The Embargo Message surprised no one. The Committee of Foreign Relations made no secret of its decision. Calhoun warned Josiah Quincy and other representatives of commercial cities; and on the afternoon of March 31 these members sent an express, giving notice to their constituents that the embargo would be proposed on the following day. Every ship-owner on the seaboard and every merchant in the great cities hurried ships and merchandise to sea, showing that they feared war less than they feared embargo, at the moment when Congress, April 1, went into secret session to discuss the measure intended to protect ship-owners and merchants by keeping their property at home. Porter introduced the bill laying an embargo for sixty days;[159] Grundy declared it to be intended as a measure leading directly to war; Henry Clay made a vehement speech approving the measure on that ground. On the other side Randolph declared war to be impossible; the President dared not be guilty of treason so gross and unparalleled as that of plunging an unprepared nation into such a conflict. Randolph even read memoranda of Monroe’s remarks to the Committee of Foreign Relations: “The embargo would leave the policy as respected France, and indeed of both countries, in our hands;” and from this he tried to convince the House that the embargo was not honestly intended as a war measure. The debate ran till evening, when by a vote of sixty-six to forty the previous question was ordered. Without listening to the minority the House then hurried the bill through all its stages, and at nine o’clock passed it by a vote of seventy to forty-one.
The majority numbered less than half the members. In 1807 the House imposed the embargo by a vote of eighty-two to forty-four, yet the country failed to support it. The experience of 1807 boded ill for that of 1812. In the Senate the outlook was worse. The motion to extend the embargo from sixty to ninety days was adopted without opposition, changing the character of the bill at a single stroke from a strong war measure into a weak measure of negotiation; but even in this weaker form it received only twenty votes against thirteen in opposition. The President could not depend on a bare majority in the Senate. The New England Democrats shrank from the embargo even more than from war. Giles and Samuel Smith stood in open opposition. The Clintons had become candidates of every discontented faction in the country. Had the vote in the Senate been counted by States, only six would have been thrown for the embargo, and of these only Pennsylvania from the North. In face of such distraction, war with England seemed worse than a gambler’s risk.
Madison, watching with that apparent neutrality which irritated both his friends and his enemies, reported to Jefferson the progress of events.[160] He was not pleased with the Senate’s treatment of his recommendations, or with “that invariable opposition, open with some and covert with others, which has perplexed and impeded the whole course of our public measures.” He explained the motives of senators in extending the embargo from sixty to ninety days. Some wished to make it a peace measure, some to postpone war, some to allow time for the return of their constituents’ ships; some intended it as a ruse against the enemy. For his own part he had regarded a short embargo as a rational and provident measure, which would be relished by the greater part of the nation; but he looked upon it as a step to immediate war, and he waited only for the Senate to make the declaration.
The President asked too much. Congress seemed exhausted by the efforts it had made, and the country showed signs of greater exhaustion before having made any efforts at all. The complaints against France, against the non-importation, against the embargo, and against the proposed war were bitter and general. April 6 Massachusetts held the usual State election. Gerry was again the Republican candidate for governor, and the Federalists had little hope of defeating him; but the Republican Administration had proved so unpopular, the famous Gerrymander by which the State had been divided into districts in party interests had so irritated the conservative feeling, that the new embargo and the expected war were hardly needed to throw the State again into opposition. Not even the revelations of John Henry restored the balance. More than one hundred and four thousand votes were cast, and a majority of about twelve hundred appeared on the Federalist side. Caleb Strong became governor once more at a moment when the change paralyzed national authority in New England; and meanwhile throughout the country the enlistments for the new army produced barely one thousand men.
The month of April passed without legislation that could strengthen Government, except an Act, approved April 10, authorizing the President to call out one hundred thousand militia for six months’ service. Congress showed so strong a wish to adjourn that the Administration was obliged to exert its whole influence to prevent the House from imitating the Senate, which by a vote of sixteen to fifteen adopted a Resolution for a recess until June 8. Secretary Gallatin ventured to bring no tax bills before Congress; Lowndes and Cheves made a vigorous effort to suspend the Non-importation Act; and a general belief prevailed that the Government wished to admit English goods in order to evade, by increase of customs-revenue, the necessity of taxation.
Serurier, much discomposed by these signs of vacillation, busied himself in the matter, declaring to his friends in Congress that he should look on any suspension of the Non-importation Act as a formal infraction of the compact with France. When he pressed Monroe with remonstrances,[161] Monroe told him, April 22, that the President and Cabinet had positively and unanimously declared to the Committee of Foreign Relations against the suspension, because it would seem to indicate indecision and inconsequence in their foreign policy; that this remonstrance had caused the plan to be given up, but that the Administration might still be obliged to consent to a short adjournment, so great was the wish of members to look after their private affairs. In fact, Congress showed no other wish than to escape, and leave the President to struggle with his difficulties alone.
If the war party hesitated in its allegiance to Madison, its doubts regarded his abilities rather than his zeal. Whatever might be Madison’s genius, no one supposed it to be that of administration. His health was delicate; he looked worn and feeble; for many years he had shown none of the energy of youth; he was likely to succumb under the burden of war; and, worst of all, he showed no consciousness of needing support. The party was unanimous in believing Secretary Eustis unequal to his post, but Madison made no sign of removing him. So general was the impression of Eustis’s incapacity that when, April 24, the President sent to Congress a message asking for two Assistant Secretaries of War to aid in conducting the Department, the request was commonly regarded as an evasion of the public demand for a new Secretary of War, and as such was unfavorably received. In the House, where the subject was openly discussed, Randolph defended Eustis in the style of which he was master: “I will say this much of the Secretary of War,—that I do verily believe, and I have grounds to believe it to be the opinion of a majority of this House, that he is at least as competent to the exercise of his duties as his colleague who presides over the Marine.” The Senate, wishing perhaps to force the President into reconstructing his Cabinet, laid aside the bill creating two Assistant Secretaries of War; and with this action, May 6, ended the last chance of efficiency in that Department.
While Eustis ransacked the country for generals, colonels, and the whole staff of officers, as well as the clothing, arms, and blankets for an army of twenty-five thousand men who could not be found, Gallatin labored to provide means for meeting the first year’s expenses. Having no longer the Bank to help him, he dealt separately with the State Banks through whose agency private subscriptions were to be received. The subscriptions were to be opened on the first and second days of May. The Republican newspapers, led by the “National Intelligencer,”[162] expressed the hope and the expectation that twice the amount of the loan would be instantly subscribed. Their disappointment was very great. Federalist New England refused to subscribe at all; and as the Federalists controlled most of the capital in the country, the effect of their abstention was alarming. In all New England not one million dollars were obtained. New York and Philadelphia took each about one and a half million. Baltimore and Washington took about as much more. The whole Southern country, from the Potomac to Charleston, subscribed seven hundred thousand dollars. Of the entire loan, amounting to eleven million dollars, a little more than six millions were taken; and considering the terms, the result was not surprising. At a time when the old six-per-cent loans, with ten or twelve years to run, stood barely at par, any new six-per-cent loan to a large amount, with a vast war in prospect, could hardly be taken at the same rate.
The Federalists, delighted with this failure, said, with some show of reason, that if the Southern States wanted the war they ought to supply the means, and had no right to expect that men who thought the war unjust and unnecessary should speculate to make money from it. Gallatin put a good face on his failure, and proposed soon to reopen subscriptions; but the disappointment was real.
“Whatever the result may be,” wrote Serurier to his Government,[163] “they had counted on more national energy on the opening of a first loan for a war so just. This cooling of the national pulse, the resistance which the Northern States seem once more willing to offer the Administration, the defection it meets every day in Congress,—all this, joined to its irritation at our measures which make its own system unpopular, adds to its embarrassment and hesitation.”