The Wars Between England and America

by Theodore Clarke Smith

Jefferson at once recognized the extreme gravity of the situation. During the years after the English, Spanish, and Indian treaties, emigrants had steadily worked their way into the inner river valleys. Western New York and Pennsylvania were rapidly filling, Ohio was settled up to the Indian treaty line, Kentucky and Tennessee were doubling in population, and fringes of pioneer communities stretched along the Ohio and {186} Mississippi rivers. In 1796 Tennessee was admitted as a State, and Ohio was now, in 1801, on the point of asking admission. For France to shut the only possible outlet for these communities would be a sentence of economic death; and Jefferson was so deeply moved as to write to Livingston, his Minister to France, that if the rumour of the cession were true, "We must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." The United States must fight rather than submit. He sent Monroe to France, instructed to buy an outlet, but the latter only arrived in time to join with Livingston in signing a treaty for the purchase of the whole of Louisiana.

This startling event was the result of the failure of Napoleon's forces to reconquer San Domingo. Foreseeing the loss of Louisiana in case of the probable renewal of war with England, and desirous of money for immediate use, the Corsican adventurer suddenly threw Louisiana into the astonished hands of Livingston and Monroe. He had never, it is true, given Spain the promised compensation; he had never taken possession, and he had promised not to sell it; but such trifles never impeded Napoleon, nor, in this case, did they hinder Jefferson. When the treaty came to America, Congress was quickly convened, the Senate voted to ratify, the money was appropriated, and the whole {187} vast region was bought for the sum of sixty million francs. Jefferson himself, the apostle of a strict construction of the constitution, could not discover any clause authorizing such a purchase; but his party was undisturbed, and the great annexation was carried through, Jefferson acquiescing in the inconsistency.

The chagrin of the Federalists at this enormous south-westward extension of the country was exceeded only by their alarm when an attempt was made to eject certain extremely partisan judges from their offices in Pennsylvania and on the Federal bench by the process of impeachment. In the first two cases the effort was successful, one Pennsylvania judge and one Federal district judge being ejected; but when, in 1805, the attack was aimed at the Pennsylvania supreme justices and at Justice Chase of the United States Supreme Court, the process broke down. The defence of the accused judges was legally too strong to be overcome, and each impeachment failed. With this the last echo of the party contest seemed to end, for by this time the Federalists were too discredited and too weak to make a political struggle. Their membership in Congress had shrunk to small figures, they had lost State after State, and in 1804 they practically let Jefferson's re-election go by default. He received all but fourteen {188} electoral votes, out of 176. Some of the New England leaders plotted secession, but they were not strong enough for that. The party seemed dead. In 1804 its ablest mind, Hamilton, was killed in a duel with Burr, the Vice-president, and nobody remained capable of national leadership.

So the year 1805 opened in humdrum prosperity and national self-satisfaction. Jefferson could look upon a country in which he held a position rivalled only by that of a European monarch or an English prime minister. The principles of Republican equality, of States' rights, of economy and retrenchment, of peace and local self-government seemed triumphant beyond reach of attack. While Europe resounded with battles and marches, America lived in contented isolation, free from the cares of unhappy nations living under the ancient ideals.

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CHAPTER X

THE SECOND PERIOD OF COMMERCIAL ANTAGONISM, 1805-1812

In the year 1805, the happy era of Republican prosperity and complacency came suddenly and violently to an end, for by this time forces were in operation which drew the United States, in utter disregard of Jefferson's theories, into the sweep of the tremendous political cyclone raging in Europe. In 1803, Napoleon forced England into renewed war, and for two years endeavoured by elaborate naval manoeuvres to secure control of the Channel for a sufficient time to permit him to transport his "Grand Army" to the British shore. In 1805, however, these plans broke down; and the crushing defeat of the allied French and Spanish navies at Trafalgar marked the end of any attempt to challenge British maritime supremacy. The great military machine of the French army was then turned eastward against the armies of the coalition which England, under Pitt, was forming; and in a series of astonishing campaigns it was used to beat down the Austrians in 1805 at Austerlitz; to overwhelm the Prussians in 1806 at Jena and Auerstadt; and to force the Russians, after {190} a severe winter campaign in East Prussia, to come to terms in 1807. Napoleon and the Tsar, Alexander, meeting on the bridge at Tilsit, July 7, divided Europe between them by agreeing upon a policy of spheres of interest, which left Turkey and the Orient for Russian expansion and all the beaten western monarchies for French domination. The Corsican captain, trampling on the ruins both of the French monarchy and the French Republic, stood as the most terrible and astounding figure in the world, invincible by land, the master of Europe.

But the withdrawal of the French from any attempt to contest the sea left England the equally undisputed master of all oceans, and rendered the French wholly dependent upon neutral nations for commerce. As French conquests led to annexations of territory in Italy and in Germany, these regions also found themselves unable to import with their own vessels, and so neutral commerce found ever-increasing markets dependent upon its activity. Now the most energetic maritime neutral power was the United States, whose merchantmen hastened to occupy the field left vacant by the practical extinction of the French carrying trade. Until 1807 they shared this with the Scandinavian countries; but after that year Napoleon, by threats and the terror {191} of his name, forced an unwelcome alliance upon all the States of Europe, and the United States became the sole important neutral.

In these circumstances, the merchant shipping of the United States flourished enormously, the more especially since, by importing and immediately re-exporting West India products from the French islands, Yankee skippers were able to avoid the dangerous "Rule of 1756," and to send sugar and cocoa from French colonies to Europe and England under the guise of American produce. By 1805, the whole supply of European sugar was carried in American bottoms, to the enormous profit of the United States. American ships also shared largely in the coasting trade of Europe, carrying goods between ports where British ships were naturally excluded. In fact, the great prosperity and high customs receipts to which the financial success of the Jeffersonians was due depended to a great extent on the fortunate neutral situation of the United States.