The Second War with England, Vol. 1 of 2

by Joel Tyler Headley

The bill finally passed, 69 to 36. In the senate, 17 to 11.[9] About the same time another dispatch was received from Mr. Russell, closing with, "I no longer entertain a hope that we can honorably avoid war."

This was the feeling of the majority of the nation. In establishing certain fixed limits beyond which it would not go, and erecting certain barriers over which it would not allow England to pass, the American Government had taken a position from which there was no receding, with honor. While every thing was thus rapidly tending to war, and the public was eager with expectation, waiting for the next movement that should precipitate it, with all its horrors, on the land, a despatch, received by the British Minister, Mr. Foster,[10] from Castlereagh, closed at once every avenue towards a peaceful adjustment of the existing difficulties. In it he declared "that the decrees of Berlin and Milan must not be repealed singly and specially in relation to the United States, but must be repealed, also, as to all other neutral nations, and that in no less extent of a repeal of the French decrees, had the British Government ever pledged itself to repeal the orders in council."[11] This was saying, that unless the United States instituted herself lawgiver between France and all other European powers, and through her own unaided efforts obtained that which England, with all her maritime strength could not enforce, the latter would consider herself perfectly justified in withholding from us our national rights. This awkward attempt to cover up under the mask of diplomacy, duplicity and falsehood, from which an honorable mind would have shrunk, was perfectly characteristic of the man who carried the English and Irish Union by the most stupendous frauds and bribery and corruption that can be found in the annals of modern civilization.

I know the quasi denial of Mr. Foster, that this construction was a just one, yet the language used can convey no other. To place it beyond dispute, Lord Castlereagh, as late as May 22d, 1812, declared as British Minister, to the House of Commons, that as the Berlin and Milan decrees "were not unconditionally repealed, as required by his Majesty's declaration, but only repealed so far as they regarded America, he had no objection to state it, as his own opinion, that this French decree, so issued, made no manner of alteration in the question of the orders in council."[12]

It is rare to find such unscrupulous conduct on the part of a Ministry, protected by so miserable a subterfuge. It could not be supposed that the American Government would be deceived for a moment by it, but the belief that we could not be forced into a war, rendered ordinary care and cunning superfluous. Occupied with continental affairs alone, England looked upon the American Republic as only a means to accomplish her ends there. The administration, at Washington, was thus compelled by the arbitrary conduct of its enemy, to declare war, or forfeit all claim to the respect of the nations of the earth, and all right to an independent existence.

Under these circumstances, Mr. Madison no longer hesitated, but on the 1st day of June transmitted a warlike message to Congress. After recapitulating, in a general way, the history of past negotiations and past injuries, he says: "Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations and accumulating wrongs, or opposing force to force in defence of their natural rights shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of events, avoiding all connections which might entangle it in the contests or views of other powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable reestablishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question, which the constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the Government. In recommending it to their early deliberations, I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free and a powerful nation." This message was referred at once to the Committee on Foreign Relations, who reported ten days after in favor of an immediate appeal to arms. The deliberations on this report were conducted with closed doors.

A bill drawn up by Mr. Pinckney, and offered by Mr. Calhoun, declaring war to exist between Great Britain and the United States, was rapidly pushed through the House, passing by a vote of 79 to 49. In the Senate, being met not only by the opposition of the Federalists, but by the friends of De Witt Clinton, who voted with them, it passed by a majority of only six.[13] Congress, after passing an act, granting letters of marque, and regulating prizes and prize goods, authorizing the issue of Treasury notes to the amount of $5,000,000, and placing a hundred per cent. additional duties on imports, adjourned. July 8. In accordance with a resolution of Congress, the President appointed a day of public humiliation and prayer, in view of the conflict in which the nation had entered.

CHAPTER II.

Different feelings with which the Declaration of War was received — State of the parties at the commencement — Federalists and Democrats — Their hostility — Absurd doctrines of the Federalists — Hostility of New England — Unprepared state of the country — Culpable neglect of the government — Comparative strength of the two navies — Empty state of the Treasury — Inefficiency of the Cabinet.

The proud and sensitive American of to-day can scarcely comprehend how, under the heavy and protracted provocations which I have traced in the preceding chapter, the country could have been kept for so long a time from open hostilities. It would seem that the most arbitrary exercise of executive and legislative power, could not have prevented the people from rushing spontaneously to arms, and demanding their rights at the bayonet's point. He is still more astounded, when he remembers that this declaration of war was received with a storm of indignation by a large party in the Union—that all New England, with the exception of Vermont, anathematized it. The pulpit and the press thundered forth their maledictions, and the wrath of heaven was invoked on the heads of its authors. The flags of the shipping in Boston harbor were hoisted at half-mast, in token of mourning, and the spot rendered immortal by the patriots of the revolution, became the rallying place of the disaffected, and the hope of the enemy. A common welfare and a common country, could not allay this hostility, which strengthened instead of diminishing to the last, and which was so fanatical and blind in its violence, that it exhibited itself in the most monstrous forms. Our defeats were gloried in, and the triumphs of our oppressors hailed as an evidence that God was on their side, while downright insubordination, plots, and incipient rebellion, crippled the efforts of an already weak government, and swelled the disasters on which they fattened.

But to one who knows to what a height the spirit of faction will reach, nothing in all this unnatural hostility will seem strange. The country, at this time, was divided into Federalists and Democrats, who were scarcely less vindictive in their animosities, than the Whigs and Tories of the revolution. New England was the furnace of Federalism, and Boston the focal point from which issued incessant and bitter assaults on Jefferson's, and afterwards on Madison's administration. Thus, in the most trying period of our existence since the adoption of the constitution, the country was divided and torn by the fiercest spirit of faction with which it has ever been cursed.