A History of the United States

by Charles Kendall Adams; William P. Trent

311. The Battle of New Orleans.—It soon became apparent that the attacks on Washington and Baltimore had been of secondary importance, and that the real object of the British fleet was to capture New Orleans, and snatch the newly acquired Louisiana from the United States. James Monroe, who had succeeded Armstrong as Secretary of War, at once called upon the ablest soldier in the Southwest, Andrew Jackson.[^[136]] The latter gathered his forces, and although he first tried an expedition into Florida against the British and Indians, he set to work at the defenses of New Orleans in good season. The large British fleet effected a landing safely, and by December 23 the troops were only a few miles from the city. The main battle occurred on January 8, 1815, and the backwoodsmen behind their works destroyed the flower of the British army who had the hardihood to make a front attack. Sir Edward Pakenham, the British commander, was killed, after having been for days outgeneralled by Jackson; and at least two thousand veterans, many of whom had followed Wellington in the Spanish Peninsula, lay dead or wounded on the field. The American loss, on the other hand, was almost incredibly slight—about twenty men all told.

Southwestern Operations,
1813–1815

312. The Treaty of Ghent.—If those had been the days of the telegraph, the battle of New Orleans would not have been fought, and the American people would have had no great land victory to salve the pride that had been touched to the quick by the capture of Washington, Hull’s surrender, and other disgraceful events of the war. On December 24, 1814, American and British commissioners had signed a treaty of peace at Ghent. Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard, who were already abroad, had been joined by Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell; and the five had defended American interests very well. Gallatin was the most influential member and succeeded in curbing the zeal of Clay and Adams, who wished to press matters like the British right to navigate the Mississippi and the fisheries question, in which the people of the West and of New England took a great interest. Curiously enough, the treaty did not touch the impressment abuse, or the right of searching vessels, for the sake of which, in the main, the war had been waged. Still, after her naval victories, America was not likely to suffer in the future from such abuses. Each side restored the territory of the other that it occupied, and both felt relieved that the anomalous war was over.

THE DISAFFECTION OF NEW ENGLAND.

313. Political Events.—Political events in Madison’s second administration were naturally overshadowed by the war or else connected with it. As we have seen, the finances were badly managed, nor were the affairs of the War Department on a better footing. Congress was scarcely more efficient, especially when its Speaker, Henry Clay, was absent with the commissioners at Ghent. But the disaffection of the New England Federalists was the most serious element in the political problem. With the waning of their party and the assured success of the Democratic-Republicans, they naturally grew more rancorous. They coquetted with the British before and during the war, and they had little or no sympathy with the idea that the United States was a nation. In the debate in 1811 on the admission of Louisiana as a state, one of their leaders, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, actually declared that the passage of the bill would be a virtual dissolution of the Union, and that it would be the duty of some of the states, “to prepare for a separation amicably” if they could, “violently if they must.”

314. Reasons for New England’s Attitude.—This attitude seems at first wholly indefensible, but we must remember both at this juncture and in dealing later with the secession of the South, that the idea of national unison was one of very slow growth, and that threats of secession or of violent resistance to the Union had been heard already from Southern, Western, and Middle states. States were still jealous of their prestige, and the language of the Constitution lent itself to interpretations that reduced the power of the nation to a minimum. Besides, New England had suffered greatly from the enforced idleness of its shipping during the Embargo and from the captures made by the British. Consequently, just as men are always inclined to do, they held the national government responsible for matters that often lay beyond its control. Their pro-British sympathies, although certainly carried beyond the bounds of decency, may be partly extenuated for these reasons. When they went farther, and refused to put the state militia at the service of the Union, they took a dangerous step, but one not entirely indefensible on strict constructionist grounds. It was a sure precursor, however, of more determined and less defensible opposition.

315. The Hartford Convention.—Success in state elections gave the political solidarity that was needed, and the increasing pressure of hostilities in the year 1814 gave the needed stimulus, for effective opposition to the war on the part of New England. After speeches and resolutions as strenuous as those that nerved Virginia and Kentucky to their resistance of the Alien and Sedition laws, passed half a generation before by the Federalists themselves, a call was issued by Massachusetts for a convention of the New England States. This met at Hartford, Connecticut, on December 15, 1814. After a few weeks of secret debate its members issued a remarkable report. This document asserted the doctrine of states’ rights in its most naked form, suggested amendments to the Constitution of the United States looking to the protection of the interests of minorities, and demanded for the states the right to claim the customs duties collected within their own borders. This last provision would have been of itself enough to destroy the power of the Union, but fortunately there was no need even to discuss it. The commissioners sent to Washington to propose it to Congress found that peace had been declared and that their chief ground of grievance had been removed. They had, therefore, nothing to do but to hasten home in chagrin. The Federalist party did not survive their last attack upon the general government, and for several years after 1815 there was practically only one party in the country. This fact is not surprising when we remember that accession to power had rendered the leading Republicans as desirous of maintaining a fairly strong government as the moderate Federalists were.

CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR.

316. Some Results of the War.—With the decline of Federalism came a natural increase of national democratic spirit and a lessening of the dependence on either Great Britain or France, which, as we have before seen, had characterized the generation that grew up just after the Revolution. This was a clear gain from the war. On the other hand, the interests of the sections began more sharply to diverge. The North, during the trouble with England, had taken to manufacturing, and now began to demand a really protective tariff for its “infant industries.” This policy, though encouraged by the West for the sake of certain products like hemp, was soon seen to bear hard on the South. Previous legislation on the subject (§ [266]) had paved the way for an effective tariff, and the influx of British goods brought into the country after the close of the war showed that the newly developed industries, especially that of cotton manufacture, which had increased greatly since 1810, would find it hard to subsist without support. So the tariff act of 1816 was passed, in spite of the opposition of Daniel Webster, who represented New England shipping interests, and of John Randolph, who represented the agricultural South and the stricter forms of Republicanism. The rate (about twenty-five per cent), placed on imported cotton and woolen goods, was found practically prohibitive by Southern planters, who needed coarse clothes for their slaves. Thus the Southerners began to be alienated from the Democratic-Republican party, although not a few of them helped to pass the act of 1816. Among these was John C. Calhoun, whose leanings toward a strong government were still pronounced.