1813. NEW ENGLAND DISAFFECTION. 419 peace men in most quarters of the Union, who had supported De Witt Clinton against Madison, began to disband; for the electoral votes and Congressional returns showed that the people sustained the war, and that the war must go on. But the inflexible rulers of the Eastern States were not to be thus turned back; bound now all the more closely to one another, as they were, in their national reverses. The heart of New England was ruled once more, and ruled vigorously, by its head. Except for Gore and the aggressive Pickering, who were serving in Congress, all the great statesmen of this Eastern school, Quincy, Lloyd, Otis, and the rest, shed their combined light upon local politics. Some of these leaders, Pickering for instance, could believe nothing good of the Virginia dynasty; others, like Otis, were more tolerant in disposition; but all agreed that the New England States, even should they stand alone, must look to Federalism as their last bulwark in the impending shipwreck. New York in the meantime, her northern borders constantly ravaged by war, oscillated once more to the administration. Republicans, forgetting their past differences, re-elected Tompkins as Governor in 1813, over Van Rensselaer; Mar.-May. the peace party retaining only the popular branch 1813. of the State legislature by a narrow margin presently to disappear. Republican Pennsylvania, under Governor Snyder, had anchored firmly to the Union cause; and New Jersey and Maryland being soon won back, the Middle, South, and West now gave to the administration a firm support. Mar.-May. In New England, on the other hand, the peace party gained in strength as the war progressed. Though opposed by Varnum, Strong was re-elected governor of Massachusetts in 1813 by a majority of 13,000 out of 101,000; both branches of the legislature passing, moreover, into Federal control, a fact of momentous import. Gilman, of the same school, supplanted Plumer as Governor of New Hampshire; while John Cotton Smith became Connecticut's chief executive, being next by right of succession to the late Griswold. Before that year ended all the State Executives of New England were pronounced Federalists, the last accession being Chittenden of Vermont, who, in de Nov. fault of a popular choice, was made governor by a joint ballot of the legislature. Closely as his State had divided in political honors, Chittenden no sooner took the oath of office than he assumed, as commander of the State militia, to recall Nov. a Vermont brigade, detailed by his predecessor for garrison duty at Burlington, while critical operations were in progress at the front; a practical extension of the Strong and Griswold doctrine to which neither the troops themselves nor the United States authorities would submit.* Massachusetts wound the horn loudly as leader of the peace States. Governor Strong, in his opening message May-July. at the spring session of the Massachusetts legislature, in 1813, somewhat judicially laid the blame of the war with Great Britain, then raging in full violence, upon the United States,-a conclusion pressed far more passionately in a legislative remonstrance, to which the two houses agreed, under the lead of Quincy in the Senate and Lloyd and Otis in the House. To the Massachusetts remonstrance was appended an earnest complaint against the admission of Louisiana and the recent process of Western annexation, which threatened to ingulf the influence of the Eastern States. This remonstrance, forwarded to Congress, produced no other effect than to excite its displeasure; but what stirred the national indig nation against its authors still more deeply was another Massachusetts resolve, adopted through their agency about the same time, in which the public rejoicings over our naval victories, in which generous Federalists had hitherto borne part, were condemned, and the formula announced that in such a war as the present "it was not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military and naval ex * 6 Hildreth, 404, 426, 452. For this remonstrance see 6 Hildreth, 427; 4 Niles's Register, 232, 253, 280. The war is here denounced as improper and impolitic, er the repeal of the British orders, and unjust in the present phase of the impressment question. Protection to commerce, is the further complaint, has not been given to New England; and the present war seems to be prompted rather by French subserviency and lust of conquest than by any disposition to defend endangered rights; it is ill conducted and expensive. A solemn appeal to the "Searcher of all hearts" closes the address. 1813-14. NEW ENGLAND DISAFFECTION. 421 ploits not immediately connected with the defence of our seacoast and soil." Lawrence was accordingly refused State honors, such as Massachusetts had bestowed upon Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge; and, under Quincy's lead, the dominant faction became reinstated for the rest of the war, in that stern contempt of popularity and external appearances which marked the discipline of '98.* Chittenden's recall of the Vermont militia was rebuked by the legislatures of distant States as treasonable,† Jan., 1814. and Congress proposing to have him prosecuted, Otis introduced a resolve at a later session of the Massachusetts legislature declaring that State ready to aid, with her whole power, the governor of Vermont and the people of that or any other State in support of constitutional rights by whomsoever infringed. A new remonstrance, with more of menace than supplication in its tone, was likewise agreed to. The Madison embargo, feeble as it proved, was like fresh fuel to the flame. Insidious articles had already appeared in Eastern newspapers dilating upon the resources of New England, and urging that section to negotiate a separate peace with Great Britain,-a suggestion not new, but timidly anonymous; for to the last no prominent Federalist openly advised such a course, although the plainest inducements were held out by the enemy.§ 1813-14. Certainly these New England leaders did not intend plunging into the chasm of disunion recklessly. Their problem, with a patriotic though uneasy community, who must furnish annual majorities at the polls, was rather to reconcile practical resistance, perhaps rebellion, with the pursuance of strict legality. To that end favorable rulings of the State judiciary * 6 Hildreth, 429; Boston Centinel. The Chesapeake disaster having occurred meantime, the body of Lawrence was procured under a flag of truce and reburied at Salem. The Crowninshields made the affair one of public ceremony, Judge Story being orator of the day. But the State officers and leading Federalists declined to attend the funeral; Ib. † 5 Niles's Register, 423. 6 Hildreth, 465. ? See New England Palladium and Boston Advertiser, in 1813, cited in 4 Niles's Register, 351; 5 Ib., 199. As though by way of editorial amendment to one of these articles the proposal was injected of obtaining this separate peace "pursuant to the Constitution." upon all constitutional points at issue they regarded as a prerequisite. The opinions of the Massachusetts bench upon embargo and the militia imbroglio, although inconclusive as against the Union, had yet favored the plan of local resistance to the national policy; for, hypochondriac as he might be, Chief Justice Parsons, with his luminous intellect, was a tower of strength. So intent was Federalism upon carrying the State courts in its chosen direction, that the moment New Hampshire fell into its grasp, the party leaders, forgetful of their own earlier appeals for judicial probity, broke the courts of that State to pieces, and with profane hands reconstructed the whole fabric of the judiciary, commissioning new judges, from highest to lowest, to suit their political views, and all this at imminent risk of anarchy.* June, 1813. Dec., 1813. The war party was strong, nevertheless, in New England, and watchful. Of one memorable incident New London harbor was the scene, at the time Hardy's blockading squadron hemmed in the United States frigates. Having prepared secretly to run these frigates out of the harbor on a dark Sunday night, Decatur saw blue lights burning near the mouth of the river, in sight of the British blockaders. Convinced that these were signals concerted with the enemy to betray his plans, he abandoned the project, and afterward made complaint to the Navy Department. No positive information was ever elicited, and Congress concluded the matter too trivial for investigation; but public suspicion long directed anxiously towards the peace men of New England did them ample mischief, for the epithet of "Blue-light Federalists" soon became as odious as the older one of "British faction," and still more indiscriminately applied.† 1814. The administration kept ground in New England partly through the diversion of capital, formerly employed in the carrying trade, into privateer ventures, war speculations, and manufactures; these last already growing into a permanent industry, which in time would. change the political economy of the entire section. Congress and the administration endeavored to pacify the Eastern * 6 Hildreth, 453. † 6 Hildreth, 468; Lossing, 695. 1814. HARSH TERMS OF PEACE. 423 States. The enlistment of British seamen in American ships, of which Massachusetts complained, was discontinued. Randolph removed from the scene, the Yazoo claims were at length liquidated. Madison prudently dropped the embargo experiment. Samuel Dexter, now one of the foremost men at the American bar, and too patriotic to follow his late colleagues in their mad career, was prevailed upon, in 1814, to accept Republican support for governor of Massachusetts; but the Federalists published him as a deserter to the enemy, and Strong was re-elected.* March. After the spring elections of 1814 the leaders of the peace party in the New England States, reassured of their influence, cast every obstacle in the path of our administration. To lend to the Union for prosecuting this war was pronounced infamous. So intimidated, indeed, were Boston capitalists that the government agents had to solicit subscriptions to the national loan under a pledge of secrecy. The drain of specie from the Middle and Southern State banks, producing their suspension, appears to have been systematically pursued for the purpose of crippling them.† Oct. Darkness, almost despair, settled upon the Union cause. Dispatches from abroad, which arrived in October, indicated that Great Britain would consent to no peace without conditions both degrading and absurd: first, to set off to her Indian allies a fixed permanent northern territory, which should constitute an intermediate barrier to Canada; next, to renounce on our part the right to keep armed vessels or to establish military posts on the lakes; finally, under a pretext that the Northeast boundary should be revised, to relinquish a considerable portion of Maine east of the Penobscot, which the British had lately occupied. These terms, the Pickering party insisted, were worth accepting; nor did a single New England legislature object to them. But New York and Virginia led other legislatures in Oct.-Nov. spurning such proposals, and voted more troops instead for a vigorous prosecution of the war. * See 6 Hildreth, 463-476 † Lossing, 1008. |