The Secretary of State required nothing less than the retirement of the two of his colleagues in the Cabinet, and of the general in chief command of the army. The Secretary of the Treasury, though less censorious than Clay, Crawford, or Monroe, shared their opinions. He spoke of Eustis’s incompetence as a matter universally admitted, and wrote to Jefferson that though the three disasters of Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth could not with justice be ascribed to the Secretary of War, “yet his incapacity and the total want of confidence in him were felt through every ramification of the public service.”[347] Jefferson abstained from criticising the chief incompetents, but set no bounds to his vindictiveness against the unfortunate generals. “Hull will of course be shot for cowardice and treachery,” he wrote to Madison;[348] “and will not Van Rensselaer be broke for incapacity?”
The incapacity of Eustis, Hamilton, Dearborn, Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth pointed directly to the responsible source of appointment,—the President himself; but in face of a general election Republicans could not afford to criticise their President, and only in private could they assail his Cabinet. The Federalists, factious, weak, and unpopular as they were, expressed the secret opinion of the whole country, and could be answered by no facts or arguments except military success, which Madison was admittedly incompetent to win; but perhaps the failure of his Cabinet, of his generals, and of his troops gave the Federalists less advantage than they drew from the failures of diplomacy in which his genius lay. With reasons such as few nations ever waited to collect for an appeal to arms, Madison had been so unfortunate in making the issue that on his own showing no sufficient cause of war seemed to exist. His management was so extraordinary that at the moment when Hull surrendered Detroit, Great Britain was able to pose before the world in the attitude of victim to a conspiracy between Napoleon and the United States to destroy the liberties of Europe. Such inversion of the truth passed ordinary bounds, and so real was Madison’s diplomatic mismanagement that it paralyzed one half the energies of the American people.
Largely if not chiefly owing to these mistakes, the New England Federalists were able to convince themselves that Jefferson and Madison were sold to France. From the moment war was declared, the charge became a source of serious danger. Only one more step was needed to throw the clerical party of New England into open revolution. If the majority meant to close their long career by a catastrophe which should leave the Union a wreck, they had but to try the effects of coercion.
For a time the followers and friends of the Essex Junto had some reason to hope that matters would quickly come to this pass, for the declaration of war caused on both sides an outbreak of temper. In Massachusetts, Governor Strong issued, June 26, a proclamation[349] for a public Fast in consequence of the war just declared “against the nation from which we are descended, and which for many generations has been the bulwark of the religion we profess;” and although such a description of England would in previous times have scandalized the clergy, it was received with general assent. The returning members of Congress who had voted for war met a reception in some cases offensive and insulting, to the point of actual assault. Two of the Massachusetts members, Seaver and Widgery, were publicly insulted and hissed on Change in Boston; while another, Charles Turner, member for the Plymouth district, and Chief-Justice of the Court of Sessions for that county, was seized by a crowd on the evening of August 3, on the main street of Plymouth, and kicked through the town.[350] By energetic use of a social machinery still almost irresistible, the Federalists and the clergy checked or prevented every effort to assist the war, either by money or enlistments. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts, with Chief-Justice Parsons at its head, advised[351] Governor Strong that not to Congress or to the President, but to the governor, belonged the right to decide when the Constitutional exigency existed which should call the State militia into the service of the United States; and Governor Strong decided that neither foreign invasion nor domestic insurrection existed, and that therefore he could not satisfy the President’s request for the quota of the United States militia to defend the coast. When, later in the season, the governor called out three companies for the defence of Eastport and Castine, in Maine, the chief-justice privately remonstrated, holding that this act yielded the main point at issue between the State and National government.[352]
General Dearborn’s annoyance at the difficulties thrown in the way of enlistments was well-founded. By one favorite device, the creation of fictitious debts, the person enlisting caused himself to be arrested and bailed. The courts held that while the suit was pending the man was the property of his bail, and could not be obliged to resume his military duties.[353] Many such difficulties were created by the activity of individuals; but organized efforts were made with still more effect in counteracting the wishes of government. The Federalist members of Congress issued an Address to their constituents protesting against the action of Congress in suppressing discussion; and this address declared the war to be unnecessary and inexpedient. Immediately after the declaration, the House of Representatives of Massachusetts issued another Address to the People of the State,[354] declaring the war to be a wanton sacrifice of their best interests, and asking their exertions to thwart it.
“To secure a full effect to your object, it will be necessary that you should meet and consult together for the common good in your towns and counties. It is in dark and trying times that this Constitutional privilege becomes invaluable. Express your sentiments without fear, and let the sound of your disapprobation of this war be loud and deep. Let it be distinctly understood that in support of it your conformity to the requisitions of law will be the result of principle and not of choice. If your sons must be torn from you by conscription, consign them to the care of God; but let there be no volunteers except for defensive war.”
The people at once acted upon the recommendation to hold town-meetings and county conventions. Among the earliest was a meeting in Essex County, July 21, Timothy Pickering presiding, which adopted a declaration drawn by him, closing with his favorite proposal of a State Convention, to which the meeting chose delegates. This step—a revival of the old disunion project of 1804—was received with general favor, and defeated only by the courageous opposition of Samuel Dexter, who, breaking away from his party associates, attacked the scheme so vigorously in Boston town-meeting, August 6 and 7, that though Harrison Gray Otis and other Federalists leaders gave it their public support, and though the motion itself was carried, the plan was abandoned.[355] Thenceforward, while towns and counties continued to adopt addresses, memorials, and resolutions, they avoided committing themselves to expressions or acts for which the time was not ripe. A typical memorial among many that were showered upon the President was adopted by a convention of electors of the county of Rockingham in New Hampshire, August 5, and was the better worth attention because drawn by Daniel Webster, who made there his first appearance as a party leader:—
“We shrink from the separation of the States as an event fraught with incalculable evils; and it is among our strongest objections to the present course of measures that they have in our opinion a very dangerous and alarming bearing on such an event. If a separation of the States ever should take place, it will be on some occasion when one portion of the country undertakes to control, to regulate, and to sacrifice the interest of another; when a small and heated majority in the government, taking counsel of their passions and not of their reason, contemptuously disregarding the interests and perhaps stopping the mouths of a large and respectable minority, shall by hasty, rash, and ruinous measures threaten to destroy essential rights and lay waste the most important interests. It shall be our most fervent supplication to Heaven to avert both the event and the occasion; and the Government may be assured that the tie that binds us to the Union will never be broken by us.”
The conduct of England strengthened the Federalists. After the repeal of the Orders in Council became known, Monroe, July 27, authorized Jonathan Russell in London to arrange an armistice, provided the British government would consent to an informal arrangement in regard to impressments and blockades. Hardly had these instructions been sent to England, when from Albany came news that Sir George Prevost had proposed an armistice and General Dearborn had accepted it. This act compelled the President either to stop the war and disorganize his party, or to disapprove Dearborn’s armistice without prejudice to the armistice which Russell was to negotiate in London, and also without censure to General Dearborn. To Dearborn the President, as the story has shown, sent immediate orders for the renewal of hostilities; while Monroe, in fresh instructions to Jonathan Russell,[356] explained the disavowal. The explanations given by Monroe were little likely to satisfy Federalists that the Government honestly wished for peace. Monroe alleged that the repeal of the Orders in Council did not satisfy the United States, because the repeal still asserted the principle underlying the orders, which the United States could not admit; but he further maintained that any armistice, made before obtaining redress on the subject of impressments, might be taken as a relinquishment of the claim to redress, and was therefore inadmissible.
However sound in principle these objections were, they seemed to declare perpetual war; for until England should be reduced to the position of Denmark or Prussia, she would not abandon in express terms either the right of impressment or that of blockade. The probable effect of a successful war waged on these grounds would give Canada and the Floridas to the United States as the consequence of aiding Napoleon to destroy European and English liberties. The Federalist clergy had little difficulty in convincing their congregations by such evidence that Madison was bound under secret engagements with Napoleon; and while Madison planted himself in the Napoleonic position of forcing war on a yielding people, the British officials in Canada stood on the defensive, avoided irritation, and encouraged trade and commerce. American merchant-vessels carried British passes; and most of them, to the anger of Napoleon, were freighted with supplies for the British army in Portugal and Spain. The attitude of England would have been magnificent in its repose had its dignity not been ruffled by the conduct of Hull, Decatur, and Bainbridge, and by the privateers.