Although the two extremes still stood so far apart that their arguments bore no relation to each other, the violence of temper which marked the embargo dispute, and which was to mark any step toward actual measures of force, did not appear at this session. Indeed, the Federalists themselves were not unanimous; some of the most extreme, like Barent Gardenier and Philip Barton Key, supported Macon’s plan, while some of the extremists on the other side, like Troup of Georgia, voted against it. January 29, by a vote of seventy-three to fifty-two, the House passed the bill. The Senate soon afterward took it up; and then, as was to be expected, the factions broke loose. February 21, at the motion of Senator Samuel Smith, by a vote of sixteen to eleven the Senate struck everything from the bill except the enacting clause and the exclusion of belligerent war-vessels from United States’ harbors.
An Administration measure could not without rousing angry feelings be so abruptly mutilated by a knot of Administration senators. Samuel Smith’s motives, given in his own words, were entitled to proper attention; but President Madison’s opinion on the subject, whether correct or mistaken, had even more effect on what was to follow. Madison believed that the rejection of the bill was an intrigue of the Smiths for selfish or personal objects. He recorded the language which he felt himself obliged to use on the subject, twelve months afterward, to Robert Smith’s face:[143]—
“For examples in which he had counteracted what he had not himself disapproved in the Cabinet, I referred to the bills called Macon’s bills, and the Non-intercourse Bill, on the consultation on which he appeared to concur in their expediency; that he well knew the former, in its outline at least, had originated in the difficulty of finding measures that would prevent what Congress had solemnly protested against,—to wit, a complete submission to the belligerent edicts; that the measure was considered as better than nothing, which seemed to be the alternative, and as part only of whatever else might in the progress of the business be found attainable; and that he neither objected to what was done in the Cabinet (the time and place for the purpose), nor offered anything in the place of it, yet it was well understood that his conversations and conduct out of doors had been entirely of a counteracting nature; that it was generally believed that he was in an unfriendly disposition personally and officially; and that although in conversations with different individuals he might not hold the same unfavorable language, yet with those of a certain temper it was no secret that he was very free in the use of it, and had gone so far as to avow a disapprobation of the whole policy of commercial restrictions from the embargo throughout.”
Robert Smith, doubtless believing that all his actions had been above question or reproach, protested warmly against these charges of unfriendliness and intrigue; but Madison, with a feminine faculty for pressing a sensitive point, insinuated that in his opinion both the Smiths were little better than they should be. “With respect to his motives for dissatisfaction I acknowledged that I had been, for the reasons given by him, much puzzled to divine any natural ones without looking deeper into human nature than I was willing to do.” The meaning of the innuendo was explained by Joel Barlow the following year in the “National Intelligencer,” where he acted as Madison’s mouthpiece in defending the Administration from Robert Smith’s attacks. One of Smith’s complaints rested upon Macon’s bill. Barlow asked, “What gives Mr. Smith a right at this day to proclaim himself in opposition to that bill? Was it ever laid before the Cabinet and opinions taken? Did he there oppose it? Did he not rather approve it, and give his vote for every article? Did he ever utter a syllable against it till his more acute brother discovered the commercial bearing that it would have upon the house [of Smith and Buchanan], and concluded that their interest required its rejection?”
Perhaps this explanation, however offensive to the Smiths, injured them less than the other suspicion which had as much vogue as the first,—that their conduct toward Macon’s bill was a part of their feud against Gallatin, and proved their determination to oppose everything he suggested. At the moment when Samuel Smith revolted against Macon’s measure, Washington was filled with tales of quarrels in the Cabinet. In truth, these reports were greatly exaggerated. Robert Smith had not the capacity to develop or to pursue a difficult line of argument even without opposition. Against Gallatin he could not, and as Madison testified did not, open his mouth, nor did Gallatin or Madison ever complain except of Smith’s silence in the Cabinet; but he talked freely in society, and every one heard of battles supposed to be raging. Walter Jones, one of the most respectable Virginia members, wrote to Jefferson, February 19, imploring him to intervene:[144]—
“Before you quitted this place you knew that causes of dissension subsisted in the Executive departments. So ominous an event has not failed to be an object of my continued and anxious attention, and I am now fully persuaded that these unfriendly feelings are fast approaching to a degree of animosity that must end in open rupture, with its very injurious consequences to the Republican cause.... This break of harmony in the Executive departments, added to the extreme points of difference in opinion among the majority in Congress in relation to the great questions of peace and war, renders the apathy and inaction of the Republicans here extremely mortifying. I never knew them more disconnected in sentiment and system, as probably may have been made manifest to you by the desultory and inconclusive work of nearly three months.... You will recollect that at the close of the last Congress the appearance of umbrage was confined to Mr. Gallatin and Mr. R. Smith; indeed, excepting themselves there were no other secretaries effectively in office. It is now supposed, and I believe with truth, that the former stands alone against the more or less unfriendly dispositions of all the rest. Their main abettors of last spring have abated nothing of their strong and indecent zeal.”
Upon feelings so irritable and at a moment when schism was imminent, as Walter Jones described, the action of Samuel Smith and Michael Leib with six or eight more Republican senators, in emasculating Macon’s bill, left small chance of reconciliation. Giles, having declared himself in favor of energy, did not vote at all. The debate being for the most part not reported, the arguments of the dissenting senators have been lost. One speaker alone broke the monotony of the discussion by an address that marked the beginning of an epoch.
Henry Clay had been barely two weeks a senator, when, February 22, he rose to move that the bill as amended by Samuel Smith be recommitted; and this motion he supported by a war speech of no great length, but full of Western patriotism.
“The conquest of Canada is in your power,” he said. “I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet.... The withered arm and wrinkled brow of the illustrious founders of our freedom are melancholy indications that they will shortly be removed from us. Their deeds of glory and renown will then be felt only through the cold medium of the historic page; we shall want the presence and living example of a new race of heroes to supply their places, and to animate us to preserve inviolate what they achieved.... I call upon the members of this House to maintain its character for vigor. I beseech them not to forfeit the esteem of the country. Will you set the base example to the other House of an ignominious surrender of our rights after they have been reproached for imbecility and you extolled for your energy! But, sir, if we could be so forgetful of ourselves, I trust we shall spare you [Vice-President George Clinton] the disgrace of signing, with those hands so instrumental in the Revolution, a bill abandoning some of the most precious rights which it then secured.”
Other members both of the House and of the Senate had made war speeches, and in Clay’s harangue no idea could be called original; yet apart from the energy and courage which showed a new and needed habit of command, these sentences of Clay’s maiden speech marked the appearance of a school which was for fifty years to express the national ideals of statesmanship, drawing elevation of character from confidence in itself, and from devotion to ideas of nationality and union, which redeemed every mistake committed in their names. In Clay’s speech almost for the first time the two rhetorical marks of his generation made their appearance, and during the next half century the Union and the Fathers were rarely omitted from any popular harangue. The ideas became in the end fetiches and phrases; but they were at least more easily understood than the fetiches and phrases of Jeffersonian republicanism which preceded them. Federalists used the name of Washington in the same rhetorical manner, but they used it for party purposes to rebuke Washington’s successors. The Union and the Fathers belonged to no party, and might be used with equal advantage by orators of every section. Clay enjoyed almost alone for years the advantage of winning popularity by this simple means; but in 1810, at least along the Atlantic coast, such appeals had little popular success. Least of all had they weight in the Senate, which listened unmoved to Clay’s oratory, and replied to it immediately on the same day by passing the “ignominious surrender” of national rights by a vote of twenty-six to seven. Giles did not vote. Samuel Smith, Leib, and even Crawford were in the majority.