The news of peace was received in Boston with great joy. It was a day given up to rejoicing; salutes were fired; the bells rang out their merriest peals; the volunteer companies with their bands filled the streets; the school boys took a holiday; the wharves so long deserted were thronged, and the melancholy ships that rotted along side them were once more gay with flags and streamers. Thus rejoicing extended all along the seaboard and far inland, making glad all hearts and none more glad than those of the promoters of the war in high places and low.[95]
And so the "war of 1812" ended amid a general joy, not for what it had accomplished, for the American forces were defeated in their invasion of Canada, and the United States did not acquire one foot of additional territory, or the settlement of any of the questions which were the pretext for the war.
Much that occurred during the war of 1812 has been conveniently forgotten by American historians, and much that had not occurred, remembered. By degrees failure was transformed into success. The new generations were taught that in that war their fathers had won a great victory over the whole power of Great Britain single handed and alone. This amazing belief is still cherished among the people of the United States, to the astonishment of well informed visitors who meet with evidence of the fact.
CHAPTER X.
THE CIVIL WAR AND THE PART TAKEN BY GREAT BRITAIN IN SAME.
For the first fifty years after the Revolution, the wealthy aristocratic slave-holding Southern states governed the Union and controlled its destiny. The acquisition of Florida and the Louisiana purchase doubled the area of the United States, and the territory derived from the Mexican War doubled it again. It was the intention of the South to extend slavery over this immense territory, but they were checked in the northern part of it by the enormous European immigration that poured into it and prevented it from becoming slave territory. Then came the "irrepressible conflict," the border war in Missouri and "bleeding Kansas," the battle of Ossawatomie and Harper's Ferry raid, and the constant pin-pricking of the abolition societies in the North, the headquarters of which were in Boston.
The presidential election of 1860 showed the South that they had lost control of the government and that the free states were increasing enormously in wealth and population, and that, following the example of Great Britain, it would be only a question of time before they would insist on abolishing slavery. Then it was that the Southerners decided to do what their fathers had done eighty-five years before, secede and become Dis-unionists. They could not believe that there would be any opposition to their leaving, especially from Massachusetts, that place that had always been foremost in disunion sentiments. Besides, had not the Abolitionists said repeatedly in Faneuil Hall, "The Cradle of Liberty," that if they would leave the Union they would "pave their way with gold" to get rid of them, and did not the New York Tribune, which had been the organ of the Abolitionists, and which now declared that "if the cotton states wished to withdraw from the Union they should be allowed to do so"; that "any attempt to compel them to remain by force would be contrary to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and to the fundamental idea upon which human liberty is based," and that "if the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of three million subjects in 1776, it was not seen why it would not justify the secession of five million of Southerners from the Union in 1861." This was quite consistent with the remark of a leading Abolitionist paper in Boston that "the Constitution was a covenant with hell." The South also contended that even if they were not justified in becoming Dis-unionists in 1776, they had established their right to independence by force of arms and that when they had entered into a confederation with the other seceding colonies, they had never assigned any of their rights which they had fought for, that they were sovereign, independent states, and that the bond that bound them together was simply for self-protection and was what the name signified "United States," and not a nation. In proof of this they stated that when the convention met in Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose of adopting a constitution for a stronger form of government, the first resolution presented was, "Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that a national government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislature, executive and judiciary." This was followed by twenty-three other resolutions as adopted and reported by the committee in which the word "national" occurred twenty-six times. Mr. Ellsworth, of Connecticut moved to strike out the word "national" and to insert the words "Government of the United States." This was agreed to unanimously, and the word "national" was stricken out wherever it occurred, and nowhere makes its appearance in the Constitution finally adopted. The prompt rejection of this word "national" is obviously much more expressive of the intent of the authors of the Constitution than its mere absence from the Constitution would have been. It is a clear indication that they did not mean to give any countenance to the idea that the government which they organized was a consolidated nationality instead of a confederacy of sovereign members. The question of secession was first raised by men of Massachusetts, the birthplace of secession. Colonel Timothy Pickering was one of the leading secessionists of his day. He had been an officer in the Revolution; afterwards Postmaster General, Secretary of War, Secretary of State in the cabinet of General Washington and senator from Massachusetts.
Writing to a friend on December 24, 1803, he says: "I will not despair. I will rather anticipate a new confederacy exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppression of the aristocratic Democrats of the South. There will be (and our children, at farthest, will see it) a separation. The white and black population will mark the boundary."[96]