CHAPTER XIX.
In the midst of confusion the election took place. Few moments in the national history were less cheerful. In the Northwest the force organized to recapture Detroit, commanded by General Harrison, was still at Franklinton in the centre of Ohio, unable to advance and preparing to disband. At Niagara, Van Rensselaer had failed, and Smyth was in command. At sea, the “Guerriere” and the “Frolic” had been captured, but Decatur’s victory over the “Macedonian” was still unknown. Napoleon, though supposed to be dictating peace at Moscow, was actually in full retreat. Every hope of the war party had already proved mistaken. Canada was not in their hands; no army had been enlisted; the people were less united than ever; taxation and debt could no longer be avoided; and military disgrace had been incurred beyond the predictions of John Randolph and Josiah Quincy. All this took place before the country had seen five hundred enemies except its own Indians on its soil, and when it had no reason to fear immediate attack.
Once more the steadiness of Pennsylvania saved the Administration from its worst perils. The election took place, and the electoral votes of New England, except Vermont, were duly thrown for De Witt Clinton, while under the management of Martin Van Buren the Republicans of the New York legislature chose Clinton electors by Federalist aid. New Jersey and Delaware also voted for Clinton. Maryland gave five of her electoral votes to Clinton, six to Madison, and elected a legislature strongly Federalist. A change of twenty electoral votes would have turned the scale. In 1808, under all the disadvantages of the embargo, Madison received one hundred and twenty-two votes in an Electoral College of one hundred and seventy-five; but in 1812 he obtained only one hundred and twenty-eight votes in an Electoral College of two hundred and seventeen, although the three new votes of Louisiana increased his proportion. In Massachusetts the Federalists surprised even themselves by their immense majority of twenty-four thousand, and the peace party swept the Congressional districts throughout New England and New York, doubling Federalist strength in the Thirteenth Congress.
If John Taylor of Caroline was to be believed, the support given by Virginia to the Administration was hardly more flattering than the sweeping condemnation of the North and East. The County of Caroline, south of the Rappahannock on the road to Richmond, was distinguished by no peculiarities from the other seaboard counties in the Southern States, and Colonel Taylor himself did not openly oppose the war; but he saw no enthusiasm for it among his neighbors. November 8 he wrote to Monroe,[360]—
“I think I expressed my opinion to you during the last Congress that the people were not for the war in these parts, though they were attached to Mr. Monroe and Mr. Madison. In that opinion I am confirmed by the apathy in choosing electors. Those respectable and popular men, Colonel James Taylor and Dr. Bankhead, could not, I am told, get more than about one hundred and thirty out of about seven hundred free-holders to attend and vote for Mr. Madison. Among these were the most prominent minority-men.”
This apathy extended through the three great States of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. Only along the Indian frontier, west of the Alleghany Mountains, could enthusiasm be said to exist, and even there took rather the form of hostilities against the Indians than against the British.
The effect of these embarrassments and difficulties showed itself in wavering and uncertain judgment in the Government, and especially in its diplomacy. The President and the Cabinet hoped and believed, when the news of Hull’s surrender arrived, that it would produce an outburst of patriotism. So strong was Monroe’s faith in the people that he talked to Serurier, September 1, as though the nation were alive with his own ardor.[361]
“‘We want no armistice for the present,’ said Mr. Monroe to me with great energy; ‘our resolution is taken. It has been done after long and cool deliberation, and by consent of the whole nation; we shall not easily renounce it. Never, certainly, have we been more determined on war; the disgraceful affront we have lately experienced at Detroit renders its prolongation indispensable until our honor is restored.... For myself,’ he cried, with indignation altogether military and worthy one of the founders of Independence, ‘Secretary of State as I am, if to-morrow a British minister should arrive in Washington to negotiate peace, I would say to him, No; I will not treat with you now! wait till we have given you a better opinion of us! When our honor shall be avenged, when you shall have recrossed the rivers, when our generals shall occupy the best part of your Canada, then I shall be disposed to listen, and to treat of peace.’”
These remarks were made in September. In about six weeks the French minister talked again with the Secretary of State, who assured him, to his astonishment, that peace might be made with England at any moment. Serurier, who took Monroe’s pacific temper as seriously as he had taken his warlike expressions, wrote in alarm to his Government,[362]—
“The English want peace with America; they want it at any price; they offer all that America asks, and negotiations are about to open, or rather are continuing, and henceforward openly. Mr. Monroe made me this communication in nearly these terms.... ‘We did not flatter ourselves on obtaining so quickly such important concessions. Mr. Russell had occasion to see Lord Castlereagh. Discussing with this minister the repeal of the Orders in Council, he asked why the repealing Order treated with such vagueness the renunciation of paper blockades, and whether the Ministry had in fact wholly abandoned them. Lord Castlereagh answered: ‘They fall to dust of themselves, and we shall think no more of them.’ Mr. Russell having noticed the caution with which the Prince Regent seemed to retain the right to restore at any time the abolished Orders, Lord Castlereagh observed that, indeed, something had to be said for the public, but the phrase did no harm.’”
Monroe added that “very certainly the American government would not consent to sign the peace without having obtained from England the renunciation of impressments;” but Serurier had reason for alarm, for Monroe expected an immediate renewal of negotiations. He had received from Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren at Halifax another offer of armistice and negotiation, dated September 30; and soon after the interview with Serurier, Monroe wrote to Admiral Warren a reply, dated October 27,[363] which accepted the armistice on condition that, pending the cessation of hostilities, the practice of impressments should be suspended, while he made the additional offer of negotiating without an armistice if the suspension of impressments should be conceded in principle.
Nothing remained of the refusal to hear England’s advances until “our honor shall be restored and our generals shall occupy the best parts of your Canada.” The unexpected indifference to the war which made itself so evident in all the Atlantic States paralyzed the government. Even the Federalists of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland spoke to Monroe in tones hardly more emphatic than those used by his oldest Virginia friend, Colonel Taylor, who wrote:[364] “If the President thinks that defeat has raised the spirit of the nation, and goes on with the war on that ground, he will find himself mistaken.” The President clearly came to the same conclusion, for he renewed attempts at negotiation a week before Congress met, and a fortnight before the election of November 8.
Thenceforward, Madison risked the charge of continuing the war only to satisfy himself that England could not be forced into an express renunciation of what she called her right of impressment,—a result which the opposition already knew to be certain. The experiment was worth trying, and after the timidity of the American government in past years was well suited to create national character, if it did not destroy the nation; but it was not the less hazardous in the face of sectional passions such as existed in New England, or in the hands of a party which held power by virtue of Jefferson’s principles. That the British government should expressly renounce its claim to impressment was already an idea hardly worth entertaining; but if the war could not produce that result, it might at least develop a government strong enough to attain the same result at some future time. If a strong government was desired, any foreign war, without regard to its object, might be good policy, if not good morals; and in that sense President Madison’s war was the boldest and most successful of all experiments in American statesmanship, though it was also among the most reckless; but only with difficulty could history offer a better example of its processes than when it showed Madison, Gallatin, Macon, Monroe, and Jefferson joining to create a mercenary army and a great national debt, for no other attainable object than that which had guided Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists toward the establishment of a strong government fifteen years before.
Unnatural as Madison’s position was, that of Monroe was more surprising. Such were the revolutions of politics that Madison found himself master of the situation, and Monroe was obliged to forego his ancient distrust of Executive power in the effort to prevent his rivals from sharing it. Somewhat to the amusement of the Federalists, who held no high opinion of Monroe’s abilities, the Secretary of State was placed before the country in the attitude of Cromwell. He could no longer follow the path of ambition in civil life. If he were to maintain his hold upon the Presidency, he must serve his country in the field where his services were needed, or some bolder man would capture Quebec and the Presidency by a single stroke.
The President himself gave Monroe an early hint to this effect. After the adjournment of Congress, July 6, 1812, and some two months before Hull’s surrender was known, Madison suggested[365] to his Secretary of State the idea of leading the advance upon Montreal. Fortunately for Monroe, he could neither out-rank Dearborn, nor serve as a subordinate. Unable to overcome this objection, Madison laid the subject aside, and soon afterward, toward the end of August, left Washington for Montpelier, where he enjoyed only a few days’ rest before the news of Hull’s surrender arrived. The idea that he was himself in any degree responsible for Hull’s disaster, or for Eustis’s or Dearborn’s supposed shortcomings, did not distress the President; but he was anxious to restore confidence in the military administration, and Monroe was earnest in the wish to assist him. September 2, immediately after receiving the news, Monroe wrote to the President offering to take a volunteer commission, and to assume command of the fresh force then gathering in Kentucky and Ohio to recapture Detroit. Madison replied September 5,[366] balancing the advantages and objections, but leaning toward the step. The next day he wrote more strongly,[367] urging Monroe to go as a volunteer without rank, if no sufficient commission could be given him. Again, September 10,[368] the President wrote, offering to risk issuing a volunteer commission under a doubt as to the meaning of the Act: “I see no evil in risking your appointment comparable to that which may be obviated by it. The Western country is all in motion and confusion. It would be grievous if so much laudable ardor and effort should not be properly concentrated and directed.” Neither the President nor the Secretary was aware that Governor William Henry Harrison had taken steps long in advance for occupying the field on which Monroe’s eyes were fixed. Monroe actually made his arrangements, sent off cannon to besiege Detroit, and was himself on the point of starting westward, when letters arrived which showed that Harrison was not only the popular idol of the moment in Kentucky and Ohio, but that he had received from the governor of Kentucky the commission of major-general.[369]
This double set-back from men so inferior as Dearborn and Harrison irritated Monroe, who could not command in the North on account of Dearborn, or in the West without a contest with Harrison and Winchester. Evidently, if he was to take any military position, he must command in chief.
This idea became fixed not only in Monroe’s mind, but also in that of the public, particularly among Monroe’s personal following. The man who stood closest in his confidence and whose advice weighed most with him in personal matters was his son-in-law, George Hay. September 22 Hay wrote to him from Richmond,[370]—
“It is rumored here that you are to be appointed lieutenant-general. Such an appointment would give, I believe, universal satisfaction.... This is indeed a critical moment. Some great effort must be made. Unless something important is done, Mr. Madison may be elected again, but he will not be able to get along. But Mr. Madison ought not to exact any further sacrifices from you. If you go into the army you ought to go with the supreme power in your hand. I would not organize an army for Dearborn or anybody else. Mr. Madison ought not to expect it, and if he did I would flatly and directly reject the proposal. Everybody is looking forward to an event of this kind, and I do not believe that any man calculates that you are to go in a subordinate character. The truth is that Dearborn is laughed at, not by Federalists but by zealous Republicans. I do not give on this subject a reluctant, hesitating opinion. I am clear that if you go into the army (about which I say nothing), you should go as the commander-in-chief.”
Monroe also felt no doubt that if he went to the field at all he must go in chief command; but he hesitated. As compared with Madison’s major-generals, Monroe was young, being only fifty-four years old; in the Revolutionary War he had risen to the rank of captain, and had seen as much service as made him the military equal of Dearborn or Pinckney, but he felt no such special fitness for carrying out a campaign as for planning and superintending it. Probably he could reconcile the two careers only by some expedient, such as by taking the War Department, and as Secretary of War accompanying the general in command; or by accepting the post of lieutenant-general, and from headquarters advising the Secretary of War as to the conduct of the campaign. The former course seemed to Monroe to imply serious Constitutional difficulties, and he inclined to the latter.
Secretary Eustis waited until Dearborn returned from Lake Champlain to Albany, Smyth failed at Niagara, and Harrison became stationary in Ohio, then, December 3, sent his resignation to the President. Instantly informed of this event, and having reason to suppose that the place would be offered to him, Monroe called his friends to a consultation,[371] the result of which was narrated in a letter written to Jefferson six months afterward:[372]—
“I stated [to the President] that if it was thought necessary to remove me from my present station in the idea that I had some military experience, and a change in the command of the troops was resolved on, I would prefer it to the Department of War in the persuasion that I might be more useful. In the Department of War a man might form a plan of a campaign and write judicious letters on military operations; but still these were nothing but essays,—everything would depend on the execution. I thought that with the army I should have better control over operations and events, and might even aid, so far as I could give aid at all, the person in the Department of War. I offered to repair instantly to the Northern army, to use my best efforts to form it, to promote the recruiting business in the Eastern States, to conciliate the people to the views of the Government, and unite them so far as it might be possible in the war. The President was of opinion that if I quitted my present station, I ought to take the command of the army. It being necessary to place some one immediately in the Department of War to supply the vacancy made by Mr. Eustis’s retreat, the President requested me to take it pro tempore, leaving the ultimate decision on the other question open to further consideration. I did so.”
Monroe, with only the model of Washington before his eyes, felt aggrieved that the Clintons and Armstrongs of the North thought him greedy of power; but the curious destiny which had already more than once made a sport of Monroe’s career promised at last to throw the weight of a continent upon his shoulders. Secretary of State, acting Secretary of War, general-in-chief by a double guarantee, and President thereafter, what more could the witches promise on the blasted heath of politics that could tempt ambition? Neither Cromwell nor Napoleon had, at any single moment, laid a broader claim upon the favors of Fortune.
Monroe grasped too much, and the prizes which would have destroyed him slipped through his fingers. The story that he was to be general-in-chief as well as Secretary of War, exaggerated by jealousy, roused a storm of protest. Even the patient Gallatin interposed there, and gave the President to understand that if Monroe were transferred to the army, he should himself claim the vacant Department of State; and Madison admitted the justice of the claim, although the difficulty of filling the Treasury created a new obstacle to the scheme. A greater difficulty arose from sectional jealousies. The loss of New York to the Republican party, due chiefly to dislike of Virginia and to Monroe’s previous promotion, was too recent and serious to allow further experiments. The Republican leaders in New York—Governor Tompkins, Judge Spencer, and their connections—felt their hopes depend on checking the open display of Virginia favoritism. Finally, the Federalists made a scandal of the subject. January 5, Josiah Quincy, in a speech which for literary quality was one of the best ever delivered in the House, after giving a keen if not an exact, account of the “Cabinet, little less than despotic, composed, to all efficient purposes, of two Virginians and a foreigner, which had for twelve years ruled the nation,” rose to a climax by averring that all the new Cabinet projects—the loan of twenty millions, an army of fifty-five thousand regulars, the scheme of mock negotiation—had no other object than to satiate the ambition of a single man:—
“The army for the conquest of Canada will be raised,—to be commanded by whom? This is the critical question. The answer is in every man’s mouth. By a member of the American Cabinet; by one of the three; by one of that trio who at this moment constitute in fact, and who efficiently have always constituted, the whole Cabinet. And the man who is thus intended for the command of the greatest army this New World ever contained,—an army nearly twice as great as was at any time the regular army of our Revolution,—I say the man who is intended for this great trust is the individual who is notoriously the selected candidate for the next Presidency.”
In face of these difficulties, Madison could not carry out his scheme. His only object in pushing Monroe forward was to strengthen himself by using what he supposed to be Monroe’s popularity; but from the moment it appeared that Monroe, in the War Department or at the head of the Northern army, would be a source of weakness rather than of strength, Madison had no motive to persist; so that Monroe, failing to take a decided step, suddenly found himself—he hardly knew how—in the awkward attitude of a disappointed Cromwell. His rival first withdrew the War Department from his hands. He described to Jefferson[373] the way in which he lost this vantage ground:—
“It was soon found to be improper, at a period of so much danger and urgency, to keep that Department in the hands of a temporary occupant; it ought to be filled by the person who would have to form the plan of the campaign in every quarter, and be responsible for it. It being indispensable to fill it with a prominent character, and the question remaining undecided relative to the command of the army, more persons thinking a change urgent, and the opinion of the President in regard to me being the same, General Armstrong was put in the Department of War. Had it been decided to continue the command of the army under General Dearborn, and the question been with me, ‘Would I take the Department of War, the President and other friends wishing it?’ I would not have hesitated a moment in complying; but it never assumed that form.”
If Monroe was more jealous of one man than of another, his antipathies centred upon John Armstrong, the late American minister at Paris. As has been already shown, Monroe came into the State Department expecting rivalry with Armstrong; but he had no occasion to begin active measures of hostility. Armstrong’s opinions of Madison and Monroe were known to be the same as those of other New Yorkers; if he came to the support of the Administration he came not in order to please the Virginians, but to rescue the government from what he thought Virginian incompetence or narrowness; and that Armstrong would shut the door of military glory in the face of the Secretary of State was as certain as that the Secretary of State would, sooner or later, revenge the insult by ejecting Armstrong from the Cabinet if he could.
No one denied that Monroe had reason for fearing Armstrong, whose abilities were undoubted and whose scruples were few. Since his return from Paris, Armstrong had been known as a discontented Republican, grumbling without reserve at the manner in which public affairs were conducted; yet this was no more than many other Northern Republicans had done, and Armstrong behaved better than most. On the declaration of war he avoided the mistakes of the Clintons, and acted with Governor Tompkins and Ambrose Spencer in support of the Administration. July 6, 1812, to the surprise and anger of the Clinton Republicans, Armstrong accepted the commission of brigadier-general, and was placed in command of New York city and its defences. His knowledge of the theory and practice of war was considerable, and his influence as a politician was likely to be great. In the chronic chaos of New York politics, Armstrong stood between De Witt Clinton, who wished to win the Presidency by intrigue, and Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, who hoped to become President by regular party promotion. Ambrose Spencer, who liked neither Clinton nor Tompkins, preferred Armstrong as the candidate of New York. The influence of Spencer in the contest with De Witt Clinton became for the moment absolute; and the necessity of securing re-election as governor, in April, 1813, drove Tompkins himself to support Spencer in urging Armstrong’s appointment as Secretary of War, although he knew that the appointment of Armstrong to the Cabinet opened to him the door to the Presidency.[374]
In spite of Armstrong’s services, abilities, and experience, something in his character always created distrust. He had every advantage of education, social and political connection, ability and self-confidence; he was only fifty-four years old, which was also the age of Monroe; but he suffered from the reputation of indolence and intrigue. So strong was the prejudice against him that he obtained only eighteen votes against fifteen in the Senate on his confirmation; and while the two senators from Virginia did not vote at all, the two from Kentucky voted in the negative. Under such circumstances, nothing but military success of the first order could secure a fair field for Monroe’s rival.
The nomination of Armstrong to be Secretary of War was made Jan. 8, 1813, and was accompanied by that of William Jones of Pennsylvania to succeed Paul Hamilton as Secretary of the Navy.
The resignation of Paul Hamilton was supposed to be made at the President’s request, for reasons not given to the public. His successor, William Jones, long a prominent Republican, a member of Congress at the beginning of Jefferson’s administration, had been offered the Navy Department in 1801, when that Department was offered to almost every leading Republican before falling into the hands of Robert Smith. Jones then declined the task, and soon retired from Congress to follow his private business as a ship-owner in Philadelphia. His appointment in 1812 was probably as good as the party could supply. He was confirmed by the Senate without opposition; but he had little to do with the movement of politics or with matters apart from business.
These changes left no one except Gallatin who belonged to the Cabinet of President Jefferson. Attorney-General Rodney had resigned his position a year before, in natural displeasure because the President nominated Gabriel Duval, the Comptroller of the Treasury, to the vacant seat of Justice Chase on the Supreme Bench, thus passing over the Attorney-General in a manner which could be regarded only as a slight. The President, Dec. 10, 1811, nominated William Pinkney, the late minister at London, to succeed Rodney. The influence and activity of the Attorney-General in the Cabinet were at that time less than they subsequently became; and Pinkney, like Rodney, and like William Wirt afterward, had little responsibility beyond the few cases in which the United States were a party before the Courts.
With this reorganization of the Cabinet Madison’s first term of Presidency drew toward a close. Only Congress required his attention, and as some compensation for the cares of war, the cares of Congress diminished. After the general election of Nov. 8, 1812, serious opposition or even faction in Congress became impossible. Madison had no reason to fear anything that could happen in the Legislature, provided he had no difficulties with his Cabinet.
President Madison’s Annual Message of Nov. 4, 1812, was an interesting paper. Gliding gently over the disasters of the Northern campaign; dilating on British iniquity in using Indians for allies; commenting on the conduct of Massachusetts and Connecticut with disfavor, because it led to the result that the United States were “not one nation for the purpose most of all requiring it;” praising Rodgers and Hull for the results of their skill and bravery,—the Message next touched upon the diplomatic outlook and the future objects of the war in a paragraph which needed and received much study:—
“Anxious to abridge the evils from which a state of war cannot be exempt, I lost no time, after it was declared, in conveying to the British government the terms on which its progress might be arrested without awaiting the delays of a formal and final pacification; and our chargé d’affaires at London was at the same time authorized to agree to an armistice founded upon them. These terms required that the Orders in Council should be repealed as they affected the United States, without a revival of blockades violating acknowledged rules; and that there should be an immediate discharge of American seamen from British ships, and a stop to impressment from American ships, with an understanding that an exclusion of the seamen of each nation from the ships of the other should be stipulated; and that the armistice should be improved into a definite and comprehensive adjustment of depending controversies. Although a repeal of the orders susceptible of explanations meeting the views of this Government had taken place before this pacific advance was communicated to that of Great Britain, the advance [made by us] was declined [by the British government] from an avowed repugnance to a suspension of the practice of impressments during the armistice, and without any intimation that the arrangement proposed with respect to seamen would be accepted. Whether the subsequent communications from this Government, affording an occasion for reconsidering the subject on the part of Great Britain, will be viewed in a more favorable light remains to be known. It would be unwise to relax our measures in any respect on a presumption of such a result.”
Not without difficulty could one understand from this statement precisely what prevented the restoration of peace. England had never refused to discharge American seamen on sufficient evidence of wrongful impressment. According to the Message, the President asked only “an immediate discharge of American seamen from British ships, and a stop to impressment from American ships.” The demand of this point seemed to imply that England had made or would probably make satisfactory concessions on all others. The Message therefore narrowed the cause of war to the requirement of a formal suspension of impressments from American ships, though not of American citizens on shore, pending negotiations, and to be made permanent by treaty. The demand was proper, and its only fault was to fall short of full satisfaction; but considered in its effect upon the politics of the moment the attitude was new, unsupported by a precedent, unwarranted by any previous decision or declaration of President or Congress, and open to the Federalist charge that Madison sought only an excuse for continuing to stake the national existence on the chance of success in his alliance with Bonaparte. The rest of the Message helped to strengthen the impression that a policy of permanent war was to be fixed upon the country; for it recommended higher pay for recruits and volunteers, an increase in the number of general officers, a reorganization of the general staff of the army, and an increase of the navy. The impression was not weakened by the President’s silence in regard to the financial wants of the government, which left to the Secretary of the Treasury the unpleasant duty of announcing that the enormous sum of twenty million dollars must be borrowed for the coming year. Every one knew that such a demand was equivalent to admitting the prospect of immediate bankruptcy.
“I think a loan to that amount to be altogether unattainable,” Gallatin told Madison in private.[375] “From banks we can expect little or nothing, as they have already lent nearly to the full extent of their faculties. All that I could obtain this year from individual subscriptions does not exceed three million two hundred thousand dollars.”
The President refrained from presenting this demand to Congress, and not until after the election was the financial situation made known; but then Gallatin’s report, sent to the House December 5, estimated the military expenses at seventeen millions, the naval at nearly five millions, and the civil at fifteen hundred thousand, besides interest on the public debt to the amount of three million three hundred thousand, and reimbursements of loans, treasury notes, etc., reaching five million two hundred thousand more,—in all, thirty-one million nine hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. This estimate omitted every expenditure not already authorized by law, such as the proposed increase of army and navy.
To meet these obligations, amounting probably to thirty-three million dollars, Gallatin counted on a revenue of eleven million five hundred thousand dollars from imports, and half a million from the sale of lands,—making twelve millions in all; leaving a sum of at least twenty millions to be borrowed, with an increase of debt to the amount of fifteen millions.
The state of war brought the advantage of compelling the Legislature to act or perish; and although Congress had seldom if ever been so unanimously dissatisfied, it was never so docile. For the first time Madison could recommend a measure with some certainty that Congress would listen, and with some confidence that it would act. Faction began to find its limits, and an Executive order had no longer to excuse itself; while Congress, on its side, with shut eyes, broke through the barriers hitherto set to its powers, and roamed almost at will beyond the limits which the Republican party assigned to the Constitution.