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Jefferson and his Colleagues, A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty
Chapter X. The War-Hawks
by Johnson, Allen
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Among the many unsolved problems which Jefferson bequeathed to
his successor in office was that of the southern frontier.
Running like a shuttle through the warp of his foreign policy had
been his persistent desire to acquire possession of the Spanish
Floridas. This dominant desire, amounting almost to a passion,
had mastered even his better judgment and had created dilemmas
from which he did not escape without the imputation of duplicity.
On his retirement he announced that he was leaving all these
concerns "to be settled by my friend, Mr. Madison," yet he could
not resist the desire to direct the course of his successor.
Scarcely a month after he left office he wrote, "I suppose the
conquest of Spain will soon force a delicate question on you as
to the Floridas and Cuba, which will offer themselves to you.
Napoleon will certainly give his consent without difficulty to
our receiving the Floridas, and with some difficulty possibly
Cuba."
In one respect Jefferson's intuition was correct. The attempt of
Napoleon to subdue Spain and to seat his brother Joseph once
again on the throne of Ferdinand VII was a turning point in the
history of the Spanish colonies in America. One by one they rose
in revolt and established revolutionary juntas either in the name
of their deposed King or in professed cooperation with the
insurrectionary government which was resisting the invader.
Events proved that independence was the inevitable issue of all
these uprisings from the Rio de la Plata to the Rio Grande.
In common with other Spanish provinces, West Florida felt the
impact of this revolutionary spirit, but it lacked natural unity
and a dominant Spanish population. The province was in fact
merely a strip of coast extending from the Perdido River to the
Mississippi, indented with bays into which great rivers from the
north discharged their turgid waters. Along these bays and rivers
were scattered the inhabitants, numbering less than one hundred
thousand, of whom a considerable portion had come from the
States. There, as always on the frontier, land had been a
lodestone attracting both the speculator and the homeseeker. In
the parishes of West Feliciana and Baton Rouge, in the alluvial
bottoms of the Mississippi, and in the settlements around Mobile
Bay, American settlers predominated, submitting with ill grace to
the exactions of Spanish officials who were believed to be as
corrupt as they were inefficient.
If events had been allowed to take their natural course, West
Florida would in all probability have fallen into the arms of the
United States as Texas did three decades later. But the Virginia
Presidents were too ardent suitors to await the slow progress of
events; they meant to assist destiny. To this end President
Jefferson had employed General Wilkinson, with indifferent
success. President Madison found more trustworthy agents in
Governor Claiborne of New Orleans and Governor Holmes of
Mississippi, whose letters reveal the extent to which Madison was
willing to meddle with destiny. "Nature had decreed the union of
Florida with the United States," Claiborne affirmed; but he was
not so sure that nature could be left to execute her own decrees,
for he strained every nerve to prepare the way for American
intervention when the people of West Florida should declare
themselves free from Spain. Holmes also was instructed to
prepare for this eventuality and to cooperate with Claiborne in
West Florida "in diffusing the impressions we wish to be made
there."
The anticipated insurrection came off just when and where nature
had decreed. In the summer of 1810 a so-called "movement for
self-government" started at Bayou Sara and at Baton Rouge, where
nine-tenths of the inhabitants were Americans. The leaders took
pains to assure the Spanish Commandant that their motives were
unimpeachable: nothing should be done which would in any wise
conflict with the authority of their "loved and worthy sovereign,
Don Ferdinand VII." They wished to relieve the people of the
abuses under which they were suffering, but all should be done in
the name of the King. The Commandant, De Lassus, was not without
his suspicions of these patriotic gentlemen but he allowed
himself to be swept along in the current. The several movements
finally coalesced on the 25th of July in a convention near Baton
Rouge, which declared itself "legally constituted to act in all
cases of national concern . . . with the consent of the governor"
and professed a desire "to promote the safety, honor, and
happiness of our beloved king" as well as to rectify abuses in
the province. It adjourned with the familiar Spanish salutation
which must have sounded ironical to the helpless De Lassus, "May
God preserve you many years!" Were these pious professions
farcical? Or were they the sincere utterances of men who, like
the patriots of 1776, were driven by the march of events out of
an attitude of traditional loyalty to the King into open defence
of his authority?
The Commandant was thus thrust into a position where his every
movement would be watched with distrust. The pretext for further
action was soon given. An intercepted letter revealed that
DeLassus had written to Governor Folch for an armed force. That
"act of perfidy" was enough to dissolve the bond between the
convention and the Commandant. On the 23d of September, under
cover of night, an armed force shouting "Hurrah! Washington!"
overpowered the garrison of the fort at Baton Rouge, and three
days later the convention declared the independence of West
Florida, "appealing to the Supreme Ruler of the World" for the
rectitude of their intentions. What their intentions were is
clear enough. Before the ink was dry on their declaration of
independence, they wrote to the Administration at Washington,
asking for the immediate incorporation of West Florida into the
Union. Here was the blessed consummation of years of diplomacy
near at hand. President Madison had only to reach out his hand
and pluck the ripe fruit; yet he hesitated from constitutional
scruples. Where was the authority which warranted the use of the
army and navy to hold territory beyond the bounds of the United
States? Would not intervention, indeed, be equivalent to an
unprovoked attack on Spain, a declaration of war? He set forth
his doubts in a letter to Jefferson and hinted at the danger
which in the end was to resolve all his doubts. Was there not
grave danger that West Florida would pass into the hands of a
third and dangerous party? The conduct of Great Britain showed a
propensity to fish in troubled waters.
On the 27th of October, President Madison issued a proclamation
authorizing Governor Claiborne to take possession of West Florida
and to govern it as part of the Orleans Territory. He justified
his action, which had no precedent in American diplomacy, by
reasoning which was valid only if his fundamental premise was
accepted. West Florida, he repeated, as a part of the Louisiana
purchase belonged to the United States; but without abandoning
its claim, the United States had hitherto suffered Spain to
continue in possession, looking forward to a satisfactory
adjustment by friendly negotiation. A crisis had arrived,
however, which had subverted Spanish authority; and the failure
of the United States to take the territory would threaten the
interests of all parties and seriously disturb the tranquillity
of the adjoining territories. In the hands of the United States,
West Florida would "not cease to be a subject of fair and
friendly negotiation." In his annual message President Madison
spoke of the people of West Florida as having been "brought into
the bosom of the American family," and two days later Governor
Claiborne formally took possession of the country to the
Pearl River. How territory which had thus been incorporated could
still remain a subject of fair negotiation does not clearly
appear, except on the supposition that Spain would go through the
forms of a negotiation which could have but one outcome.
The enemies of the Administration seized eagerly upon the flaws
in the President's logic, and pressed his defenders sorely in the
closing session of the Eleventh Congress. Conspicuous among the
champions of the Administration was young Henry Clay, then
serving out the term of Senator Thurston of Kentucky who had
resigned his office. This eloquent young lawyer, now in his
thirty-third year, had been born and bred in the Old Dominion--a
typical instance of the American boy who had nothing but his own
head and hands wherewith to make his way in the world. He had a
slender schooling, a much-abbreviated law education in a lawyer's
office, and little enough of that intellectual discipline needed
for leadership at the bar; yet he had a clever wit, an engaging
personality, and a rare facility in speaking, and he capitalized
these assets. He was practising law in Lexington, Kentucky, when
he was appointed to the Senate.
What this persuasive Westerner had to say on the American title
to West Florida was neither new nor convincing; but what he
advocated as an American policy was both bold and challenging.
"The eternal principles of self preservation" justified in his
mind the occupation of West Florida, irrespective of any title.
With Cuba and Florida in the possession of a foreign maritime
power, the immense extent of country watered by streams entering
the Gulf would be placed at the mercy of that power. Neglect the
proffered boon and some nation profiting by this error would
seize this southern frontier. It had been intimated that Great
Britain might take sides with Spain to resist the occupation of
Florida. To this covert threat Clay replied,
"Sir, is the time never to arrive, when we may manage our own
affairs without the fear of insulting his Britannic Majesty? Is
the rod of British power to be forever suspended over our heads?
Does the President refuse to continue a correspondence with a
minister, who violates the decorum belonging to his diplomatic
character, by giving and deliberately repeating an affront to the
whole nation? We are instantly menaced with the chastisement
which English pride will not fail to inflict. Whether we assert
our rights by sea, or attempt their maintenance by
land--whithersoever we turn ourselves, this phantom incessantly
pursues us. Already has it had too much influence on the councils
of the nation. It contributed to the repeal of the embargo--that
dishonorable repeal, which has so much tarnished the character of
our government. Mr. President, I have before said on this floor,
and now take occasion to remark, that I most sincerely desire
peace and amity with England; that I even prefer an adjustment of
all differences with her, before one with any other nation. But
if she persists in a denial of justice to us, or if she avails
herself of the occupation of West Florida, to commence war upon
us, I trust and hope that all hearts will unite, in a bold and
vigorous vindication of our rights.
"I am not, sir, in favour of cherishing the passion of conquest.
But I must be permitted, in conclusion, to indulge the hope of
seeing, ere long, the NEW United States (if you will allow me the
expression) embracing, not only the old thirteen States, but the
entire country east of the Mississippi, including East Florida,
and some of the territories of the north of us also."
Conquest was not a familiar word in the vocabulary of James
Madison, and he may well have prayed to be delivered from the
hands of his friends, if this was to be the keynote of their
defense of his policy in West Florida. Nevertheless, he was
impelled in spite of himself in the direction of Clay's vision.
If West Florida in the hands of an unfriendly power was a menace
to the southern frontier, East Florida from the Perdido to the
ocean was not less so. By the 3d of January, 1811, he was
prepared to recommend secretly to Congress that he should be
authorized to take temporary possession of East Florida, in case
the local authorities should consent or a foreign power should
attempt to occupy it. And Congress came promptly to his aid with
the desired authorization.
Twelve months had now passed since the people of the several
States had expressed a judgment at the polls by electing a new
Congress. The Twelfth Congress was indeed new in more senses than
one. Some seventy representatives took their seats for the first
time, and fully half of the familiar faces were missing. Its
first and most significant act, betraying a new spirit, was the
choice as Speaker of Henry Clay, who had exchanged his seat in
the Senate for the more stirring arena of the House. In all the
history of the House there is only one other instance of the
choice of a new member as Speaker. It was not merely a personal
tribute to Clay but an endorsement of the forward-looking policy
which he had so vigorously championed in the Senate. The temper
of the House was bold and aggressive, and it saw its mood
reflected in the mobile face of the young Kentuckian.
The Speaker of the House had hitherto followed English
traditions, choosing rather to stand as an impartial moderator
than to act as a legislative leader. For British traditions of
any sort Clay had little respect. He was resolved to be the
leader of the House, and if necessary to join his privileges as
Speaker to his rights as a member, in order to shape the policies
of Congress. Almost his first act as Speaker was to appoint to
important committees those who shared his impatience with
commercial restrictions as a means of coercing Great Britain. On
the Committee on Foreign Relations--second to none in importance
at this moment--he placed Peter B. Porter of New York, young John
C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and Felix Grundy of Tennessee; the
chairmanship of the Committee on Naval Affairs he gave to Langdon
Cheves of South Carolina; and the chairmanship of the Committee
on Military Affairs, to another South Carolinian, David Williams.
There was nothing fortuitous in this selection of representatives
from the South and Southwest for important committee posts. Like
Clay himself, these young intrepid spirits were solicitous about
the southern frontier--about the ultimate disposal of the
Floridas; like Clay, they had lost faith in temporizing policies;
like Clay, they were prepared for battle with the old adversary
if necessary.
In the President's message of November 5, 1811, there was just
one passage which suited the mood of this group of younger
Republicans. After a recital of injuries at the hands of the
British ministry, Madison wrote with unwonted vigor: "With this
evidence of hostile inflexibility in trampling on rights which no
independent nation can relinquish Congress will feel the duty of
putting the United States into an armor and an attitude demanded
by the crisis; and corresponding with the national spirit and
expectations." It was this part of the message which the
Committee on Foreign Relations took for the text of its report.
The time had arrived, in the opinion of the committee, when
forbearance ceased to be a virtue and when Congress must as a
sacred duty "call forth the patriotism and resources of the
country." Nor did the committee hesitate to point out the
immediate steps to be taken if the country were to be put into a
state of preparedness. Let the ranks of the regular army be
filled and ten regiments added; let the President call for fifty
thousand volunteers; let all available war-vessels be put in
commission; and let merchant vessels arm in their own defense.
If these recommendations were translated into acts, they would
carry the country appreciably nearer war; but the members of the
committee were not inclined to shrink from the consequences. To a
man they agreed that war was preferable to inglorious submission
to continued outrages, and that the outcome of war would be
positively advantageous. Porter, who represented the westernmost
district of a State profoundly interested in the northern
frontier, doubted not that Great Britain could be despoiled of
her extensive provinces along the borders to the North. Grundy,
speaking for the Southwest, contemplated with satisfaction the
time when the British would be driven from the continent. "I feel
anxious," he concluded, "not only to add the Floridas to the
South, but the Canadas to the North of this Empire." Others, like
Calhoun, who now made his entrance as a debater, refused to
entertain these mercenary calculations. "Sir," exclaimed Calhoun,
his deep-set eyes flashing, "I only know of one principle to make
a nation great, to produce in this country not the form but the
real spirit of union, and that is, to protect every citizen in
the lawful pursuit of his business. . . Protection and patriotism
are reciprocal."
But these young Republicans marched faster than the rank and
file. Not so lightly were Jeffersonian traditions to be thrown
aside. The old Republican prejudice against standing armies and
seagoing navies still survived. Four weary months of discussion
produced only two measures of military importance, one of which
provided for the addition to the army of twenty-five thousand men
enlisted for five years, and the other for the calling into
service of fifty thousand state militia. The proposal of the
naval committee to appropriate seven and a half million dollars
to build a new navy was voted down; Gallatin's urgent appeal for
new taxes fell upon deaf ears; and Congress proposed to meet the
new military expenditure by the dubious expedient of a loan of
eleven million dollars.
A hesitation which seemed fatal paralyzed all branches of the
Federal Government in the spring months. Congress was obviously
reluctant to follow the lead of the radicals who clamored for war
with Great Britain. The President was unwilling to recommend a
declaration of war, though all evidence points to the conclusion
that he and his advisers believed war inevitable. The nation was
divided in sentiment, the Federalists insisting with some
plausibility that France was as great an offender as Great
Britain and pointing to the recent captures of American
merchantmen by French cruisers as evidence that the decrees had
not been repealed. Even the President was impressed by these
unfriendly acts and soberly discussed with his mentor at
Monticello the possibility of war with both France and England.
There was a moment in March, indeed, when he was disposed to
listen to moderate Republicans who advised him to send a special
mission to England as a last chance.
What were the considerations which fixed the mind of the nation
and of Congress upon war with Great Britain? Merely to catalogue
the accumulated grievances of a decade does not suffice. Nations
do not arrive at decisions by mathematical computation of
injuries received, but rather because of a sense of accumulated
wrongs which may or may not be measured by losses in life and
property. And this sense of wrongs is the more acute in
proportion to the racial propinquity of the offender. The most
bitter of all feuds are those between peoples of the same blood.
It was just because the mother country from which Americans had
won their independence was now denying the fruits of that
independence that she became the object of attack. In two
particulars was Great Britain offending and France not. The
racial differences between French and American seamen were too
conspicuous to countenance impressment into the navy of Napoleon.
No injuries at the hands of France bore any similarity to the
Chesapeake outrage. Nor did France menace the frontier and the
frontier folk of the United States by collusion with the Indians.
To suppose that the settlers beyond the Alleghanies were eager to
fight Great Britain solely for "free trade and sailors' rights"
is to assume a stronger consciousness of national unity than
existed anywhere in the United States at this time. These western
pioneers had stronger and more immediate motives for a reckoning
with the old adversary. Their occupation of the Northwest had
been hindered at every turn by the red man, who, they believed,
had been sustained in his resistance directly by British traders
and indirectly by the British Government. Documents now
abundantly prove that the suspicion was justified. The key to the
early history of the northwestern frontier is the fur trade. It
was for this lucrative traffic that England retained so long the
western posts which she had agreed to surrender by the Peace of
Paris. Out of the region between the Illinois, the Wabash, the
Ohio, and Lake Erie, pelts had been shipped year after year to
the value annually of some 100,000 pounds, in return for the
products of British looms and forges. It was the constant aim of
the British trader in the Northwest to secure "the exclusive
advantages of a valuable trade during Peace and the zealous
assistance of brave and useful auxiliaries in time of War." To
dispossess the redskin of his lands and to wrest the fur trade
from British control was the equally constant desire of every
full-blooded Western American. Henry Clay voiced this desire when
he exclaimed in the speech already quoted, "The conquest of
Canada is in your power . . . . Is it nothing to extinguish the
torch that lights up savage warfare? Is it nothing to acquire the
entire fur-trade connected with that country, and to destroy the
temptation and opportunity of violating your revenue and other
laws?"[*]
[* A memorial of the fur traders of Canada to the Secretary of
State for War and Colonies (1814), printed as Appendix N to
Davidson's "The North West Company," throws much light on this
obscure feature of Western history. See also an article on "The
Insurgents of 1811," in the American Historical Association
"Report" (1911) by D. R. Anderson.]
The Twelfth Congress had met under the shadow of an impending
catastrophe in the Northwest. Reports from all sources pointed to
an Indian war of considerable magnitude. Tecumseh and his brother
the Prophet had formed an Indian confederacy which was believed
to embrace not merely the tribes of the Northwest but also the
Creeks and Seminoles of the Gulf region. Persistent rumors
strengthened long-nourished suspicions and connected this Indian
unrest with the British agents on the Canadian border. In the
event of war, so it was said, the British paymasters would let
the redskins loose to massacre helpless women and children. Old
men retold the outrages of these savage fiends during the War of
Independence.
On the 7th of November--three days after the assembling of
Congress--Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana
Territory encountered the Indians of Tecumseh's confederation at
Tippecanoe and by a costly but decisive victory crushed the hopes
of their chieftains. As the news of these events drifted into
Washington, it colored perceptibly the minds of those who doubted
whether Great Britain or France were the greater offender.
Grundy, who had seen three brothers killed by Indians and his
mother reduced from opulence to poverty in a single night, spoke
passionately of that power which was taking every "opportunity of
intriguing with our Indian neighbors and setting on the ruthless
savages to tomahawk our women and children." "War," he exclaimed,
"is not to commence by sea or land, it is already begun, and some
of the richest blood of our country has been shed."
Still the President hesitated to lead. On the 3lst of March, to
be sure, he suffered Monroe to tell a committee of the House that
he thought war should be declared before Congress adjourned and
that he was willing to recommend an embargo if Congress would
agree; but after an embargo for ninety days had been declared on
the 4th of April, he told the British Minister that it was not,
could not be considered, a war measure. He still waited for
Congress to shoulder the responsibility of declaring war. Why did
he hesitate? Was he aware of the woeful state of unpreparedness
everywhere apparent and was he therefore desirous of delay? Some
color is given to this excuse by his efforts to persuade Congress
to create two assistant secretaryships of war. Or was he
conscious of his own inability to play the role of War-President?
The personal question which thrust itself upon Madison at this
time was, indeed, whether he would have a second term of office.
An old story, often told by his detractors, recounts a dramatic
incident which is said to have occurred, just as the
congressional caucus of the party was about to meet. A committee
of Republican Congressmen headed by Mr. Speaker Clay waited upon
the President to tell him, that if he wished a renomination, he
must agree to recommend a declaration of war. The story has never
been corroborated; and the dramatic interview probably never
occurred; yet the President knew, as every one knew, that his
renomination was possible only with the support of the war party.
When he accepted the nomination from the Republican caucus on the
18th of May, he tacitly pledged himself to acquiesce in the plans
of the war-hawks. Some days later an authentic interview did take
place between the President and a deputation of Congressmen
headed by the Speaker, in the course of which the President was
assured of the support of Congress if he would recommend a
declaration. Subsequent events point to a complete understanding.
Clay now used all the latent powers of his office to aid the war
party. Even John Randolph, ever a thorn in the side of the party,
was made to wince. On the 9th of May, Randolph undertook to
address the House on the declaration of war which, he had been
credibly informed, was imminent. He was called to order by a
member because no motion was before the House. He protested that
his remarks were prefatory to a motion. The Speaker ruled that he
must first make a motion. "My proposition is," responded Randolph
sullenly, "that it is not expedient at this time to resort to a
war against Great Britain." "Is the motion seconded?" asked the
Speaker. Randolph protested that a second was not needed and
appealed from the decision of the chair. Then, when the House
sustained the Speaker, Randolph, having found a seconder, once
more began to address the House. Again he was called to order;
the House must first vote to consider the motion. Randolph was
beside himself with rage. The last vestige of liberty of speech
was vanishing, he declared. But Clay was imperturbable. The
question of consideration was put and lost. Randolph had found
his master.
On the 1st of June the President sent to Congress what is usually
denominated a war message; yet it contained no positive
recommendation of war. "Congress must decide," said the
President, "whether the United States shall continue passive" or
oppose force to force. Prefaced to this impotent conclusion was a
long recital of "progressive usurpations" and "accumulating
wrongs"--a recital which had become so familiar in state papers
as almost to lose its power to provoke popular resentment. It was
significant, however, that the President put in the forefront of
his catalogue of wrongs the impressment of American sailors on
the high seas. No indignity touched national pride so keenly and
none so clearly differentiated Great Britain from France as the
national enemy. Almost equally provocative was the harassing of
incoming and outgoing vessels by British cruisers which hovered
off the coasts and even committed depredations within the
territorial jurisdiction of the United States. Pretended
blockades without an adequate force was a third charge against
the British Government, and closely connected with it that
"sweeping system of blockades, under the name of
orders-in-council," against which two Republican Administrations
had struggled in vain.
There was in the count not an item, indeed, which could not have
been charged against Great Britain in the fall of 1807, when the
public clamored for war after the Chesapeake outrage. Four long
years had been spent in testing the efficacy of commercial
restrictions, and the country was if anything less prepared for
the alternative. When President Madison penned this message he
was, in fact, making public avowal of the breakdown of a great
Jeffersonian principle. Peaceful coercion was proved to be an
idle dream.
So well advised was the Committee on Foreign Relations to which
the President's message was referred that it could present a long
report two days later, again reviewing the case against the
adversary in great detail. "The contest which is now forced on
the United States," it concluded, "is radically a contest for
their sovereignty and independency." There was now no other
alternative than an immediate appeal to arms. On the same day
Calhoun introduced a bill declaring war against Great Britain;
and on the 4th of June in secret session the war party mustered
by the Speaker bore down all opposition and carried the bill by a
vote of 79 to 49. On the 7th of June the Senate followed the
House by the close vote of 19 to 14; and on the following day the
President promptly signed the bill which marked the end of an
epoch.
It is one of the bitterest ironies in history that just
twenty-four hours before war was declared at Washington, the new
Ministry at Westminster announced its intention of immediately
suspending the orders-in-council. Had President Madison yielded
to those moderates who advised him in April to send a minister to
England, he might have been apprized of that gradual change in
public opinion which was slowly undermining the authority of
Spencer Perceval's ministry and commercial system. He had only to
wait a little longer to score the greatest diplomatic triumph of
his generation; but fate willed otherwise. No ocean cable flashed
the news of the abrupt change which followed the tragic
assassination of Perceval and the formation of a new ministry.
When the slow-moving packets brought the tidings, war had begun.
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