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CH. V.]

1808.

COURSE PURSUED BY ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

Madison, the secretary of state, and informed him of the instructions by which he was to be guided in the matter in hand. Mr. Rose having required, that the president's proclamation, interdicting British vessels of war from the harbors of the United States, should be withdrawn before he could enter on the subject of reparation; and the president, on the other hand, having declined doing this, and having insisted upon bringing into review other cases of aggression and even the whole question of impressment itself, the further progress of negotiation was broken off. Mr. Rose, about the end of March, 1808, re-embarked for England, in the same frigate which had brought him out.

The result to which this attempt on the part of the British government arrived, excited afresh the political animosities of the two parties. The republicans maintained that the president had done right in every respect, and that the settlement of this dispute would have been of no real consequence in the then position of affairs. The federalists, on the other hand, charged upon the president and his party the adopting the present course out of hatred to England, and from a desire to further the wishes and views of France. From what we know of Mr. Jefferson's predilections, it is not at all unlikely, that the federalists had some ground for the charges of undue partiality towards France on the part of the great leader of the republicans in the United States. On the 2d of February, 1808, the president communicated copies of the orders in council of November 11th,

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1808.

1807, "as a further proof of the increas
ing dangers to our navigation and com-
merce, which led to the provident meas
ures of the act of the present session,
laying an embargo on our own vessels."
On the 26th of February, he commu-
nicated to Congress, "letters
recently received from our min-
isters at Paris and London," but "not
to be published." The "Milan Decree"
was sent on the 17th of March, with a
brief matter-of-fact message. Five days
later he sent another message "relative
to England and France," and on the
same day a second message, "with doc-
uments, exhibiting a complete view of
our differences with Great Britain and
France; a long catalogue of letters, acts,
copies of treaties, instructions, extracts,
etc., selected with apparent impartiality,
yet to the keen eyes of political oppo-
nents, seeming to disclose the bias of
the president towards France. At the
close of the message, he requests that
the correspondence which, a month be-
fore, he desired to be kept confidential,
should now be published, in order to
remove unfounded suspicions against
the government. Other messages were
sent on the 30th of March and on the
1st and 2d of April.

The committee to whom these various documents were referred, made a report on the 16th of April, in which they gave a review of the injuries sustained by the United States from the course adopted by the belligerents. They held it to be the duty of Congress to interpose, and they recommended several expedients in the present emergency. They also recommended the continuance of the embargo, and the

placing the power of suspending it, in the hands of the president, until the next session of Congress. A law was accordingly passed, authorizing Mr. Jefferson to suspend the embargo act, in the event of a peace between the contending powers, or, "if such changes in their measures affecting neutral commerce took place," as might "render that of the United States sufficiently safe." Mr. Tucker tells us, that "this law was passed because some hope was then entertained that a peace between France and England would be effected by the intervention of Austria. An intimation had been given by Napoleon, that France would not require England to renounce her maritime principles, nor would France renounce hers, but the question might be passed over in silence."*

The embargo question, in its various perplexing ramifications, occupied the attention of Congress, to a large extent, during most of the session, which was brought to a close on the 25th of April. Notwithstanding the engrossing nature of the subjects above referred to, Congress found time during the session, to enter upon an examination of the charges which John Randolph brought forward against General Wilkinson, the principal witness relied on for the conviction of Aaron Burr. There was also, we may add, an attempt to expel John Smith,+ one of the Ohio Senators,

* Tucker's "Life of Jefferson," vol. ii., p. 265. For the debate on the case of John Smith, see Benton's "Abridgement of the Debates of Congress," vol. iii., pp. 554-606. Mr. Smith, in consequence of the vote (nineteen to ten) sent in his resignation to the governor of Ohio. With regard to General Wilkinson's affairs, see same vol., pp. 642-58, 663–74.

on the ground that he had been involved in Burr's conspiracy; which failed, in April, because not quite twothirds of the Senate were willing to vote for his expulsion.

1808.

Part of the session was taken up with complaints against the hall of the House of Representatives, in which acoustical science had been so sadly ignored, that the oratory of the members seemed to fail entirely of producing its desired effect. Complaints were heard too, against the city of Washington; and a proposal, which was supported by a considerable number, was brought forward, to remove the sittings of the legislature and the headquarters of the government to Philadelphia again, until Washington should be a city of some consequence, and af ford some of the advantages which were looked for in the national capital.

The most interesting question now agitated throughout the Union, was the coming presidential election. Who should be put forward as the candidate of the republican party? Would Mr. Jefferson stand for a third time? Should Madison or Monroe succeed him? Jefferson declared his fixed determination to retire, when pressed to violate his own long-ago avowed sentiments concerning the re-eligibility of the presi dent. But he did not thereby escape his share in the troubles of the canvass.

James Monroe, as above stated, had returned from England, and, as was inevitable, a coolness sprang up between him and Madison, whom he regarded as a rival, and as having received unfair advantages for the approaching contest from their common

CH. V.]

THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.

friend and leader. Personal influence, and the influence of adherents, newspaper articles, and all the approved appliances for such warfare, were brought into requisition; and caucus meetings for nominating the candidates of the party were held without any scruples whatever.

The most important of these meetings was one attended by nearly a hundred Senators and Representatives of the democratic party, John Quincy Adams, who had now quite deserted his former principles, being amongst them. Eighty-three votes were given in favor of Madison, and only three each for Monroe and George Clinton, for the presidency; and for the latter, seventynine votes were given for the vice-presidency; Madison and Clinton were therefore announced as the candidates by the party. On the same night, two caucuses were held by members of the Assembly of Virginia, at Richmond; one by the friends of Monroe, in the Capitol, the other by the supporters of Madison, in a hotel. One hundred and thirty-four at the latter meeting voted for Madison, without an opposing voice; but at the former, out of fifty-seven, ten voted for Madison.

In this state of things, it was plain that Monroe had no present chance of success; but this consideration hardly satisfied his wishes, nor did two let ters written to him with that manifest intent, entirely reconcile him to the loss of the high honor almost within his reach. His friends, unaffected by the array in favor of his opponent, carried on their canvass with untiring zeal. And Clinton, until

101

warned by a hint that another candidate for the vice-presidency might be put in his place by the party, if he did not withdraw from the competition for the higher office, persevered in his hopeless attempt to be the successor of Jefferson.*

As for the federalists, they were as much divided as a party could be which had no chance of success. They did, indeed, propose General C. C. Pinckney and Rufus King as their candidates; but in many parts they relied rather on the chance of embarrassing the election, by voting for one or other of the unpopular candidates of the republicans, than on any expectation of being able to place any of their own men in offices of power and trust.

Congress, as we have stated, adjourned on the 25th of April; and during the summer the country was kept in a constant ferment by the preparations for the change in the person of the presi dent, and by the measures which were as surely the forerunners of war, 1808. as negotiations, and amicable interventions, and arbitrations, are presages of the conclusion of hostilities.

*The third president, as above stated, though urged to do otherwise, refused to be a candidate for a second

re-election. "Never," said he, "did a prisoner, re

leased from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on

shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the

me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering

times in which I have lived have forced me to take a

part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the

boisterous ocean of political passions. I thank God

for the opportunity of retiring from them without cen

sure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation. I leave every thing in the hands of men so able to take care of them, that if we are destined to meet misfortunes, it will be because no human wisdom could avert them."

party, will well repay the student who
has the time and the patience to enter
fully into the questions at issue.

1808.

And then came the election; but be-
fore the issue was certainly known, the
closing session of Congress had begun.
As the effects of the embargo began All the evils produced by the em-
to be felt more seriously, the strength bargo were, of course, aggravated as
and earnestness of complaints against time wore away, without bringing any
it rose higher and louder; and the fed- change in the policy of the administra-
eralists took occasion to note as conse- tion. Mr. Tucker, in his remarks on
quences of it, such lamentable things this point, states, that "the inconve
as "vindictive prosecutions," "the mul- nience felt by the people of the United
|
tiplications of spies and informers," "a States from their own remedy was ex-
tyranny of officers, great and small, treme, and put their patriotism and
which would hardly have been endured firmness to a severe test. Dependent
in Algiers," "smuggling," and the mere as we were on foreign markets
mockery of justice, in trials arising out for the sale of our redundant
of embargo bonds. At the same time products, now that we were not per-
foreign trade began to find its way mitted to export them, they fell to half
through the British colonies, and the their wonted price, and even less. To
coasting trade was carried on by means many of the producers they did not re-
of wagons! And, deprived of occupa- pay the cost of production. The sup-
tion, numbers of seamen, native Amer- ply of foreign merchandise, too, which
icans as well as Britons in the Ameri- habit had made necessary, and of which
can merchant-service, made their way there was no domestic supply, or an in-
through Canada to England, and to the sufficient one, being cut off, its price
means of obtaining a livelihood.
rose proportionally high; and thus the
expenses of the agricultural classes in-
creased, in the same proportion that
their means of defraying them dimin-
ished. It bore still harder on the sail-
ors and ship owners, who were thrown
entirely out of employment, and here
the pressure was most severely felt in
the states that were most addicted to
navigation, for while it deprived the
agricultural states of foreign merchan-
dise, it deprived the navigating states
of the means of making a livelihood.
It is true, it operated as a bounty on
manufactures, by making them scarcer
and dearer; but this at first benefited
but a small proportion of the commu-
nity, both because men cannot suddenly

Our limits do not admit of details respecting the acts, supplementary, suspensory, and explanatory, by which the embargo was made more rigid, or alleviated, as occasion seemed to require: or respecting the violence of the debates in Congress, and the duels which arose out of expressions which appeared to apply to persons, rather than to principles, or politics. An examination into the particulars,* and the various steps taken by the president and the ruling

*For the debate in the House, during the month of April, on the suspension of the embargo, see Benton's "Abridgement of the Debates of Congress," vol. iii., pp. 678-707.

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CH. V.J

ILL EFFECTS OF THE EMBARGO.

change their habits, and because, for many of the most essential manufactures, we had, as yet, neither the skill nor the materials; and years of priva tion were to be endured before this could be supplied. It is true also, that the embargo was of great temporary advantage in preserving the vast amount of American property then afloat on the ocean from the licensed freebooters of England and France, until the country could decide on its course of policy and provide for it."

The biographer of the president further points out how the embargo act bore with great severity upon England as well as the United States, and as each country was aware of the suffering and injury of the other, it became in fact, "a trial between the two nations who could suffer longest. In this contest, however, we lay under a disadvantage, which did not seem to be fully appreciated, either by the government or the people; for, in the first place, we deprived Great Britain of the trade of only one nation, while we deprived ourselves of the trade of all; and in the next, in consequence of the trade reof the trade remaining to Great Britain, she was able to find substitutes for the articles formerly furnished her by the United States, but we deprived ourselves of the means of finding substitutes for theirs. Thus, our adversaries could procure cotton from Brazil, Egypt and the East Indies; tobacco from South America; naval stores from Sweden; lumber from Nova Scotia; grain from the Baltic, though at a greater cost: but we, exporting nothing, were unable to import the woolens, lin

1808.

103

ens, silks, hardware, and pottery, to which we were accustomed, and which we had not yet learnt to make."

In this way the embargo was permanently injurious to the commerce of the United States; and as trade, when shut out from its accustomed outlets will create new channels for itself, so it happened to a considerable extent in the instance of the West Indies; consequently, as Mr. Tucker concludes, "if the effect of the embargo, as a measure of coercion, or as a means of appealing to the interests of Great Britain, was doubtful, it was clearly the most injurious expedient as a mere question of profit and loss." The merchants, it was urged, were the best judges of the question where their interests were concerned; if they chose to run the risk of capture on the sea, they should not have been cut off from the chances of profitable trade. In fine, all that could be said in defence of the embargo was, that it was better to endure the evils of it than to go to war, for it was hoped that the belligerents would abandon their lawless pretensions; if they did not, war was the final result. Mr. Jefferson's words are to this effect: writ ing to Levi Lincoln, in March, 1808, he says: "The embargo appears to be approved, even by the federalists of every quarter except yours. The alternative was between that and war, and in fact it is the last card we have to play, short of war. But if peace does not take place in Europe, and if France and England will not consent to withdraw the operation of their decrees and orders from us, when Congress shall meet in December, they will have to

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