USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 3 > Part 42
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457
THE EMBARGO
no appeal. In this instance the legislature attempted to reject ballots in which Strong's name had been mispelled, it being long before the days of printed ballots. The fear of public opinion, however, prevented the opposition from carrying their plan to consummation. The next year, 1807, there was no call for trickery, as the returns gave the Republicans control of all the branches. Connecticut was the only Federalist State at this time; and it seems probable that the party would have died a natural death if the embargo policy of the administra- tion had not restored it to life.
THE EMBARGO AND MASSACHUSETTS POLITICS (1807 - 1810)
The reaction of Massachusetts to the national embargo act passed in December, 1807, was reflected in the State election of April, 1808. The Federalists recaptured the legislature although not the governorship. This result seems to have been due to the personalities of the rival candidates. The Federalists, instead of nominating either Strong or Otis, put up Gore, who was rich, fond of display, and formal in his manner. Moreover, his father had been a refugee Tory, he had resided for many years in England, and he held religious views altogether too liberal for Congregational New England. He could not win against Sullivan, a popular old Revolution- ary hero, who had the prestige of having already defeated Caleb Strong in the previous year. Even with all these advan- tages, Sullivan pulled out with a majority reduced to 619 in a total vote of 81,147.
The renewed strength of Federalism also manifested itself in the Presidential election in the fall of 1808. Although the State had gone the other way four years previously, it now returned Federalist electors. To be sure, the Federalist legis- lature, which in 1804 had granted to the people the right of choosing the electors, now resumed the method of electing them itself. Nevertheless, there is no probability that this changed the result.
Jefferson's embargo policy had one result in throwing together for the time being Federalists of such different atti- tudes as Pickering, Otis and Samuel Dexter. Only J. Q. Adams remained outside the fold. He supported the embargo bill in the national Senate, and therefore his resignation was
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asked for by the legislature in 1808. Throughout the year and in 1809 agitation went on among Federalists for a conven- tion of protest, but nothing came of it beyond resolutions in the town meetings and the legislature. That these were effective in producing the more moderate substitutes for the embargo which now followed is expressed in the famous words of President Jefferson: "I felt the foundation of the government shaken under my feet by the New England townships."
The non-intercourse policy substituted for embargo in 1809 revived prosperity in Massachusetts for the time being, with the result that the Democrats won the two elections of 1810 and 1811, with Elbridge Gerry as their gubernatorial candi- date. In 1812 the Federalists came back with Caleb Strong and succeeded in retaining the governorship until 1823.
THE DEMOCRATS UNDER ELBRIDGE GERRY (1800 -1813)
Of the Democratic or Republican leaders in Massachusetts, Elbridge Gerry was the most prominent. He was good candi- date material, a man of wealth and respectability. Likewise he drew support from the moderate Federalists because of his friendship with John Adams, for whom he had voted as an elector and by whom he had been appointed on a diplomatic mission to France. Although a candidate in various years from 1800 on, it was not until 1810 that Gerry won both the nomination and the election as governor.
The coming of war with England would probably have resulted under any circumstances in shortening the term of the Republicans. Yet the party itself in the State contributed to this result by the shortsighted methods by which it hoped to maintain itself in power. Most famous of these devices was "the gerrymander." It was nothing new, except the name. The reshaping of district lines so as to place large numbers of the opposition in one district which they could surely carry, and thereby subtracting their minority strength from several other districts, is a device probably as old as the representative system itself. The name was now coined to apply to a State senatorial district in Essex County, as set up by the Democrats in February, 1812. While there is some doubt as to who actually invented the word, there seems to
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From an original Courtesy of Massachusetts Historical Society
THE GERRY-MANDER. A NEW SPECIES OF MONSTER WHICH APPEARED IN ESSEX SOUTH DISTRICT IN JANUARY, 1812
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DURING THE WAR OF 1812
be none that it grew out of the salamander shaped outline of the outer Essex district as it appeared on the map.
Essex was not the only county to which the Democratic measure applied. The entire State was redistricted with such effectiveness that in the election of April, 1812, 29 of their candidates to the State senate were elected as against only 11 Federalists, while the popular vote for these 29 senators was only 50,164 against 51,766 for the Federalist candidates. The next year the Federalists won back the legislature and abol- ished Gerry's gerrymander. It was the opinion of Gerry's biographer that the Democrats would have shown more politi- cal wisdom if they had been content with fewer seats, yet enough to have given them sufficient control. They then could have built up margins in the necessary number of dis- tricts, which might not have been wiped out with the revived increase of Federalism. The rising tide of New England opposition to the war with England could result in nothing but disaster.
ATTITUDE OF MASSACHUSETTS DURING THE WAR OF 1812 (1811 - 1815)
We have already seen how Federalism, nearly extinct about 1807, was revived by New England's opposition to the embargo policy of the Republican administration, only to lose ground again when the more moderate non-intercourse program was substituted. The coming of war against England in 1812 again resuscitated the Federal Party in Massachusetts. In that year it captured all of the New England State govern- ments as well as that of Delaware; and it was also strong in New York. Immediately after the war Connecticut and Rhode Island succumbed; but Massachusetts Federalism sur- vived much longer.
Much was made in later years of alleged New England "treason" in the War of 1812. The twentieth-century economic theory of history to some extent has supplanted the old notion of national or sectional "morality" or "guilt." In weighing the responsibility of New England at that epoch, the political and commercial conditions must be taken into account. Evidently the issue of obligation of the States to the Union was a question which only time and destiny could
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determine. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 had avoided this question. As set forth elsewhere in this chapter, protests at national action, accompanied by threatened nulli- fication if not secession, occurred in both North and South. The question of State allegiance to the Union was finally settled at Appomattox by superior force of arms. Even in the twentieth century we have seen spasmodic recurrences of particularism when the Texas Rangers threatened war against Mexicans, California irritated Japan, and Rhode Island provided by legislative resolution and appropriation for a suit by its attorney-general as to the legality of a Federal Constitutional amendment.
It must never be forgotten that Massachusetts and the remainder of New England were facing a real emergency. The commerce which had been the principal and lucrative business of New England had been destroyed by embargo and war. The paralysis of shipping was already directing the capitalists of Massachusetts toward that manufacturing busi- ness which has ever since distinguished New England; but this new future was as yet too far away to be realized. In addition, the national taxes were high, for the war greatly increased the national debt. The national government was about to adopt the unusual method of a direct tax. The State government too was almost bankrupt. The militia ques- tion, which has been treated elsewhere in this volume, remained acute. From a military standpoint the War of 1812 had been little else but one continuous failure. The Army had been miserably managed; all of the invasions of Canada had been repulsed; the capitol building at Washington had been burned; northern New York had been invaded, and New Orleans soon would be; while Maine, a part of Massa- chusetts, was lost to the enemy, perhaps permanently. The British fleet was blockading the American coast, thus put- ting an end to those naval victories which had been the redeeming feature of the conduct of the war by the Ameri- cans. Invasion of southern New England seemed imminent, and already frantic efforts at construction of defences had been undertaken by the citizenry at the coastal cities from Boston down; while local forces to repel invasion had been authorized by the legislatures of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
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STATE POLITICS DURING THE WAR
STATE POLITICS DURING THE WAR OF 1812
That the New England leaders were sincere cannot be doubted by anyone who reads their letters. At the time they were fantastically accused of being office seekers who sought to create a new government since they could not obtain politi- cal positions in the existing administration. We must remem- ber the vituperative character of the political language of the times. A few years later when, in the North at least, patriotism came to be identified as applying to the nation rather than to the States, the leaders of 1812 could not escape condemnation, especially from their former followers who were anxious to cover their own tracks. The Federalist leaders "guessed wrong" as to the future, and have been loaded with obloquy ever since. Such is the penalty of those who "guess wrong." The worse that can be said of them is that they were not statesmen, if a statesman is to be defined as one who successfully copes with the future.
It must not be overlooked that there remained in New England some support of the national administration even while the war was on. There was not much of this in Connecticut; but in Rhode Island the Republicans remained strong. In Vermont and New Hampshire, Republican vic- tories in the legislatures made it impossible in 1814 for those States to elect official delegates to the Hartford Convention.
In Massachusetts the loss of Elbridge Gerry was a severe blow to his party. He was elected Vice President of the United States in 1812, went to Washington in 1813, and there he died a few months later. It seemed to the State Republicans the part of political expediency to make a bid for the moderate Federalist vote, and therefore Samuel Dexter became unavail- ingly their candidate for governor against Caleb Strong.
From the beginning, New England opposition to the war always pointed toward a New England convention of protest. By October, 1814, the conditions outlined above were so acute that Governor Strong called the legislature into special session; and it issued invitations to the Hartford Convention of December, 1814, which were accepted by the governments of Rhode Island and Connecticut.
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The convention method was the accustomed procedure of the times for dealing with political emergencies. It had been used all through the years which led up to the Revolution. Most of the State governments had been established by con- ventions. In a later time the Southern Confederacy carried through secession by means of conventions. To this day conventions are usual to revise the State constitutions. The ordinary acceptance of this method probably accounts for the lack of Federalist argument in defence of their convention, although the Democrats opposed it as contrary to the principle of a written constitution.
PROTEST AGAINST LOUISIANA (1813)
The principal point of difference between Massachusetts and the national government in this period was the militia question, which is treated elsewhere in this volume. Massa- chusetts, however, felt as a grievance the recent creation of the State of Louisiana out of the territory bought from France ten years previously, which involved an interesting Constitu- tional question. The State senate organized a Committee on Extension of Territorial Limits and appointed as chairman Josiah Quincy, a former member of the national House of Representatives, where he made the famous and oft quoted declaration against the admission of Louisiana as a State : "If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtu- ally a dissolution of this Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and, as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation, amicably if they can, violently if they must."
In its report, rendered June 16, 1813, this committee declared that the power to form new States out of territory not within the United States in 1783 "is, in truth, nothing less than the power to create in foreign countries new political sovereignties, and to divest the old United States of a portion of their political sovereignty, in favor of such foreigner." The committee was persuaded that the people of the United States had never delegated this power and "certainly, the people of Massachusetts never did delegate." Resolutions were submitted to the effect that "the Senators of this State,
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PROTEST AGAINST LOUISIANA
in Congress, be instructed, and the Representatives thereof requested, to use their utmost endeavors to obtain a repeal" of the Louisiana ordinance. Although not mentioned in the resolutions, of course the basis of the New England grievance was that Louisiana would add to the prestige and power of the South, and presumably of the Republican party in Con- gress and in the Electoral College.
December 17, 1813, the national government passed a new and stricter embargo act. A committee of the legislature drew up what became known as Lloyd's Report, from the name of the chairman. The Constitution, it declared, was "to promote the general welfare;" but "the voice of New England ... is lost in the national Councils ... and there is the aggrandizement of one section of the union, at the expense of another." The multiplication of States in southern and western sections "threatens eventually to reduce the voice of New England, once powerful and effectual in the national councils, to the feeble expression of colonial complaints, unat- tended to and disregarded."
In regard to the embargo, the report continues, "A power to regulate Commerce is abused, when employed to destroy it; and a manifest and voluntary abuse of power sanctions the right of resistance, as much as a direct and palpable usur- pation. The sovereignty reserved to the States, was reserved to protect the citizens from acts of violence by the United States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulations. We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people, and to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this state are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized laws, this legislature is bound to interpose its power, and wrest from the oppressor its victim." This snapper on the whip was a reference to the Virginia Resolutions drawn by President Madison in 1798.
The course of action recommended by the report was a convention of the commercial States. Let "the Wise and Good, of those States, which deem themselves oppressed, assemble with delegated authority, and . . . propose, urge, and even insist upon such explicit declarations of power, or restric-
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tion, as will prevent the most hardy from any future attempts to oppress, under the color of the constitution."
CALL OF THE HARTFORD CONVENTION (1814)
Governor Strong called a special session of the legislature for October 5, 1814. Maine was then occupied by the British, and no help, not even supplies, was forthcoming from the Federal government. The legislature authorized the raising of ten thousand men, and called upon the New England States to "meet and confer upon the subjects of their public griev- ances and concerns, and upon the best means of preserving our resources and of defence against the enemy . . . and also to take measures, if they shall think proper, for procuring a convention of delegates from all the United States, in order to revise the constitution thereof, and more effectually to secure the support and attachment of all the people, by placing all upon the basis of fair representation."
Several points in this legislative resolution should be noted. (1) It was suggested that delegates from all the United States were eventually to be invited; this was clearly camouflage, in that the purpose of the whole enterprise was to exclude the southern States. (2) One of the principal purposes alleged is the unfairness to New England of the compromise whereby the South included three-fifths of their slaves in determining their representation in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. (3) The resolution suggested that the con- vention might see fit to call another convention of such States of the Union as would attend, for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution.
However, invitations to the Hartford Convention were issued only to the New England States. That the legislature faced the likelihood that its action would be interpreted as secession, is indicated by a disclaimer in the last paragraph. "It cannot be necessary to anticipate objections to the measure which may arise from jealousy or fear. This Legislature is content, for its justification to repose upon the purity of our motives, and upon the known attachment of its constituents to the national union, and to the rights and independence of their country."
THE HARTFORD CONVENTION
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THE HARTFORD CONVENTION (1814 - 1815)
The convention met in Hartford from December 15, 1814, to January 5, 1815. Its sessions were secret, as was customary in convention meetings in those times. Of the 26 delegates, 12 were from Massachusetts. George Cabot, long prominent in the Federalist party in Massachusetts, was elected president. Harrison Gray Otis was the leading member on the floor.
The conservative character of the delegates cannot be too strongly emphasized. The Essex Junto wing of the Federal- ists was represented by only one member, Timothy Bigelow. The main motive of the group which engineered the movement was simply to transform the New England sentiment into some kind of practical action, and at the same time not to allow action to go too far. For such a program, a "middle-of-the- roader" like Otis was a suitable leader.
To discover the real object of the delegates as they assembled is difficult because of the secrecy of the meetings and also because the delegates themselves had probably not definitely made up their minds. Morison in his life of Harri- son Gray Otis (of whom he is a descendant) has essayed the task; and some conclusions can be obtained from letters and defences written then and in later years. Morison accepts Otis's statement that the question of the defence of New England was uppermost at first, and that pressure for a Con- stitutional amendment came second. As to defence, the particular problem was to find some way by which the customs duties collected in the States could be utilized for the support of the State troops, since the national government would not furnish a military force.
For many years thereafter the convention was accused of designing a secession movement, the principal accuser being John Quincy Adams. The revealed motives do not establish this charge. On the other hand, nullification as a principle was openly advocated, and the threatened conscription bill was specified as unconstitutional. The convention enunciated the duty of a State in which its citizens were so endangered "to interpose its authority for their protection." Of course, when put to the test, nullification can lead nowhere but to secession, unless one government or the other backs down.
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The convention finally adopted a report consisting of six resolutions, which was made public. (1) The Convention recommended nullification of the conscription act.' (2) An application to the national government was suggested for an arrangement whereby some part of the national taxes collected in the States should be used for the defence of such States. (3) Provision was made for sending forces of any of the New England States to the defence of any other, upon request of its governor. (4) The fol- lowing Constitutional amendments were proposed: the three- fifths rule to be abolished; no new States to be admitted except by a two-thirds vote in Congress; Congress not to lay an embargo for more than sixty days; foreign commerce with any nation to be interdicted only by a two-thirds vote; a declaration of war to require a two-thirds vote except in cases of actual invasion; naturalized persons not to be eligible for the Senate, House, or any civil office; no person to be eligible for a second term as President, nor the President to come from the same State two terms in succession.
Resolutions 5 and 6 provided for another convention to be held at Boston the following June, if the proposed applications to the government of the United States were unsuccessful, if peace had not been concluded, and if the defence of New England continued to be neglected.
Three of the delegates were sent to Washington with the resolutions, but they found the city rejoicing over the news of peace, which of course reduced the whole movement to a fiasco.
GOVERNORSHIP OF BROOKS (1816 - 1823)
Despite the failure of his party at the Hartford Convention, Caleb Strong retained the governorship until 1816 and then was able to pass it on to a Federalist successor. Dr. John Brooks of Medford held the office for seven years and was the last of the Federalist governors not only in Massachusetts but in the nation. He had been a physician; he organized a company which took part at the battle of Lexington and Con- cord and in the fighting around Boston; in the Revolutionary war he rose to the rank of colonel.
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END OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY
After the war Dr. Brooks resumed medical practice, and became a major-general in the militia. During the war of 1812 he was adjutant-general.
In the midst of this varied life, General Brooks seems never to have been so much a leader as a participant. Perhaps this very fact allayed conflicts and party spirit. In the quaint lan- guage of the times, "It was like that of a beloved and revered parent, whom all are disposed to honour and obey."
There is little to chronicle in politics at this time. Massa- chusetts went through a period of business depression. No world situation existed to reestablish the Yankee commerce which embargo and war had destroyed. The manufacturing which had arisen during the war was temporarily set back by the "dumping" of European goods until such time as the new American tariff policy could become effective. Public interest was taken up with the bitter Unitarian theological conflict now raging. What of political interest there was concerned itself with the movement to liberalize the suffrage, culminating in the State constitutional convention of 1820.
END OF THE FEDERALIST PARTY
In 1822 Harrison Gray Otis, although at the time a United States Senator, ran for mayor of Boston. He was defeated, however, because of the revolt of the so-called "Middling Interest" in the newly created city, the rank and file of the party whose interests, with true Federalist philosophy, the leaders had perpetually neglected.
The next year the Democrats nominated for governor Dr. William Eustis, a Revolutionary veteran, and Secretary of War in Madison's cabinet. Although seventy years of age and three times beaten by Brooks, he was the strongest candi- date the Democrats could have put up.
Against him the Federalists ran Otis, in spite of his defeat for the Boston mayoralty of the year previous, which should have been a warning to the party. Among the arguments against Otis was his connection with the Hartford Convention. The real reason for his defeat, however, lay in the increasing democratic sentiment of the times and in the fact that the Federalist Party was no longer meeting the issues of the day.
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The next year, 1824, Eustis defeated Lathrop, the last Feder- alist gubernatorial candidate in history.
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