By this means and by persistent silence the majority put an end to debate. When Randolph returned to the hall and heard what had been done, he burst into reproaches that the House had disgraced itself; but his outcry, which like his language to Eppes was attributed to drink, received no answer except cries to order. Further resistance was not carried to extremes; perhaps the dilatory tactics of later times were hardly applicable to so small a body as the House of 1811, or needed time for development; at all events the bill was forced to its passage, and at about five o’clock on the morning of February 28 the House passed it by a vote of sixty-four to twelve. March 2 it passed the Senate, and was approved by the President. Of all the Republicans, Macon alone in the House and Bradley of Vermont in the Senate voted against it. Matthew Lyon, who also opposed it, left the House in disgust without voting.
The rule of the previous question thus adopted has been the subject of much criticism, and doubtless tended among other causes to affect the character of the House until in some respects it became rather a court of registration than a deliberative body. With few exceptions in history, this result has proved inevitable in large assemblies whose cumbrous inefficiency has obstructed public needs or interests; and perhaps the House of Representatives in 1811 was not to blame for seeking to correct vices inherent in its character. Such great and permanent changes implied a sufficient cause behind them, even though they led to worse evils. The previous question was a rude expedient for removing wanton obstruction, and might have been the source of benefit rather than of injury to the public service had the House succeeded in giving its new character systematic improvement; but in American history the previous question became an interesting study, because it marked deterioration. Of all the defences provided by the Constitution for special or feeble interests, the right of debate was supposed to be the most valuable; and nowhere was this right so necessary as in Congress. Not even in the courts of justice was deliberation more essential than in the House of Representatives. The Republicans came into office in 1801 to protect special and feeble interests, and had no other reason for existence than as the enemies of centralized power; yet circumstances drove them to impose silence on the voice of a minority that wanted only to prevent an improper act, and they did so by methods substantially the same as those used by Cromwell or Napoleon. In neither case was the minority consulted or its protest regarded. The difference was rather in the character of the actors. The great usurpers of history had in one sense a sufficient motive, for they needed the power they seized, and meant to use it. The Republican majority in the Eleventh Congress neither needed power nor meant to use it. Their object was not to strengthen government, or to prepare for war, or even to suppress popular liberties for their own pleasure, but merely to carry out an Executive scheme which required no haste, and was to be followed by no strong measures. As far as human intelligence could be called blind, the intelligence which guided the House was the blind instinct of power.
The same instinct was shown in the behavior of Congress toward other matters of legislation. Under Executive pressure, the Acts authorizing or approving the seizure of East and West Florida, the admission of Louisiana as a State, and the revival of non-intercourse against England were passed; and this series of measures seemed to a large minority a domestic revolution preliminary to foreign war. Naturally the Federalists and independent Republicans looked for the measures to be taken in order to meet or to escape the dangers thus invited. The Federalists had no small share of English respect for whatever was fixed, and they needed only to be satisfied that the Union was strong in order to yield whatever obedience it required; but they wondered how Madison with his weak Cabinet and Eppes with his still less intelligent majority meant to create and handle the weapons that were to drive Old England from the ocean and to hold New England on the land. They could not believe that a government would fling itself headlong out of the window in order to oblige the people to save it from breaking its neck.
So far from grasping at weapons, Congress and the Executive seemed bent only on throwing away the weapons they held. The Bank perished almost with the same breath that revived the non-intercourse against England. By abolishing the Bank, Congress threw away a large sum of money which Gallatin hoped to employ for his current demand and for possible war. By forbidding the importation of English merchandise, Congress further struck off one half the annual revenue. Gallatin foresaw the danger to the Treasury long before it was realized, and January 28 wrote a letter to Eppes advising a general increase of duties on such importations as might be permitted by law. February 6 Eppes reported from the Ways and Means Committee a bill to this effect; but the House failed to act upon it. Congress would consent to no new taxation; and as the Treasury could not be allowed to fail in its engagements, the House authorized a loan of five million dollars.
Such financial expedients looked toward any result except a policy of vigor, and the rest of the winter’s legislation bore out the belief that no vigor was in the mind of Government. The Tenth Congress had increased the military establishment, until in 1808 the appropriations exceeded $4,700,000. The Eleventh Congress reduced them in 1809–1810 to about $3,100,000; in 1811 Congress appropriated barely $3,000,000. The naval appropriations in 1809 reached nearly $3,000,000; in 1810 they were reduced to about $1,600,000; in 1811 Congress appropriated $1,870,000. Even in a time of profound peace, when no thought of war disturbed the world, such armaments would have been hardly sufficient for purposes of police on the coasts and in the territories.
A short debate took place at the last moment of the session, on a bill authorizing the President to accept a corps of fifty thousand volunteers. The measure had been reported by Crawford of Georgia in the Senate, from a committee appointed to consider the occupation of West Florida. March 1 the Senate passed the bill without a division, for it implied neither a new principle nor any necessary expense; while the President, without such authority, would find himself helpless to deal with any trouble that might arise from the affairs of Florida. When the bill reached the House, John Dawson of Virginia urged its adoption; “it was incumbent on them,” he said, “to do something to provide for defence.” Matthew Lyon said he had frequently voted for such bills when there was no prospect of war; “and now, when we were going to war [with Spain], and giving the provocation ourselves, he was of opinion it ought to be passed.” The House, without a division, indefinitely postponed the bill; and thus refusing to do more business of any kind, toward midnight of Sunday, March 3, the Eleventh Congress expired, leaving behind it, in the minds of many serious citizens, the repute of having brought Government to the last stage of imbecility before dissolution.
CHAPTER XVII.
The government of the United States reached, March 4, 1811, the lowest point of its long decline. President Madison had remained so passive before domestic faction, while so active in foreign affairs, that the functions of government promised to end in confusion. Besides the greater failures of the last session, more than one personal slight had been inflicted on the President. He obtained the confirmation of Joel Barlow as Armstrong’s successor at Paris, by a vote of twenty-one to eleven in the Senate; but when he nominated Alexander Wolcott of Connecticut to succeed Justice Cushing on the Supreme Bench, he met a sharp rebuff. The selection was far from brilliant, but New England offered no great choice among Republicans suited to the bench. Sullivan was dead; Levi Lincoln declined the office; Barnabas Bidwell, detected in a petty defalcation, had absconded to Canada; Joseph Story, still a young man, only thirty-one years of age, was obnoxious to many Republicans on account of his hostility to the embargo, and particularly to Jefferson, who took personal interest in this appointment.[279] The President could think of no one who brought stronger recommendations than Wolcott, and accordingly sent his name to the Senate. A few days afterward John Randolph wrote to his friend Nicholson,[280]—
“The Senate have rejected the nomination of Alexander Wolcott to the bench of the Supreme Court, twenty-four to nine. The President is said to have felt great mortification at this result. The truth seems to be that he is President de jure only. Who exercises the office de facto I know not, but it seems agreed on all hands that ‘there is something behind the throne greater than the throne itself.’”
February 21 the President nominated J. Q. Adams, then absent as minister at St. Petersburg, to the same place, and the Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment. The rejection of Wolcott had no meaning further than showing the opinion held by the Republican party of their President’s judgment.