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In 1825, 1826, and 1827 Federalist tickets were put up for the "Boston seat" in the legislature, but they were regularly defeated. In 1827 Benjamin Gorham was nominated and elected to Congress to fill the seat made vacant by Daniel Web- ster's elevation to the Senate. In 1828 a last-minute Federal- ist ticket of presidential electors was put up, headed by Otis and Prescott. It received but 126 votes in Boston and appar- ently none in the remainder of the State. That was the end.
The truth was that the Federalist Party no longer repre- sented any issue in American life. Nationalism was the pre- dominant American note after the War of 1812. Although this had been the principle forever to be associated with the party's career before 1800, the party's program had been sec- tional since that year. The particular group in the community which the party represented was the commercial; hence the decline of commerce cut its economic foundation from under its feet. The party might have caught on as the protagonists of the rising manufacturing interests, but this it utterly failed to do. From a sentimental standpoint democracy was the key note of American life for a long period after 1816; and to this the whole Federalist philosophy was directly opposed. Not for nothing had the party feared the addition of western States. Pioneer notions of the equality of man flowed back to the East and destroyed what was left of the belief that leader- ship should rest among "the rich, the well born, and the able."
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, HENRY, editor .- Documents Relating to New England Federal- ism, 1800-1815 (Boston, Little, Brown, 1877)-Mainly letters of John Quincy Adams to Massachusetts Federalists written in 1828-1829.
ADAMS, HENRY .- History of the United States of America, 1801-1817 (9 vols., N. Y., Scribner's, 1890)-Elsewhere characterized.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY .- Memoirs (12 vols., Phila. Lippincott, 1874-1877) -Edited by C. F. Adams. Comprises portions of his diary from 1795-1848.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY .- Dairy, 1794-1845 (N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1928) -Edited by Allan Nevins. A selection from the Memoirs.
AMES, FISHER .- Works (2 vols., Boston, Little, Brown 1854)-Edited by Seth Ames.
AMORY, THOMAS COFFIN .- Life of James Sullivan: with Selections from his Writings (2 vols., Boston, Phillips, Sampson, 1859)-Deals in ยท detail with his administration.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ANDERSON, FRANK MALOY .- "A Forgotten Phase of the New England Opposition to the War of 1812" (Mississippi Valley Historical Asso- ciation, Proceedings, 1912-1913, Vol. VI, pp. 176-188)-Based on the contemporary Federalist press.
ANDERSON, FRANK MALOY .- "Contemporary Opinion of the Virginia and Kentucky Revolution" (Am. Historical Review, 1899-1900, Vol. V, pp. 45-63, 225-252)-Mostly from contemporary newspapers. For Mas- sachusetts see pp. 58-63, 225-229.
AUSTIN, JAMES TRECOTHICK .- Life of Elbridge Gerry. With Contem- porary Letters (2 vols., Boston, Wells and Libby, 1828-1829)-Demo- cratic standpoint.
BABCOCK, KENDRIC CHARLES .- The Rise of American Nationality, 1811- 1819 (N. Y., Harper, 1906)-A chapter on New England and the war. BALDWIN, SIMEON EBEN .- The Hartford Convention (New Haven, 1918) -Descriptive and constitutional.
BALLARD, HARLAN HOGE .- "A Forgotten Fraternity" (Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society, Collections, Vol. III, pp. 179-198, Pittsfield, 1899).
BARRY, JOHN STETSON .- The History of Massachusetts (3 vols., Boston, Phillips, Sampson, 1855-1857)-Vol. III deals with the Commonwealth period, 1775-1820. See especially chaps. VIII and IX.
BRADFORD, ALDEN .- Biography of Caleb Strong, several Years Governor of Massachusetts (Boston, West, Richardson and Lord, 1820)- Strong Federalistic standpoint.
BROOKS, CHARLES .- History of the Town of Medford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, 1630 to 1855-See pp. 127-143 for a biography of Governor John Brooks. Laudatory and undiscriminating.
BROWN, CHARLES RAYMOND .- The Northern Confederacy According to the plans of the "Essex Junto," 1796-1817 (Princeton Univ. Press, 1915)-Secondary basis, anti-Federal.
BUTLER, NICHOLAS MURRAY .- The Effect of the War of 1812 upon the Consolidation of the Union (Johns Hopkins Studies in, Historical and Political Science, Fifth Series, No. 7, Balto., 1887).
CHANNING, EDWARD .- A History of the United States (6 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1919-1925)-See Vols. IV-V.
CHANNING, EDWARD, HART, ALBERT BUSHNELL, and TURNER, FREDERICK JACKSON .- Guide to the Study and Reading of American History (Boston, Ginn, 1912)-For bibliography of the period see pp. 346-385. DEAN, JOHN WARD .- "The Gerrymander" (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1892, Vol. XLVI, pp. 374-383)-Entertaining ; detailed.
DWIGHT, THEODORE .- History of the Hartford Convention: with a Review of the Policy of the United States Government which Led to the War of 1812 (Boston, Russell, Odiorne, 1833)-Very little directly on the Hartford Convention.
GOODRICH, SAMUEL GRISWOLD .- Recollections of a Lifetime. In a Series of Familiar Letters (N. Y., Miller, Orton, 1857)-See Letter 31 on the Hartford Convention. Nephew of a member of the Convention. HAZEN, CHARLES DOWNER .- Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution (Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science, Extra Vol. XVI, Balto., 1897)-Minute study largely from newspaper sources.
470 MASSACHUSETTS STATE GOVERNMENT
INGERSOLL, CHARLES JARED .- Historical Sketch of the Second War between the United States of America, and Great Britain (2 vols., Phila., Lea and Blanchard, 1845-49)-Covers events of 1812-1814.
INGERSOLL, CHARLES JARED .- History of the Second War between the United States of America and Great Britain. Second Series, Em- bracing the Events of 1814 and 1815 (2 vols., Phila., Lippincott, Grambo, 1852).
LODGE, HENRY CABOT .- "The Last Forty Years of Town Government" (JUSTIN WINSOR, Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols., Boston, Os- good, 1882-1886)-See Vol. III, pp. 189-216. Condemnatory.
LODGE, HENRY CABOT .- Life and Letters of George Cabot (2 vols., Little, Brown, 1878)-Partisan history from the Federalist standpoint.
McMASTER, JOHN BACH .- A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War (8 vols., N. Y., Appleton, 1890- 1895)-See Vols. I-IV for the period 1784-1820.
MORISON, SAMUEL ELIOT .- "The First National Nominating Convention, 1808" (Am. Historical Review, 1911-1912, Vol. XVII, pp. 744-763)- Original and entertaining.
MORISON, SAMUEL ELIOT .- The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis (2 vols., Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1913)-Standard work on Otis and on the period.
MORSE, ANSON ELY .- The Federalist Party in Massachusetts to the Year 1800 (Princeton, Univ. Library, 1909)-Original and based on careful study of sources.
MURDOCK, JOHN S .- "The First National Nominating Convention" (Am. Historical Review, 1895-1896, Vol. I, pp. 680-683)-Refers to the convention of 1812. Morison proves that there was an earlier con- vention in 1808.
PICKERING, OCTAVIUS, and UPHAM, CHARLES WENTWORTH .- The Life of Timothy Pickering (4 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1867-1873)-De- tailed but not very discriminating.
QUINCY, JOSIAH .- The History of Harvard University (2 vols., Cam- bridge, Owen, 1840)-In Volume I are to be found facts on the life of Christopher Gore.
ROBINSON, WILLIAM ALEXANDER .- Jeffersonian Democracy in New Eng- land (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1916)-Careful study of party distribution.
SARGENT, LUCIUS MANLIUS .- Reminiscences of Samuel Dexter (Boston, Dutton, 1857)-Able and interesting.
SEARS, LORENZO .- John Hancock, the Picturesque Patriot (Boston, Little Brown, 1912)-Only adequate biography of Hancock.
STANWOOD, EDWARD .- "The Massachusetts Election in 1806" (Mass. His- torical Society, Proceedings, Second Series, Vol. XX. pp. 12-19, Boston, 1906).
SUMNER, WILLIAM HYSLOP .- Memoir of Increase Sumner (Boston, Drake, 1854)-By the son of the governor.
WEBSTER, NOAH .- A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral Subjects (Boston, Tappan, Dennett, 1843)-See chap. XVIII, "Origin of the Hartford Convention of 1814."
WELLS, WILLIAM VINCENT .- The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams (3 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1865)-By the great grandson of Adams. Many letters.
CHAPTER XVI
MASSACHUSETTS IN THE WAR OF 1812
BY GARDNER W. ALLEN Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society
BEFORE THE WAR
Soon after the Revolution, the Barbary pirates began to prey upon American shipping, capturing vessels and enslaving their crews. As a defense against their depredations Congress provided for the construction of six frigates. This is impor- tant because these frigates, the best ships of their class in the world, did more than anything else to uphold the national honor, when the time came. Before that time came, one of these frigates, the Constitution, built in Boston, began in hostilities with France the career which was to make her the most famous of all American war vessels. A few years later- in 1803-Captain Edward Preble, a Massachusetts man, took the Constitution to the Mediterranean, where with his little squadron he waged war against Tripoli.
The Naval War with France, 1798 to 1801, was of peculiar interest to Massachusetts. John Adams was President of the United States, and it was his war. From the shipyards of the State a number of vessels, built under the authority of Congress to meet the emergency, were launched into Massa- chusetts Bay. The Constitution had led the way in 1797. Many vessels were built by the funds of patriotic citizens, who advanced money on the credit of the United States. Among these were the frigate Essex, which became another famous ship; the frigate Boston, which under the command of Captain George Little captured a French corvette; and the ships Merrimack, Herald, and Warren. These hostilities with France and Tripoli furnished a training school for a set of brilliant young officers who were to serve their country well in the coming struggle with England.
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MASSACHUSETTS IN THE WAR OF 1812
From the outbreak of war between England and France, events were leading up to war with England. During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic regime, neutrals suffered severely and American merchant vessels were seized and condemned under the authority of French decrees and British orders in council. In addition, the still more intolerable impressment of American seamen by British cruisers inflicted an injury not to be forgotten or forgiven.
England would not permit the products of the French, Spanish, and Dutch West Indies to be brought to British ports in neutral vessels in time of war. This was the Rule of 1756; and British merchants, alarmed at the growth of American trade, insisted on its enforcement. To evade it, West Indian goods were brought to American ports, landed, and customs duties paid, then reshipped and sent to England-often in the same vessel, but with new clearance papers. Such vessels were seized; but in 1799, when the United States was at war with France, were released by the court of admiralty, Sir William Scott laying down the general doctrine which per- mitted this commerce. In 1805, however, this decision was virtually reversed, as Scott ruled that the intention of the shipper must be examined and, if it appeared that the destina- tion of the cargo from the beginning was England, the broken voyage was illegal and the vessel was good prize. Under this ruling many Massachusetts vessels were condemned, notably the ship Essex, of Salem, the first one seized and tried.
As the relations between the two countries became more and more strained and war began to appear imminent, the Federalist party of New England became increasingly opposed to any break with England, more and more estranged from the South and West, and even desirous of separation. A speech of Josiah Quincy, delivered in the national House of Representatives during the debate in 1811 on the admission of Louisiana to the Union, exemplifies the spirit of the extreme Federalists. He said: "If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually 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."
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UNPREPARED FOR WAR
UNPREPARED FOR WAR (1801 - 1812)
The War of 1812 would have been more effective if it had been declared four years earlier. The state of the public mind following the outrage committed against the United States frigate Chesapeake in 1807, when men from her crew were impressed by a British ship of superior force, was favorably disposed to such a measure. But Jefferson and Madison were bent on peace, on saving money, and relied on such retaliatory measures as the embargo of 1807. By 1812 England had made partial reparation, though only partial and far from satisfactory, yet enough with the lapse of time to dull somewhat the sense of injury. The warlike spirit of 1807 had grown stale; but the people were not poltroons. That recruiting for the new regiments authorized by Congress (June 26, 1812) fell far short of furnishing the required number of men was due to the blundering conduct of affairs by the administration.
During all the long years of warfare in Europe and of injury to our shipping, no military preparation worth men- tioning had been made for a war which must have seemed to any reasonable person at least more than possible. Had the administration built and sent to sea at this time a relatively strong navy, the respect of the belligerent powers would have been won and in all probability the insults and the consequent war would have been prevented at a cost far less than war.
"That the war was as just and necessary as any war ever waged," says Henry Adams, "seemed so evident to Americans of another generation that only with an effort could modern readers grasp the reasons for the bitter opposition of large and respectable communities which left the government bank- rupt and nearly severed the Union." The mismanagement and ineptitude of the administration furnished some, though insufficient, excuse for the unpatriotic stand taken by New England at that time. The conduct of Massachusetts must cause regret in the hearts of many descendants of the Federal- ists of that day.
At the outbreak of the war three Massachusetts men (two of them natives of other States) were in Madison's Cabinet or other high places. Unfortunately they were not men conspicuous for ability or decision. William Eustis, born in
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Cambridge and nearly sixty years old at the opening of hos- tilities, was Secretary of War, and proved so incompetent that he was forced to resign after a few months. Henry Dearborn, a native of New Hampshire and over sixty, a veteran of the Revolution, had been Secretary of War under President Jefferson and afterwards collector of the port of Boston. In 1812 he was appointed senior major general of the Army. He lacked force and energy; and his want of enterprise and his general inefficiency contributed largely to the disasters of the opening campaign. Another Revolution- ary veteran, Brigadier General William Hull, was born in Connecticut and was fifty-nine. After the Revolution he practiced law and was a member of the Massachusetts legisla- ture. In 1812, when in command at Detroit, after announcing his confident expectation of effecting the conquest of Canada, he promptly surrendered his post without a fight and gave up his force to the enemy. These two generals when young men had been brave and good officers, but many years in civil life had divested them of their military character. In apportioning blame these men should be regarded as victims of a general situation for which they were not responsible, as well as of their own ineptitude. Another Massachusetts man, less prominent and little known to the ordinary reader of history, was Colonel Joseph Gardner Swift, a native of Nantucket. He was the first graduate of the Military Academy at West Point. During the war he was chief of the Engineer Corps of the Army, and was an officer of distinguished merit.
THE ATTITUDE OF MASSACHUSETTS
In the Spring of 1812, Massachusetts was represented in the national Senate by James Lloyd, a moderate Federalist, and Joseph B. Varnum, a Republican and a supporter of the war. The Massachusetts delegation in the House of Representatives of the Twelfth Congress, elected in 1810, consisted of seventeen members-nine Federalists and eight Republicans. In the Thirteenth Congress, elected in 1812, the Massachusetts delegation was increased to twenty, but the number of Republicans was reduced to three, showing the increasing unpopularity of the war. At the same
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THE ATTITUDE OF MASSACHUSETTS
time Elbridge Gerry, a Republican, was elected Vice President of the United States and on March 4, 1813, became President of the Senate. The Federalists carried all the State elections in Massachusetts during the war by large majorities; and Caleb Strong, an extreme Federalist, was governor throughout the period.
The attitude of the governing bodies of Massachusetts during the War of 1812-of the governor and both branches of the legislature, and also of certain town meetings-was distinctly disloyal. On June 26, 1812, in consequence of the recent declaration of war, Governor Strong issued a proclama- tion for a public fast. The Republican members of Congress, who had voted for war, were received on their return home with contumely and insults; and one of them, Charles Turner, of Plymouth, was roughly handled. Federalists hindered or prevented every effort to assist the war with money or enlistments.
The recalcitrant attitude of the Federalists continued throughout the war. June 15, 1813, Josiah Quincy, who had recently passed from the national House of Representatives to the State senate, offered the following measure in that body : "Resolved, as the sense of the Senate of Massachusetts, that in a war like the present, waged without justifiable cause and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that conquest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military or naval exploits which are not immediately connected with defence of our sea-coast and soil." It is a comfort to know that John Adams, a Federalist ex-President, and John Quincy Adams had no sympathy with such sentiments.
Some months later the State senate declared: "Beyond that submission which laws enacted agreeably to the Constitution make necessary, and that self-defence which the obligation to repel hostile invasions justifies, a people can give no encourage- ment to a war of such a character without becoming partakers in its guilt, and rendering themselves obnoxious to those just retributions of Divine vengeance by which, sooner or later, the authors and abettors of such a war will be assuredly overtaken." In a town meeting at Newbury, this memorial was adopted : "We remember the resistence of our fathers to
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oppressions which dwindle into insignificance when compared with those which we are called on to endure. The rights which we have received from God we will never yield to man. We call on our State legislature to protect us in the enjoyment of those privileges to assert which our fathers died, and to defend which we profess ourselves ready to resist unto blood." A committee of the legislature reported: "Whenever the national compact is violated and the citizens of this State are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized laws, the legislature is bound to interpose its power and wrest from the oppressor his victim."
These governmental agencies were under the control of a minority, the extreme Federalists. They were willing to see the Union sacrificed and destroyed and wished to set up a New England confederation. Timothy Pickering wrote in 1813 that he believed "an immediate separation would be a real blessing." To the credit of Massachusetts it must be said that these men, though of great influence, represented only a minority. About one half of the people supported the war; but, as Henry Adams says, they "were paralyzed by the other half which opposed it." About half of the peace party, the Federalists, wished to stop the war by any means in their power but were obstructed by the rest, who "threatened to desert their leaders at the first overt act of treason." Conse- quently, the extreme Federalists together with those who could be persuaded to follow them constituted only about one quarter of the people.
These peace advocates refused to take up arms unless New England was actually invaded; and then they would not leave their own territory. No matter how vitally important it might seem to keep possession of the outlet of Lake Champlain, they would not cross into Canada to defend it. In another way also some New Englanders displayed their lack of patriotism; they traded with the enemy. The British army in Canada lived on beef and flour purchased in New England and northern New York. These facts are not pleasant to contemplate. In palliation, but by no means constituting any excuse, it may be said that the atrocious blundering of the national administration was a great provocation.
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THE MILITIA QUESTION
THE MILITIA QUESTION (1812 - 1814)
At the beginning of the contest, the Secretary of War authorized General Dearborn to summon twenty thousand militia from New England. Care was taken to ask for small detachments, so as to rid the War Department of general officers appointed by the States. The war party maintained that the right of Congress to employ the militia of the various States for national defense was to be found in the power of that body to declare war. A bill authorizing the President to accept volunteers (militia) to the number of fifty thousand had passed both houses of Congress by large majorities early in 1812, but it left unsettled the question as to whether they could be sent beyond the limits of the United States.
Chief Justice Parsons, of the Supreme Court of Massa- chusetts, advised the governor that the right to decide when the constitutional exigency had arisen which should call the State militia into the national service, rested with him rather than with Congress or the President. Governor Strong decided that neither foreign invasion nor domestic insurrection existed and that therefore he must decline the President's request for the State's quota of militia for the defence of the coast. The National Government had no means of enforcing its construction of the Constitution, but it withdrew the garri- sons from the New England forts, leaving those States to defend themselves, and refused to send them their quota of the arms which were distributed among the States.
When, late in the war, the governor called out the militia for the defence of the coast and of Maine, which he had refused to do in the beginning, he was careful to make it appear evident that these troops were not in the national service. He placed them under their own commanding officer ; it was a State army. His inquiry of the Secretary of War as to whether their expenses would be reimbursed was emphatically answered in the negative.
President Madison, in his first annual message after the war (1815), advised "such an organization of the militia as would place it promptly and effectually under the control of the national government."
In spite of the action taken by Massachusetts authorities in the matter of militia, the citizens of the State came forward
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and enlisted in the Regular Army in good numbers as com- pared with other States. They were brave men, and their valuable services will be alluded to as the story proceeds.
THE OPENING CAMPAIGN (1812)
War having been declared, the object to be obtained, of most interest to the West, was the conquest of Upper Canada. For attaining this purpose, the military objectives at the outset were the west end of Lake Erie, the Niagara frontier, Lake Ontario, and the upper St. Lawrence River. The only important British post on the western frontier was Malden, not far from Detroit. The early capture of this place and the naval control of Lake Erie were essential for the security of Michigan. Sooner or later the Niagara frontier must be held. Of great importance also was naval supremacy on Lake Ontario, which could best be secured and safely maintained by the capture of Kingston, an important British naval station at the eastern end of the lake. Most important of all, perhaps, was the upper St. Lawrence. If this could be seized and held at any point, the British line of communications would be cut, the passage of supplies prevented, and the fall of Upper Canada made inevitable. For the accomplishment of these ends, promptness, energy, and military capacity were essential; and these were lacking, at least during the early period. On the defensive, the security of Lake Champlain and of the Maine frontier were of utmost importance. As will appear in the sequel, the first of these two objects was attained, the other was not.
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