1815. THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. 429 to read, in report and resolutions, a menace to the Union in its hour of tribulation, a demand for the purse and sword, to which only a craven Congress could have yielded, and a threat of local armies which, with the avowed purpose of mutual aid, might in some not remote contingency be turned against foes American not less than British. Was this political strategy in order to teach the American nation to look up to Federalism as the brazen serpent, or was it New England's serious ultimatum to her sister States? From whichever point it should be regarded, never did amiable, upright gentlemen of the bar fail more ignominiously as confidential advisers of a rebellion. An uprising of shipping merchants, clergy, and moneyed men could scarcely have been heroic or popular; and the conventionists, moreover, had duly estimated neither the weariness of governments abroad, nor the reserved strength of our own. Before the Congress, now in session, had actually resorted to a conscription, before new and burdensome taxes could be assessed or a national bank chartered, while the novel experiment of enrolling State volunteers promised all the troops immediately desired, the warcloud suddenly parted. Massachusetts and Connecticut had accepted the report of the Hartford Convention; each dispatched commissioners to Washington to make Jan. upon Congress the proposed demand for a separate maintenance.* Quickly, indeed, but too late. Those demands were never made; for before the State commissioners could reach the national capital, salutes were firing and the stars and stripes floated free. The vast area of our indivisible union was becoming spangled by night with illuminations. Almost simultaneously came the good news to Washington that Jackson had driven the British from New Orleans, and that our commissioners abroad had concluded Feb. 11-18. of its powers in laying embargoes and imposing restrictions on commerce. (4) A stipulation that a President of the United States should not be elected from the same State for two successive terms. (5) A stipulation that the same person should not be elected President a second time. (6) A stipulation for reducing slave representation and taxation. * 7 Niles's Register, 372; 8 Ibid., 45; 6 Hildreth, 545–556. an honorable peace at Ghent on the 24th of December.* Peace, welcome peace, had returned; a peace welcomed in the arms of victory. Honestly as the whole republic rejoiced at that result, the triumph redounded only to those who had labored to earn it. For intractable Federalism it was a last crushing humiliation. State after State spurned the Hartford proposals, even to the fairest of constitutional amendments offered by the convention; New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, essential northern States, being of the number; and even Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Vermont rebuking their sisters.† Twentysix respectable men, politically dead, swung in their chains like Rizpah's sons, and their mother States could scarce keep off the vultures. It would be an offence to a loyal section of the American Union, and a calumny upon great names, to impute to that once dominant national party, long since shattered, the faults of a mere remnant, headstrong to the last, who ruled by secret councils. Washington, Hamilton, and Knox were dead; Jay, King, the Pinckneys, and Wolcott had not shown themselves implacable; Marshall, as Chief Justice, was trusted by all; the Adamses, Gerry, William Pinkney, Bayard, and Dexter now belonged to the war or Union party; other oldfashioned Federalists, once prominent, kept in strict seclusion, or gave countenance to the national cause. John Randolph, himself, denounced the Hartford project in an open letter.‡ From the time the inadmissible British propositions of peace *The President received the official treaty of peace February 14th, 1815. Its ratification was at once determined upon.-Monroe Correspondence. Late on a Saturday night (February 11) a British sloop-of-war under a flag of truce brought to New York the treaty of peace, already ratified by Great Britain. On this unexpected news the inhabitants ran out into the streets rejoicing; expresses were sent North and South with the news, over which there was general exultation before it was known what the terms actually were.--6 Hildreth, 566. † See 8 Niles's Register, 39-45, 56, 65, 99, 348, 432. To this letter Lloyd responded through the columns of the press. See 7 Niles's Register. 1814. PEACE AND VICTORY. 431 Oct., 1814. were promulgated there had ceased to be a peace party in the nation; even New England being forced to assume a warlike attitude when threatened with invasion. To state such propositions as the price of peace, was, as the moderate Jay wrote Pickering, for Britain to assume language rare save from victor to vanquished.* And as for the Federalist ex-President, who watched affairs with a veteran's longing to be in the midst, his blood tingled with shame at the surpassing folly of those who conducted politics in his native State. The unpatriotic course of New England leaders Madison himself looked upon as "the source of our greatest difficulties in carrying on the war;" and "certainly the greatest if not the sole inducement with the enemy to persevere in it."‡ The happy issue of our negotiations abroad must be ascribed to various favoring circumstances. The capture of Paris by the allies, and Napoleon's dethronement, under the sanction of his once obsequious Senate, and abdication, were events April, 1814. which convulsed Europe when Clay and Russell disembarked at Gottenburg to seek their scattered colleagues. The British ministry moved tardily, both in appointing their own commissioners and opening the couference with ours; and sending large reinforcements meantime to America, as the European situation left them free to do, their plan apparently was to terrify and then dictate. But, in truth, the English people were more disposed than their government to keep up war with the United States. Europe needed rest and opportunity to recuperate; nor was there assurance of any stability in the new continental arrangement; and, moreover, with this European peace the old commercial issues between the United States and * 2 John Jay, 363-365. He could not agree with Pickering that those propositions should have been made the basis of negotiation; things being as they are, said Jay, we should be united in the determination to defend our country. † See 1 George Ticknor's Life, 13. "Thank God! Thank God!" he said to this young visitor, about the time of the Hartford Convention. "George Cabot's close-buttoned ambition has broken out at last; he wants to be President of New England, sir." 2 Madison's Writings, November 25th, 1814. England had been reduced to questions of abstract right, whose discussion both parties might prudently waive. "Peace may be had," wrote Gallatin and Bayard, who had passed several leisure weeks in studying politics at London, "but it is certain that, whatever the British modifications as to impressment in practice, the point itself will not be conceded."* With Napoleon's downfall, and that practical repeal of the whole restrictive system which accompanied it, the issue was simplified furthermore as to America's own demands. Should England doggedly refuse fair terms under such circumstances she would not only have to fight alone, imperilling her prestige in Europe, but fight a people united in the cause of self-preservation; for hostility to commerce and French. influence would then be exploded calumnies, and the energy of hope be reinforced by the energy of desperation. Nor was the British government free from apprehension lest Russia or some other European power might take up the American cause. And thus did the situation favor peace with the United States. Aug., 1814. The superiority of the American commissioners over the British was another point in favor of the United States. The British commissioners arrived in August at Ghent (the place finally fixed upon for negotiations); they were Lord Gambier, Henry Goulburn, and William Adams, dull men, without native influence; the two last quite irascible in debate, and all chiefly serviceable to their own government because of fidelity to Lord Castlereagh, whose advice. they sought at every step of the negotiation. For talent and variety of expression they were far surpassed by the American commissioners; Adams being an accomplished scholar, multifarious and minute in diplomatic acquirements; Clay, not perhaps in his proper element, and yet profound, positive, * May 6th, 1814, Monroe Correspondence. Gallatin while at London, in June, procured an audience of Alexander, who was also there, and induced him to make a third effort with Great Britain on America's behalf. The Czar's impression was thereby confirmed that no third power would be allowed to interfere.—Adams's Gallatin, 515. † See 3 John Quincy Adams's Memoirs; Adams's Gallatin; Clay's Correspondence. 1814. NEGOTIATIONS AT GHENT. 433 sanguine, a bold gamester who studied his opponent's hand, one who thrilled in discussion; and Gallatin, to whom all deferred, having a well-stored, well-balanced head, and a European reputation, being discreet himself, and keeping all his colleagues in good humor. Bayard, with high Federal antecedents, was an able debater, and reasonable; while Russell, the fifth and last, though under Clay's immediate influence, not without sound parts. With such an embassy at Ghent, and minister Crawford near, at Paris, one might have supposed that the statesmanship of this nation had become absorbed in the diplomatic service of Europe. Aug. 8-10, 1814. The peace conference opened amicably, the first meeting at a neutral inn, the following ones held alternately at the lodgings of the British and American commissioners. Concerning impressment, silence was preserved on both sides. It was expected by the American commissioners that status ante bellum should determine the territorial question. But when the British commissioners proceeded to claim, on behalf of their Indian allies, that the whole northwest territory of the United States, as defined by the Grenville treaty of 1795, namely, the country now represented by the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, four-fifths of Indiana, and one-third of Ohio,-should be set apart forever as a sort of Quixotic Indian barrier between Canada and the United States, besides the other territorial demands elsewhere adverted to,* the conference came to a halt, and peace for the moment seemed hopeless. The American commissioners had no instructions competent to the case, nor was such a sine qua non likely to be admitted by their government for a moment. The effect these monstrous proposals produced upon the American people has already been described. To our commissioners the demand appeared conclusive proof of bad faith, and they looked next for a rupture. But, unknown to them, the British cabinet were in anxious consultation, perceiving, as Goulburn and his colleagues could not readily, that a blunder had been committed. Clay's high talk and Bayard's serious warning that by such proposals England had sacrificed VOL. II.-37 * Supra, p. 423. |