Union and Democracy

by Allen Johnson

That members of the Essex Junto would gladly have seized this opportunity to remake the Federal Union by excluding the Western States appears clearly enough in the correspondence of men like Timothy Pickering. A new Union of the "good old thirteen States" on terms set by New England was believed to be well within the bounds of possibility. Radical newspapers referred with enthusiasm to the erection of a new federal edifice. Little wonder that the harassed President was obsessed with the idea that New England was on the verge of secession.

From the first, however, this movement in New England was kept well in hand by men like Harrison Gray Otis, who always insisted that the object of a convention was to defend New England against the common enemy and to prevent radical action under the stress of popular excitement. If this be true, it was unfortunate, to say the least, that these patriots chose just this moment, when the Federal Government was about to succumb to the common enemy, to propose alterations in the Constitution; and it was equally unfortunate for the reputations of all concerned that they should have held their deliberations in secret, giving an air of conspiracy to their proceedings. The official journal of the Convention at Hartford was not published until 1823. When the Convention adjourned on January 5, 1815, all that the general public was permitted to know of its deliberations was contained in its famous report.

The Convention was at no little pains to reassure a waiting world that it did not contemplate or countenance secession. It was not yet ready to concede that the defects in the Constitution were incurable nor that multiplied abuses justified a severance of the Union, "especially in a time of war." "If the Union be destined to dissolution, ... it should, if possible, be the work of peaceable times, and deliberate consent." But these philosophical considerations did not deter the author of the report from a vicious and partisan attack upon "the multiplied abuses of bad administrations."

President Madison must have read this document with mingled feelings, for the Convention held, almost in the words of his Resolutions of 1798, that the infractions of the Constitution were so "deliberate, dangerous, and palpable" as to put the liberties of the people in jeopardy and to make it the duty of a State "to interpose its authority for their protection." The legislatures of the several States were recommended to adopt measures for protecting their citizens against all unconstitutional acts of Congress which should subject the militia or other citizens to forcible drafts, conscriptions, or impressments. They were also urged to apply to the Federal Government for consent to some arrangement whereby the States, separately or in concert, could undertake their own defense and retain a reasonable proportion of the national taxes for the purpose. Finally, seven amendments to the Constitution were proposed, to prevent a recurrence of the grievances from which the New England States suffered. Four of these proposed amendments put limitations upon Congress: a two-thirds vote of both houses was to be required to admit a new State, to interdict commerce, to lay an embargo, and to declare war. In future, representation and direct taxes were to be apportioned according to the respective numbers of free persons. Naturalized citizens were to be excluded from all federal civil offices; and finally—a blow at the Virginia dynasty—"the same person shall not be elected President of the United States a second time; nor shall the President be elected from the same State two terms in succession."

The General Court of Massachusetts acted promptly. Three commissioners were dispatched at once to Washington, to work out an amicable arrangement for the defense of the State. On February 3, 1815, the "three ambassadors," as they styled themselves, set out for the capital. Ten days later, en route, they learned that General Andrew Jackson had decisively repulsed an attack of the British upon New Orleans on January 8. On reaching Washington the commissioners were met with the news that a treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent. Their cause had met with the most unlucky fate which can befall any cause in the United States: it had become ridiculous. The tension of war-times relaxed in a roar of laughter at their expense.

Early in the year 1813, Russia had endeavored to mediate between her ally and the United States. President Madison had at once, and as it appeared somewhat precipitately, sent Albert Gallatin and James A. Bayard as peace commissioners to St. Petersburg; but Great Britain declined the Czar's good offices. The American envoys, however, remained in Europe. When, then, in October, the British Ministry intimated that it was prepared to begin direct negotiations, President Madison created a new commission by sending John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell to join Gallatin and Bayard. In the last week in June, the commissioners repaired to Ghent, which had been chosen as the place of meeting. Thither the British negotiators followed them in leisurely fashion. The first joint conference was not held until August 8, 1814.

The task of the American commissioners was one of very great difficulty. Confronted by the unexpected demand that the revision of the Canadian boundary, the fisheries, and the establishment of an Indian state in the Northwest should be included in the pourparler, they could only reply that they had been instructed to discuss only matters of maritime law—impressments, blockades, and neutral rights. There seemed so little likelihood of agreement that the American commissioners prepared to leave Ghent. But the British Ministry abated its extreme demands and continued the negotiations. At the same time new instructions from Washington advised the American representatives that they might drop the subject of impressments if they found it an insuperable obstacle in the way of peace.

The insistence of the British agents upon the principle of uti possidetis—the state of possession at the close of the war—again threatened to break off negotiations, for the Americans resolutely insisted on the status quo ante bellum, a restoration of all places taken during the war. It was at this juncture that tidings arrived of the British repulse at Plattsburg. For a week the British Ministry debated the feasibility of renewing the war; but the complications at the Congress of Vienna, the "prodigious expense" of continued war, the change in public opinion, and the emphatic conviction of Wellington that the Ministry had "no right from the state of the war to demand any cession of territory"—these and many lesser considerations disposed the Cabinet to ask the American envoys to prepare a draft of a treaty.

Strong differences of opinion developed among the Americans when they set to work upon their preliminary draft. As the representative of Western interests, Clay set himself obstinately against any further recognition of the British right—secured by the treaty of 1783—of free navigation of the Mississippi. Adams was equally determined not to sacrifice the correlative right to the Labrador and Newfoundland fisheries, which his father had secured in the Treaty of Paris. Gallatin, the peacemaker, was in favor of offering to renew both privileges; and he finally succeeded in winning Clay's reluctant assent to this plan. But when the British commissioners objected, both sides agreed to omit all reference to these vexing questions.

The treaty which was signed on December 24, 1814, is remarkable for its omissions. The reader will scan it in vain for any allusion to impressments, blockades, and neutral rights. It is equally silent as to the control of the Lakes, Indian territories, the fisheries, and the navigation of the Mississippi. It was "simply a cessation of hostilities, leaving every claim on either side open for future settlement." Clay probably reflected the disappointment of Republicans when he pronounced it "a damned bad treaty." Nevertheless, it brought what was most desired by the exhausted Administration—peace. Moreover, the treaty must be viewed in the light of events in Europe. The overthrow of the Napoleonic Empire and the exile of Bonaparte gave promise of a return to normal conditions so far as maritime rights were concerned. The victories of American seamen in the war were after all better guaranties of neutral rights than any declarations on parchment.