In Massachusetts the Federalist governor Caleb Strong, who had made himself peculiarly obnoxious by refusing to call out the State’s quota of militia, received nearly fifty-seven thousand votes, while Senator Varnum, the Republican candidate, received forty-three thousand. Considering that the population of Massachusetts was about one fourth smaller than that of New York, the vote of one hundred thousand persons in the smaller State, and only eighty-three thousand in the larger, seemed a proof of popular indifference; but in truth the vote of New York was larger than usual, and only one thousand less than at the next election of governor, in 1816. The difference was due to the unequal suffrage, which in New York State elections was restricted to one hundred pound free-holds, while in Massachusetts all citizens worth sixty pounds were entitled to vote.
At the same time John Randolph met with defeat, for the only time in his life. John W. Eppes, one of Jefferson’s sons-in-law, took residence within Randolph’s district for the purpose of contesting it; and after a struggle succeeded in winning the seat, on the war-issue, by a vote of eleven hundred and twelve to nine hundred and forty-three.[33] This change of membership tended, like the New York election, to show that the people were yielding to the necessity of supporting the war. Yet the process was alarmingly slow. In the second year of hostilities, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey were Federal in all branches of their State governments; New York, Delaware, and Maryland were partly Republican and partly Federalist; of the eighteen States only ten were wholly Republican, and seven of these were Southern. In the United States Senate the Administration could count upon twenty-two votes, with reasonable certainty; the other fourteen senators were more or less lukewarm or hostile. In the House, one hundred and fourteen members supported the Administration, and sixty-eight opposed it. As far as concerned numbers, the Administration was strong enough in Congress; but the universal want of faith in its capacity to conduct a war of such consequence gave the Federalists an advantage beyond proportion to their numerical strength. The task of opposition was easy, and its force irresistible when the ablest and oldest Republican in office—the Secretary of the Treasury—felt himself helpless in face of the Government’s inaptitude for war, and wrote to his closest intimates that no one could “expect much improvement in the manner of making it more efficient. I think that there exists real incapacity in that respect,—an incapacity which must necessarily exhaust our resources within a very short time.”[34]
Fortunately for the Government the same slowness of movement which counteracted its undertakings, affected equally its internal enemies in their hostility. The New England extremists wished and expected to act energetically against the war. Chief-Justice Parsons quieted Pickering in the autumn of 1812 by assuring him that the Massachusetts House of Representatives would act at its winter session;[35] yet the legislature met and adjourned without action. The party waited for the spring election of 1813, which was to give them control of New York. Their disappointment at the re-election of Governor Tompkins was extreme, and the temptation to wait until the national government should become bankrupt and disgraced became irresistible. Another campaign was likely to answer their purpose. While England grew stronger every day, America grew weaker; the struggle became more and more unequal, the result more and more certain; and the hope of peaceably restoring the Federalist party to power diminished the temptation to adopt measures of force.
Thus when the Thirteenth Congress met for its extra session, May 24, the Government felt stronger than on March 5, when the old Congress expired. The elections were safely passed; the peace negotiations might be considered as begun; taxation was no longer a matter of taste. The majority liked taxation as little in 1813 as they had liked it in 1812 or in 1801; but they could no longer dispute or even discuss it. Gallatin had gone, leaving the bills for them to pass; and Congress, which at any other time would have rebelled, had no choice but to pass them.
Once more Henry Clay was chosen Speaker, and setting Cheves aside he placed John W. Eppes at the head of the Ways and Means Committee. The House missed John Randolph, but gained John Forsyth of Georgia, and Daniel Webster,—a new member from New Hampshire, of the same age as Calhoun and Lowndes, but five years younger than Clay. Otherwise the members varied little from the usual type, and showed more than their usual faculty for discussing topics no longer worth discussion.
President Madison’s Message of May 25 challenged no angry comment. Its allusion to the Russian mediation and the terms of peace had an accent of self-excuse, as though he were anxious to convince England of her true interests; its allusion to France contained the usual complaint of delays “so unreasonably spun out;” and its reference to the war and the finances was rather cheerful than cheering. Daring as Madison’s policy had been, he commonly spoke in tones hardly to be called bold; and this Message had the disadvantage, which under the circumstances could not be called a fault, of addressing itself rather to Europe and to enemies, than to a spirited and united nation. It had also the merit of directing Congress strictly to necessary business; and Congress acted on the direction.
Nothing less than necessity could at that moment of early summer have induced the members of Congress to remain in session at all. Stout as the majority might be in support of the war, the stoutest were depressed and despondent. They saw themselves disappointed in every hope and calculation on which they had counted a year before. Even their unexpected naval glory was lost for the moment by the victory of Broke’s frigate the “Shannon” over the “Chesapeake,” June 1, as Congress began its work. Disaster after disaster, disgrace upon disgrace, had come and were every moment multiplying. Suffocated with heat, members were forced to sit day by day in the half-finished Capitol, with a Southern village about them, their nearest neighbor a British fleet. “Defeated and disgraced everywhere,” said one of the stanchest war members describing the scene, “Congress was to impose the burden of taxes on a divided people, who had been taught by leaders of the war party to look upon a tax-gatherer as a thief, if not to shoot him as a burglar.”[36] According to the same authority, “the country was at the lowest point of depression, where fear is too apt to introduce despair.” In this condition of spirits, Gallatin’s tax-bills were reported to the House June 10,—measures such as the Republican party had, till very lately, not conceived as within the range of its possible legislation. They included a direct tax of three million dollars; taxes on salt, licenses, spirits, carriages, auctions, sugar refineries; a stamp tax, and a complete machinery for the assessment and collection of these odious and oppressive imposts.
At the same moment, Daniel Webster began his career in Congress by moving Resolutions which caused a long and unprofitable debate on the conduct of France and the character of the French repealing Decree of April 28, 1811,—a debate that could have no other result or object than to mortify and annoy the President, who had been, like so many other rulers, the victim of Napoleon’s audacity. Pending this debate, June 13, the President took to his bed with a remittent fever, and for five weeks his recovery was doubtful. Madison was still confined to his bed, when, July 15, messengers from the lower Potomac brought news that the British fleet, consisting of eight or ten ships-of-the-line and frigates, was in the river, sixty miles below, making its way up the difficult channel to Washington. A reasonable and well-grounded fear took possession of the city. July 21, Serurier wrote to his Government:[37]—
“Every one is making ready to move. I know that they are secretly packing up at the Departments. I have as yet sent nothing away, in order not to show distrust of the Government’s power; but I have got ready my most valuable papers, and from the moment the President shall quit his residence, I shall follow where he goes, with my principal portfolios in one of my carriages.”
The British ships were approaching the city; the sound of their guns was believed to be heard; and the Government had little means of stopping them. Every man prepared for volunteer duty; other work was suspended. About three thousand militia and volunteers, among whom were all the Cabinet and many members of Congress, were mustered, and marched to Fort Washington, which was occupied by some six hundred regular troops, with the Secretary of War at their head; while the Secretary of the Navy took his post on the 28-gun frigate “Adams” in the river beneath, and the Secretary of State rode down the river shore with a cavalry scouting party to reconnoitre the British ships.[38] July 15 and 16 the House of Representatives ordered a Fast, and went into secret session to consider modes of defence.