The Second War with England, Vol. 1 of 2

by Joel Tyler Headley

The extreme sensitiveness of the two parties, and the readiness with which they seized upon the most trifling matter as a bone of contention, were strikingly exhibited in some of the earliest proceedings of Congress. The reporter of the Federal Republican, the paper which had been mobbed by the Democrats at Baltimore, and was now published in Georgetown, presented a petition, asking a place to be assigned him, like that of the other reporters, and stating that the Speaker had refused to give him one. The implication was, that Mr. Clay had denied him a place on account of his politics. Mr. Clay said this was not so, that the true reason was, he had no place to give; all of those furnished by the House being pre-occupied. This statement, however, could not satisfy the members, and it was proposed to make an extra provision for the gentleman. Calhoun was opposed to the admission of any reporters. Almost the entire day was occupied in discussing this trifling affair, when such momentous questions asked the attention of Congress. It even adjourned without coming to a decision, and not until next day was it disposed of, by rejecting the prayer of the petitioner.

June 14.

Mr. Eppes, from the Committee of Ways and Means, made a report, in which, after showing that the expenditures for the next year, 1814, would exceed the revenue by $5,600,000, twelve bills were offered, one for direct taxation, another establishing the office of Commissioner of the Revenue, and others laying duties on imported salt, on licenses to retailers of liquors, on foreign merchandise, carriages, distillers of liquors, on auction sales of foreign goods and vessels, on sugars refined in the United States, on bank notes, notes of hand and certain foreign bills of exchange, and on foreign tonnage.

Mr. Webster then rose and delivered his first speech in the House, introduced by four resolutions, the purport of which were to inquire into the time, manner, &c., with the attending circumstances, in which the document, asserted to be a repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees, was communicated to this government. Although these resolutions had their origin in Federal hostility, and were designed to sustain the old charge against the administration, of being under French influence, because it was well aware those decrees had not been repealed when it declared war against England, yet Webster carefully avoided implying it in his speech. He felt bound to offer these resolutions in justice to his constituents. A heated discussion followed their introduction, but young Webster conducted himself with great prudence and caution. At home he had made inflammable speeches against the war, but after he got out of the atmosphere of Massachusetts, and came in contact with such ardent young patriots as Clay and Calhoun, his sympathies, doubtless, were moved, and his patriotism received an impulse which went far to neutralize the views of Federalism, with which he had been inoculated. The political opponents of that war having been successively thrown overboard by the nation since its termination, much effort seems to have been made by the friends of Webster to omit entirely this portion of his life, but I have no doubt were it truly and honorably written, it would exalt his character and enhance his fame. Coming from the very furnace of Federalism—educated under the influence of men whose opinions he had been taught to venerate, and who, throwing aside their party hate, were the wisest statesmen of the land, sent to Washington on purpose to represent their views, it seems unaccountable that he, a young aspirant for fame, did not at once plunge into the arena and win reputation by crossing swords with such men as Clay and Calhoun. Standing for the first time on the field where political fame was to be won, and goaded on by attacks upon principles he had been taught to venerate, he nevertheless carefully stood aloof, and shortly after retired entirely on leave of absence. How is this strange conduct to be accounted for in one who ever after never refused to close like a lion with his foes? With his powers he would soon have been a leader of the opposition, and yet this soul, full of deep thought and slumbering fire, looked apparently cold and indifferent on the strife that was rending the nation asunder. Did not this conduct grow out of a sense of duty and of patriotism? He could not do less, as a representative of Federalism, than offer resolutions of inquiry, and without turning traitor to his constituents, he could not do more for the administration. Did not that judgment, on whose decisions the nation afterwards so implicitly relied, tell him even then that his country was right and his teachers wrong on the great question of war or no war, and did not that grand heart, which heaved like the swelling sea when he spoke of the glorious Union, even then revolt at the disloyal attitude of New England? If this be not true, then his conduct is wholly inexplicable and contradictory to his after life.

The first session of the Thirteenth Congress continued till August 2d, when it adjourned to December. In the mean time, a direct tax, amounting to $3,000,000, apportioned to the eighteen different states, was laid. A bounty of $25 was voted to privateers for every prisoner taken, and heavy penalties were placed on the use of British licenses, and provisions made to raise ten companies for the defence of the sea coast. The disasters of our northern army, during this autumn, increased the boldness of the Federalists, and a paper of Boston openly advocated the proposition for each state to take care of itself, fight its own battles, and make its own terms. Governor Chittenden of Vermont, attempted to recall a brigade of militia, appointed to garrison Burlington, during Hampton's march into Canada, on the ground it had been unconstitutionally ordered out. The commander and a part of the brigade refused, when the former was put under arrest. The Legislature of New Hampshire, in order to get rid of the democratic judges, appointed by Langdon and Plumer, abolished all the courts in the state, and constructed an entirely new system, with new judges. To this high-handed measure the democratic judges refused to submit, and held court sessions as formerly, side by side with the new judges. In those counties where the sheriff was democratic, their decision was sustained by this functionary, confusing and confounding every thing. By such measures, party spirit was inflamed to the highest pitch, dividing friends and families and societies. It became a frenzy, a madness, obliterating, in many parts of New England, all traces of former urbanity, justice, affection and courtesy. The appellation of Democrat and Federalist, applied to one or the other, converted him, in his opponent's eye, into a monster. The charge of highway robbery, rape or murder would not have been more instantaneous and direful in its effect. The Boston papers advocated the most monstrous doctrines, creating great anxiety and solicitude at Washington. But soon as the New England line was crossed, passing west and south, the feeling changed. To go from these fierce, debasing broils, into the harmonious feeling in favor of the war, was like passing from the mad struggles of a vessel amid the breakers to a quiet ship moving steadily on her way. The governors of the several states in their proclamations and messages firmly upheld the administration, and the legislatures pledged their support.

In the midst of such excitements, oppressed by the failure of Wilkinson's campaign, and dreading the use which the Federalists would make of it, Congress, according to adjournment, reassembled. Dec. 6. Mr. Eppes was still continued chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. Among the first measures was the introduction of an embargo act. Madison, in a special message, strongly recommended it, on the ground that under the present non-importation act the enemy on our shores and at a distance were constantly furnished with the supplies they needed. An illegal traffic was also carried on with foreign ports, not only exporting forbidden articles, but importing British manufactures. To stop this illicit trade in future, an act was passed in secret session, laying an embargo on all the ports of the Union. To prevent evasion, it was guarded by the most stringent provisions and heavy penalties, so that the coasting trade suffered severely. Fishermen were compelled to give bonds that they would not violate it, before they were allowed to leave port. That portion of it, however, which related to the importation of woolen, cotton, and spirits, was rejected by the House, as that prohibiting the release of goods on bonds was rejected by the Senate.

Soon after, a great excitement was caused in the country by a rumor that a British schooner, the Bramble, had arrived in Annapolis, bearing a flag of truce, and despatches of a peaceful nature to our government. Jan. 7. Seven days after, the President transmitted a message to Congress, informing it of a proposition on the part of the English government, to have commissioners appointed to negotiate a peace. This announcement was the signal for the Federalist papers to indulge in laudations of Great Britain's generosity and magnanimity. She had taken the first amicable steps, and that, too, when she was in a condition, owing to Napoleon's sinking fortunes, to direct her entire power against us. The same vessel brought the news of the disasters of Leipsic. There was, on the other hand, much distrust among the Democrats, because the offer of the Russian mediation had been coldly rejected three several times.

John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russel and Bayard who were already abroad, were appointed Commissioners, to whom Gallatin was soon after added, to proceed to Gottenberg. Russel, after the negotiations closed, was to remain as minister to Sweden. Jan. 19. Mr. Clay, in an eloquent address, resigned his station as Speaker of the House, and Mr. Cheves was elected in his place. Dec. One of the most exciting debates during this session of Congress arose on the introduction of resolutions by the editor of the Federal Republican, demanding an inquiry respecting a letter written by Turreau, in 1809, then Minister from France, to the Secretary of State, said to be withdrawn from the files. The disappearance of the letter was proof positive that its contents committed, in some way, the administration. A vehement debate of three days duration followed. Endless changes were rung on the old charge of French influence. At length the question was taken, and the resolutions voted down, and a simple call on the President for information substituted. This shell which had been so suddenly thrown into the House, threatening in its explosion to shatter the war party to fragments, proved a very harmless thing. Turreau, it eventually turned out, had written a letter of complaint to the Secretary of State, so overbearing in its tone, so absurd in its complaints, and so undiplomatic in every respect, that he was requested to withdraw it, which was done. In such a sensitive and excited state was party feeling at this time, that the most trivial matters became distorted and magnified into extraordinary proportions.

The army bill, providing for the filling of the ranks, the enlistment of men to serve for five years instead of twelve months, and the re-enlistment of those whose term of service had expired; and another bill authorizing a new loan of $25,000,000, was the bugle blast summoning the combatants to battle. Mr. Webster was for the first time roused. The army bill was evidently designed to provide for a third campaign against Canada. From the first, almost the entire military force of the nation had been employed in these futile invasions. The successive failures, especially the last, gave the opposition great vantage ground in declaring against the scheme altogether. They condemned it not only as an aggressive war, and therefore indefensible, but declared the acquisition of that country worse than worthless if obtained. The whole project was not only wrong in principle, but would be evil in its results, if successful.

The clause extending the term of enlistment, and authorizing the raising of new regiments, making the money bounty $124—fifty of it to be paid on an enrollment, fifty on mustering, and the remainder at the close of the war, if living, and if not to go to his heirs, was assailed with vehement opposition. Jan. 3, 1814. Mr. Webster, who had been cut short in an attack on the administration by the Speaker, on the ground that no question was before the house, now rose to speak. Carefully avoiding the asperity which distinguished his colleagues, he levelled all his force against the embargo act, and the conquest of Canada. Jan. 10. The former he denounced unjust and unequal in its bearing, and ruinous in its consequences. He called on the administration to remove it at once, as the first step towards the acquirement of a just position. He then denounced the Canadian war, to prosecute which this extraordinary bill was introduced, whose provisions if carried out would swell the regular army to sixty-six thousand troops, to say nothing of the power conferred on the President for calling out the militia for six months instead of three. Let us, he said, have only force enough on our frontier to protect it from invasion—let the slaughter of our yeomanry cease, and the fires along our northern boundary be extinguished. Already the war had cost nearly half as much as the entire struggle for independence; and said he, in conclusion, if war must be, "apply your revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy, in turn, may protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said that not one ship of force built by your hands since the war, floats on the ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force competent to defend your coast against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If, then, the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are lost in attachment to national character, on that element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of national resources. In time you may enable yourselves to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered, and if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon." This speech produced a marked impression on the house. Succeeding as it did, the resolutions of the Legislature of Massachusetts, refusing to compliment our naval commanders for their victories, on the ground that encouragement would be given to the war, it looked like a change in that quarter. The war was not denounced as it had ever been by the Federalist leaders—he quarrelled only with the mode of carrying it on. Nay, it implied that we had wrongs to redress at sea, and thither our force should be directed. The policy proposed in this speech should doubtless have been adopted at the commencement of the war, and might have been wise as late as 1814, but Webster did not propose it for the purpose of having it acted upon. This fine peroration was simply a safety-valve to his patriotism. He dared not—he could not uphold the war, or put his shoulders to any measures designed to carry it on with vigor. He represented a State opposed to it in principle, not in mode. Still, the language he used was so different from the other leading Federalists, that the Democrats, on the whole, did not wish to complain. Webster at this time was but thirty-one years of age, and little known except in his own vicinity. This speech, however, delivered with the fervor and eloquence which distinguished him, gave clear indications of his future greatness. Though a young man, he exhibited none of the excitement and eagerness of youth. Calm, composed, he uttered his thoughts in those ponderous sentences which ever after characterized his public addresses. Large, well made, his jet black hair parted from a forehead that lay like a marble slab above the deep and cavernous eyes; there was a solemnity, and at times almost a gloom in that extraordinary face, that awakened the interest of the beholder. There was power in his very glance, and the close compressed lip revealed a stern and unyielding character. Even at this age he looked like one apart from his fellows, with inward communings to which no one was admitted. When excited in debate, that sombre and solemn face absolutely blazed with fire, and his voice, which before had sounded sharp and unpleasant, rung like a clarion through the house. His sentences fell with the weight of Thor's hammer—indeed, every thing about him was Titanic, giving irresistible weight to his arguments.