CHAPTER X.
When news of this decisive step became public, the British minister hastened to Monroe for explanations.[156] Monroe “deprecated its being considered as a war measure. He even seemed to affect to consider it as an impartial measure toward the two belligerents, and as thereby complying with one of our demands; namely, putting them on an equality.... He used an expression which I had some difficulty in comprehending,—that it was the wish of the Government to keep their policy in their own hands.” In truth Monroe seemed, to the last, inclined to leave open a door by which the anger of America might, in case of reconciliation with England, be diverted against France. Madison had no such delusion. Foster went to the President, and repeated to him Monroe’s remark that the embargo was not a war measure.[157] “Oh, no!” said Madison, “embargo is not war;” but he added that in his opinion the United States would be amply justified in war, whatever might be its expediency, for Great Britain was actually waging war on them, and within a month had captured eighteen ships of the estimated value of fifteen hundred thousand dollars. He said he should be glad still to receive any propositions England might have to make, and that Congress would be in session at the period fixed for terminating the embargo. Neither Madison nor Monroe could properly say more to the British minister, for they could not undertake to forestall the action of Congress; but the rumor that France might be included in the declaration of war as in the embargo, made the French minister uneasy, and he too asked explanation. To him the secretary talked more plainly.[158]
“Mr. Monroe answered me,” wrote Serurier April 9, “that the embargo had been adopted in view of stopping the losses of commerce, and of preparing for the imminent war with England; he protested to me his perfect conviction that war was inevitable if the news expected from France answered to the hopes they had formed. He gave me his word of honor that in the secret deliberations of Congress no measure had been taken against France. He admitted that in fact the affair of the frigates had produced a very deep impression on that body; that it had, even in Republican eyes, seemed manifest proof that the Imperial Decrees were not repealed, and that this unfortunate accident had shaken (ébranlé) the whole base of the Administration system; that the Executive, by inclination as much as by system, had always wished to believe in this repeal, without which it was impossible to make issue (engager la querelle) with England; that its interest in this respect was perfectly in accord with that of France, but that he had found it wholly impossible to justify the inconceivable conduct of the commander of the frigates.... Mr. Monroe insisted here on his former declarations, that if the Administration was abandoned by France it would infallibly succumb, or would be obliged to propose war against both Powers, which would be against its interests as much as against its inclination.”
The Embargo Message surprised no one. The Committee of Foreign Relations made no secret of its decision. Calhoun warned Josiah Quincy and other representatives of commercial cities; and on the afternoon of March 31 these members sent an express, giving notice to their constituents that the embargo would be proposed on the following day. Every ship-owner on the seaboard and every merchant in the great cities hurried ships and merchandise to sea, showing that they feared war less than they feared embargo, at the moment when Congress, April 1, went into secret session to discuss the measure intended to protect ship-owners and merchants by keeping their property at home. Porter introduced the bill laying an embargo for sixty days;[159] Grundy declared it to be intended as a measure leading directly to war; Henry Clay made a vehement speech approving the measure on that ground. On the other side Randolph declared war to be impossible; the President dared not be guilty of treason so gross and unparalleled as that of plunging an unprepared nation into such a conflict. Randolph even read memoranda of Monroe’s remarks to the Committee of Foreign Relations: “The embargo would leave the policy as respected France, and indeed of both countries, in our hands;” and from this he tried to convince the House that the embargo was not honestly intended as a war measure. The debate ran till evening, when by a vote of sixty-six to forty the previous question was ordered. Without listening to the minority the House then hurried the bill through all its stages, and at nine o’clock passed it by a vote of seventy to forty-one.
The majority numbered less than half the members. In 1807 the House imposed the embargo by a vote of eighty-two to forty-four, yet the country failed to support it. The experience of 1807 boded ill for that of 1812. In the Senate the outlook was worse. The motion to extend the embargo from sixty to ninety days was adopted without opposition, changing the character of the bill at a single stroke from a strong war measure into a weak measure of negotiation; but even in this weaker form it received only twenty votes against thirteen in opposition. The President could not depend on a bare majority in the Senate. The New England Democrats shrank from the embargo even more than from war. Giles and Samuel Smith stood in open opposition. The Clintons had become candidates of every discontented faction in the country. Had the vote in the Senate been counted by States, only six would have been thrown for the embargo, and of these only Pennsylvania from the North. In face of such distraction, war with England seemed worse than a gambler’s risk.
Madison, watching with that apparent neutrality which irritated both his friends and his enemies, reported to Jefferson the progress of events.[160] He was not pleased with the Senate’s treatment of his recommendations, or with “that invariable opposition, open with some and covert with others, which has perplexed and impeded the whole course of our public measures.” He explained the motives of senators in extending the embargo from sixty to ninety days. Some wished to make it a peace measure, some to postpone war, some to allow time for the return of their constituents’ ships; some intended it as a ruse against the enemy. For his own part he had regarded a short embargo as a rational and provident measure, which would be relished by the greater part of the nation; but he looked upon it as a step to immediate war, and he waited only for the Senate to make the declaration.
The President asked too much. Congress seemed exhausted by the efforts it had made, and the country showed signs of greater exhaustion before having made any efforts at all. The complaints against France, against the non-importation, against the embargo, and against the proposed war were bitter and general. April 6 Massachusetts held the usual State election. Gerry was again the Republican candidate for governor, and the Federalists had little hope of defeating him; but the Republican Administration had proved so unpopular, the famous Gerrymander by which the State had been divided into districts in party interests had so irritated the conservative feeling, that the new embargo and the expected war were hardly needed to throw the State again into opposition. Not even the revelations of John Henry restored the balance. More than one hundred and four thousand votes were cast, and a majority of about twelve hundred appeared on the Federalist side. Caleb Strong became governor once more at a moment when the change paralyzed national authority in New England; and meanwhile throughout the country the enlistments for the new army produced barely one thousand men.
The month of April passed without legislation that could strengthen Government, except an Act, approved April 10, authorizing the President to call out one hundred thousand militia for six months’ service. Congress showed so strong a wish to adjourn that the Administration was obliged to exert its whole influence to prevent the House from imitating the Senate, which by a vote of sixteen to fifteen adopted a Resolution for a recess until June 8. Secretary Gallatin ventured to bring no tax bills before Congress; Lowndes and Cheves made a vigorous effort to suspend the Non-importation Act; and a general belief prevailed that the Government wished to admit English goods in order to evade, by increase of customs-revenue, the necessity of taxation.
Serurier, much discomposed by these signs of vacillation, busied himself in the matter, declaring to his friends in Congress that he should look on any suspension of the Non-importation Act as a formal infraction of the compact with France. When he pressed Monroe with remonstrances,[161] Monroe told him, April 22, that the President and Cabinet had positively and unanimously declared to the Committee of Foreign Relations against the suspension, because it would seem to indicate indecision and inconsequence in their foreign policy; that this remonstrance had caused the plan to be given up, but that the Administration might still be obliged to consent to a short adjournment, so great was the wish of members to look after their private affairs. In fact, Congress showed no other wish than to escape, and leave the President to struggle with his difficulties alone.
If the war party hesitated in its allegiance to Madison, its doubts regarded his abilities rather than his zeal. Whatever might be Madison’s genius, no one supposed it to be that of administration. His health was delicate; he looked worn and feeble; for many years he had shown none of the energy of youth; he was likely to succumb under the burden of war; and, worst of all, he showed no consciousness of needing support. The party was unanimous in believing Secretary Eustis unequal to his post, but Madison made no sign of removing him. So general was the impression of Eustis’s incapacity that when, April 24, the President sent to Congress a message asking for two Assistant Secretaries of War to aid in conducting the Department, the request was commonly regarded as an evasion of the public demand for a new Secretary of War, and as such was unfavorably received. In the House, where the subject was openly discussed, Randolph defended Eustis in the style of which he was master: “I will say this much of the Secretary of War,—that I do verily believe, and I have grounds to believe it to be the opinion of a majority of this House, that he is at least as competent to the exercise of his duties as his colleague who presides over the Marine.” The Senate, wishing perhaps to force the President into reconstructing his Cabinet, laid aside the bill creating two Assistant Secretaries of War; and with this action, May 6, ended the last chance of efficiency in that Department.
While Eustis ransacked the country for generals, colonels, and the whole staff of officers, as well as the clothing, arms, and blankets for an army of twenty-five thousand men who could not be found, Gallatin labored to provide means for meeting the first year’s expenses. Having no longer the Bank to help him, he dealt separately with the State Banks through whose agency private subscriptions were to be received. The subscriptions were to be opened on the first and second days of May. The Republican newspapers, led by the “National Intelligencer,”[162] expressed the hope and the expectation that twice the amount of the loan would be instantly subscribed. Their disappointment was very great. Federalist New England refused to subscribe at all; and as the Federalists controlled most of the capital in the country, the effect of their abstention was alarming. In all New England not one million dollars were obtained. New York and Philadelphia took each about one and a half million. Baltimore and Washington took about as much more. The whole Southern country, from the Potomac to Charleston, subscribed seven hundred thousand dollars. Of the entire loan, amounting to eleven million dollars, a little more than six millions were taken; and considering the terms, the result was not surprising. At a time when the old six-per-cent loans, with ten or twelve years to run, stood barely at par, any new six-per-cent loan to a large amount, with a vast war in prospect, could hardly be taken at the same rate.
The Federalists, delighted with this failure, said, with some show of reason, that if the Southern States wanted the war they ought to supply the means, and had no right to expect that men who thought the war unjust and unnecessary should speculate to make money from it. Gallatin put a good face on his failure, and proposed soon to reopen subscriptions; but the disappointment was real.
“Whatever the result may be,” wrote Serurier to his Government,[163] “they had counted on more national energy on the opening of a first loan for a war so just. This cooling of the national pulse, the resistance which the Northern States seem once more willing to offer the Administration, the defection it meets every day in Congress,—all this, joined to its irritation at our measures which make its own system unpopular, adds to its embarrassment and hesitation.”
Gallatin made no complaints, but he knew only too well what lay before him. No resource remained except treasury notes bearing interest. Neither Gallatin, nor any other party leader, cared to suggest legal-tender notes, which were supposed to be not only an admission of national bankruptcy at the start, but also forbidden by the spirit of the Constitution; yet the government could hardly fail to experience the same form of bankruptcy in a less convenient shape. After the destruction of the United States Bank, a banking mania seized the public. Everywhere new banks were organized or planned, until the legislature of New York, no longer contented with small corporations controlling capital of one or two hundred thousand dollars, prepared to incorporate the old Bank of the United States under a new form, with a capital of six millions. Governor Tompkins stopped the project by proroguing the legislature; but his message gave the astonishing reason that the legislature was in danger of yielding to bribery.[164] The majority protested against the charge, and denounced it as a breach of privilege; but whether it was well or ill founded, the influence of the banking mania on State legislatures could not fail to be corrupting. The evil, inherent in the origin of the new banks, was aggravated by their management. Competition and want of experience or of supervision, inevitably led to over-issue, inflation of credit, suspension of specie payments, and paper-money of the worst character. Between a debased currency of private corporations and a debased currency of government paper, the former was the most expensive and the least convenient; yet it was the only support on which the Treasury could depend.
Early in May a double election took place, which gave more cause of alarm. New York chose a Federalist Assembly, and Massachusetts chose a General Court more strongly Federalist than any one had ventured to expect. In the face of such a revolution in two of the greatest and richest States in the Union, President, Cabinet, and legislators had reason to hesitate; they had even reason to fear that the existence of the Union might hang on their decision. They knew the Executive Department to be incompetent for war; they had before their eyes the spectacle of an incompetent Congress; and they saw the people declaring, as emphatically as their democratic forms of government permitted, their unwillingness to undertake the burden. Even bold men might pause before a situation so desperate.
Thus the month of May passed, full of discouragement. Congress did not adjourn, but the members went home on leave, with the understanding that no further action should be taken until June. At home they found chaos. Under the coercion of embargo, commerce ceased. Men would do little but talk politics, and very few professed themselves satisfied with the condition into which their affairs had been brought. The press cried for war or for peace, according to its fancy; but although each of the old parties could readily prove the other’s course to be absurd, unpatriotic, and ruinous, the war men, who were in truth a new party, powerless to restore order by legitimate methods, shut their ears to the outcry, and waited until actual war should enforce a discipline never to be imposed in peace.
The experiment of thrusting the country into war to inflame it, as crude ore might be thrown into a furnace, was avowed by the party leaders, from President Madison downward, and was in truth the only excuse for a course otherwise resembling an attempt at suicide. Many nations have gone to war in pure gayety of heart; but perhaps the United States were first to force themselves into a war they dreaded, in the hope that the war itself might create the spirit they lacked. One of the liveliest and most instructive discussions of the session, May 6, threw light upon the scheme by which the youthful nation was to reverse the process of Medea, and pass through the caldron of war in confidence of gaining the vigor of age. Mr. Bleecker of New York, in offering petitions for the repeal of the embargo, argued that the embargo could not be honestly intended. “Where are your armies; your navy? Have you money? No, sir! Rely upon it, there will be, there can be, no war—active, offensive war—within sixty days.” War would be little short of treason; would bring shame, disgrace, defeat; and meanwhile the embargo alienated the people of States which must necessarily bear much of the burden. These arguments were supported by John Randolph.
“I am myself,” he said, “in a situation similar to what would have been that of one of the unfortunate people of Caracas, if preadvised of the danger which overhung his country. I know that we are on the brink of some dreadful scourge, some great desolation, some awful visitation from that Power whom, I am afraid, we have as yet in our national capacity taken no pains to conciliate.... Go to war without money, without men, without a navy! Go to war when we have not the courage, while your lips utter war, to lay war taxes! when your whole courage is exhibited in passing Resolutions! The people will not believe it!”
Richard M. Johnson undertook first to meet these criticisms. Johnson possessed courage and abilities, but he had not, more than other Kentuckians of his day, the caution convenient in the face of opponents. He met by threats the opposition he would not answer. “It was a Tory opposition, in the cities and seaports; and an opposition which would not be quite so bold and powerful in a time of war; and he trusted in that Heaven to which the gentleman from Virginia had appealed, that sixty days would not elapse before all the traitorous combinations and opposition to the laws and the acts of the general government would in a great measure cease, or change, and moderate their tone.” Calhoun, who followed Johnson, expressed the same idea in less offensive form, and added opinions of his own which showed the mental condition in which the young war leaders exulted: “So far from being unprepared, sir, I believe that in four weeks from the time that a declaration of war is heard on our frontiers the whole of Upper and a part of Lower Canada will be in our possession.”
Grundy, following in the debate, used neither threats like Johnson, nor prophecies like Calhoun; but his argument was not more convincing. “It is only while the public mind is held in suspense,” he said; “it is only while there is doubt as to what will be the result of our deliberations,—it is only while we linger in this Hall that any manifestations of uneasiness will show themselves. Whenever war is declared, the people will put forth their strength to support their rights.” He went so far as to add that when war should be once begun, the distinction between Federalists and Republicans would cease. Finally, Wright of Maryland, whose words fortunately carried little weight, concluded the debate by saying that if signs of treason and civil war should discover themselves in any part of the American empire, he had no doubt the evil would soon be radically cured by hemp and confiscation; and his own exertions should not be spared to employ the remedy.
The President himself had no other plan than to “throw forward the flag of the country, sure that the people would press onward and defend it.”[165] The example he had himself given to the people in 1798 tended to cast doubt on the correctness of his judgment,[166] but his candidacy for the Presidency also shook confidence in his good faith. So deep was the conviction of his dislike for the policy he supported as to lead the British minister, May 3, to inform his Government that the jealousies between the younger and older members of Congress threatened an open schism, in which the President was supposed likely to be involved.[167]
“The reason why there has been no nomination made in caucus yet, by the Democratic members, of Mr. Madison as candidate for the Presidency is, as I am assured in confidence, because the war party have suspected him not to have been serious in his late hostile measures, and wish previously to ascertain his real sentiments. I have been endeavoring to put the Federalists upon insinuating that they will support him, if he will agree to give up the advocates for war.”
This intrigue was stopped by the positive refusal of the eastern Federalists to support Madison on any terms,—they preferred coalition with DeWitt Clinton and the Republican malcontents; but the time had come when some nomination must be made, and when it arrived, all serious thought of an open Republican schism at Washington vanished. The usual Congressional caucus was called May 18, and was attended by eighty-three members and senators, who unanimously renominated Madison. Seventeen senators, just one half the Senate, and sixty-six members, almost one half the House, joined in the nomination; but only three New York members took part, and neither Giles nor Samuel Smith was present,—they had ceased to act with the Republican party. Only a few weeks before, Vice-President Clinton had died in office, and whatever respect the Administration may have felt for his great name and Revolutionary services, the party was relieved at the prospect of placing in the chair of the Senate some man upon whom it could better depend. The caucus named John Langdon of New Hampshire; and when he declined, Elbridge Gerry, the defeated Governor of Massachusetts, was selected as candidate for the Vice-presidency.
So little cordiality was felt for President Madison by his party that only the want of a strong rival reconciled a majority to the choice; but although Clay, Crawford, and Calhoun accepted the necessity, the State of New York flatly rebelled. At Albany, when the news arrived that the Washington caucus had named Madison for the Presidency, the Republican members of the State legislature called for May 29 a caucus of their own. Their whole number was ninety-five; of these, all but four attended, and eighty-seven voted that it was expedient to name a candidate for the Presidency. Ninety members then voted to support DeWitt Clinton against Madison, and Clinton formally accepted the nomination. This unusual unanimity among the New York Republicans raised the movement somewhat above the level of ordinary New York politics, and pointed to a growing jealousy of Virginia, which threatened to end in revival of the old alliance between New York and New England. Even in quiet times this prospect would have been alarming; in face of war, it threatened to be fatal.
During the entire month of May Congress passed, with only one exception, no Act for war purposes. While the absent members attended to their private affairs, Government waited for the last despatches from abroad. The sloop-of-war “Hornet,” after long delay, arrived at New York, May 19, and three days afterward the despatches reached Washington. Once more, but for the last time, the town roused itself to learn what hope of peace they contained.
As far as concerned Great Britain, the news would at any previous time have checked hostile action, for it showed that the British government had taken alarm, and that for the first time a real change of policy was possible; but this news came from unofficial sources, and could not be laid before Congress. Officially, the British government still stoutly maintained that it could not yield. Lord Wellesley had given place to Lord Castlereagh. In a very long despatch,[168] dated April 10, the new Foreign Minister pleaded earnestly that England could not submit herself to the mercy of France. The argument of Lord Castlereagh rested on an official report made by the Duc de Bassano to the Emperor, March 10, in which Napoleon reasserted his rules regarding neutrals in language quite as strong as that of his decrees, and reasserted the validity of those decrees, without exception, in regard to every neutral that did not recognize their provisions. Certainly, no proof could be imagined competent to show the continued existence of the decrees if Bassano’s report failed to do so; and Castlereagh, with some reason, relied on this evidence to convince not so much the American government as the American people that a deception had been practised, and that England could not act as America required without submitting to Napoleon’s principles as well as to his arms.
Embarrassing as this despatch was to President Madison, it was not all, or the worst; but Serurier himself described the other annoyance in terms as lively as his feelings:[169]—
“The ‘Hornet’ has at last arrived. On the rumor of this news, the avenues of the State Department were thronged by a crowd of members of both Houses of Congress, as well as by strangers and citizens, impatient to know what this long-expected vessel had brought. Soon it was learned that the ‘Hornet’ had brought nothing favorable, and that Mr. Barlow had as yet concluded nothing with your Excellency. On this news, the furious declamations of the Federalists, of the commercial interests, and of the numerous friends of England were redoubled; the Republicans, deceived in their hopes, joined in the outcry, and for three days nothing was heard but a general cry for war against France and England at once.... I met Mr. Monroe at the Speaker’s house; he came to me with an air of affliction and discouragement; addressed me with his old reproach that decidedly we abandoned the Administration, and that he did not know henceforward how they could extricate themselves from the difficult position into which their confidence in our friendship had drawn them.”
Serurier had no reason for uneasiness on his own account. The President and his party could not go backward in their path; yet no enemy could have devised a worse issue than that on which the President had placed the intended war with England. Every Act of Congress and every official expression of Madison’s policy had been founded on the withdrawal of the French Decrees as they affected American commerce. This withdrawal could no longer be maintained, and Madison merely shook confidence in his own good faith by asserting it; yet he could do nothing else. “It is understood,” he wrote to Jefferson at this crisis,[170] “that the Berlin and Milan Decrees are not in force against the United States, and no contravention of them can be established against her. On the contrary, positive cases rebut the allegation.” Yet he said that “the business has become more than ever puzzling;” he was withheld only by political and military expediency from favoring war with France. He wrote to Joel Barlow,[171] after full knowledge of Napoleon’s conduct, that “in the event of a pacification with Great Britain the full tide of indignation with which the public mind here is boiling will be directed against France, if not obviated by a due reparation of her wrongs; war will be called for by the nation almost unâ voce.”
A position so inconsistent with itself could not be understood by the people. Every one knew that if the decrees were not avowedly enforced in France against the United States, they were relaxed only because Madison had submitted to their previous enforcement, and had, in Napoleon’s opinion, recognized their legality. The Republican press, which supported Madison most energetically, made no concealment of its active sympathies with Napoleon, even in Spain. What wonder if large numbers of good citizens who believed Napoleon to be anti-Christ should be disposed to resist, even to the verge of treason, the attempt to use their lives and fortunes in a service they regarded with horror!