CHAPTER X.
Randolph, who had been ill at home during the winter of 1809–1810, appeared in public affairs only after the debates were mostly ended. March 22 he moved a Resolution that the military and naval establishments ought to be reduced. He wished to bring Madison’s administration back to the point where Jefferson’s administration eight years before had begun; and in truth the country could choose only between the practices of 1801 and those of 1798. Randolph, who shunned no assumption of fact which suited his object, asked the House whether any one “seriously thought of war, or believed it a relation in which we could be placed”:—
“With respect to war we have—thank God!—in the Atlantic a fosse wide and deep enough to keep off any immediate danger to our territory. The belligerents of Europe know as well as we feel that war is out of the question. No, sir! if our preparation was for battle, the State physicians have mistaken the state of the patient. We have been embargoed and non-intercoursed almost into a consumption, and this is not the time for battle.”
Randolph easily proved the need of retrenchment. His statements were not to be denied. President Washington, with a gross income of fifty-eight million dollars in eight years, spent eleven millions and a quarter on the army and navy. John Adams in four years spent eighteen millions, and was supposed to have been driven from office for extravagance. President Jefferson in his first four years cut down these expenses to eight million, six hundred thousand dollars; in his second term he raised them again to sixteen millions, or nearly to the point reached by John Adams at a time of actual hostilities with France,—although President Jefferson relied not on armaments, but on peaceable coercion, which cost very large sums besides. At last the country had reached a point where, after refusing either to fight its enemies or resent its injuries, it had begun to run in debt for armaments it would not use. This waste needed to be stopped.
Three fourths of the Republican party and all the Federalists were of the same mind with Randolph,—that an army led by Wilkinson and a navy of gunboats, when the country refused to fight under any provocation, were not worth maintaining; and when Eppes of Virginia, April 14, brought forward the budget for the coming year, he started by assuming that the military and naval expenditure might be reduced three million dollars, which would still leave a deficiency of two millions and a half, and would require an increase of customs-duties. If three millions and a half could be saved, members wanted to know why the whole military and naval expenditure, which had required only six millions in 1809, might not be cut off.
Macon, who supported Randolph with the ardor of 1798, urged nothing less than this sweeping reform.
“If the army were disbanded and the navy sold,” he argued,[148] “we should not perhaps want half a million,—not a million and a half, on the outside. That might be obtained by loans payable at short date.... You must get clear of the navy-yards; if you do not put them down, unquestionably they will put you down. How is it with the army? Has it been employed to more advantage? Its situation is too melancholy to be spoken of; and if anything could disgust the people of the territory we acquired some years since, it must be the management of that army, for however much they hear of our good government, after such a specimen they must have a despicable opinion of it indeed.... I will not raise a tax of a cent to support the present plan. I have no hesitation in saying that I shall feel bound to vote down the additional force of six thousand men whenever the subject shall come before us. I voted for it; but found that then, as now, we talk a great deal about war, and do nothing.”
Not a member supported Eppes’s motion for increased taxes. Democrats and Federalists, one after another, rose to oppose an increase, and to favor disbanding the additional army.
“I shall certainly vote to reduce the army of the United States,” said Burwell of Virginia;[149] “and if the House should decide that it will not employ the navy of the United States in the protection of commerce, I shall certainly vote also to reduce the naval establishment. I am perfectly convinced that the circumstances under which I voted for the increase of the army and navy have passed away; and as our revenue has diminished, I shall vote for a reduction of our expenses.... So far from considering the country in a deplorable situation, as my colleague (Mr. Randolph) has represented it, I think that in many points of view we have every reason to congratulate ourselves. It is a singular phenomenon to see any nation enjoying peace at this time. This exemption from the general lot claims the gratitude of every man in the country. So far as I am concerned in the affairs of the nation, I have but a single object in view,—namely, to preserve peace; and my votes are predicated on that ground.”
The war men voted with the peace men for reasons given by Troup of Georgia:[150]—
“I am as well convinced of the fact as that I am now addressing you, that the people will not consent to pay an additional tax for the support of armies and navies raised to oppose the injurious acts of the belligerents against our rights, after we have abandoned those rights and dishonorably withdrawn from the contest.”
After much contradictory talk of this kind, Nelson of Maryland told the House that they were behaving like schoolboys.
“It is a perfect child’s game,” said he.[151] “At one session we pass a law for raising an army, and go to expense; in another year, instead of raising money to pay the expense by the means in our power, we are to disband the army we have been at so much pains to raise. We shall well deserve the name of children instead of men if we pursue a policy of this kind.”
The warning had no perceptible weight with the House, where the peace party were in a majority and the war party were in a passion, not with the foreign enemy, but with their neighbors and friends. Richard M. Johnson almost avowed that he should vote for reducing army and navy in order to punish the men who had made them useless:—
“To our humiliation and everlasting degradation we have refused to use the means in our power to induce foreign nations to do us justice.... The annals of human nature have not given to the world the sad example of a nation so powerful, so free, so intelligent, so jealous of their rights and at the same time so grossly insulted, so materially injured, under such extraordinary forbearance.... We are afraid to trust ourselves, and we pretend that we are afraid to trust the people. My hopes have rested and always will rest upon the people; they constitute my last hope. We may disgrace ourselves, but the people will rise in the majesty of their strength, and the world will be interested in the spectacle.”
With the advocates of war in a temper so unmanageable, and the advocates of peace in a majority so decisive, the House showed unanimity by passing in committee, without a dissenting voice, a Resolution that the military and naval establishments ought to be reduced. April 16 this vote was reached in committee; and the next day, by a vote of sixty to thirty-one, the Resolution was formally adopted by the House. Of the minority, two thirds were Northern men and all were Republicans.
In obedience to the order, Randolph promptly reported a bill for reducing the navy.[152] All the gunboats, all but three of the frigates, and all other armed vessels—three only excepted—were to be sold, their officers and crews discharged; the navy-yards, except at Boston, New York, and Norfolk, to be disused, and the marine corps reduced to two companies. A few days later, April 24, Smilie of Pennsylvania reported a bill for a similar reduction of the military establishment to three regiments. These measures seemed to carry out the express will and orders of the House; but no sooner did the House go into committee than the members astonished themselves by striking out each section in succession. Gunboats, frigates, navy-yards, and marines, each managed in turn to obtain a majority against reduction.
Then Randolph rose,—not in wrath, for he spoke with unusual calm, but with a force which warranted the sway he so often exercised over men whose minds were habitually in doubt. He had ever believed, he said, that the people of the United States were destined to become a great naval power, but if anything could prevent this result it would be the premature attempts of the last two Administrations to force it. A naval power necessarily grew out of tonnage and seamen, but both tonnage and seamen had been systematically discouraged:—
“It has always been understood, according to my view of the subject, that one of the principal uses of a navy was to protect commerce; but our political rule for some time past has been that of inverse proportion, and we have discovered that commerce is the natural protector of a navy.”
The inconsistency of Jefferson’s principles and practice was a target which could be hit by the most inexperienced marksman, but Randolph struck it with something more solid than an epigram when he discussed its expense.
“Against the administration of Mr. Adams,” he said, “I, in common with many others, did and do yet entertain a sentiment of hostility, and have repeatedly cried out against it for extravagance and for profusion and for waste—wanton waste—of the public resources. I find, however, upon consideration,—whether from the nature of men, or from the nature of things, or from whatever other cause,—that that Administration, grossly extravagant as I did then and still do believe it to have been, if tried by the criterion of the succeeding one, was a pattern of retrenchment and economy.”
In order to prove this charge he attacked Robert Smith’s administration of the navy, asserting that while in 1800 each seaman cost about four hundred and seventy-two dollars a year, in 1808 each seaman cost nearly nine hundred dollars a year; and that the same excess existed in regard to officers, marines, clothing, and provisions:—
“Yes, sir! we have economized until we absolutely have reduced the annual cost of a seaman from $472—as it was under the very wasteful expenditure of Mr. Adams’s administration—down to the moderate sum of $887. We have economized until a paltry fleet consisting of vessels built to our hand, to say nothing of those that have been sold, and the warlike stores of which have been retained and preserved,—which fleet was built, equipped, and every cannon and implement of war purchased under the old Administration,—has cost us twelve million dollars, when it cost the preceding Administration but nine millions.”
Only one member replied on behalf of the Government to these criticisms. Burwell Bassett of the naval committee ventured somewhat timidly to defend, not so much Robert Smith as Secretary Hamilton, who, he said, had reduced expenses at the navy-yard about one third. Most of the frigates had been so thoroughly repaired as to be more valuable than when first built. In the navy-yard itself everything was in good condition and well conducted. Bassett’s testimony hardly met Randolph’s charges, but the House sustained him on every point; and Boyd of New Jersey so far forgot the respect due to a former vote, in which the House had resolved by a majority of two to one that the army and navy ought to be reduced, as to say that never since the government was formed had so preposterous a proposition been offered. The end of the session arrived before the discussion ceased.
The same inability to act, even where no apparent obstacle existed, was shown in regard to the United States Bank, whose charter, granted for twenty years by the First Congress in February, 1791, was to expire March 4, 1811. In the days of Federalist sway the Republicans had bitterly opposed the Bank and denied the constitutional power of Congress to grant the charter; but during the eight years of Jefferson’s rule the Bank had continued without a question to do the financial work of government, and no other agency existed or could be readily created capable of taking the place of this machine, which, unlike any other in the government, worked excellently well.
If its existence was to be continued, public interest required that the Act should be passed at this session, since the actual charter was to expire in ten months. If a new charter was to be refused, public interest required even more urgently that ample warning of so radical a change should be given, that the Treasury might not be suddenly crippled or general bankruptcy be risked without notice.
No complaint of any kind was at that time made against the Bank; no charge was brought against it of interference in politics, of corrupt influence, or of mismanagement. Gallatin was known to favor it; the President was not hostile, nor was any influence in the government opposed; the Federalists who had created were bound to support it; and except for the principles of some Southern Republicans who regarded functions of government as germs of despotism, every political faction in the country seemed consenting to the charter. January 29 the subject was referred to a special committee. The committee reported a Resolution, and in due course John Taylor of South Carolina brought in a bill, the result of negotiations between the Treasury and the Bank, granting a new charter on condition that the Bank should increase its capital two-and-a-half million dollars, half of which should be paid outright to the government; that, further, the Bank should bind itself to lend the government at three months’ notice any amount not exceeding in the whole five million dollars at a rate not exceeding six per cent; that on all government deposits above the sum of three millions, which should remain for one year, the Bank should pay interest at the rate of three per cent; and that the government should have the right at any time to increase the capital stock, and subscribe and own the new stock to a fixed amount. These terms were especially valuable at the moment, because they assisted the Treasury to meet an actual deficit, and provided, as far as human foresight went, for financial dangers that might rise from further foreign troubles. No serious opposition showed itself. April 21 the House, by a majority of seventy-five to thirty-five, voted to accept the price fixed for the charter; but the session closed without further action.
When Congress adjourned, May 2, 1810, the result attained during five months passed in continuous labor amounted to little more than the constitutional necessities of government,—the appropriation bills; a loan for five million dollars; an Act for taking a census of persons; an Act appropriating sixty thousand dollars toward making the Cumberland Road; an appropriation of five thousand dollars for experiments on Fulton’s torpedoes; in regard to foreign affairs, Giles’s Resolution blaming the conduct of the British minister, and Macon’s or Taylor’s Act, which condoned that conduct. The old Non-intercourse Act of March 1, 1809, expired by limitation with the expiring Congress May 1, 1810.
“We adjourned last night,” wrote Randolph to Nicholson the next day,[153] “a little after twelve, having terminated a session of more than five months by authorizing a loan of as many millions, and—all is told. The incapacity of Government has long ceased to be a laughing matter. The Cabinet is all to pieces, and the two Houses have tumbled about their own ears.”
With all Randolph’s faults, he had more of the qualities, training, and insight of a statesman than were to be found elsewhere among the representatives in the Eleventh Congress; and although himself largely the cause of the chaos he described, he felt its disgraces and dangers. Society in general troubled itself little about them. The commercial class, pleased to be freed from restraints, and the agricultural class, consoled by the fair prices of their produce, thought as little as possible about their failure in government; what was called good society for the most part drew a bitter pleasure from it. Yet beneath the general physical contentment almost equally general moral disgust existed and made itself felt. President Madison, who was in the best position to gauge popular opinion, began to suspect the hardly perceptible movement of a coming tide. After the adjournment he wrote to William Pinkney at London:[154]—
“Among the inducements to the experiment of an unrestricted commerce now made were two which contributed essentially to the majority of votes in its favor,—first, a general hope, favored by daily accounts from England, that an adjustment of differences there, and thence in France, would render the measure safe and proper; second, a willingness in not a few to teach the advocates for an open trade the folly as well as degradation of their policy.... It will not be wonderful, therefore, if the passive spirit which marked the late session of Congress should at the next meeting be roused to the opposite point, more especially as the tone of the nation has never been so low as that of its representatives.”
Madison still held to his favorite doctrine, and meant no more by his warning than that the Eleventh Congress might be expected to reimpose measures of commercial restriction:—
“The experiment [of free commerce] about to be made will probably open too late the eyes of the people to the expediency and efficacy of the means [the embargo] which they have suffered to be taken out of the hands of the Government and to be incapacitated for future use.”[155]
This condolence with Jefferson over the fate of their experiment showed the direction toward which Madison’s eyes were still turned; but, though a firm believer in his own theory of peaceable coercion, he was ready and had always been ready to accept and carry out any stronger scheme that Congress might prefer. He had no definite plan of his own; he clung to the idea that England and France could be brought by patience to respect neutral claims of right; but he felt that the actual submission made by Congress was apparent rather than real, and might be followed within a year by renewed resistance.
Meanwhile nothing could be more dangerous to the Americans than the loss of self-respect. The habit of denouncing themselves as cowards and of hearing themselves denounced as a race that cared only for money tended to produce the qualities imputed. Americans of 1810 were persuaded that they could not meet Englishmen or Frenchmen on equal terms, man against man, or stand in battle against the veterans of Napoleon or Nelson. The sense of national and personal inferiority sank astonishingly deep. Reasonable enough as regarded the immense superiority of Europe in organization, it passed bounds when it condemned everything American as contemptible, or when the Federalist gentry refused to admit the Democrats of Pennsylvania or the Republicans of Virginia or the Government at Washington into the circle of civilized life. Social self-abasement never went so far as in its efforts to prove to Francis James Jackson, the British minister, that he was right in treating the national government with contempt. Englishman as Jackson was, and ready to assume without question every claim of superiority that might be made for his country or his class, he was surprised at the force of American allegiance to himself. As he travelled northward, after his dismissal from Washington, his private letters gave a strange idea of the chaos in American society. He wrote from Philadelphia,—
“The tide has turned completely in our favor. At Washington they are in a state of the most animated confusion, the Cabinet divided, and the Democratic party going various ways.... Their foreign politics embarrass them even more than home ones. One moment they want another embargo; the next, to take off the restrictions; then, to arm their merchantmen; and next, to declare war. In short, they do not know what to be at.... Notwithstanding all that has passed,—which would fill volumes to relate in full,—and the Government being at open war with me, ‘the respectability’ has been both here and at Baltimore so anxious to show that they did not share the sentiments of the Democrats that we have had throngs of visitors and innumerable invitations that we could not accept, though we have dined at home but twice during the month we have been here. To prevent this, the savages have threatened in one of their papers to tar and feather every man who should ask me to his house.”[156]
Pleased with his social success at Baltimore and Philadelphia, Jackson found New York and New England fairly delightful. His vogue in Baltimore and Philadelphia meant little more than curiosity to see his wife and her toilettes; but as he approached New England he became a personage in politics, and received attentions such as he could hardly have expected even from those European courts whose civility lingered in his mind. February 25 he wrote from New York:[157]—
“As we get farther north and east, the said Yankees improve very much. New York is a fine town, unlike any other in America, and resembling more the best of our country towns, with the additional advantage of the finest water that can be imagined. There is as much life and bustle as at Liverpool or any other of our great commercial towns; and like them New York has inhabitants who have made and are making rapid and brilliant fortunes by their enterprise and industry.... We have met with unbounded civility and good-will, and may be said to live here in triumph. We are now engaged to dinner every day but two, till the end of the first week in March.... The governor of Massachusetts has written to me to invite me to Boston, where, he says, he and many others will be happy to receive me. That State, which is one of the most populous and enlightened of the States of the Union, and, as you know, is the birthplace of American independence, has done more toward justifying me to the world than it was possible from the nature of things that I or any other person could do in the present stage of the business. The legislature, which is not a mob like many that have passed resolutions, has agreed to a report of a joint committee, and passed resolutions in conformity with it, exculpating me altogether, and in the most direct manner censuring the conduct of the President and of the general government.”
Boston newspapers of Feb. 9, 1810, contained the report and resolutions in which the Massachusetts legislature, by a vote of two hundred and fifty-four to one hundred and forty-five, declared that “they can perceive no just or adequate cause” for breaking relations with the British minister, F. J. Jackson; and this challenge to their own Government, backed by Governor Gore’s invitation of Jackson to Boston, was intended to carry political weight, even to the extent of forcing Madison to renew political relations, as he had been forced to resume commercial relations, with England. Had public opinion taken the intended course, Jackson’s visit to Boston would have marked a demonstration of popular feeling against the national government; nor were the Federalists in any way parties consenting to the defeat of the scheme. The measures adopted by the Massachusetts legislature in February came before the people at the State election early in April, only six weeks after the General Court and Governor Gore had condemned Madison. More than ninety thousand votes were cast, and the Republican party, by a majority of about two thousand, not only turned Governor Gore out of office, but also chose a General Court with a Republican majority of twenty. At the same time similar changes of public opinion restored New Hampshire to Republican control, and strengthened the Republicans in New York and the Middle States. Not a doubt could exist that the country sustained Madison, and that Jackson was not only an object of decided unpopularity in America, but was far from being favored in England. The advantage to be derived from his visit to Boston was no longer evident, and after Governor Gore ceased to hold office, the good taste of acting on an invitation thus practically withdrawn seemed doubtful; but Jackson was not daunted by doubts.
Holding the promise of his Government that his mission should last at least a year, Jackson beguiled the interval by such amusements as offered themselves. In May he retired to a country-house on the North River, about eight miles above New York, where he caught a glimpse of an American invention which, as he had the good sense to suspect, was more important than all the diplomatic quarrels in which he had ever engaged:—
“One of the curiosities that we daily see pass under our windows is the steamboat,—a passage-vessel with accommodation for near a hundred persons. It is moved by a steam-engine turning a wheel on either side of it, which acts like the main wheel of a mill, and propels the vessel against wind and tide at the rate of four miles an hour. As soon as it comes in sight there is a general rush of our household to watch and wonder till it disappears. They don’t at all know what to make of the unnatural monster that goes steadily careering on, with the wind directly in its teeth as often as not. I doubt that I should be obeyed were I to desire any one of them to take a passage in her.”[158]
After thus entertaining himself on the Hudson, the British minister made his triumphal trip to Boston early in June, where he found a gratifying welcome from society if not from the governor and legislature:—
“At Boston, ‘the headquarters of good principles,’ we were feasted most famously, and I made there many interesting acquaintances. After living nine days in clover at about eighteen of the principal houses,—having never less than two engagements per day,—they gave me on the 10th a public dinner, at which near three hundred persons were present, and where we had toasts and cheering and singing in the best style of Bishopsgate Street or Merchant Taylor’s Hall. A party of gentlemen met me at the last stage on entering Boston, and accompanied me to the first on my departure. At another public dinner I was invited to on the 4th of June (the Ancient and Honorable Artillery election dinner), and at which the governor, who is a Democrat, was present, the clergy, the magistrates, the heads of the University of Cambridge, and the military came to the top of the room in their respective bodies to be introduced to and to compliment me. There is at Washington in consequence much ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth.’”
At the public dinner given to Jackson June 11, after the guest of the evening had retired, Senator Pickering gave a toast which became a party cry: “The world’s last hope,—Britain’s fast-anchored isle!”[159]
From the moment the State officials withdrew from the reception, little importance attached to the private acts of a society which might easily look with interest at the rare appearance of a British minister in Boston; but the political and social feeling was the same as though Governor Gore were still in power, and created natural disgust among Republicans, who believed that their Federalist opponents aimed at a dissolution of the Union and at a retreat within the protection of Great Britain. If such ideas existed, they showed themselves to Jackson in no recorded form. His visit to Boston was a social amusement; and he regarded it, like the conduct of Congress, as a triumph to himself only because it increased the mortifications of President Madison, which counterbalanced in some degree his own want of energetic support from Canning’s successor at the Foreign Office.
The history of Jackson and his mission did not quite end with his departure from Boston in June, 1810, under escort of a mounted procession of Boston Federalists. He thence went to Niagara,—a difficult journey; and descending to Montreal and Quebec, returned to Albany, where he had the unusual experience of seeing himself burned in effigy.
During all these wanderings he was a victim to the constant annoyance of being able to quarrel neither with President Madison nor with his new official chief, who showed a wish to quarrel as little as possible. Jackson was as willing to find fault with one Government as with the other.
“I look forward with full confidence,” he wrote to his brother,[160] “for a full approbation of what I have done. Ministers cannot disapprove of though they may be sorry for it; and if they are sorry, it must be for the trouble it occasions them, for as I have told them there is no loss of any adjustment of difficulties, that being impracticable with this country upon the principles of my instructions. I hope they are adopting the line that I recommended to them,—that of procrastinating any decision whatever; but they might as well have told me so for my own guidance and information, instead of leaving me a prey to all the lies and misrepresentations which the Democrats have found it necessary to propagate on the subject for election purposes. It would be an absolute disgrace to the country, and would produce an impression never to be got over here,—the ill effects of which in all future transactions we should not fail to be made sensible of,—if another minister were to be sent out without some sort of satisfaction being taken or received for the treatment I have experienced. They ought to insist on my being reinstated.”
The British government held a different opinion; and accordingly, at the expiration of his stipulated twelve months, Sept. 16, 1810, Jackson set sail for Europe, leaving J. P. Morier in charge of the British legation at Washington.