Mr. Jackson was sent, in the place of Mr. Erskine, to negotiate a treaty; but his proposals were the same as those which the administration had already rejected, while his insulting insinuation that the President knew when he made the arrangement with Mr. Erskine, that the latter was acting without authority, abruptly terminated all intercourse, and he was recalled.
1810.
On the first of May, Congress passed an act which revoked the restrictive system, yet excluded British and armed vessels from the waters of the United States.[4] It provided, however, that it should be renewed in March against the nation, which did not before that time so revoke or modify its edicts, as to protect the neutral commerce of the United States. This was regarded as the ultimatum, and beyond it, war against which ever government refused our just demands, was the only resort. Messrs. Pinckney and Armstrong, our ministers at the courts of England and France, were urged to press the repeal of those obnoxious orders in council and decrees, in order that such a catastrophe might be prevented. France receded, and Mr. Armstrong was notified that the decrees were to cease to have effect after the first of November, provided England withdrew her orders in council; or, if she refused, that the United States should force her to acknowledge the rights that France had, in a spirit of kindness, conceded. This glad intelligence was made known by the President in a proclamation, in which he also declared, that unless the British government repealed her orders in council, within three months from that date, the non-intercourse law should be revived against it.
In the mean time Mr. Pinckney urged, with all the arguments in his power, the English Cabinet to recede from its unjustifiable position. The latter endeavored, by prevarication and duplicity, to avoid coming to a definite understanding, but being closely pushed, it at length gave our minister to understand that the United States must force France to take the first step in revoking those odious acts against which we complained. But as England had been the aggressor, this was plainly unjust and impossible, and all hope of a peaceful settlement was given up, and on the 1st of March, 1811, he took a formal leave of the Prince Regent. At the same time Congress had passed an act, authorizing the President to arrest the non-intercourse Act at any moment that England should revoke her orders in council. April, 1811. On the 38th of the next month, Napoleon definitely revoked his Berlin and Milan decrees, so far as they related to us—the repeal to be ante-dated November 1st, 1810. This decree was forwarded by our minister, Mr. Barlow, who had succeeded Armstrong, to the English Government, but it still refused to repeal its orders in council on the ground that the decree did not embrace the continental states, and affected only the United States. It soon became apparent, therefore, to every one, that war was inevitable. The American Government had placed itself, where it could not recede without disgrace, while England was evidently resolved not to change her attitude.
1811.
Another collision at sea between two armed vessels inflamed still more the war spirit that was pervading the land. On the 16th of May a British sloop of war, the Little Belt, fired into the frigate President, thinking doubtless to repeat the outrage committed on the Chesapeake, but found her fire returned with such heavy broadsides that in a few minutes thirty-two of her crew were killed or wounded. The commander of the English ship declared that the American frigate fired first. This Rodgers denied, and his denial was sustained by all his officers.
The election of members of Congress, which took place in 1810 and 11, had given a majority to the administration, so that there could be harmony of action between the Legislature and the Executive. Beset with difficulties, treading on the brink of a war, whose issues could not be foreseen, anxious and uncertain, the President, by proclamation, called the Twelfth Congress together a month before the appointed time. It met Nov. 8th, and Henry Clay was chosen speaker. From the outset he had been a warm supporter of the Administration, and his eloquent voice had rung over the land, rousing up its warlike spirit, and inspiring confidence in the ability of the nation to maintain its rights. James Fisk, of Vermont, Peter B. Porter, and Samuel L. Mitchell, of New York, Adam Leybert, of Penn., Robert Wright, of Md., Hugh Nelson, of Va., Nathaniel Macon, of N. C., Calhoun, Langdon, Cheeves, and Wm. Lowndes, of S. C., Wm. M. Bibb and George M. Troup, of Ga., Felix Grundy, of Tenn., and Wm. P. Duval, of Ky., rallied round the young speaker, and presented a noble phalanx to the anxious President. On the other side were Josiah Quincy, of Mass, and Timothy Pitkin and Benjamin Talmadge, of Conn.
In the Senate the democratic leaders were Samuel Smith, of Md., Wm. B. Giles, of Va., Wm. H. Crawford, of Ga., George W. Campbell, of Tenn., and George M. Bibb, of Ky. Leading the opposition were James Lloyd, of Mass., and James A. Bayard, of Del.[5]
The great accession of strength which the democratic members had received, showed clearly the state of public feeling, especially south and west, and the doubtful, hesitating policy of the last four years was thrown aside. The tone of the President's Message was also decidedly warlike, and no hope was held out of an amicable adjustment of the difficulties with England. They were invoked as the "Legislative guardians of the nation," to put the country "into an armed attitude, demanded by the crisis." The halls of Congress resounded with the cry of "to arms." The nightmare of fear and doubt which had weighed down its councils was removed, and bold and fearless speakers called aloud on the nation to defend its injured honor and insulted rights. The might of England had ceased to be a bugbear—the Rubicon of fear was passed. Mr. Madison, deprecating precipitate measures, saw with alarm the sudden belligerent attitude which Congress had assumed. The democratic leaders however told him the nation was for war—that timidity would be his ruin—that those who were resolved to make Mr. Clinton their candidate at the next presidential election were taking advantage of his hesitation. In the mean time bills providing for the enlistment of twenty-five thousand men in the regular army; for repairing and equipping frigates and building new vessels; authorizing the President to accept the services of fifty thousand volunteers, and to require the Governors of the several States and territories to hold their respective quotas of a hundred thousand men in readiness to march at a moment's warning,[6] were rapidly pushed through Congress. Nov. 7, 1811. The brilliant victory, gained three days after Congress met by Harrison, over the Indians at Tippecanoe, helped also to kindle into higher excitement the martial spirit of the West and South-west, and for a while opposition seemed to be struck powerless before the rising energy of the nation.
The bill authorizing the President to accept and organize certain military corps to the number of 50,000, reported by Mr. Porter, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, called forth a long and exciting debate. Mr. Grundy, one of the committee, defended the resolution in a bold and manly speech. Referring to the Indian hostilities on our north-western frontier, he unhesitatingly declared that they were urged forward by British influence, and war, therefore, was already begun. Some of the richest blood of the country had already been shed, and he pledged himself for the western country, that its hardy sons only waited for permission to march and avenge those who had fallen. He was answered by Randolph, who denied that Great Britain had stimulated the Indians to their merciless border warfare—stigmatized the war to which this resolution looked as a war of conquest—declared it was another mode of flinging ourselves into the arms of Bonaparte and becoming "the instruments of him who had effaced the title of Atilla 'the scourge of God.'"