“Suppose New York ever so well fortified, an army may land above the city and cut off its intercourse with the country. A fortification there would be made for the enemy. Not a man of our army would have escaped in the last war from Long Island, if the enemy’s general had not been treacherous to his duty; and all the calamities of that campaign might have been avoided if our army had retreated into the country.”
Answer to arguments like these was of course impossible. The only final answer was to take the Southern people at their word, and to assert as a principle the rule that seaboard cities, being entitled to no protection from government in case of attack, should have the right to protect themselves by inviting the enemy to occupy them. Boston and New York had no reason to fear the operation of such a rule, if it suited the interests of Virginia; but as an argument even this logic would have availed nothing, because so deep was Virginian antipathy to cities that Randolph and all his friends would have answered with one voice, “We expect no better!”
The unwillingness of the Southern Republicans to fortify extended only to forts and ships, not to gunboats. Randolph had not much faith in gunboats; but his friends were willing to spend comparatively large sums on these cheap defences. Their theory was reasonable. A coast like that of America could not be protected by fixed fortifications alone,—only some system of movable batteries could answer the whole purpose; but in such a system everything depended on the effectiveness of the battery to be selected, and no one could say that the gunboat would prove to be effective. Most sea-going people pronounced it a failure; and in the navy, gunboat service was never popular. The real argument for gunboats was their assumed cheapness; but Gallatin and the Northern Democrats, as well as the Federalists, foresaw that the supposed economy was a delusion. A gunboat cost some ten thousand dollars or less, and a whole flotilla of gunboats could be built for the price of a frigate; but no one could say how much this flotilla would cost in annual repairs or in actual service. The life of a gunboat was short.
These doubts had no effect on the majority of the House. “Fortifications will be of no possible service unless they are manned,” argued Nelson,[253] “and to man them we must have a large standing army.” He wanted to know whether the House was prepared to adopt a system that would require the raising of above one hundred thousand men. If forts were of no possible service unless they were always manned,—new as the assertion was,—surely gunboats were open to the same objection; yet Nelson wanted to spend three hundred thousand dollars in building gunboats, and he was willing to build any number of gunboats the navy might ask for.[254]
The Northern seaboard representatives rejected the offer of gunboats, and allowed the Southern States to dispose of them. No appropriation for fortifying New York could be obtained. The theory that seaboard cities could not be defended received general assent; but many of the members went further, and declared that no danger to those cities existed. A policy of neglecting defence might be safe in peace, when foreign nations had every interest to avoid a war; but nothing could warrant the common assertion that danger of war existed only from America herself, at a moment when France was attacking American commerce by measures of actual warfare, when England was hesitating whether to permit America to trade at all except with the British Islands, and when diplomatic relations with Spain had ceased, the ministers at Madrid and Washington had been withdrawn, and a Spanish army was threatening New Orleans.
Willis Alston of North Carolina, chiefly known as an object of Randolph’s peculiar contempt and personal violence, took as strong ground as Randolph himself on these questions. On the other hand Josiah Quincy showed in a high degree the art of irritating opponents by his manner of expressing a low opinion of their sense and motives; and the Southern members resented this treatment the more because Quincy was a man well born and well educated, whose social standing could not be questioned. In reply to his taunts Alston resorted to the well-worn commonplaces of the Republican party. “The present Administration,” said he, “has taken up a new system of defence,—it is that of saving the public money. This system is new, and not known in Federal times. We have not gone on increasing taxes, like our predecessors.” The assertion could not be denied; but Quincy’s retort was not the less pungent. “The Federal Administration,” he replied, “saved the country from danger and disgrace: I wish I could say as much of their successors.”
The whole issue lay in these short charges and counter-charges. To some extent the President, his Cabinet, and the Senate had become converted to Federalist views; but the influence of Randolph and of popular prejudices peculiar to Southern society held the House stiffly to an impracticable creed. Whatever the North and East wanted the South and West refused. Jefferson’s wishes fared no better than the requests of the State and city of New York; the House showed no alacrity in taking up the subject of roads, canals, or universities. The only innovation which made its way through Congress was the Act of Feb. 10, 1807, appropriating fifty thousand dollars for the establishment of a coast survey, for this was an object in which the Southern States were interested as deeply as the Northern. Even the Senate’s appropriation for beginning the Cumberland Road was indefinitely postponed by the House.
This jealousy of government could not without ill-temper be so severely enforced. Randolph’s manners were unconsciously imitated by the men who imitated his statesmanship, and the Southern Republicans treated their Northern allies with autocratic harshness as offensive as that of Randolph. The Federalist members, for the most part able to hold their own and even to return such treatment with manners still more arrogant, enjoyed the irritation of Democrats like Sloan and Smilie, Bidwell and Varnum. If the Southern planters refused to aid in fortifying New York, the Federalists were the stronger for the refusal; and if Virginia was anxious not to risk her tobacco and corn for the sake of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the Federalists for the most part hoped that the Northern cities might be induced to take care of themselves. Yet although the Federalists were not sorry to see the Pennsylvania Democrats ground under the heel of Virginia, they were surprised to find how rapidly the sectional spirit increased in the Southern States when slavery was in question. The debate on the abolition of the slave-trade startled Democrats and Federalists alike.
The paragraph in the President’s Message which related to the slave-trade was regularly referred to a special committee. Peter Early of Georgia was chairman, while Thomas Mann Randolph of Virginia, John Campbell of Maryland, Thomas Keenan of North Carolina, and three Northern representatives completed the number. Early took the subject promptly in hand, and Dec. 15, 1806, reported a Bill, which was referred to the House in committee, and came up two days afterward for debate. The Bill declared the importation of negroes as slaves unlawful; imposed a fine on the importer, with forfeiture of ship and cargo; and authorized the President to employ the armed vessels of the United States in enforcing the law.
Under the Act which prescribed rules for forfeiture, the cargo of a forfeited vessel was to be sold on behalf of the United States government. The cargo of a slave-ship consisted in negroes. Under Early’s Bill, every negro imported thenceforth into the country became forfeit to the United States, and must be sold by the United States government to the highest bidder.