Union and Democracy

by Allen Johnson

Nevertheless, the opposition in Congress persisted in misrepresenting the President's purposes. It was pointed out that the republics to the south very generally believed that the United States was pledged by Monroe's message to make common cause with them when their independence was threatened. "Are we prepared," asked Hayne, of South Carolina, "to send ministers to the Congress of Panama for the purpose of making effectual this pledge of President Monroe as construed by the present administration and understood by the Spanish-American states?" With greater sincerity Southern Representatives protested against participating in a congress which proposed to discuss the suppression of the slave trade and the future of Hayti. "Slavery in all its bearings," said Hayne, "is a question of extreme delicacy, concerning which there is but one safe rule either for the States in which it exists or for the Union. It must ever be treated as a domestic question. To foreign governments the language of the United States must be that the question of slavery concerns the peace and safety of our political family, and that we cannot allow it to be discussed." Least of all, he continued, could the United States touch the question of the independence of Hayti in connection with revolutionary governments which had marched to victory under the banner of universal emancipation and which had permitted men of color to command their armies and enter their legislative halls.

In the end the Administration had its way and the nominations were confirmed; but the delay was most unfortunate. On their way to the Isthmus, one of the delegates died, and the other arrived too late to take part in the congress. From the viewpoint of domestic politics, the controversy over the mission was only an incident in the evolution of a party within the bosom of the Democratic party. The animus of the opposition is revealed in the often-quoted remark of Martin Van Buren, who was trying to drill the varied elements in the Senate into a coherent organization: "Yes, they have beaten us by a few votes, after a hard battle; but if they had only taken the other side and refused the mission, we should have had them."

Of far more serious import than this factional opposition in Congress was the resistance which the authorities of Georgia offered to the National Administration in the matter of Indian lands. On March 5, 1825, the Senate ratified the Treaty of Indian Springs with the Creek Indians, which provided for the cession of practically all the lands of the tribe between the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers. For years the planters of Georgia had coveted these fertile tracts, awaiting with impatience the negotiations of the Federal Government with the reluctant Indians. Although the title to the lands was not to pass to Georgia until September 1, 1826, Governor Troup ordered them to be surveyed with a view to their immediate occupation. Meantime, well-founded charges were current that the treaty had been made by a faction among the Creeks, without the consent of the responsible chiefs. President Adams at once ordered the state authorities to desist from their survey; but the governor replied that Georgia was convinced of the validity of the treaty and fully determined to enter into possession of her own. The tone of the governor's letter was ominous. Nevertheless, the President instituted negotiations for a new treaty. The diplomatic shifts resorted to by the Indian agents in this instance were not above suspicion, but the President seemed to entertain no misgivings, for he assured the Senate that the new Treaty of Washington (January 24, 1826) was the will and deed of "the chiefs of the whole Creek Nation." The grant left the Indians still in possession of some lands west of the Chattahoochee.

The feelings of all loyal Georgians were outraged by the course of the Administration. The legislature protested against the Treaty of Washington as "illegal and unconstitutional," and denounced the President's action as "an instance of dictation and federal supremacy unwarranted by any grant of powers to the General Government." "Georgia owns exclusively the soil and jurisdiction of all the territory within her present chartered and conventional limits," read the resolutions of December 22, 1826. "She has never relinquished said right, either territorial or jurisdictional, to the General Government."

The ebullient governor hardly needed the indorsement of the legislature. He pushed on the surveys to the limits set by the original treaty. But the surveyors soon met with resistance from the Indians; and the Indians appealed to the President. The Secretary of War then notified Troup that the President felt himself compelled to employ all the means under his control to maintain the faith of the nation and to carry the treaty into effect. Governor Troup replied defiantly that the "military character of the menace" was well understood. "You will distinctly understand, therefore, that I feel it my duty to resist to the utmost any military attack.... From the first decisive act of hostility, you will be considered and treated as a public enemy, and with less repugnance because you, to whom we might constitutionally have appealed for our defense against invasion, are yourselves the invaders, and, what is more, the unblushing allies of the savages whose course you have adopted." He at once issued orders to the state military officers to hold the militia in readiness to repel any invasion of the soil of Georgia.

The tension which had now become acute was relieved by the intelligence that the President had ordered the Indian agent to the Creeks to resume negotiations for the cession of the rest of their lands. The governor hastened to point out jubilantly that the President had beaten a retreat. Meantime, the President had laid the whole matter before Congress in a special message. A committee of the House advised the purchase of the rest of the Indian lands, but in the mean time the maintenance of the terms of the Treaty of Washington. A committee of the Senate, however, with Benton as chairman, took an opposite view of the situation, and deprecated any action looking toward the coercion of a sister State. A treaty concluded with the Creeks in November, 1827, fortunately satisfied all parties and put an end to this exciting controversy—a controversy in which the President had played a lone and not very successful hand.

In this same year (1827), another Indian problem of even greater perplexity arose. The Cherokees of northwestern Georgia, who were ruled by a group of intelligent half-breeds, declared themselves one of the sovereign and independent nations of the earth, and drafted a constitution which completely excluded the authority of the State of Georgia. Again, in no uncertain language, Georgia asserted her title to all the lands within her limits, regarding the Indians simply as "tenants at her will"; but before the controversy reached an acute stage Adams had surrendered the Presidency to General Andrew Jackson, who had only contempt for Indian rights when they fell athwart the purposes of honest white settlers.

In the midst of these protestations against federal intervention, the legislature of Georgia sounded a note of defiance also in the matter of the tariff. It was "their decided opinion an increase of Tariff duties will and ought to be RESISTED by all legal and constitutional means." Just what should be "the mode of opposition" they would not pretend to say, but for the present they would content themselves with "the peaceable course of remonstrating with Congress." This rather ominous protest was inspired by the demands of certain manufacturers and politicians who had assembled in convention at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1827.

The woolen industry had profited least of all those which had been protected by the Tariff of 1824. Not only had the slight advance in rates been offset by the increase of the duty on raw wool, but the effect of English competition in 1825 had been most depressing to the woolen trade. A tariff bill to meet the wishes of the wool-growers and woolen manufacturers had passed the House early in 1827, but had been defeated in the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President. The convention at Harrisburg was designed to create a public sentiment in favor of the protected interests and to bring pressure from various sources to bear upon Congress. The failure of the tariff bill in the spring session had impressed upon woolen manufacturers the necessity of securing allies.

The recommendations of the convention at Harrisburg were comprehensive. Higher duties all along the line, from wool to glass, were urged. But that which the promoters of the convention had most at heart was the extension to woolens of the minimum principle already applied to cotton fabrics. According to their demands, the ad valorem duty on woolens should range from forty to fifty per cent, assessed on minimum valuations of fifty cents, two dollars and a half, four dollars, and six dollars a yard. That is to say, goods valued at less than fifty cents a yard were to be treated as though they had a value of fifty cents; and all between fifty cents and two dollars and a half, as though they were worth two dollars and a half; and so on—a system which offered a high degree of protection to the cheaper fabrics in each group.