November 8 President Jefferson sent to Congress his last Annual
Message, and with it the correspondence of Pinkney and Armstrong.
Intent as the public was upon foreign affairs alone, the Message had
no further interest than as it dealt with the question of embargo;
but Jefferson showed that he had lost none of his old dexterity, for
he succeeded in giving to his words the appearance of conveying no
opinion:--
“Under a continuance of the belligerent measures which, in defiance
of laws which consecrate the rights of neutrals, overspread the ocean
with danger, it will rest with the wisdom of Congress to decide on
the course best adapted to such a state of things; and bringing
with them as they do from every part of the Union the sentiments
of our constituents, my confidence is strengthened that in forming
this decision they will, with an unerring regard to the rights and
interests of the nation, weigh and compare the painful alternatives
out of which a choice is to be made. Nor should I do justice to the
virtues which on other occasions have marked the character of our
fellow-citizens, if I did not cherish an equal confidence that the
alternative chosen, whatever it may be, will be maintained with all
the fortitude and patriotism which the crisis ought to inspire.”
The favorite assumption that Congress, not the Executive, directed
the national policy served again to veil Jefferson’s wishes, but in
this instance with some reason; for no one was ignorant that a strong
party in Congress meant if possible to take the decision out of the
President’s hands. Only by the phrase “painful alternatives” did he
hint an opinion, for every one knew that by this phrase he aimed
at narrowing the choice of Congress between embargo and war. One
other paragraph suggested that his own choice would favor continued
commercial restrictions:--
“The situation into which we have thus been forced has impelled us to
apply a portion of our industry and capital to internal manufactures
and improvements. The extent of this conversion is daily increasing,
and little doubt remains that the establishments formed and forming
will--under the auspices of cheaper material and subsistence, the
freedom of labor from taxation with us, and of protecting duties and
prohibitions--become permanent.”
Not only the Message but also the language, still more emphatic,
of private letters showed that Jefferson had become a convert to
manufactures and protected industries. “My idea is that we should
encourage home manufactures,” he said,[315] “to the extent of our
own consumption of everything of which we raise the raw material.”
This avowal did much to increase the ill-will of New England,
where Jefferson’s hostility to foreign commerce as a New England
interest was believed to be inveterate and deadly; but the anger of
Massachusetts and Connecticut at the wound thus threatened to their
commerce and shipping could not exceed the perplexity of Southern
Republicans, who remembered that Jefferson in 1801 promised them “a
wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring
one another; which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their
own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from
the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Not only manufactures
but also internal improvements were to become a chief object of
governmental regulation to an extent which no Federalist had ever
suggested. The absolute prohibition of foreign manufactures was to go
hand in hand with a magnificent scheme of public works. In the actual
state of public affairs,--without revenue and on the verge of war with
France and England,--Jefferson exposed himself to ridicule by alluding
to a surplus; years were to pass before the employment of surplus
revenue was to become a practical question in American politics, and
long before it rose Jefferson had reverted to his old theories of “a
wise and frugal government;” but in 1808, as President, he welcomed
any diversion which enabled him to avoid the need of facing the
spectre of war.
“The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue,” he said,
“whenever the freedom and safety of our commerce shall be restored,
merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in
the public vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? Or shall it not
rather be appropriated to the improvements of roads, canals, rivers,
education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union, under
the powers which Congress may already possess, or such amendments of
the Constitution as may be approved by the States?”
The whole meaning of this paragraph was explained by other documents.
March 2, 1807, the Senate adopted a Resolution calling upon the
President for a plan of internal improvements. April 4, 1808,
Gallatin made an elaborate Report, which sketched a great scheme of
public works. Canals were to be cut through Cape Cod, New Jersey,
Delaware, and from Norfolk to Albemarle Sound,--thus creating an
internal water-way nearly the whole length of the coast. Four great
Eastern rivers--the Susquehanna, Potomac, James, and Santee, or
Savannah--were to be opened to navigation from tide-water to the
highest practicable points, and thence to be connected by roads with
four corresponding Western rivers,--the Alleghany, Monongahela,
Kanawha, and Tennessee,--wherever permanent navigation could be
depended upon. Other canals were to connect Lake Champlain and Lake
Ontario with the Hudson River; to pass round Niagara and the falls of
the Ohio; and to connect other important points. A turnpike road was
to be established from Maine to Georgia along the coast. To carry out
these schemes Congress was to pledge two million dollars of the annual
surplus for ten years in advance; and the twenty millions thus spent
might be partly or wholly replaced by selling to private corporations
the canals and turnpikes as they should become productive; or the
public money might at the outset be loaned to private corporations for
purposes of construction.
A national university was intended to crown a scheme so extensive in
its scope that no European monarch, except perhaps the Czar, could
have equalled its scale. Jefferson cherished it as his legacy to
the nation,--the tangible result of his “visionary” statesmanship.
Five years afterward he still spoke of it as “the fondest wish of
his heart,” and declared that “so enviable a state in prospect for
our country induced me to temporize and to bear with national wrongs
which under no other prospect ought ever to have been unresented or
unresisted.”[316] Even in the close presence of bankruptcy or war he
could not lay aside his hopes, or abstain from pressing his plan upon
the attention of Congress at the moment when the last chance of its
success had vanished.
The contrast between the President’s sanguine visions and the reality
was made the more striking by Gallatin’s Annual Report, sent to
Congress a few days later. The President spoke for the Administration
that was passing away, while Gallatin represented the Administration
to come. That the secretary leaned toward war was notorious, and that
he was Madison’s chief adviser, perhaps to be the head of his Cabinet,
was known or suspected by the men who stood nearest to the Secretary
of State, and who studied Gallatin’s Report as though it were
Madison’s first Annual Message. The more carefully it was studied, the
more distinctly it took the character of a War Budget.
Receipts from customs had stopped, but the accrued revenue of 1807
had brought nearly eighteen million dollars into the Treasury; and
sixteen millions would remain to supply the wants of Government at the
close of the year 1808. Of this sum the ordinary annual appropriations
would consume thirteen millions. Starting from this point, Gallatin
discussed the financial effect of the alternatives which lay before
Congress. The first was that of total or partial submission to the
belligerents; “and as, in pursuing that humble path, means of defence
will become unnecessary,--as there will be no occasion for either an
army or a navy,--it is believed that there would be no difficulty in
reducing the public expenditures to a rate corresponding with the
fragments of impost which might still be collected.” The second choice
of measures was to continue the embargo without war; and in this case
the government might be supported for two years with no greater effort
than that of borrowing five million dollars. Finally, Congress might
declare war against one or both of the belligerents, and in that
event Gallatin asked only leave to contract loans. Persons familiar
with the history of the Republican party, and with the career of
its leaders when in opposition, could not but wonder that Gallatin
should ask leave to create a new funded debt for purposes of war. To
reconcile the inconsistency Gallatin once more argued that experience
proved debt to be less dangerous than had ten years before been
supposed:--
“The high price of public stocks and indeed of all species of stocks,
the reduction of the public debt, the unimpaired credit of the
general government, and the large amount of existing bank-stock in
the United States leave no doubt of the practicability of obtaining
the necessary loans on reasonable terms. The geographical situation
of the United States, their history since the Revolution, and above
all present events remove every apprehension of frequent wars. It
may therefore be confidently expected that a revenue derived solely
from duties on importations, though necessarily impaired by war, will
always be amply sufficient during long intervals of peace not only to
defray current expenses, but also to reimburse the debt contracted
during the few periods of war. No internal taxes, either direct or
indirect, are therefore contemplated, even in the case of hostilities
carried on against the two great belligerent Powers.”
Such language was an invitation to war. Gallatin carried courage
as far as the President carried caution. While Jefferson talked of
surpluses and deprecated “painful alternatives,” his Secretary of the
Treasury invited Congress to declare war against the two greatest
Powers in the world, and promised to support it without imposing a
single internal tax.
Madison, upon whose decision even more than on that of Congress
the future policy of the Government depended, would not express
an emphatic opinion. A glimpse of the chaos that prevailed in
the Executive Department was given in a letter from Macon to
Nicholson,[317] written December 4, after Macon had offered
Resolutions in the House looking to a persistence in the system of
embargo and peaceable coercion:--
“Gallatin is most decidedly for war, and I think that the
Vice-President [Clinton] and W. C. Nicholas are of the same opinion.
It is said that the President [Jefferson] gives no opinion as to the
measures that ought to be adopted. It is not known whether he be
for war or peace. It is reported that Mr. Madison is for the plan
which I have submitted, with the addition of high protecting duties
to encourage the manufacturers of the United States. I am as much
against war as Gallatin is in favor of it. Thus I have continued in
Congress till there is not one of my old fellow-laborers that agrees
with me in opinion.”
Indecision ruled everywhere at Washington down to the close of the
year. Jefferson would say nothing at all; Madison would say nothing
decisive;[318] and Gallatin struggled in vain to give a show of
character to the Government. December 29 one of the Massachusetts
representatives wrote to a correspondent the details of the
secretary’s plan:[319]--
“Yesterday I spent an hour with Mr. Gallatin, when he unfolded to me
his plan,--a plan which he thinks will finally prevail. It is this:
That we immediately pass a non-intercourse Act to take effect, say,
June 1 next; and as the bill now reads, that it become null toward
that Power which may relax. Send out the Act forthwith to England and
to France, together with an Act raising the embargo partially, say,
at the same time, and arming, or granting letters of marque, etc.
These being made known to Great Britain and France, it is expected
that the obstinate Emperor will not alter his course, but it is
expected that Great Britain, when she finds the stand we deliberately
take,--that we have no rebellion; that Madison and a majority of
Democrats are chosen; and that we shall be fighting a common enemy
(France) with her,--and when she finds that we intend living without
dishonorable purchases of her goods, etc., will study her interest
and relax.”
The same day Gallatin wrote confidentially to Nicholson, describing
the extreme anxieties he felt:[320]--
“Never was I so overwhelmed with public business. That would be
nothing if we went right; but a great confusion and perplexity reign
in Congress. Mr. Madison is, as I always knew him, slow in taking his
ground, but firm when the storm arises. What I had foreseen has taken
place. A majority will not adhere to the embargo much longer, and if
war be not speedily determined on, submission will soon ensue.”
Joseph Story two days afterward wrote a more exact account of the
distraction which prevailed at the White House.
“The Administration are desirous of peace,” wrote Story,[321] in
confidence, December 31. “They believe that we must suffer much from
war; they are satisfied, even now, that if the embargo could be
continued for one year our rights would be acknowledged were our own
citizens only true to their own interests. They deem this continuance
impracticable, and therefore are of opinion that after midsummer
the plan must be abandoned; and war will then ensue unless the
belligerents abandon their aggressions.”
The chaos prevailing in the White House was order compared with the
condition of Congress; and there again Gallatin was forced to guide.
After listening November 8 to the President’s serene Message, the
House three days later referred the paragraphs concerning foreign
Powers to a committee with G. W. Campbell at its head. Campbell
probably consulted Madison, and his instance doubtless caused the
fruitless appeal of November 15, through Gallatin, to Jefferson.
Failing to obtain guidance from the President, Gallatin wrote a
Report, which was probably approved by Madison, and which Campbell
presented November 22 to the House. For clearness and calmness of
statement this paper, famous in its day as “Campbell’s Report,”[322]
has never been surpassed in the political literature of the United
States; but the rigorous logic of its conclusions terrified men who
could not refute and would not accept them:--
“What course ought the United States to pursue? Your committee can
perceive no other alternative but abject and degrading submission,
war with both nations, or a continuance and enforcement of the
present suspension of commerce.
“The first cannot require any discussion; but the pressure of the
embargo, so sensibly felt, and the calamities inseparable from
a state of war, naturally create a wish that some middle course
might be discovered which should avoid the evils of both and not be
inconsistent with national honor and independence. That illusion must
be dissipated; and it is necessary that the people of the United
States should fully understand the situation in which they are placed.
“There is no other alternative but war with both parties or
a continuance of the present system. For war with one of the
belligerents only would be submission to the edicts and will of
the other; and a repeal, in whole or in part, of the embargo must
necessarily be war or submission.”
To Federalists these stern truths were not wholly unwelcome, since
they brought to an issue the whole policy, domestic and foreign, which
for eight years the Federalist party had never ceased to condemn; but
to Republicans, who were equally responsible with the President for
the policy which ended in Gallatin’s alternative, the harshness of the
choice was intolerable. They felt that the embargo must be abandoned;
but they felt still more strongly that the double war was ruin. In
vain Gallatin tried in his Treasury Report to persuade them that to
fight the two nations was a practicable task. Congress writhed and
rebelled.
Campbell’s report closed by recommending three Resolutions as common
ground on which all parties could take their stand, whether for war or
embargo. The first declared that the United States could not, without
a sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the
edicts of Great Britain and France. The second declared the expediency
of excluding from the United States the ships and the products of all
Powers which maintained these edicts in force. The third recommended
immediate preparations for defence.
The Federalists were eager for attack; and when, November 28, Campbell
called up the first of his Resolutions for debate, Josiah Quincy
fell upon it with violence not easily forgotten, and doubtless meant
to strengthen the general belief that New England would control her
passions no longer.
“The course advocated in that Report is in my opinion loathsome,” he
said; “the spirit it breathes disgraceful; the temper it is likely to
inspire neither calculated to regain the rights we have lost, nor to
preserve those which remain to us.”
Assuming that the Report was made in the interest of embargo, and that
it foreshadowed the permanence of the anti-commercial system, he met
it by threats of insurrection and civil war, expressed in the same
breath with which they were disavowed:--
“Good Heavens! Mr. Chairman, are men mad? Is this House touched with
that insanity which is the never-failing precursor of the intention
of Heaven to destroy? The people of New England, after eleven months’
deprivation of the ocean, to be commanded still longer to abandon
it! for an undefined period to hold their unalienable rights at
the tenure of the will of Britain or of Bonaparte!... I am lost in
astonishment, Mr. Chairman. I have not words to express the matchless
absurdity of this attempt. I have no tongue to express the swift and
headlong destruction which a blind perseverance in such a system must
bring upon this nation.... This embargo must be repealed. You cannot
enforce it for any important period of time longer. When I speak of
your inability to enforce this law, let not gentlemen misunderstand
me. I mean not to intimate insurrection or open defiance of them;
although it is impossible to foresee in what acts that oppression
will finally terminate which, we are told, makes wise men mad.”
Nature gave the ocean to New England, “and among a people thus
situated, thus educated, thus numerous, laws prohibiting them from
the exercise of their natural rights will have a binding effect not
one moment longer than the public sentiment supports them.”
Always assuming that the talk of war covered the plan of retaining the
embargo, Quincy allowed himself to encourage warlike ideas much more
recklessly than suited some of his party friends. He ventured to goad
the majority toward a decision which of all possible results was most
disliked by the Federalists of New England:--
“Take no counsel of fears. Your strength will increase with the
trial, and prove greater than you are now aware. But I shall be told
this may lead to war. I ask, Are we now at peace? Certainly not,
unless retiring from insult be peace, unless shrinking under the
lash be peace. The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it. The
idea that nothing on earth is so dreadful as war is inculcated too
studiously among us. Disgrace is worse. Abandonment of essential
rights is worse.”
Whatever Quincy might have been willing to accept, the party to which
he belonged wanted no war except with France, while the Republicans
were opposed to war in any shape. John Randolph did indeed hint at the
use of force, but Randolph’s opinion was never for two days the same.
Philip Barton Key of Maryland, as vehement a Federalist as Quincy,
also advised a policy which could lead only to war:--
“I would let our vessels go out armed for resistance, and if they
were interfered with I would make the _dernier_ appeal. We are able
and willing to resist; and when the moment arrives, there will be but
one heart and one hand throughout the Union.”
The sentiment was patriotic; but as though expressly to prove how
little it could be trusted, Barent Gardenier rose to say, in emphatic
and unqualified terms, that England was wholly in the right, and
that from the first the American government had aimed at provoking
war.[323] Gardenier’s views were those of a majority of Federalists,
and in the end were adopted by the party. Quincy’s blindness to
the serious danger of war cost him the confidence of more cautious
conservatives.
On the opposite side, the Republicans seemed for the most part fairly
cowed by the vigor with which the Federalists defied the embargo and
war at once. Nothing in American history offered a more interesting
illustration of the first stage of the national character than the
open avowals by Congress in 1808 of motives closely akin to fear.
America as a nation could run no serious military peril, even though
she declared war on England and France at once. The worst military
disaster that could happen would be a bombardment or temporary
occupation of some seaboard city; the most terrible punishment within
the range of possibility was the burning of a few small wooden towns
which could be rebuilt in three months, and whose destruction implied
no necessary loss of life. Neither England nor France had armies
to spare for permanent conquest in America; but so thoroughly had
the theory of peaceable coercion taken possession of the national
character that men of courage appealed to motives such as in a private
dispute they would have thought degrading.
“The gentleman talked of resistance, and resistance on sea,” said
Willis Alston of North Carolina, in reply to Quincy.[324] “Did any
one believe that he seriously meant meeting the powerful navy of
Great Britain on the sea,--of that Britain who had been emphatically
styled ‘the mistress of the ocean,’ and who was ‘fighting for the
liberties of the world and of mankind’? No, sir; nothing of the
kind is meant. Submission to her orders would be the inevitable
consequence of the gentleman’s resistance, and finally a loss of
everything dear to the American character,--a loss of our liberty and
independence as a free people.”
As though one such admission were not enough, Alston obstinately
recurred to it. “An idea of that sort of resistance is too idle to
merit serious consideration.” That Willis Alston was a man of no great
distinction might be true; but such expressions were not confined to
him. Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, as brave a man as lived, could
not face the idea of war:--
“At the most alarming crisis that ever convulsed the political
world, when empires and kingdoms have changed with the season, and
America, buffeted on every side, has maintained the ground of perfect
neutrality, this nation should make a pause on this high eminence
before they plunge into the dread conflict.”
A nation which had never yet moved a muscle could hardly “make a
pause;” but even if Colonel Johnson’s figures had been more correct,
the sentiment was in his mouth unexpected, for in Kentucky gentlemen
“buffeted on every side” were not supposed to pause. Still more
remarkable was the language of Troup of Georgia--“the hot-headed
Georgian,” as Jefferson afterward called him, who twenty years later
challenged a civil war, but who in 1808 was even more anxious than
Johnson to pause on the high eminence where he was buffeted on every
side.
“Permission to arm,” he said,[325] “is tantamount to a declaration
of war; and the people of this country want peace as long as they
can preserve it with honor. And do you think, sir, we are ready
to plunge into a ruinous war, naked and unarmed, to gratify a few
bankrupt commercial speculators? It is easy to declare war; it is
more difficult under present circumstances to maintain peace; and it
is most difficult of all to wage a successful war. Sir, beware! It
is the object of the gentleman from Massachusetts and his friends to
lead you step by step into a war, and if he can into an unpopular
war, which the moment you cease to conduct with effect you are
ruined, and he and his friends are exalted; ... and, sir, the moment
this party ceases to rule, republicanism is gone, and with it the
hopes of all good men forever.”
Apart from the picture of American jealousies, Troup’s remarks offered
an interesting example of the ideas then held in regard to national
honor. No one made the obvious retort that a nation which preserved
peace by tolerating insults like those inflicted by Champagny and
Canning had best say nothing of its honor. The fiction of pride was
still kept up, though members descended to appeals which seemed
to imply physical fear. Madison’s brother-in-law, John G. Jackson,
admitted himself to be cowed by Canning’s brutality.
“The fires lighted up in Copenhagen,” said he,[326] “are scarcely
extinguished; they are yet glowing before us in imagination at least.
And we ought to recollect that if we do not submit, it is war; if we
do submit, it is tribute; and if we have war, our towns will share
the fate of fortified Copenhagen, unless we strengthen and fortify
them.”
On such reasoning, submission and tribute alone were possible, since
fortifications which had failed to protect Copenhagen were little
likely to protect Norfolk or New York. Macon joined in the same cry:
“We have enough of the necessaries of life to make us content, and
there is no nation in the world at this time that enjoys more of the
luxuries of Europe and of the East and West Indies than we do,--in a
word, none that enjoys more of the good things of this world.”
The spectacle of simple and hardy Speaker Macon in his homespun
suit enjoying all the luxuries of Europe and the farthest East,
while Pinkney and Armstrong paid for them in the spoils of American
merchants, was quaintly humorous; but no one felt its sting of satire.
Even the typical South Carolinian, David R. Williams,--a man second to
none in courage and independence of character,--wished to hide behind
the embargo for fear of war:--
“I see no other honorable course in which peace can be maintained.
Take whatever other project has been hinted at and war inevitably
results. While we can procrastinate the miseries of war, I am for
procrastinating. We thereby gain the additional advantage of waiting
the events in Europe. The true interests of this country can be found
only in peace. Among many other important considerations, remember
that the moment you go to war you may bid adieu to every prospect of
discharging the national debt.”[327]
The Secretary of the Treasury had only a month before officially
asserted the contrary; but any excuse for avoiding war seemed to
satisfy the House. From the beginning to the end of this long and
ardent debate not one member from any quarter of the Union ventured
to say--what every man in the United States would have said ten years
later--that after the formal and fixed decisions of France and England
war existed in fact and should be declared in form.
With all John Randolph’s waywardness and extravagance, he alone
shone among this mass of mediocrities, and like the water-snakes in
Coleridge’s silent ocean his every track was a flash of golden fire.
At moments he struck passionately at his own favorite companions--at
Macon and Williams--as he struck at Jefferson. The steady decline
of public spirit stung his pride. “It was in that fatal session of
1805-1806 that the policy of yielding to anything that might come
in the shape of insult and aggression was commenced. The result was
then foretold. It has happened.”[328] Speaker after speaker revelled
in narrating the long list of insults and outrages which America had
endured in patience.
“The House will pardon me,” said Randolph,[329] “if I forbear a
minute recapitulation of the wrongs which we have received not only
from the two great belligerents of Europe, but from the little
belligerents also. I cannot, like Shylock, take a pleasure in saying,
‘On such a day you called me dog; on such a day you spit upon my
gabardine.’”
Yet Randolph himself fell naturally into the habits at which he
sneered; and his wit alone raised him above the common level of
Congressmen. However happily he might ridicule the timidity and
awkwardness of others, he never advanced a positive opinion of his
own without repudiating it the moment he was taken at his word. “I
would scuffle for commerce,” he said;[330] and the phrase was itself
unworthy of a proud people like the Virginians; but when Campbell
tried to force from him a pledge to stand by the Government in
asserting the national rights, Randolph declined to gratify him.
Of all the speakers, George Washington Campbell--the reputed author of
the Report--alone took a tone which might almost be called courageous;
but even Campbell thought more of tactics than of dignity. He
admitted that the object of his Report was to unite the party on
common ground; but he dared not say whether this common ground was
to be embargo or war; he did not even say--what must have been in
his mind--that the Government had exhausted alternatives. His chief
effort seemed rather to be directed toward making a dilemma for the
Federalists:--
“Are they determined to vindicate the rights and independence of
their country? If they are, we wish to know in what manner. If they
are not willing to pursue the measures of resistance we propose, of a
total interdiction of intercourse with those Powers, will they assume
a higher ground? Will they prefer war? If they do, this is one of the
alternatives presented in the Report. We wish to know what measures
they are willing to adopt for the safety of the nation. The crisis
is awful. The time has come to unite the people of America. We join
issue with the gentlemen as to a temporizing policy. We have not,--we
will not now temporize. We say there is no middle course. We are in
the first place for cutting off all intercourse with those Powers
who trample on our rights. If that will not prove effectual, we say
take the last alternative, war, with all its calamities, rather than
submission or national degradation.”
The most interesting part of Campbell’s speech was his awkward
admission that peaceable coercion had failed. Such an admission was
equivalent to avowing that the Republican party had failed, but
Campbell stumbled as he best could through this mortifying confession.
“We could not foresee,” he said,[331] “that the Governments of those
Powers would not regard the distress and sufferings of their own
people; that France would suffer her West Indian colonies to be
almost desolated with famine, and to be compelled to apply to their
inveterate enemy to save them from actual starvation rather than
revoke her decrees; nor could we know that the Government of Great
Britain would be regardless of the complaints and representations of
her manufacturers and a respectable portion of her merchants; that it
would lend a deaf ear to the hungry cries of the starving mechanics,
and silence their just and loud complaints with the thunder of their
murdering guns, and quench their hunger with a shower of balls
instead of bread. We cannot be culpable for not anticipating such
events.”
Yet for twenty years the Federalists had wearied the country with
prophecies of these disappointments which Campbell and his Republican
friends said they could not be expected to foresee. Jefferson had
persisted in acting on the theory that he could enforce national
rights by peaceable means; had staked his reputation, after long
and varied experience, on the soundness of this doctrine which
his political opponents denied; and suddenly, on its failure, his
followers pleaded that they could not be held culpable for failing to
anticipate what their political opponents had steadily foretold. The
confession of such an oversight was more fatal than all the sneers of
Randolph and the taunts of Quincy.
There Congress for the moment stopped. The debate--which began
November 28 and lasted till December 17--ended in the adoption of
Campbell’s first Resolution by a vote of one hundred and eighteen
to two; of the second by eighty-four to thirty; and of the third
without opposition. Nothing was decided; and the year closed leaving
Congress, as Gallatin told his friend Nicholson, in “great confusion
and perplexity.”
FOOTNOTES:
[315] Jefferson to Colonel Humphreys, Jan. 20, 1809; to Mr. Leiper,
Jan. 21, 1809; Works, v. 415, 416.
[316] Jefferson to Eppes, Sept. 11, 1813; Works, vi. 194.
[317] Macon to Joseph H. Nicholson, Dec. 4, 1808; Adams’s Gallatin, p.
384.
[318] Madison to Pinkney, Dec. 5, 1808; Madison’s Writings, ii. 427.
[319] Orchard Cook to J. Q. Adams, Dec. 29, 1808; Adams MSS.
[320] Gallatin to Nicholson, Dec. 29, 1808; Adams’s Gallatin, p. 384.
[321] Joseph Story to Joseph White, Dec. 31, 1808; Story’s Life of
Story, i. 172.
[322] State Papers, iii. 259.
[323] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 839.
[324] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 556.
[325] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 606.
[326] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 657.
[327] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 797.
[328] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 685.
[329] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 595.
[330] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, pp. 687, 688.
[331] Annals of Congress, 1808-1809, p. 747.