“Never was I so overwhelmed with public business. That would be nothing if we went right; but a great confusion and perplexity reign in Congress. Mr. Madison is, as I always knew him, slow in taking his ground, but firm when the storm arises. What I had foreseen has taken place. A majority will not adhere to the embargo much longer, and if war be not speedily determined on, submission will soon ensue.”
Joseph Story two days afterward wrote a more exact account of the distraction which prevailed at the White House.
“The Administration are desirous of peace,” wrote Story,[321] in confidence, December 31. “They believe that we must suffer much from war; they are satisfied, even now, that if the embargo could be continued for one year our rights would be acknowledged were our own citizens only true to their own interests. They deem this continuance impracticable, and therefore are of opinion that after midsummer the plan must be abandoned; and war will then ensue unless the belligerents abandon their aggressions.”
The chaos prevailing in the White House was order compared with the condition of Congress; and there again Gallatin was forced to guide. After listening November 8 to the President’s serene Message, the House three days later referred the paragraphs concerning foreign Powers to a committee with G. W. Campbell at its head. Campbell probably consulted Madison, and his instance doubtless caused the fruitless appeal of November 15, through Gallatin, to Jefferson. Failing to obtain guidance from the President, Gallatin wrote a Report, which was probably approved by Madison, and which Campbell presented November 22 to the House. For clearness and calmness of statement this paper, famous in its day as “Campbell’s Report,”[322] has never been surpassed in the political literature of the United States; but the rigorous logic of its conclusions terrified men who could not refute and would not accept them:—
“What course ought the United States to pursue? Your committee can perceive no other alternative but abject and degrading submission, war with both nations, or a continuance and enforcement of the present suspension of commerce.
“The first cannot require any discussion; but the pressure of the embargo, so sensibly felt, and the calamities inseparable from a state of war, naturally create a wish that some middle course might be discovered which should avoid the evils of both and not be inconsistent with national honor and independence. That illusion must be dissipated; and it is necessary that the people of the United States should fully understand the situation in which they are placed.
“There is no other alternative but war with both parties or a continuance of the present system. For war with one of the belligerents only would be submission to the edicts and will of the other; and a repeal, in whole or in part, of the embargo must necessarily be war or submission.”
To Federalists these stern truths were not wholly unwelcome, since they brought to an issue the whole policy, domestic and foreign, which for eight years the Federalist party had never ceased to condemn; but to Republicans, who were equally responsible with the President for the policy which ended in Gallatin’s alternative, the harshness of the choice was intolerable. They felt that the embargo must be abandoned; but they felt still more strongly that the double war was ruin. In vain Gallatin tried in his Treasury Report to persuade them that to fight the two nations was a practicable task. Congress writhed and rebelled.
Campbell’s report closed by recommending three Resolutions as common ground on which all parties could take their stand, whether for war or embargo. The first declared that the United States could not, without a sacrifice of their rights, honor, and independence, submit to the edicts of Great Britain and France. The second declared the expediency of excluding from the United States the ships and the products of all Powers which maintained these edicts in force. The third recommended immediate preparations for defence.
The Federalists were eager for attack; and when, November 28, Campbell called up the first of his Resolutions for debate, Josiah Quincy fell upon it with violence not easily forgotten, and doubtless meant to strengthen the general belief that New England would control her passions no longer.