are, tell
them at once what is your object. Tell them what you mean. Tell them
you mean to take part with the Grand Pacificator. Or else stop your
present course. Do not go on forging chains to fasten us to the car of
the Imperial Conqueror.”
Interrupted by a dozen Republican members who leaped to their feet in
anger, Gardenier for a time returned to his argument and dropped the
assertion of subservience to Napoleon:--
“I ask the intelligent and candid men of this House whether to prevent
the farmers of Vermont from selling their pigs in Canada is calculated
to increase or diminish our essential resources; whether the object
which the President professed to have in view is counteracted by a
traffic of this kind.... I could wish gentlemen would, instead of
bolting at me in the fulness of their rage, endeavor to satisfy my
poor understanding by cool reasoning that they are right; that they
would show me how this measure will prepare us for war; how the
weakening by distressing every part of the country is to increase its
strength and its vigor.”
Had Gardenier stopped there, his argument would have admitted no
answer; but he had the defect of a Federalist temper, and could not
control his tongue.
“Sir, I cannot understand it. I am astonished,--indeed I am astonished
and dismayed. I see effects, but I can trace them to no cause. Yes,
sir, I do fear that there is an unseen hand which is guiding us to the
most dreadful destinies,--unseen because it cannot endure the light.
Darkness and mystery overshadow this House and this whole nation. We
know nothing; we are permitted to know nothing; we sit here as mere
automata; we legislate without knowing--nay, sir, without wishing to
know--why or wherefore. We are told what we are to do, and the Council
of Five Hundred do it. We move, but why or wherefore no man knows. We
are put in motion, but how I for one cannot tell.”
Gardenier was believed to be the author of a letter written during the
secret session, December 19, and published in the “New York Evening
Post,” which began the cry of French influence.[159] His speech of
February 20, insulting to the House, disorderly and seditious, resting
on innuendo but carrying the weight of a positive assertion, outraged
every member of the majority. Even John Randolph had never gone so far
as to charge his opponents with being the willing and conscious tools
of a foreign despot. The House was greatly exasperated, and at the
next session, Monday, February 22, three members--Richard M. Johnson
of Kentucky, George W. Campbell of Tennessee, and John Montgomery of
Maryland--rose successively and declared that Gardenier’s expressions
were a slander, which if not supported by proof made their author an
object of contempt. Gardenier challenged Campbell, and March 2 a duel
took place at Bladensburg. Gardenier was severely wounded, but escaped
with life, while the bitterness of party feeling became more violent
than before.
Yet no member ventured fairly to avow and defend the policy of
non-intercourse as a policy of coercion. Campbell, the leader of the
majority, admitted that the embargo was intended to distress England
and France, but treated it mainly as a measure of defence. No full
and fair discussion of the subject was attempted; and the bill passed
both Houses and was approved by the President March 12, without calling
from the Government a hint in regard to the scope of its policy or
the length of time during which the system of seclusion was to last.
Even Jefferson kept silence upon what was uppermost in his mind, and
defended the embargo on every ground except that which with him, if
with no one else, was strongest. In private he said that the measure
was intended to last until the return of peace in Europe, or as long as
the orders and decrees of England and France should be maintained:--
“Till they return to some sense of moral duty we keep within
ourselves. This gives time. Time may produce peace in Europe; peace
in Europe removes all causes of difference till another European war;
and by that time our debt may be paid, our revenues clear, and our
strength increased.”[160]
With such reasoning the opponents of the embargo were far from pleased.
Nevertheless, Jefferson carried his point, and could for the moment
afford to disregard criticism. His experiment of peaceable coercion
was sure of a trial. His control over Congress seemed absolute. Only
twenty-two members voted against the Supplementary Embargo Act, and in
the Senate no opposition was recorded.
With such influence Jefferson might promise himself success in any
undertaking; and if he had at heart one object more momentous than
the embargo, it was the punishment of Chief-Justice Marshall for
his treatment of Burr. As early as Nov. 5, 1807, Senator Tiffin of
Ohio began his career in the Senate by moving, as an amendment to
the Constitution, that all judges of the United States should hold
office for a term of years, and should be removed by the President on
address by two-thirds of both Houses. Governor Tiffin’s motion was
not an isolated or personal act. The State legislatures were invoked.
Vermont adopted the amendment. The House of Delegates in Virginia,
both branches of the Pennsylvania legislature, the popular branch in
Tennessee, and various other State governments, in whole or in part,
adopted the principle and urged it upon Congress. In the House, George
W. Campbell moved a similar amendment January 30, and from time to time
other senators and members made attempts to bring the subject forward.
In the Senate, Giles aided the attack by bringing in a bill for the
punishment of treason. February 11 he spoke in support of his proposed
measure, advancing doctrines which terrified Democrats as well as
Federalists. Joseph Story was one of his audience, and wrote an account
of this alarming speech:--
“Giles exhibits in his appearance no marks of greatness; he has a dark
complexion and retreating eyes, black hair, and robust form. His dress
is remarkably plain and in the style of Virginia carelessness. Having
broken his leg a year or two since, he uses a crutch, and perhaps this
adds somewhat to the indifference or doubt with which you contemplate
him. But when he speaks, your opinion immediately changes.... I
heard him a day or two since in support of a bill to define treason,
reported by himself. Never did I hear such all-unhinging and terrible
doctrines. He laid the axe at the root of judicial power, and every
stroke might be distinctly felt. His argument was very specious and
forensic, sustained with many plausible principles and adorned with
various political axioms, designed _ad captandum_. One of its objects
was to prove the right of the Legislature to _define_ treason. My
dear friend, look at the Constitution of the United States and see
if any such construction can possibly be allowed!... He attacked
Chief-Justice Marshall with insidious warmth. Among other things he
said, “I have learned that judicial opinions on this subject are like
changeable silks, which vary their colors as they are held up in
political sunshine.””[161]
Had Giles’s proposed definition of treason become law, it would in
another half-century have had singular interest for Virginians of his
school. According to this bill any persons, without exception, “owing
allegiance to the United States of America,” who should assemble with
intent forcibly to change the government of the United States, or to
dismember them or any one of them, or to resist the general execution
of any public law, should suffer death as a traitor; and even though
not personally present at the assemblage or at the use of force, yet
should any person aid or assist in doing any of the acts proscribed,
such person should also suffer death as a traitor.[162] Fortunately
for Southern theories the bill, although it passed the Senate by means
of Southern votes, was lost in the House, where John Randolph had
introduced a bill of his own more moderate in character.[163]
Although the attack on the Supreme Court was more persistent and was
carried further than ever before, it met with passive resistance
which foreshadowed failure, and probably for this reason was allowed
to exhaust its strength in the committee-rooms of Congress. The
chief-justice escaped without a wound. Under the shadow of the embargo
he could watch in security the slow exhaustion of his antagonist.
Jefferson had lost the last chance of reforming the Supreme Court. In
another six months Congress would follow the will of some new Executive
chief; and if in the full tide of Jefferson’s power Marshall had
repeatedly thwarted or defied him with impunity, the chance was small
that another President would meet a happier fate.
The failure of his attack on the Supreme Court was not the only
evidence that Jefferson’s authority when put to the test was more
apparent than real. If in the President’s eyes Marshall deserved
punishment, another offender merited it still more. Senator Smith of
Ohio was deeply implicated in Burr’s conspiracy. The dignity of the
President and of Congress demanded inquiry, and an investigation was
made. The evidence left no reasonable doubt that Smith had been privy
to Burr’s scheme; but the motion to expel him from the Senate failed by
a vote of nineteen to ten, two thirds being required for this purpose.
In the House, John Randolph brought charges against General Wilkinson
which could neither be admitted nor met. The Administration was obliged
to cover and ignore the military scandals brought to light by Burr’s
trial.
Even in regard to more serious matters the Government could hardly feel
secure. In February, Sloan of New Jersey offered a motion that the seat
of government should be removed from Washington to Philadelphia. The
House, February 2, by a vote of sixty-eight to forty-seven, agreed to
consider the resolution, and a debate followed which proved how far
from stable the actual arrangement was supposed to be. Republicans
and Federalists alike assailed the place in which they were condemned
to live. Fifteen million dollars, it was said, had been spent upon it
with no other result than to prove that a city could never be made to
exist there. One day they were choked with dust; the next they were
wallowing in mire. The climate was one of violent changes and piercing
winds. Members sickened and died in greater numbers than ever before,
but in case of illness they could find no physician except by sending
to the navy yard some miles away. At the last session the House had
been driven from its old hall by the wind breaking its windows. The
new hall, however magnificent was unfit for its purpose; to hear was
impossible; its ventilation was so bad as to have caused the illness
of Jacob Crowninshield, one of its leading members, then lying at the
point of death. The prices of everything in Washington were excessive.
Butter was fifty cents a pound; a common turkey cost a dollar and
a half; in Philadelphia members would save one hundred and fifty
dollars a day in hack-hire alone. Even these objections were trifling
compared with the inconvenience of governing from a wilderness where
no machinery existed to make administration easy. As an example of the
absurdities of such a system, members pointed to the navy yard, only to
be reached by following the windings of the shallow Potomac, while the
Navy Department was obliged at extravagant cost to bring every article
of use from the seaboard, besides recruiting seamen at the commercial
ports for every ship fitted out at Washington.
Sloan desisted from his motion only after the House had shown itself
strongly inclined toward his opinion. On another point the divergence
of ideas became more marked, and Jefferson found himself obliged to
strain his influence.
In the Republican party any vote for a standing army had been hitherto
considered a crime. The Federalists in 1801 had left a force of five
thousand men; Jefferson reduced it to three thousand. The Republican
party believed in a militia, but neglected it. Throughout the Southern
States the militia was undisciplined and unarmed; but in Massachusetts,
as President Jefferson was beginning to notice, the Federalists took
much care of their State soldiery. The United States fort at Newport
was garrisoned only by goats, and the strategic line of Lake Champlain
and the Hudson River, which divided New England from the rest of
the Union, lay open to an enemy. In view of war with England such
negligence became wanton. Jefferson saw that an army must be raised;
but many of his truest followers held that militia alone could be
trusted, and that the risk of conquest from abroad was better than the
risk of military despotism at home.
For a people naturally brave, Americans often showed themselves
surprisingly unwilling to depend upon their own strength. To defy
danger, to rush into competition with every foreign rival, to take
risks without number, and to depend wholly on themselves were admitted
characteristics of Americans as individuals; but the same man who, when
left to his own resources, delighted in proving his skill and courage,
when brought within the shadow of government never failed to clamor
for protection. As a political body the American people shrank from
tests of its own capacity. “American systems” of politics, whether
domestic or foreign, were systems for evading competition. The American
system in which the old Republican party believed was remarkable for
avowing want of self-confidence as the foundation of domestic as well
as of foreign policy. The Republican party stood alone in refusing,
on principle, to protect national rights from foreign outrage; but it
defied imitation when the sacrifice of national rights was justified by
the argument that if American liberties were not abandoned to foreign
nations they would be destroyed by the people themselves. War, which
every other nation in history had looked upon as the first duty of
a State, was in America a subject for dread, not so much because of
possible defeat as of probable success. No truer Republican could be
found in Virginia than John W. Eppes, one of Jefferson’s sons-in-law;
and when the House debated in February a Senate bill for adding two
regiments to the regular army, Eppes declared the true Republican
doctrine:[164]--
“If we have war, this increase of the army will be useless; if peace,
I am opposed to it. I am in favor of putting arms into the hands of
our citizens and then let them defend themselves.... If we depend
on regular troops alone, the liberty of the country must finally be
destroyed by that army which is raised to defend it. Is there an
instance in which a nation has lost its liberty by its own citizens in
time of peace? It is by standing armies and very often by men raised
on an emergency and professing virtuous feelings, but who eventually
turned their arms against their country.... I never yet have voted for
a regular army or soldier in time of peace. Whenever an opportunity
has offered I have voted them down; and so help me God! I will as long
as I live.”
One week after Eppes spoke these words, President Jefferson sent to
Congress a Message asking for an immediate addition of six thousand
men to the regular army.[165] No such blow had ever been given to
the established practices of Republican administration. Ten years
before, every leader of the party had denounced the raising of twelve
regiments at a time of actual hostilities with France, although the
law limited their service to the term of the expected war. The eight
regiments demanded by Jefferson were to be raised for five years in
a time of peace. The Southern Republicans saw themselves required to
walk, publicly and avowedly, in the footsteps of their monarchical
predecessors; while John Randolph stood by and jeered at them.
The House waited until Rose had fairly sailed and the session drew near
its end, with embargo fastened upon the country, and no alternative
visible but war; then slowly and unwillingly began its recantations.
April 4 John Clopton of Virginia[166] admitted that in 1798 he had
voted against the army. His excuse for changing his vote was that in
1798 he thought there was no ground for fearing war, while in 1808 he
saw little ground for hoping peace. Yet he voted for the new regiments
only because they were so few; and even in the event of actual war “he
could scarcely imagine that he could be induced to admit the expediency
of increasing the regular forces to a number much greater than they
would be” under the present bill. Clopton was answered by Randolph,
who warmly opposed the new army for the same reasons which had led
him to oppose the old one. Randolph was followed by George M. Troup
of Georgia,--a young man not then so prominent as he was destined to
become, who declared that no one had more confidence than he felt in
militia; but “it is well known that the present defective system of
militia in our quarter of the country at least is good for nothing;”
and a small standing army was not dangerous but necessary, because it
would preserve peace by preparing for war.[167] Smilie of Pennsylvania
added another reason. He argued that John Randolph had favored raising
troops in the year 1805 to protect the Southern frontier “from Spanish
inroad and insult.” Smilie had then opposed the motion and the House
had rejected it, but to Smilie the argument that Randolph had once
favored an increase of the army, seemed decisive.
A much respected member from South Carolina--David R. Williams, one
of Randolph’s friends--then took the floor.[168] He could not bring
himself to vote for the bill, because no half-way measure would
answer. War would require not six but sixty thousand men; defensive
armies were worse than none, either in war or peace. Williams’s
argument was so evidently weak that it failed to convince even Macon,
who had voted against the twelve regiments in 1798, but meant to change
his ground and believed himself able to prove his consistency. In
contradiction to the bill itself he maintained that the new army was
not a peace establishment; that if it were so he would not vote for it.
He condemned the maxim that to preserve peace nations must be prepared
for war, and asserted that no analogy existed between 1798 and 1808,
for that in 1808 America was attacked by foreign powers, while in 1798
she attacked them.[169]
Discordant as these voices were, the debate was the next day enlivened
by a discord more entertaining. Richard Stanford of North Carolina,
one of the oldest members of the House, a close ally of Randolph,
Macon, and Williams, made a speech which troubled the whole body of
Southern Republicans.[170] Stanford voted for the twelve regiments in
1798, but like the majority of Republicans he did so in deference to
a party caucus, in order to ward off the danger of a larger force. He
said it was the only Federalist vote he ever gave, and he promised
his friends never again to be caught in the same mistake. With candor
intended to irritate, he arrayed the occasions on which his party
had refused to increase the military establishment: first, in a state
of actual hostilities in 1798; again, when Spain defied and insulted
the government in 1805; still again, on the brink of a Spanish war
during Burr’s conspiracy in 1806. He quoted Jefferson’s first Inaugural
Address, which counted among the essential principles of the government
“a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the
first moments of war till regulars may relieve them;” and the Annual
Message of 1806, which said, “Were armies to be raised whenever a speck
of war is visible in our horizon, we never should have been without
them; our resources would have been exhausted on dangers which have
never happened, instead of being reserved for what is really to take
place.” He quoted also pungent resolutions of 1798, speeches of Eppes
and Wilson Cary Nicholas, of Varnum and Gallatin; he showed the amount
of patronage once abolished but restored by this bill; and when at last
he sat down, the Southern members were ruffled until even Macon lost
his temper.
Soon John Randolph rose again, and if Stanford’s speech was
exasperating in its candor, Randolph’s was stinging in its
sarcasm.[171] He treated the new defensive system with ridicule.
The Navy Department, he said, had dwindled to a Gunboat Department.
Congress built gunboats to protect shipping and coasts, and built forts
to protect gunboats. The army was equally feeble; and both were at
odds with the embargo:--
“When the great American tortoise draws in his head you do not see
him trotting along; he lies motionless on the ground; it is when the
fire is put on his back that he makes the best of his way, and not
till then. The system of embargo is one system, withdrawing from every
contest, quitting the arena, flying the pit. The system of raising
troops and fleets of whatever sort is another and opposite to that
dormant state.... They are at war with each other, and cannot go on
together.”
Even if not inconsistent with the embargo, the army was still useless:--
“My worthy friend from Georgia has said that the tigress, prowling for
food for her young, may steal upon you in the night. I would as soon
attempt to fence a tiger out of my plantation with a four-railed fence
as to fence out the British navy with this force.”
Randolph ventured even to ridicule the State of Virginia which was said
to demand an army:--
“My friend and worthy colleague tells us that the State of Virginia,
so much opposed to armies, has now got to the war pitch so far as
to want one regiment for the defence of half a million of souls
and seventy thousand square miles.... Yes, sir; the legislature of
Virginia, my parent State, of whom I cannot speak with disrespect,
nor will I suffer any man worth my resentment to speak of her with
disrespect in my hearing, has been earned away by the military mania,
and they want one regiment!”
Yet Randolph approved the embargo as little as he liked the army and
navy.
“I am not one of those who approve the embargo,” he said in another
speech.[172] “It gives up to Great Britain all the seamen and all the
commerce,--their feet are not now upon your decks, for your vessels
are all riding safely moored along your slips and wharves; and this
measure absolutely gives Agriculture a blow which she cannot recover
till the embargo is removed. What has become of your fisheries? Some
gentleman has introduced a proposition for buying their fish to
relieve the fishermen. Indeed, I would much sooner assent to buying
their fish than to raising these troops, except indeed we are raising
the troops to eat the fish.”
Randolph broke into shrill laughter at his own joke, delighted with the
idea of six thousand armed men paid to eat the fish that were rotting
on the wharves at Gloucester and Marblehead.
Keenly as Randolph enjoyed the pleasure of ridiculing his colleagues
and friends, he could expect to gain no votes. George W. Campbell and
the other Administration speakers admitted that the embargo might
yield to war and that an army had become necessary. Even Eppes had the
courage to defy ridicule, and in full recollection of having vowed to
God February 17 that as long as he lived he would vote down a regular
army, he rose April 7 to support the bill for raising eight regiments:--
“I consider it as part of the system designed to meet the present
crisis in our affairs.... The period must arrive when the embargo
will be a greater evil than war. When that period shall arrive it will
be taken off.”[173]
On the same day the bill passed by a vote of ninety-five to sixteen,
and the Republican party found itself poorer by the loss of one more
traditional principle. Events were hurrying the Government toward
dangers which the party had believed to be preventable under the
system invented by Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1804 Jefferson
wrote to Madison: “It is impossible that France and England should
combine to any purpose.”[174] The impossible had happened, and every
practice founded on the theory of mutual jealousy between European
Powers became once more a subject of dispute. On the day of Rose’s
departure Jefferson, abandoning the secrecy in which until that moment
he had wrapped his diplomacy, sent to Congress a mass of diplomatic
correspondence with England and France, running back to the year 1804.
A few days later, March 30, he sent a secret message accompanied by
documents which gave to Congress, with little exception, everything of
importance that had passed between the governments. Only one subject
was kept back:--the tenebrous negotiation for Florida remained secret.
From these documents Congress could see that the time for talking of
theories of peace and friendship or of ordinary commercial interests
had passed. Violence and rapine marked every page of the latest
correspondence. February 23 Erskine had at last notified the Government
officially of the existence and purpose of the Orders in Council. His
note repeated the words of Canning’s instructions.[175] After asserting
that America had submitted to the French Decrees, and had thereby
warranted England in forbidding if she pleased all American commerce
with France, Erskine pointed out that the Orders in Council, by not
prohibiting but limiting this commerce, gave proof of his Majesty’s
amicable disposition. The Americans might still transport French and
Spanish colonial produce to England, and re-export it to the continent
of Europe under certain regulations:--
“The object of these regulations will be the establishment of such a
protecting duty as shall prevent the enemy from obtaining the produce
of his own colonies at a cheaper rate than that of the colonies of
Great Britain. In this duty it is evident that America is no otherwise
concerned than as being to make an advance to that amount, for which
it is in her power amply to indemnify herself at the expense of the
foreign consumer.”
Further, the orders licensed the importation through England into
France of all strictly American produce, except cotton, without paying
duty in transit:--
“The reason why his Majesty could not feel himself at liberty,
consistent with what was necessary for the execution of his purpose
in any tolerable degree, to allow this relaxation to apply to cotton
is to be found in the great extent to which France has pushed the
manufacture of that article, and the consequent embarrassment upon
her trade which a heavy import upon cotton as it passes through Great
Britain to France must necessarily produce.”
Erskine’s note claimed credit for England because the orders were not
abruptly enforced, but allowed time for neutrals to understand and
conform to them. The concluding sentences were intended to soothe the
suffering merchants:--
“The right of his Majesty to resort to retaliation cannot be
questioned. The suffering occasioned to neutral parties is incidental,
and not of his Majesty’s seeking. In the exercise of this undoubted
right, his Majesty has studiously endeavored to avoid aggravating
unnecessarily the inconveniences suffered by the neutral; and I am
commanded by his Majesty especially to represent to the Government
of the United States the earnest desire of his Majesty to see the
commerce of the world restored once more to that freedom which is
necessary for its prosperity; and his readiness to abandon the system
which has been forced upon him whenever the enemy shall retract the
principles which have rendered it necessary.”
From this note--a model of smooth-spoken outrage--Congress could
understand that until the King of England should make other regulations
American commerce was to be treated as subject to the will and interest
of Great Britain. At the same moment Congress was obliged to read a
letter from Champagny to Armstrong, dated Jan. 15, 1808, in defence
of the Berlin and Milan Decrees.[176] Written in words dictated by
Napoleon, this letter asserted rude truths which irritated Americans
the more because they could not be denied:--
“The United States, more than any other Power, have to complain of
the aggressions of England. It has not been enough for her to offend
against the independence of their flag,--nay, against that of their
territory and of their inhabitants,--by attacking them even in their
ports, by forcibly carrying away their crews; her decrees of the 11th
November have made a fresh attack on their commerce and on their
navigation as they have done on those of all other Powers.
“In the situation in which England has placed the Continent,
especially since her decrees of the 11th November, his Majesty has
no doubt of a declaration of war against her by the United States.
Whatever transient sacrifices war may occasion, they will not believe
it consistent either with their interest or dignity to acknowledge the
monstrous principle and the anarchy which that government wishes to
establish on the seas. If it be useful and honorable for all nations
to cause the true maritime law of nations to be re-established, and
to avenge the insults committed by England against every flag, it is
indispensable for the United States, who from the extent of their
commerce have oftener to complain of those violations. War exists
then in fact between England and the United States; and his Majesty
considers it as declared from the day on which England published her
decrees.”
Two such letters could hardly have been written to the chief of an
independent people and submitted to a free legislature in Europe
without producing a convulsion. Patient as Congress was, the temper
excited by Champagny’s letter obliged the President, April 2,
to withdraw the injunction of secrecy after the House had twice
rejected a motion to do so without his permission; but the motive
of the Federalists in publishing Champagny’s letter was not so much
to resent it as to divert popular anger from England to France. No
outburst of national self-respect followed the appearance of the two
letters. During the next week the House debated and passed the bill
for raising the army to ten thousand men, but on all sides the friends
and opponents of the measure equally deprecated war. The report of a
special committee in the Senate, April 16, expressed on that point the
general feeling of Congress:[177]--
“With respect to a resort to war as a remedy for the evils
experienced, the committee will offer no other reflection than that
it is in itself so great an evil that the United States have wisely
considered peace and honest neutrality as the best foundation of their
general policy. It is not for the committee to say under what degree
of aggravated injuries and sufferings a departure from this policy
may become a duty, and the most pacific nation find itself compelled
to exchange for the calamities of war the greater distresses of
longer forbearance. In the present state of things the committee
cannot recommend any departure from that policy which withholds our
commercial and agricultural property from the licensed depredations
of the great maritime belligerent Powers. They hope that an adherence
to this policy will eventually secure to us the blessings of peace
without any sacrifice of our national rights; and they have no
doubt that it will be supported by all the manly virtue which the
good people of the United States have ever discovered on great and
patriotic occasions.”
The Senate passed a bill authorizing the President during the recess to
suspend the embargo in whole or in part if in his judgment the conduct
of the belligerent Powers should render suspension safe. After a hot
debate, chiefly on the constitutionality of the measure, it passed the
House, and April 22 became law. April 25 the session ended.
As the result of six months’ labor, Congress could show besides the
usual routine legislation a number of Acts which made an epoch in
the history of the Republican party. First came the Embargo, its two
Supplements, and the Act empowering the President to suspend it at
will. Next came the series of appropriation Acts which authorized
the President to spend in all four million dollars in excess of the
ordinary expenditures,--for gunboats, eight hundred and fifty thousand
dollars; for land fortifications, one million; for five new regiments
of infantry, one of riflemen, one of light artillery, and one of light
dragoons, two million dollars; and two hundred thousand dollars for
arming the militia. Such progress toward energy was more rapid than
could have been expected from a party like that which Jefferson had
educated and which he still controlled.
FOOTNOTES:
[159] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1251, _n._
[160] Jefferson to John Taylor, Jan. 6, 1808; Works, v. 226.
[161] Story’s Life and Letters of Joseph Story, i. 158-159.
[162] Bill for the Punishment of Treason and other crimes; Annals of
Congress, 1807-1808, p. 108.
[163] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1717.
[164] Annals of Congress, Feb. 17, 1808; Thirteenth Congress, pp. 1627,
1631.
[165] Message of Feb. 25, 1808; Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1691.
[166] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1901.
[167] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1916.
[168] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1922.
[169] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1937.
[170] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1939.
[171] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1959.
[172] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 2037.
[173] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 2049.
[174] Jefferson to Madison, Aug. 15, 1804; Works, iv. 557.
[175] Erskine to Madison, Feb. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 209.
[176] Champagny to Armstrong, Jan. 15, 1808; State Papers, iii. 248.
[177] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 364.