The Jeffersonian Republicans In Power
REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES
Opposition to Strong Central Government
Cherishing especially the
agricultural interest, as Jefferson said, the Republicans were in the
beginning provincial in their concern and outlook. Their attachment to
America was, certainly, as strong as that of Hamilton; but they regarded
the state, rather than the national government, as the proper center of
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power and affection. Indeed, a large part of the rank and file had been
among the opponents of the Constitution in the days of its adoption.
Jefferson had entertained doubts about it and Monroe, destined to be the
fifth President, had been one of the bitter foes of ratification. The
former went so far in the direction of local autonomy that he exalted
the state above the nation in the Kentucky resolutions of 1798,
declaring the Constitution to be a mere compact and the states competent
to interpret and nullify federal law. This was provincialism with a
vengeance. "It is jealousy, not confidence, which prescribes limited
constitutions," wrote Jefferson for the Kentucky legislature. Jealousy
of the national government, not confidence in it--this is the ideal that
reflected the provincial and agricultural interest.
Republican Simplicity
Every act of the Jeffersonian party during its
early days of power was in accord with the ideals of government which it
professed. It had opposed all pomp and ceremony, calculated to give
weight and dignity to the chief executive of the nation, as symbols of
monarchy and high prerogative. Appropriately, therefore, Jefferson's
inauguration on March 4, 1801, the first at the new capital at
Washington, was marked by extreme simplicity. In keeping with this
procedure he quit the practice, followed by Washington and Adams, of
reading presidential addresses to Congress in joint assembly and adopted
in its stead the plan of sending his messages in writing--a custom that
was continued unbroken until 1913 when President Wilson returned to the
example set by the first chief magistrate.
Republican Measures
The Republicans had complained of a great
national debt as the source of a dangerous "money power," giving
strength to the federal government; accordingly they began to pay it off
as rapidly as possible. They had held commerce in low esteem and looked
upon a large navy as a mere device to protect it; consequently they
reduced the number of warships. They had objected to excise taxes,
particularly on whisky; these they quickly abolished, to the intense
satisfaction of the farmers. They had protested against the heavy cost
of the federal government; they reduced expenses by discharging hundreds
of men from the army and abolishing many offices.
They had savagely criticized the Sedition law and Jefferson refused to
enforce it. They had been deeply offended by the assault on freedom of
speech and press and they promptly impeached Samuel Chase, a justice of
the Supreme Court, who had been especially severe in his attacks upon
offenders under the Sedition Act. Their failure to convict Justice Chase
by a narrow margin was due to no lack of zeal on their part but to the
Federalist strength in the Senate where the trial was held. They had
regarded the appointment of a large number of federal judges during the
last hours of Adams' administration as an attempt to intrench
Federalists in the judiciary and to enlarge the sphere of the national
government. Accordingly, they at once repealed the act creating the new
judgeships, thus depriving the "midnight appointees" of their posts.
They had considered the federal offices, civil and military, as sources
of great strength to the Federalists and Jefferson, though committed to
the principle that offices should be open to all and distributed
according to merit, was careful to fill most of the vacancies as they
occurred with trusted Republicans. To his credit, however, it must be
said that he did not make wholesale removals to find room for party
workers.
The Republicans thus hewed to the line of their general policy of
restricting the weight, dignity, and activity of the national
government. Yet there were no Republicans, as the Federalists asserted,
prepared to urge serious modifications in the Constitution. "If there be
any among us who wish to dissolve this union or to change its republican
form," wrote Jefferson in his first inaugural, "let them stand
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may
be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." After reciting the
fortunate circumstances of climate, soil, and isolation which made the
future of America so full of promise, Jefferson concluded: "A wise and
frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another,
shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of
industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labour the
bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is
necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
In all this the Republicans had not reckoned with destiny. In a few
short years that lay ahead it was their fate to double the territory of
the country, making inevitable a continental nation; to give the
Constitution a generous interpretation that shocked many a Federalist;
to wage war on behalf of American commerce; to reestablish the hated
United States Bank; to enact a high protective tariff; to see their
Federalist opponents in their turn discredited as nullifiers and
provincials; to announce high national doctrines in foreign affairs; and
to behold the Constitution exalted and defended against the pretensions
of states by a son of old Virginia, John Marshall, Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States.
THE REPUBLICANS AND THE GREAT WEST
Expansion and Land Hunger
The first of the great measures which
drove the Republicans out upon this new national course--the purchase
of the Louisiana territory--was the product of circumstances rather than
of their deliberate choosing. It was not the lack of land for his
cherished farmers that led Jefferson to add such an immense domain to
the original possessions of the United States. In the Northwest
territory, now embracing Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin,
and a portion of Minnesota, settlements were mainly confined to the
north bank of the Ohio River. To the south, in Kentucky and Tennessee,
where there were more than one hundred thousand white people who had
pushed over the mountains from Virginia and the Carolinas, there were
still wide reaches of untilled soil. The Alabama and Mississippi regions
were vast Indian frontiers of the state of Georgia, unsettled and almost
unexplored. Even to the wildest imagination there seemed to be territory
enough to satisfy the land hunger of the American people for a century
to come.
The Significance of the Mississippi River
At all events the East,
then the center of power, saw no good reason for expansion. The planters
of the Carolinas, the manufacturers of Pennsylvania, the importers of
New York, the shipbuilders of New England, looking to the seaboard and
to Europe for trade, refinements, and sometimes their ideas of
government, were slow to appreciate the place of the West in national
economy. The better educated the Easterners were, the less, it seems,
they comprehended the destiny of the nation. Sons of Federalist fathers
at Williams College, after a long debate decided by a vote of fifteen to
one that the purchase of Louisiana was undesirable.
On the other hand, the pioneers of Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee,
unlearned in books, saw with their own eyes the resources of the
wilderness. Many of them had been across the Mississippi and had beheld
the rich lands awaiting the plow of the white man. Down the great river
they floated their wheat, corn, and bacon to ocean-going ships bound for
the ports of the seaboard or for Europe. The land journeys over the
mountain barriers with bulky farm produce, they knew from experience,
were almost impossible, and costly at best. Nails, bolts of cloth, tea,
and coffee could go or come that way, but not corn and bacon. A free
outlet to the sea by the Mississippi was as essential to the pioneers of
the Kentucky region as the harbor of Boston to the merchant princes of
that metropolis.
Louisiana under Spanish Rule
For this reason they watched with deep
solicitude the fortunes of the Spanish king to whom, at the close of the
Seven Years' War, had fallen the Louisiana territory stretching from New
Orleans to the Rocky Mountains. While he controlled the mouth of the
Mississippi there was little to fear, for he had neither the army nor
the navy necessary to resist any invasion of American trade. Moreover,
Washington had been able, by the exercise of great tact, to secure from
Spain in 1795 a trading privilege through New Orleans which satisfied
the present requirements of the frontiersmen even if it did not allay
their fears for the future. So things stood when a swift succession of
events altered the whole situation.
Louisiana Transferred to France
In July, 1802, a royal order from
Spain instructed the officials at New Orleans to close the port to
American produce. About the same time a disturbing rumor, long current,
was confirmed--Napoleon had coerced Spain into returning Louisiana to
France by a secret treaty signed in 1800. "The scalers of the Alps and
conquerors of Venice" now looked across the sea for new scenes of
adventure. The West was ablaze with excitement. A call for war ran
through the frontier; expeditions were organized to prevent the landing
of the French; and petitions for instant action flooded in upon
Jefferson.
Jefferson Sees the Danger
Jefferson, the friend of France and sworn
enemy of England, compelled to choose in the interest of America, never
winced. "The cession of Louisiana and the Floridas by Spain to France,"
he wrote to Livingston, the American minister in Paris, "works sorely on
the United States. It completely reverses all the political relations of
the United States and will form a new epoch in our political course....
There is on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our
natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans through which the produce
of three-eighths of our territory must pass to market.... France,
placing herself in that door, assumes to us an attitude of defiance.
Spain might have retained it quietly for years. Her pacific
dispositions, her feeble state would induce her to increase our
facilities there.... Not so can it ever be in the hands of France....
The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence
which is to restrain her forever within her low water mark.... It seals
the union of the two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive
possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the
British fleet and nation.... This is not a state of things we seek or
desire. It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us
as necessarily as any other cause by the laws of nature brings on its
necessary effect."
Louisiana Purchased
Acting on this belief, but apparently seeing
only the Mississippi outlet at stake, Jefferson sent his friend, James
Monroe, to France with the power to buy New Orleans and West Florida.
Before Monroe arrived, the regular minister, Livingston, had already
convinced Napoleon that it would be well to sell territory which might
be wrested from him at any moment by the British sea power, especially
as the war, temporarily stopped by the peace of Amiens, was once more
raging in Europe. Wise as he was in his day, Livingston had at first no
thought of buying the whole Louisiana country. He was simply dazed when
Napoleon offered to sell the entire domain and get rid of the business
altogether. Though staggered by the proposal, he and Monroe decided to
accept. On April 30, they signed the treaty of cession, agreeing to pay
$11,250,000 in six per cent bonds and to discharge certain debts due
French citizens, making in all approximately fifteen millions. Spain
protested, Napoleon's brother fumed, French newspapers objected; but the
deed was done.
Jefferson and His Constitutional Scruples
When the news of this
extraordinary event reached the United States, the people were filled
with astonishment, and no one was more surprised than Jefferson himself.
He had thought of buying New Orleans and West Florida for a small sum,
and now a vast domain had been dumped into the lap of the nation. He was
puzzled. On looking into the Constitution he found not a line
authorizing the purchase of more territory and so he drafted an
amendment declaring "Louisiana, as ceded by France,--a part of the
United States." He had belabored the Federalists for piling up a big
national debt and he could hardly endure the thought of issuing more
bonds himself.
In the midst of his doubts came the news that Napoleon might withdraw
from the bargain. Thoroughly alarmed by that, Jefferson pressed the
Senate for a ratification of the treaty. He still clung to his original
idea that the Constitution did not warrant the purchase; but he lamely
concluded: "If our friends shall think differently, I shall certainly
acquiesce with satisfaction; confident that the good sense of our
country will correct the evil of construction when it shall produce ill
effects." Thus the stanch advocate of "strict interpretation" cut loose
from his own doctrine and intrusted the construction of the Constitution
to "the good sense" of his countrymen.
The Treaty Ratified
This unusual transaction, so favorable to the
West, aroused the ire of the seaboard Federalists. Some denounced it as
unconstitutional, easily forgetting Hamilton's masterly defense of the
bank, also not mentioned in the Constitution. Others urged that, if "the
howling wilderness" ever should be settled, it would turn against the
East, form new commercial connections, and escape from federal control.
Still others protested that the purchase would lead inevitably to the
dominance of a "hotch potch of wild men from the Far West." Federalists,
who thought "the broad back of America" could readily bear Hamilton's
consolidated debt, now went into agonies over a bond issue of less than
one-sixth of that amount. But in vain. Jefferson's party with a high
hand carried the day. The Senate, after hearing the Federalist protest,
ratified the treaty. In December, 1803, the French flag was hauled down
from the old government buildings in New Orleans and the Stars and
Stripes were hoisted as a sign that the land of Coronado, De Soto,
Marquette, and La Salle had passed forever to the United States.
By a single stroke, the original territory of the United States was more
than doubled. While the boundaries of the purchase were uncertain, it is
safe to say that the Louisiana territory included what is now Arkansas,
Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and large
portions of Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, Montana, and
Wyoming. The farm lands that the friends of "a little America" on the
seacoast declared a hopeless wilderness were, within a hundred years,
fully occupied and valued at nearly seven billion dollars--almost five
hundred times the price paid to Napoleon.
Western Explorations
Having taken the fateful step, Jefferson wisely
began to make the most of it. He prepared for the opening of the new
country by sending the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore it,
discover its resources, and lay out an overland route through the
Missouri Valley and across the Great Divide to the Pacific. The story of
this mighty exploit, which began in the spring of 1804 and ended in the
autumn of 1806, was set down with skill and pains in the journal of
Lewis and Clark; when published even in a short form, it invited the
forward-looking men of the East to take thought about the western
empire. At the same time Zebulon Pike, in a series of journeys, explored
the sources of the Mississippi River and penetrated the Spanish
territories of the far Southwest. Thus scouts and pioneers continued the
work of diplomats.
THE REPUBLICAN WAR FOR COMMERCIAL INDEPENDENCE
The English and French Blockades
In addition to bringing Louisiana
to the United States, the reopening of the European War in 1803, after a
short lull, renewed in an acute form the commercial difficulties that
had plagued the country all during the administrations of Washington and
Adams. The Republicans were now plunged into the hornets' nest. The
party whose ardent spirits had burned Jay in effigy, stoned Hamilton for
defending his treaty, jeered Washington's proclamation of neutrality,
and spoken bitterly of "timid traders," could no longer take refuge in
criticism. It had to act.
Its troubles took a serious turn in 1806. England, in a determined
effort to bring France to her knees by starvation, declared the coast of
Europe blockaded from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe River. Napoleon
retaliated by his Berlin Decree of November, 1806, blockading the
British Isles--a measure terrifying to American ship owners whose
vessels were liable to seizure by any French rover, though Napoleon had
no navy to make good his proclamation. Great Britain countered with a
still more irritating decree--the Orders in Council of 1807. It modified
its blockade, but in so doing merely authorized American ships not
carrying munitions of war to complete their voyage to the Continent, on
condition of their stopping at a British port, securing a license, and
paying a tax. This, responded Napoleon, was the height of insolence, and
he denounced it as a gross violation of international law. He then
closed the circle of American troubles by issuing his Milan Decree of
December, 1807. This order declared that any ship which complied with
the British rules would be subject to seizure and confiscation by French
authorities.
The Impressment of Seamen
That was not all. Great Britain, in dire
need of men for her navy, adopted the practice of stopping American
ships, searching them, and carrying away British-born sailors found on
board. British sailors were so badly treated, so cruelly flogged for
trivial causes, and so meanly fed that they fled in crowds to the
American marine. In many cases it was difficult to tell whether seamen
were English or American. They spoke the same language, so that language
was no test. Rovers on the deep and stragglers in the ports of both
countries, they frequently had no papers to show their nativity.
Moreover, Great Britain held to the old rule--"Once an Englishman,
always an Englishman"--a doctrine rejected by the United States in
favor of the principle that a man could choose the nation to which he
would give allegiance. British sea captains, sometimes by mistake, and
often enough with reckless indifference, carried away into servitude in
their own navy genuine American citizens. The process itself, even when
executed with all the civilities of law, was painful enough, for it
meant that American ships were forced to "come to," and compelled to
rest submissively under British guns until the searching party had pried
into records, questioned seamen, seized and handcuffed victims. Saints
could not have done this work without raising angry passions, and only
saints could have endured it with patience and fortitude.
Had the enactment of the scenes been confined to the high seas and
knowledge of them to rumors and newspaper stories, American resentment
might not have been so intense; but many a search and seizure was made
in sight of land. British and French vessels patrolled the coasts,
firing on one another and chasing one another in American waters within
the three-mile limit. When, in the summer of 1807, the American frigate
Chesapeake refused to surrender men alleged to be deserters from King
George's navy, the British warship Leopard opened fire, killing three
men and wounding eighteen more--an act which even the British ministry
could hardly excuse. If the French were less frequently the offenders,
it was not because of their tenderness about American rights but because
so few of their ships escaped the hawk-eyed British navy to operate in
American waters.
The Losses in American Commerce
This high-handed conduct on the part
of European belligerents was very injurious to American trade. By their
enterprise, American shippers had become the foremost carriers on the
Atlantic Ocean. In a decade they had doubled the tonnage of American
merchant ships under the American flag, taking the place of the French
marine when Britain swept that from the seas, and supplying Britain with
the sinews of war for the contest with the Napoleonic empire. The
American shipping engaged in foreign trade embraced 363,110 tons in
1791; 669,921 tons in 1800; and almost 1,000,000 tons in 1810. Such was
the enterprise attacked by the British and French decrees. American
ships bound for Great Britain were liable to be captured by French
privateers which, in spite of the disasters of the Nile and Trafalgar,
ranged the seas. American ships destined for the Continent, if they
failed to stop at British ports and pay tribute, were in great danger of
capture by the sleepless British navy and its swarm of auxiliaries.
American sea captains who, in fear of British vengeance, heeded the
Orders in Council and paid the tax were almost certain to fall a prey to
French vengeance, for the French were vigorous in executing the Milan
Decree.
Jefferson's Policy
The President's dilemma was distressing. Both the
belligerents in Europe were guilty of depredations on American commerce.
War on both of them was out of the question. War on France was
impossible because she had no territory on this side of the water which
could be reached by American troops and her naval forces had been
shattered at the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. War on Great
Britain, a power which Jefferson's followers feared and distrusted, was
possible but not inviting. Jefferson shrank from it. A man of peace, he
disliked war's brazen clamor; a man of kindly spirit, he was startled at
the death and destruction which it brought in its train. So for the
eight years Jefferson steered an even course, suggesting measure after
measure with a view to avoiding bloodshed. He sent, it is true,
Commodore Preble in 1803 to punish Mediterranean pirates preying upon
American commerce; but a great war he evaded with passionate
earnestness, trying in its place every other expedient to protect
American rights.
The Embargo and Non-intercourse Acts
In 1806, Congress passed and
Jefferson approved a non-importation act closing American ports to
certain products from British dominions--a measure intended as a club
over the British government's head. This law, failing in its purpose,
Jefferson proposed and Congress adopted in December, 1807, the Embargo
Act forbidding all vessels to leave American harbors for foreign ports.
France and England were to be brought to terms by cutting off their
supplies.
The result of the embargo was pathetic. England and France refused to
give up search and seizure. American ship owners who, lured by huge
profits, had formerly been willing to take the risk were now restrained
by law to their home ports. Every section suffered. The South and West
found their markets for cotton, rice, tobacco, corn, and bacon
curtailed. Thus they learned by bitter experience the national
significance of commerce. Ship masters, ship builders, longshoremen, and
sailors were thrown out of employment while the prices of foreign goods
doubled. Those who obeyed the law were ruined; violators of the law
smuggled goods into Canada and Florida for shipment abroad.
Jefferson's friends accepted the medicine with a wry face as the only
alternative to supine submission or open war. His opponents, without
offering any solution of their own, denounced it as a contemptible plan
that brought neither relief nor honor. Beset by the clamor that arose on
all sides, Congress, in the closing days of Jefferson's administration,
repealed the Embargo law and substituted a Non-intercourse act
forbidding trade with England and France while permitting it with other
countries--a measure equally futile in staying the depredations on
American shipping.
Jefferson Retires in Favor of Madison
Jefferson, exhausted by
endless wrangling and wounded, as Washington had been, by savage
criticism, welcomed March 4, 1809. His friends urged him to "stay by the
ship" and accept a third term. He declined, saying that election for
life might result from repeated reelection. In following Washington's
course and defending it on principle, he set an example to all his
successors, making the "third term doctrine" a part of American
unwritten law.
His intimate friend, James Madison, to whom he turned over the burdens
of his high office was, like himself, a man of peace. Madison had been a
leader since the days of the Revolution, but in legislative halls and
council chambers, not on the field of battle. Small in stature,
sensitive in feelings, studious in habits, he was no man for the rough
and tumble of practical politics. He had taken a prominent and
distinguished part in the framing and the adoption of the Constitution.
He had served in the first Congress as a friend of Hamilton's measures.
Later he attached himself to Jefferson's fortunes and served for eight
years as his first counselor, the Secretary of State. The principles of
the Constitution, which he had helped to make and interpret, he was now
as President called upon to apply in one of the most perplexing moments
in all American history. In keeping with his own traditions and
following in the footsteps of Jefferson, he vainly tried to solve the
foreign problem by negotiation.
The Trend of Events
Whatever difficulties Madison had in making up
his mind on war and peace were settled by events beyond his own control.
In the spring of 1811, a British frigate held up an American ship near
the harbor of New York and impressed a seaman alleged to be an American
citizen. Burning with resentment, the captain of the President, an
American warship, acting under orders, poured several broadsides into
the Little Belt, a British sloop, suspected of being the guilty party.
The British also encouraged the Indian chief Tecumseh, who welded
together the Indians of the Northwest under British protection and gave
signs of restlessness presaging a revolt. This sent a note of alarm
along the frontier that was not checked even when, in November,
Tecumseh's men were badly beaten at Tippecanoe by William Henry
Harrison. The Indians stood in the way of the advancing frontier, and it
seemed to the pioneers that, without support from the British in Canada,
the Red Men would soon be subdued.
Clay and Calhoun
While events were moving swiftly and rumors were
flying thick and fast, the mastery of the government passed from the
uncertain hands of Madison to a party of ardent young men in Congress,
dubbed "Young Republicans," under the leadership of two members destined
to be mighty figures in American history: Henry Clay of Kentucky and
John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The former contended, in a flair of
folly, that "the militia of Kentucky alone are competent to place
Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet." The latter with a light heart
spoke of conquering Canada in a four weeks' campaign. "It must not be
inferred," says Channing, "that in advocating conquest, the Westerners
were actuated merely by desire for land; they welcomed war because they
thought it would be the easiest way to abate Indian troubles. The
savages were supported by the fur-trading interests that centred at
Quebec and London.... The Southerners on their part wished for Florida
and they thought that the conquest of Canada would obviate some Northern
opposition to this acquisition of slave territory." While Clay and
Calhoun, spokesmen of the West and South, were not unmindful of what
Napoleon had done to American commerce, they knew that their followers
still remembered with deep gratitude the aid of the French in the war
for independence and that the embers of the old hatred for George III,
still on the throne, could be readily blown into flame.
Madison Accepts War as Inevitable
The conduct of the British
ministers with whom Madison had to deal did little to encourage him in
adhering to the policy of "watchful waiting." One of them, a high Tory,
believed that all Americans were alike "except that a few are less
knaves than others" and his methods were colored by his belief. On the
recall of this minister the British government selected another no less
high and mighty in his principles and opinions. So Madison became
thoroughly discouraged about the outcome of pacific measures. When the
pressure from Congress upon him became too heavy, he gave way, signing
on June 18, 1812, the declaration of war on Great Britain. In
proclaiming hostilities, the administration set forth the causes which
justified the declaration; namely, the British had been encouraging the
Indians to attack American citizens on the frontier; they had ruined
American trade by blockades; they had insulted the American flag by
stopping and searching our ships; they had illegally seized American
sailors and driven them into the British navy.
The Course of the War
The war lasted for nearly three years without
bringing victory to either side. The surrender of Detroit by General
Hull to the British and the failure of the American invasion of Canada
were offset by Perry's victory on Lake Erie and a decisive blow
administered to British designs for an invasion of New York by way of
Plattsburgh. The triumph of Jackson at New Orleans helped to atone for
the humiliation suffered in the burning of the Capitol by the British.
The stirring deeds of the Constitution, the United States, and the
Argus on the seas, the heroic death of Lawrence and the victories of a
hundred privateers furnished consolation for those who suffered from the
iron blockade finally established by the British government when it came
to appreciate the gravity of the situation. While men love the annals of
the sea, they will turn to the running battles, the narrow escapes, and
the reckless daring of American sailors in that naval contest with Great
Britain.
All this was exciting but it was inconclusive. In fact, never was a
government less prepared than was that of the United States in 1812. It
had neither the disciplined troops, the ships of war, nor the supplies
required by the magnitude of the military task. It was fortune that
favored the American cause. Great Britain, harassed, worn, and
financially embarrassed by nearly twenty years of fighting in Europe,
was in no mood to gather her forces for a titanic effort in America even
after Napoleon was overthrown and sent into exile at Elba in the spring
of 1814. War clouds still hung on the European horizon and the conflict
temporarily halted did again break out. To be rid of American anxieties
and free for European eventualities, England was ready to settle with
the United States, especially as that could be done without conceding
anything or surrendering any claims.
The Treaty of Peace
Both countries were in truth sick of a war that
offered neither glory nor profit. Having indulged in the usual
diplomatic skirmishing, they sent representatives to Ghent to discuss
terms of peace. After long negotiations an agreement was reached on
Christmas eve, 1814, a few days before Jackson's victory at New Orleans.
When the treaty reached America the people were surprised to find that
it said nothing about the seizure of American sailors, the destruction
of American trade, the searching of American ships, or the support of
Indians on the frontier. Nevertheless, we are told, the people "passed
from gloom to glory" when the news of peace arrived. The bells were
rung; schools were closed; flags were displayed; and many a rousing
toast was drunk in tavern and private home. The rejoicing could
continue. With Napoleon definitely beaten at Waterloo in June, 1815,
Great Britain had no need to impress sailors, search ships, and
confiscate American goods bound to the Continent. Once more the terrible
sea power sank into the background and the ocean was again white with
the sails of merchantmen.
THE REPUBLICANS NATIONALIZED
The Federalists Discredited
By a strange turn of fortune's wheel,
the party of Hamilton, Washington, Adams, the party of the grand nation,
became the party of provincialism and nullification. New England,
finding its shipping interests crippled in the European conflict and
then penalized by embargoes, opposed the declaration of war on Great
Britain, which meant the completion of the ruin already begun. In the
course of the struggle, the Federalist leaders came perilously near to
treason in their efforts to hamper the government of the United States;
and in their desperation they fell back upon the doctrine of
nullification so recently condemned by them when it came from Kentucky.
The Senate of Massachusetts, while the war was in progress, resolved
that it was waged "without justifiable cause," and refused to approve
military and naval projects not connected with "the defense of our
seacoast and soil." A Boston newspaper declared that the union was
nothing but a treaty among sovereign states, that states could decide
for themselves the question of obeying federal law, and that armed
resistance under the banner of a state would not be rebellion or
treason. The general assembly of Connecticut reminded the administration
at Washington that "the state of Connecticut is a free, sovereign, and
independent state." Gouverneur Morris, a member of the convention which
had drafted the Constitution, suggested the holding of another
conference to consider whether the Northern states should remain in the
union.
In October, 1814, a convention of delegates from Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and certain counties of New Hampshire and
Vermont was held at Hartford, on the call of Massachusetts. The counsels
of the extremists were rejected but the convention solemnly went on
record to the effect that acts of Congress in violation of the
Constitution are void; that in cases of deliberate, dangerous, and
palpable infractions the state is duty bound to interpose its authority
for the protection of its citizens; and that when emergencies occur the
states must be their own judges and execute their own decisions. Thus
New England answered the challenge of Calhoun and Clay. Fortunately its
actions were not as rash as its words. The Hartford convention merely
proposed certain amendments to the Constitution and adjourned. At the
close of the war, its proposals vanished harmlessly; but the men who
made them were hopelessly discredited.
The Second United States Bank
In driving the Federalists towards
nullification and waging a national war themselves, the Republicans lost
all their old taint of provincialism. Moreover, in turning to measures
of reconstruction called forth by the war, they resorted to the national
devices of the Federalists. In 1816, they chartered for a period of
twenty years a second United States Bank--the institution which
Jefferson and Madison once had condemned as unsound and
unconstitutional. The Constitution remained unchanged; times and
circumstances had changed. Calhoun dismissed the vexed question of
constitutionality with a scant reference to an ancient dispute, while
Madison set aside his scruples and signed the bill.
The Protective Tariff of 1816
The Republicans supplemented the Bank
by another Federalist measure--a high protective tariff. Clay viewed it
as the beginning of his "American system" of protection. Calhoun
defended it on national principles. For this sudden reversal of policy
the young Republicans were taunted by some of their older party
colleagues with betraying the "agricultural interest" that Jefferson had
fostered; but Calhoun refused to listen to their criticisms. "When the
seas are open," he said, "the produce of the South may pour anywhere
into the markets of the Old World.... What are the effects of a war with
a maritime power--with England? Our commerce annihilated ... our
agriculture cut off from its accustomed markets, the surplus of the
farmer perishes on his hands.... The recent war fell with peculiar
pressure on the growers of cotton and tobacco and the other great
staples of the country; and the same state of things will recur in the
event of another war unless prevented by the foresight of this body....
When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection, as they soon
will be under the fostering care of the government, we shall no longer
experience these evils." With the Republicans nationalized, the
Federalist party, as an organization, disappeared after a crushing
defeat in the presidential campaign of 1816.
Monroe and the Florida Purchase
To the victor in that political
contest, James Monroe of Virginia, fell two tasks of national
importance, adding to the prestige of the whole country and deepening
the sense of patriotism that weaned men away from mere allegiance to
states. The first of these was the purchase of Florida from Spain. The
acquisition of Louisiana let the Mississippi flow "unvexed to the sea";
but it left all the states east of the river cut off from the Gulf,
affording them ground for discontent akin to that which had moved the
pioneers of Kentucky to action a generation earlier. The uncertainty as
to the boundaries of Louisiana gave the United States a claim to West
Florida, setting on foot a movement for occupation. The Florida swamps
were a basis for Indian marauders who periodically swept into the
frontier settlements, and hiding places for runaway slaves. Thus the
sanction of international law was given to punitive expeditions into
alien territory.
The pioneer leaders stood waiting for the signal. It came. President
Monroe, on the occasion of an Indian outbreak, ordered General Jackson
to seize the offenders, in the Floridas, if necessary. The high-spirited
warrior, taking this as a hint that he was to occupy the coveted region,
replied that, if possession was the object of the invasion, he could
occupy the Floridas within sixty days. Without waiting for an answer to
this letter, he launched his expedition, and in the spring of 1818 was
master of the Spanish king's domain to the south.
There was nothing for the king to do but to make the best of the
inevitable by ceding the Floridas to the United States in return for
five million dollars to be paid to American citizens having claims
against Spain. On Washington's birthday, 1819, the treaty was signed. It
ceded the Floridas to the United States and defined the boundary between
Mexico and the United States by drawing a line from the mouth of the
Sabine River in a northwesterly direction to the Pacific. On this
occasion even Monroe, former opponent of the Constitution, forgot to
inquire whether new territory could be constitutionally acquired and
incorporated into the American union. The Republicans seemed far away
from the days of "strict construction." And Jefferson still lived!
The Monroe Doctrine
Even more effective in fashioning the national
idea was Monroe's enunciation of the famous doctrine that bears his
name. The occasion was another European crisis. During the Napoleonic
upheaval and the years of dissolution that ensued, the Spanish colonies
in America, following the example set by their English neighbors in
1776, declared their independence. Unable to conquer them alone, the
king of Spain turned for help to the friendly powers of Europe that
looked upon revolution and republics with undisguised horror.
The Holy Alliance.--He found them prepared to view his case with
sympathy. Three of them, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, under the
leadership of the Czar, Alexander I, in the autumn of 1815, had entered
into a Holy Alliance to sustain by reciprocal service the autocratic
principle in government. Although the effusive, almost maudlin, language
of the treaty did not express their purpose explicitly, the Alliance was
later regarded as a mere union of monarchs to prevent the rise and
growth of popular government.
The American people thought their worst fears confirmed when, in 1822, a
conference of delegates from Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France met at
Verona to consider, among other things, revolutions that had just broken
out in Spain and Italy. The spirit of the conference is reflected in the
first article of the agreement reached by the delegates: "The high
contracting powers, being convinced that the system of representative
government is equally incompatible with the monarchical principle and
the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right,
mutually engage in the most solemn manner to use all their efforts to
put an end to the system of representative government in whatever
country it may exist in Europe and to prevent its being introduced in
those countries where it is not yet known." The Czar, who incidentally
coveted the west coast of North America, proposed to send an army to aid
the king of Spain in his troubles at home, thus preparing the way for
intervention in Spanish America. It was material weakness not want of
spirit, that prevented the grand union of monarchs from making open war
on popular government.
The Position of England.--Unfortunately, too, for the Holy Alliance,
England refused to cooeperate. English merchants had built up a large
trade with the independent Latin-American colonies and they protested
against the restoration of Spanish sovereignty, which meant a renewal of
Spain's former trade monopoly. Moreover, divine right doctrines had been
laid to rest in England and the representative principle thoroughly
established. Already there were signs of the coming democratic flood
which was soon to carry the first reform bill of 1832, extending the
suffrage, and sweep on to even greater achievements. British statesmen,
therefore, had to be cautious. In such circumstances, instead of
cooeperating with the autocrats of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, they
turned to the minister of the United States in London. The British prime
minister, Canning, proposed that the two countries join in declaring
their unwillingness to see the Spanish colonies transferred to any other
power.
Jefferson's Advice.--The proposal was rejected; but President Monroe
took up the suggestion with Madison and Jefferson as well as with his
Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. They favored the plan. Jefferson
said: "One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit [of
freedom]; she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By
acceding to her proposition we detach her from the bands, bring her
mighty weight into the scale of free government and emancipate a
continent at one stroke.... With her on our side we need not fear the
whole world. With her then we should most sedulously cherish a cordial
friendship."
Monroe's Statement of the Doctrine.--Acting on the advice of trusted
friends, President Monroe embodied in his message to Congress, on
December 2, 1823, a statement of principles now famous throughout the
world as the Monroe Doctrine. To the autocrats of Europe he announced
that he would regard "any attempt on their part to extend their system
to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety."
While he did not propose to interfere with existing colonies dependent
on European powers, he ranged himself squarely on the side of those that
had declared their independence. Any attempt by a European power to
oppress them or control their destiny in any manner he characterized as
"a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."
Referring in another part of his message to a recent claim which the
Czar had made to the Pacific coast, President Monroe warned the Old
World that "the American continents, by the free and independent
condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to
be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European
powers." The effect of this declaration was immediate and profound. Men
whose political horizon had been limited to a community or state were
led to consider their nation as a great power among the sovereignties of
the earth, taking its part in shaping their international relations.
The Missouri Compromise
Respecting one other important measure of
this period, the Republicans also took a broad view of their obligations
under the Constitution; namely, the Missouri Compromise. It is true,
they insisted on the admission of Missouri as a slave state, balanced
against the free state of Maine; but at the same time they assented to
the prohibition of slavery in the Louisiana territory north of the line
36 deg. 30'. During the debate on the subject an extreme view had been
presented, to the effect that Congress had no constitutional warrant for
abolishing slavery in the territories. The precedent of the Northwest
Ordinance, ratified by Congress in 1789, seemed a conclusive answer from
practice to this contention; but Monroe submitted the issue to his
cabinet, which included Calhoun of South Carolina, Crawford of Georgia,
and Wirt of Virginia, all presumably adherents to the Jeffersonian
principle of strict construction. He received in reply a unanimous
verdict to the effect that Congress did have the power to prohibit
slavery in the territories governed by it. Acting on this advice he
approved, on March 6, 1820, the bill establishing freedom north of the
compromise line. This generous interpretation of the powers of Congress
stood for nearly forty years, until repudiated by the Supreme Court in
the Dred Scott case.
THE NATIONAL DECISIONS OF CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL
John Marshall, the Nationalist
The Republicans in the lower ranges
of state politics, who did not catch the grand national style of their
leaders charged with responsibilities in the national field, were
assisted in their education by a Federalist from the Old Dominion, John
Marshall, who, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States from 1801 to 1835, lost no occasion to exalt the Constitution
above the claims of the provinces. No differences of opinion as to his
political views have ever led even his warmest opponents to deny his
superb abilities or his sincere devotion to the national idea. All will
likewise agree that for talents, native and acquired, he was an ornament
to the humble democracy that brought him forth. His whole career was
American. Born on the frontier of Virginia, reared in a log cabin,
granted only the barest rudiments of education, inured to hardship and
rough life, he rose by masterly efforts to the highest judicial honor
America can bestow.
On him the bitter experience of the Revolution and of later days made a
lasting impression. He was no "summer patriot." He had been a soldier in
the Revolutionary army. He had suffered with Washington at Valley Forge.
He had seen his comrades in arms starving and freezing because the
Continental Congress had neither the power nor the inclination to force
the states to do their full duty. To him the Articles of Confederation
were the symbol of futility. Into the struggle for the formation of the
Constitution and its ratification in Virginia he had thrown himself with
the ardor of a soldier. Later, as a member of Congress, a representative
to France, and Secretary of State, he had aided the Federalists in
establishing the new government. When at length they were driven from
power in the executive and legislative branches of the government, he
was chosen for their last stronghold, the Supreme Court. By historic
irony he administered the oath of office to his bitterest enemy, Thomas
Jefferson; and, long after the author of the Declaration of Independence
had retired to private life, the stern Chief Justice continued to
announce the old Federalist principles from the Supreme Bench.
Marbury vs. Madison--An Act of Congress Annulled
He had been in
his high office only two years when he laid down for the first time in
the name of the entire Court the doctrine that the judges have the power
to declare an act of Congress null and void when in their opinion it
violates the Constitution. This power was not expressly conferred on the
Court. Though many able men held that the judicial branch of the
government enjoyed it, the principle was not positively established
until 1803 when the case of Marbury vs. Madison was decided. In
rendering the opinion of the Court, Marshall cited no precedents. He
sought no foundations for his argument in ancient history. He rested it
on the general nature of the American system. The Constitution, ran his
reasoning, is the supreme law of the land; it limits and binds all who
act in the name of the United States; it limits the powers of Congress
and defines the rights of citizens. If Congress can ignore its
limitations and trespass upon the rights of citizens, Marshall argued,
then the Constitution disappears and Congress is supreme. Since,
however, the Constitution is supreme and superior to Congress, it is the
duty of judges, under their oath of office, to sustain it against
measures which violate it. Therefore, from the nature of the American
constitutional system the courts must declare null and void all acts
which are not authorized. "A law repugnant to the Constitution," he
closed, "is void and the courts as well as other departments are bound
by that instrument." From that day to this the practice of federal and
state courts in passing upon the constitutionality of laws has remained
unshaken.
This doctrine was received by Jefferson and many of his followers with
consternation. If the idea was sound, he exclaimed, "then indeed is our
Constitution a complete felo de se [legally, a suicide]. For,
intending to establish three departments, cooerdinate and independent
that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according
to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for
the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected
by and independent of the nation.... The Constitution, on this
hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which
they may twist and shape into any form they please. It should be
remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever
power in any government is independent, is absolute also.... A judiciary
independent of a king or executive alone is a good thing; but
independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a
republican government." But Marshall was mighty and his view prevailed,
though from time to time other men, clinging to Jefferson's opinion,
likewise opposed the exercise by the Courts of the high power of passing
upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress.
Acts of State Legislatures Declared Unconstitutional
Had Marshall
stopped with annulling an act of Congress, he would have heard less
criticism from Republican quarters; but, with the same firmness, he set
aside acts of state legislatures as well, whenever, in his opinion, they
violated the federal Constitution. In 1810, in the case of Fletcher
vs. Peck, he annulled an act of the Georgia legislature, informing the
state that it was not sovereign, but "a part of a large empire, ... a
member of the American union; and that union has a constitution ...
which imposes limits to the legislatures of the several states." In the
case of McCulloch vs. Maryland, decided in 1819, he declared void an
act of the Maryland legislature designed to paralyze the branches of the
United States Bank established in that state. In the same year, in the
still more memorable Dartmouth College case, he annulled an act of the
New Hampshire legislature which infringed upon the charter received by
the college from King George long before. That charter, he declared, was
a contract between the state and the college, which the legislature
under the federal Constitution could not impair. Two years later he
stirred the wrath of Virginia by summoning her to the bar of the Supreme
Court to answer in a case in which the validity of one of her laws was
involved and then justified his action in a powerful opinion rendered in
the case of Cohens vs. Virginia.
All these decisions aroused the legislatures of the states. They passed
sheaves of resolutions protesting and condemning; but Marshall never
turned and never stayed. The Constitution of the United States, he
fairly thundered at them, is the supreme law of the land; the Supreme
Court is the proper tribunal to pass finally upon the validity of the
laws of the states; and "those sovereignties," far from possessing the
right of review and nullification, are irrevocably bound by the
decisions of that Court. This was strong medicine for the authors of the
Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and for the members of the Hartford
convention; but they had to take it.
The Doctrine of Implied Powers
While restraining Congress in the
Marbury case and the state legislatures in a score of cases, Marshall
also laid the judicial foundation for a broad and liberal view of the
Constitution as opposed to narrow and strict construction. In McCulloch
vs. Maryland, he construed generously the words "necessary and proper"
in such a way as to confer upon Congress a wide range of "implied
powers" in addition to their express powers. That case involved, among
other things, the question whether the act establishing the second
United States Bank was authorized by the Constitution. Marshall answered
in the affirmative. Congress, ran his reasoning, has large powers over
taxation and the currency; a bank is of appropriate use in the exercise
of these enumerated powers; and therefore, though not absolutely
necessary, a bank is entirely proper and constitutional. "With respect
to the means by which the powers that the Constitution confers are to be
carried into execution," he said, Congress must be allowed the
discretion which "will enable that body to perform the high duties
assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people." In short,
the Constitution of the United States is not a strait jacket but a
flexible instrument vesting in Congress the powers necessary to meet
national problems as they arise. In delivering this opinion Marshall
used language almost identical with that employed by Lincoln when,
standing on the battle field of a war waged to preserve the nation, he
said that "a government of the people, by the people, for the people
shall not perish from the earth."
SUMMARY OF THE UNION AND NATIONAL POLITICS
During the strenuous period between the establishment of American
independence and the advent of Jacksonian democracy the great American
experiment was under the direction of the men who had launched it. All
the Presidents in that period, except John Quincy Adams, had taken part
in the Revolution. James Madison, the chief author of the Constitution,
lived until 1836. This age, therefore, was the "age of the fathers." It
saw the threatened ruin of the country under the Articles of
Confederation, the formation of the Constitution, the rise of political
parties, the growth of the West, the second war with England, and the
apparent triumph of the national spirit over sectionalism.
The new republic had hardly been started in 1783 before its troubles
began. The government could not raise money to pay its debts or running
expenses; it could not protect American commerce and manufactures
against European competition; it could not stop the continual issues of
paper money by the states; it could not intervene to put down domestic
uprisings that threatened the existence of the state governments.
Without money, without an army, without courts of law, the union under
the Articles of Confederation was drifting into dissolution. Patriots,
who had risked their lives for independence, began to talk of monarchy
again. Washington, Hamilton, and Madison insisted that a new
constitution alone could save America from disaster.
By dint of much labor the friends of a new form of government induced
the Congress to call a national convention to take into account the
state of America. In May, 1787, it assembled at Philadelphia and for
months it debated and wrangled over plans for a constitution. The small
states clamored for equal rights in the union. The large states vowed
that they would never grant it. A spirit of conciliation, fair play, and
compromise saved the convention from breaking up. In addition, there
were jealousies between the planting states and the commercial states.
Here, too, compromises had to be worked out. Some of the delegates
feared the growth of democracy and others cherished it. These factions
also had to be placated. At last a plan of government was drafted--the
Constitution of the United States--and submitted to the states for
approval. Only after a long and acrimonious debate did enough states
ratify the instrument to put it into effect. On April 30, 1789, George
Washington was inaugurated first President.
The new government proceeded to fund the old debt of the nation, assume
the debts of the states, found a national bank, lay heavy taxes to pay
the bills, and enact laws protecting American industry and commerce.
Hamilton led the way, but he had not gone far before he encountered
opposition. He found a formidable antagonist in Jefferson. In time two
political parties appeared full armed upon the scene: the Federalists
and the Republicans. For ten years they filled the country with
political debate. In 1800 the Federalists were utterly vanquished by the
Republicans with Jefferson in the lead.
By their proclamations of faith the Republicans favored the states
rather than the new national government, but in practice they added
immensely to the prestige and power of the nation. They purchased
Louisiana from France, they waged a war for commercial independence
against England, they created a second United States Bank, they enacted
the protective tariff of 1816, they declared that Congress had power to
abolish slavery north of the Missouri Compromise line, and they spread
the shield of the Monroe Doctrine between the Western Hemisphere and
Europe.
Still America was a part of European civilization. Currents of opinion
flowed to and fro across the Atlantic. Friends of popular government in
Europe looked to America as the great exemplar of their ideals. Events
in Europe reacted upon thought in the United States. The French
Revolution exerted a profound influence on the course of political
debate. While it was in the stage of mere reform all Americans favored
it. When the king was executed and a radical democracy set up, American
opinion was divided. When France fell under the military dominion of
Napoleon and preyed upon American commerce, the United States made ready
for war.
The conduct of England likewise affected American affairs. In 1793 war
broke out between England and France and raged with only a slight
intermission until 1815. England and France both ravaged American
commerce, but England was the more serious offender because she had
command of the seas. Though Jefferson and Madison strove for peace, the
country was swept into war by the vehemence of the "Young Republicans,"
headed by Clay and Calhoun.
When the armed conflict was closed, one in diplomacy opened. The
autocratic powers of Europe threatened to intervene on behalf of Spain
in her attempt to recover possession of her Latin-American colonies.
Their challenge to America brought forth the Monroe Doctrine. The powers
of Europe were warned not to interfere with the independence or the
republican policies of this hemisphere or to attempt any new
colonization in it. It seemed that nationalism was to have a peaceful
triumph over sectionalism.