On the other hand, General Turreau flattered himself that the diplomatic triumph would fall not to Erskine, but to himself; and the hope of war upon England almost overcame for a sanguine moment his contempt for American character and courage. Turreau acquiesced in the embargo, since such was the Emperor’s will,—but only as a choice of evils; for he knew better than Napoleon how deep a wound the embargo inflicted on Martinique and Guadeloupe. He consoled himself only by the hope that it injured Great Britain still more. “I have always considered,” he said,[342] “that the embargo, rigorously executed, hurt us less than it hurt England, because our colonial interests are of small account in the balance against the colonial interests of the enemy.” In his eyes a declaration of war against France was better suited than the embargo to French interests, provided it were joined with a like declaration against England; and he prepared his Government in advance for treating such a war as though it were an alliance.
“I believe that France ought not to take this declaration in its literal sense, because its apparent object would be only nominal, and not in the intention of the legislators. I know that such is now their disposition; and although it is conceded that the number of Federalists will be greater in the next Congress than in this, yet the Administration will always have a great majority in the House, and a still greater in the Senate. I am in such close relations with the greater number of senators as not to be deceived in regard to their intentions. But in this case, too, it would be necessary that France should not answer the challenge of war, and should wait until the first hostilities had taken place between England and the United States. Then I shall hope that the declaration against France will be immediately withdrawn. I have reason to believe that a declaration of war against France as well as against England will take place only with the intention of reaching this last Power without too much shocking public opinion, and in order to avoid the reproach of too much partiality toward the first. Your Excellency can, from this, form an idea of the weakness of Congress, and of the disposition of the American people.”[343]
This despatch, written in the middle of January, completed the diplomatic manœuvres by which Madison hoped to unite his foreign with his domestic policy. The scheme was ingenious. Even if it should fail to wring concessions from Canning, hostilities would result only in a cheap warfare on the ocean, less wearisome than the embargo,—a war which, so far as concerned the continent of Europe, would rather benefit than injure commerce; but a policy like this, at once bold and delicate, required the steady support of a vigorous Congress. Neither Erskine nor Turreau told the full strength of the difficulties with which Madison and Gallatin struggled within their own party; or that while the new Administration was laboring to build up a new policy, the Federalists had already laid their hands on the material that the new policy needed for its use.
Whatever might be their differences in other respects, Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin agreed on one common point. They held that until some decision should be reached in regard to peace or war, the embargo must be maintained and enforced. Neither the dignity nor the interests of the country permitted a sudden break with the policy which had been steadily followed during the eight years of their power. Abandonment of embargo without war was an act of submission to England and France which would certainly destroy whatever national self-respect might have survived the mortifications of the last three years; but if the embargo was to be maintained, it must be enforced, and without new legislation strict enforcement was impossible. This new legislation was demanded by Gallatin, in a letter of Nov. 24, 1808, addressed to Senator Giles of the Senate committee. December 8, Giles introduced a Bill conferring on Gallatin the “arbitrary” and “dangerous” powers he asked. The new measure answered Gallatin’s description. Henceforward coasting-vessels were to give impossible bonds, to the amount of six times the value of vessel and cargo, before any cargo could even be put on board; collectors might refuse permission to load, even when such bonds were offered, “whenever in their opinion there is an intention to violate the embargo;” in suits on the bond, the defence was to be denied the right to plead capture, distress, or accident, except under conditions so stringent as to be practically useless; no ship-owner could sell a vessel without giving bond, to the amount of three hundred dollars for each ton, that such ship should not contravene any of the Embargo Acts; and by Section 9, the whole country was placed under the arbitrary will of government officials: “The collectors of all the districts of the United States shall ... take into their custody specie or other articles of domestic growth, produce, or manufacture ... when in vessels, carts, wagons, sleighs, or any other carriage, or in any manner apparently on their way toward the territory of a foreign nation or the vicinity thereof, or toward a place whence such articles are intended to be exported;” and after seizure the property could be recovered by the owner only on giving bonds for its transfer to some place “whence, in the opinion of the collector, there shall not be any danger of such articles being exported.” The collectors not only received authority to seize at discretion all merchandise anywhere in, transit, but were also declared to be not liable at law for their seizures, and were to be supported at need by the army, navy, and militia.
In vain did Giles[344] and the other stanch followers of Jefferson affirm that this bill contained no new principles of legislation; that it was but an extension of ordinary customs laws; and that its provisions were “necessary and proper” for carrying into effect the great constitutional object,—the embargo. Giles held so many opinions in the course of his public life that no Federalist cared to ask what might be his momentary theory of the Constitution; but whether as a matter of law he was right or wrong, he could hardly dispute what Gallatin in private admitted, that the powers conferred by his Enforcement Act were “most arbitrary,” “equally dangerous and odious.” The Senate knew well the nature of the work required to be done, but twenty senators voted for the passage of the bill, December 21, while only seven voted in the negative.
In pressing this measure at a moment so critical, Gallatin may have been bold, but was certainly not discreet. If he meant to break down the embargo, he chose the best means; if he meant to enforce it, he chose the worst. The Eastern congressmen made no secret that they hoped to resist the law by force.
“This strong tone was held by many of the Eastern members in a large company where I was present,” wrote the British minister to Canning Jan. 1, 1809; “and the gentlemen who so expressed themselves declared that they had no hesitation in avowing such opinions, and said that they would maintain them in their places in Congress.”
They were as good as their word, and when the bill came before the House arguments and threats were closely intermingled; but the majority listened to neither, and January 5, in a night session, forced the bill to its passage by a vote of seventy-one to thirty-two. January 9 the Enforcement Act received the signature of President Jefferson.
Senator Pickering, of Massachusetts, alone profited by this audacious act of power; and his overwhelming triumph became every day more imminent, as the conservative forces of New England arrayed themselves under his lead. Since the departure of Rose, in March, he had basked in the sunshine of success and flattery. Single-handed he had driven John Quincy Adams from public life, and had won the State of Massachusetts, for the first time, to the pure principles of the Essex Junto. That he felt, in his austere way, the full delight of repaying to the son the debt which for eight years he had owed to the father was not to be doubted; but a keener pleasure came to him from beyond the ocean. If the American of that day, and especially the New England Federalist, conceived of any applause as deciding the success of his career, he thought first of London and the society of England; although the imagination could scarcely invent a means by which an American could win the favor of a British public. This impossibility Pickering accomplished. His name and that of John Randolph were as familiar in London as in Philadelphia; and Rose maintained with him a correspondence calculated to make him think his success even greater than it was.
“In Professor Adams’s downfall, at which I cannot but be amused,” wrote Rose from London,[345] “I see but the forerunner of catastrophes of greater mark. This practical answer of your common constituents to his reply to you was the best possible. By his retreat he admits his conviction that you were the fitter representative of the State legislature. In the conversion of Massachusetts, I see the augury of all that is of good promise with you. Let me thank you cordially for your answer to Governor Sullivan. It was an unintentional kindness on his part thus to compel you to bring to the public eye the narrative of a life so interesting, so virtuous, and honorable. Receive the assurance of how anxiously I hope that though gratitude is not the virtue of republics, the remaining years of that life may receive from yours the tribute of honor and confidence it has so many claims to. In so wishing, I wish the prosperity of your country.”