USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 4 > Part 28
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THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY DISPUTE (1783-1842)
The question of disturbances on the Canadian frontier and of the claims around the northeastern boundary (i.e., be- tween Maine and the English province of New Brunswick), had for many years been matters of frequent concern in Anglo-American diplomacy. The dispute dated back to the Treaty of 1783, the language of which was certainly capable of several interpretations. In 1827, the administration of Adams had submitted the controversy to the King of the Netherlands as arbiter, and four years later the award divided the territory between the two countries. In June, 1832, in
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answer to a query from Jackson, the Senate voted that it refused to consent to the decision; and thereafter conditions grew steadily worse, until in 1839 hostilities between the Maine frontiersmen and British settlers were being narrowly averted.
Both Maine and Massachusetts were involved, for in the disputed territory was a large area, the soil of which was claimed by both States; and in addition to this, Massachu- setts claimed the political jurisdiction. In event of war, moreover, the Charlestown Navy Yard would unquestionably have been the first object of attack; and this aroused consider- able apprehension within the Commonwealth, enough to im- pel the General Court to provide additional defenses for Boston harbor. Webster was in full charge of negotiations (he became Secretary of State in March, 1841), and was much relieved when, in place of new proposals for surveys and further arbitrations, Lord Ashburton (Alexander Baring, for many years connected with American financial affairs, and owner of large tracts in the State of Maine) was sent to Washington with full powers to settle the dispute.
On March 3, 1842, in anticipation of the arrival of Lord Ashburton, the General Court of Massachusetts adopted reso- lutions intended to make its position clear. These declared that the disputed boundary could be easily adjusted by the aid of the Treaty of 1783; that the interest of the Common- wealth was to be considered a joint one with Maine; and that no compromise could be made without the consent of both States. On April 4, Lord Ashburton arrived in Washington; and a few days later Webster officially informed the gov- ernors of Maine and Massachusetts of his arrival, and sug- gested the appointment of commissioners from each State to cooperate in the negotiations. Governor Davis replied that suitable delegates would be appointed, and that Massa- chusetts was ready to make all reasonable concessions, but "nothing-not a rood of barren heath or rock-to unfounded claims." The legislature of Maine was promptly convened by Governor Fairchild, and from it he obtained authority to make the appointments requested by Webster, but only under the proviso that no concession made within the territory
NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY SETTLEMENT 303
should be regarded as an equivalent for anything yielded by the State of Maine. That is, as Webster said, the Maine commission had no idea of arguing the question of right in regard to conflicting positions, nor even to listen to any argu- ment in opposition. The result was that, when negotiations were finally undertaken, four parties were present-the United States, Great Britain, Massachusetts, and Maine ; and, remem- bering the long series of failures that had followed former attempts at settlement, it looked doubtful, indeed, whether such a complicated procedure could possibly succeed.
The commission selected from Massachusetts was com- posed of Abbot Lawrence, John Mills, and Charles Allen : a. worthy group, of whom Abbot Lawrence was easily the domi- nating figure. Like Lord Ashburton himself, he was a man of great practical experience, among the leading, if not the foremost, industrial leaders of the Commonwealth, familiar with large financial undertakings and thoroughly conversant with the lessons of compromise and conciliation that go with enterprise on a large scale. His genial, candid, reasonable personality, as well as his high social position, fitted well with the temperament of the British negotiator, and called forth the cooperation of his collegues as well as a spirit of recipro- city from his opponents.
THE NORTHEASTERN TREATY (1842)
It was, therefore, Webster, Lawrence, and Ashburton that finally (August 9, 1842) perfected a settlement. The north- eastern boundary was minutely described, in which Great Britain received about 5000 and the United States some 7000 square miles of the disputed territory, with the further stipula- tion that the navigation of the St. John's River was to be open to the manufactured products of Maine. By the eighth article of the treaty both parties agreed to maintain a naval squadron on the African coast to cooperate in the suppression of the slave trade; and the tenth article, perhaps the most far- reaching of all, provided for the mutual extradition of crimi- nals who sought asylum in either country. To Webster as Secretary of State and plenipotentiary was due the major credit for the successful completion of the agreement on the
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part of America. The services of Abbot Lawrence were par- ticularly significant. "It is doing no injustice to Mr. Web- ster nor to anyone else," wrote Charles G. Loring, "to assert that by means of Mr. Lawrence's efforts and his influence upon the other commissioners, to him (quoting the words of Mr. Nathan Appleton) more than to any other individual is due the successful accomplishment of the negotiations which resulted in the important treaty of Washington."
INTERNATIONAL TRADE (1818-1854)
The sea-borne trade of the United States was pretty well confined during the early middle period to transoceanic com- merce with Great Britain, to food and produce exchange with the West Indies, and to its own coastwise trade. The history of the question was highly complicated. Repeated negotia- tions by such astute statesmen as John Quincy Adams and James Monroe had failed to regain the privileges of com- merce enjoyed with the British West Indies, Newfoundland, and the Maritime Provinces before separation from the mother country. New England was naturally eager to re- establish relations with these lost markets, but it had become a firmly accepted principle of American commerce to exclude all foreign vessels from the coastwise trade. The British, on the other hand, were quite willing to share the transoceanic carrying trade with America, but closed the door on her pos- sessions in the western hemisphere; and, while desiring to maintain a monopoly for English ships in West Indian prod- ucts for Europe, would have liked very much to have the advantage of participating in the coastwise trade of the United States in order to add the profits of another cargo to the triangular sail from London to Halifax to Jamaica and home.
In 1818 Monroe resorted to retaliation, and at his sug- gestion Congress closed American ports to British ships com- ing from ports not regularly open to American ships. Great Britain thereupon opened Halifax to American ships, hoping to draw trade to that port which had before gone to the
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islands, with the idea that the cargoes could then be reshipped to their ultimate destinations in British ships. To meet this the United States thereupon forbade the exportation of her products to the West Indies in British ships, and refused imports from there unless they came directly. Then followed a series of reciprocal concessions, in the form of differential tonnage and impost duties, that finally culminated (1825) in an act of Parliament offering the United States the same rights in the West Indies that she gave to English vessels in her own waters, provided the act was accepted within one year-which was not done.
In the presidential campaign of 1828, Adams was re- proached for his failure to accept this offer, and Jackson, as the successful candidate, felt the obligation to remedy the error as far as possible. When Van Buren, his Secretary of State, therefore repudiated the former American claims, he suggested at the same time a change in American opinion; but, while England received the advances cordially, Canada protested the destruction of her advantages in the West Indies. Some six months later (May, 1830), however, neces- sary action was begun and soon completed by both countries to open the American and West Indian ports respectively, without restriction as to tonnage or destination; and, while duties were still allowed and used, so clearly an American policy was hardly open to criticism by the United States.
Even after the separation from Maine, Massachusetts re- mained the leading ship-owning state until 1843, when New York for the first time surpassed the Commonwealth. In the struggle to maintain her supremacy, Boston absorbed the commerce of other Massachusetts seaports; and the leading shipping centers-Newburyport, Beverly, Salem, Marble- head, Plymouth-turned to manufacturing. In the thirties the yearly average of craft from foreign ports entering her harbor was almost fifteen hundred; coastwise shipping in- creased in the same proportion; and by 1844 fifteen vessels entered and left her waters every day for a year.
Under such conditions the Commonwealth was vitally inter- ested in foreign commercial relations during the middle period. Her leading citizen, John Quincy Adams, had given
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
a large part of his time as President to the question, and much of the earlier legislation was due to his initiative. But he characterized his attitude towards England as "defensive only, intended to prevent a monopoly under British regula- tions." Senator Nathaniel Silsbee was bitter against the act of 1825, as it affected the United States, for giving far too much and offering far too little; and James Lloyd, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, reported a bill in the following year (1826) to authorize the President to proffer reciprocity to foreign nations on "an entire equality of commercial intercourse."
Long months of debate in this direction led to the treaty of reciprocity with Canada in 1854. The agreement was of great benefit to Massachusetts commerce-more so, perhaps, than any treaty in American history. It did away with the artificial limitations on the markets and sources of supply to the north; and, while the trade was carried almost exclusively in Canadian boats (which weakened the benefits received), a constant stream of firewood, coal, fish, flour, and grain came, nevertheless, to Massachusetts ports to be exchanged for goods from the Indies, whaling products, hides, and manu- factures.
When the subject of its repeal was before Congress, the report of a special committee of the Boston Board of Trade (1865) urged its retention. "Why," it asked, "with the history of the controversy which preceded the 'McLane Ar- rangement' in 1830, annul the treaty of 1854, without an attempt to revise, and continue it? If we adopt this extreme course, another long and angry dispute will certainly follow ; and, the legislation on both sides will become, possibly, quite as barbarous as at any previous period." But at the end of the fixed term (1864) the notice required by the treaty was given and the agreement annulled.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY .- Memoirs, Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848 (12 vols., Phila., Lippincott, 1874-1877)-Edited by C. F. Adams.
ADAMS, JAMES TRUSLOW .- New England in the Republic 1776-1850 (Bos- ton, Little, Brown, 1926)-The best outline of the period as it per- tains to New England. See particularly chaps. xiii to xvii.
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AUSTIN, GEORGE LOWELL .- The History of Massachusetts from the Landing of the Pilgrims to the Present Time (Boston, Estes and Lauriat, 1876) -Useful as a guide to persons and events in the Commonwealth. See especially chaps. xxi-xxiii for the period -1820-1861.
BANCROFT, FREDERIC .- Life of William H. Seward (2 vols., N. Y., Harper, 1900).
BOSTON BOARD OF TRADE .- Report of a Special Committee on the Reciproc- ity Treaty between the United States and Great Britain, of June 5, 1854 (Boston, 1854)-A concise review of the British and American commercial policy from 1783 to 1854.
BOSTON BOARD OF TRADE .- Tribute of Boston Merchants to the Memory of Joshua Bates, October, 1864 (Boston, Wilson, 1864)-For an account of his influence in the Oregon boundary dispute, see pp. 27-29.
BOURNE, EDWARD GAYLORD-The History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837 (N. Y., Putnam's, 1885)-The best account of the origin and distri- bution of the surplus revenue, and the uses to which it was applied. See Appendix III for Massachusetts statistics.
BURGESS, JOHN WILLIAM .- The Middle Period, 1817-1858 (N. Y. Scrib- ner's, 1897)-An excellent single volume for the general reader, that covers the period in its national aspects.
CATTERALL, RALPH CHARLES HENRY .- The Second Bank of the United States (Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1903)-The standard work on the subject.
CHANNING, EDWARD .- A History of the United States (N. Y., Macmillan, 1921)-Vol. V deals with the period of transition, 1815-1848; it is full and well documented.
CHANNING, EDWARD, HART, ALBERT BUSHNELL, and TURNER, FREDERICK JACKSON .- Guide to the Study and Reading of American History (Bos- ton, Ginn, 1912)-For bibliography of the period see pp. 383-444.
CHOATE, RUFUS .- Addresses and Speeches (Boston, Little, Brown, 1878)- See pp. 440-479 for the speech "On the Political Topics Now Promi- nent before the Country."
CHOATE, RUFUS .- Works (2 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1862)-Vol. I comprises a memoir of his life by S. G. Brown.
DARLING, ARTHUR BURR .- Political Changes in Massachusetts, 1834-1848 (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1925)-A study of the liberal move- ments and personalities in the Commonwealth during the years when the older Whig statesmen dominated.
EVERETT, EDWARD .- Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions (4 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1859-1868).
FUESS, CLAUDE MOORE .- The Life of Caleb Cushing (2 vols., N. Y., Har- court, Brace, 1923)-See especially Vol. II, chap. xiii, "The Attorney General."
HILL, HAMILTON ANDREWS .- Memoir of Abbott Lawrence (Boston, Little, Brown, 1884)-The story of a great industrial leader of the Common- wealth and a man of strong influence on the public affairs of his day. HOWE, MARK ANTONY DE WOLFE .- The Life and Letters of George Ban- croft (2 vols., N. Y., Scribners, 1908)-See especially in Vol. I, chap. iv, "Politics and History, 1831-1845," and chap. v, "Secretary of the Navy, 1845-1846."
LORING, CHARLES GREELEY .- Memoir of the Hon. William Sturgis (Boston, Wilson, 1864)-For and account of Sturgis's influence in the Oregon boundary dispute, see pp. 37-39.
McMASTER, JOHN BACH .- History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War (8 vols., N. Y., Appleton, 1897-1913) -See Vols. IV-VI.
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MOORE, JOHN BASSETT .- History and Digest of the International Arbitra- tions to Which the United States has Been a Party (6 vols., Washing- ton, 1898)-See Vol. I, pp. 65-161 on the northeastern boundary dis- pute, and pp. 196-213 on the Oregon boundary dispute.
MORISON, SAMUEL ELIOT .- The Maritime History of Massachusetts 1783- 1860 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1921)-Not only a scholarly account of the commercial, whaling and fishing activities of the Common- wealth, but a fascinating story of maritime enterprise told with un- usual skill.
MORISON, SAMUEL ELIOT .- The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765-1848 (2 vols., Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1913)-A fine example of the conservative opinion of Boston,-especially chap. xxxii on abolition, and chap. xxxiii on the tariff.
MORSE, JOHN TORREY .- John Quincy Adams (N. Y., Houghton Mifflin, 1896)-Once President of the United States and subsequently for six- teen years a representative of the Commonwealth in the lower house of Congress, the story of the years 1820-1861 cannot be written with- out giving great prominence to his name.
PHILLIPS, WENDELL .- Speeches, Lectures, and Letters (First and Second Series, Boston, Lee and Shepard, 1894).
SCHOULER, JAMES .- History of the United States of America under the Constitution (6 vols., N. Y., Dodd, Mead, 1895-1899)-See Vols. III- IV.
SEWARD, WILLIAM HENRY .- Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams, Sixth President of the United States (Auburn, N. Y., Derby, Miller, 1849).
SEWARD, WILLIAM HENRY .- Works (5 vols, N. Y., Redfield, 1853-1884)- Edited by G. E. Baker.
SMITH, EDWARD .- England and America after Independence; a Short Examination of their International Intercourse 1783-1872 (West- minster, Eng., Constable, 1900)-Excellent outlines of the international relations of the two countries during the period. See especially chap. xvi, "Colonial Trade," and chap. xvii, "The Ashburton Treaty," and chap. xviii, "Oregon."
SUMNER, CHARLES .- Works (15 vols., Boston, Lee and Shepard, 1875- 1883).
WEBSTER, DANIEL .- Writings and Speeches (18 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1903).
WEBSTER, DANIEL .- Letters (N. Y., McClure, Phillips, 1902) -Edited by C. H. Van Tyne mostly from mss. of the New Hampshire Historical Society.
WARD, SIR ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, PROTHERO, SIR GEORGE WALTER, AND LEATHES, STANLEY MORDAUNT, editors .- Cambridge Modern History (13 vols., Cambridge, Eng., Cambridge Univ. Press, 1902-1912)-See Vol. VII, chaps. xi-xiii, for the period 1817-1858.
WILSON, WOODROW .- Division and Reunion (N. Y., Longmans, Green, 1921). WINTHROP, ROBERT CHARLES .- Addresses and Speeches on Various Occa- sions (Boston, Little, Brown, 1852)-See particularly "Protection to Domestic Industry" on pp. 200-219, "Arbitration of the Oregon Ques- tion" on pp. 481-499, "The Annexation of Texas" on pp. 438-459, "The War With Mexico" on pp. 564-588, and "The Fugitive Slave Law" on pp. 713-719.
WINTHROP, ROBERT CHARLES, JR .- A Memoir of Robert C. Winthrop (Boston, Little Brown, 1897).
CHAPTER XI
THE ANTISLAVERY CRISIS IN MASSACHUSETTS (1830-1850) BY OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD Editor of The Nation
THE ABOLITION CONTROVERSY
"Utterly deprived of that protection and of those immuni- ties which belong to them as citizens, and given up to be the prey of ruffians and assassins, the popular theory of self- defense and the example of worldly patriotism in all ages authorize them to resist unto blood-to proclaim a war of extermination-to light up the fires of a new revolution- and to rally together upon the 'tented fields,' armed and equipped for mortal combat. . . . The causes which induced our revolutionary fathers to rush to the strife of blood were as dust in the balance, compared with the anguish, outrage and peril to which Abolitionists are subjected."
Such, according to the Liberator of August, 1835, was the state of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the thirties of the nineteenth century. The nation was at peace; out- wardly Massachusetts was prosperous, content, and calm. But within, fires were raging, the caldrons of hate and civil strife boiling and hissing. Yet the intolerable conditions in the Commonwealth, actual or exaggerated, were solely due to the insistance of certain citizens of Massachusetts that they had a moral and legal right to concern themselves with negro slavery in the eleven southern States of the American Union. Had these agitators held their peace, Massachusetts would have been free from internal strife. There was no labor question; the times were prosperous. It was generally a period when the State was laying the solid foundations of its
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future great prosperity. To the minds of the merchants and manufacturers of 1830 to 1850, this injection of what they deemed an extraneous issue, with which New England was only remotely concerned-if at all-was contrary to peace, concord, and prosperity.
All the powers that then dominated society, church, and state in the community that had been the birthplace of Amer- ican liberty were opposed to the antislavery agitation within Massachusetts, and even to any discussion.
STATUS OF SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS (1830-1850)
This violent reception of the organized abolitionists was contrary to the previous history of slavery and abolition in the Commonwealth. The first of the thirteen original States to declare that slavery was contrary to principles of free gov- ernment was Massachusetts, in the famous clause of the Constitution of 1780: "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and inalienable rights," which was construed by the Supreme Court of the State to bar any form of personal bondage except for crime. This applied also to the status of quasi-slavery of white and negro inden- tured servants, which had existed for a century and a half. Surely a protest against slavery could not be contrary to the Constitution of Massachusetts.
Socially the distinction of races continued, though based on custom rather than on law. In 1830 still lived some hun- dreds of persons who had been legally held as slaves in Massa- chusetts up to 1780. They and their offspring had a status not essentially different from that of the lowest stratum of the white race. They might exercise the suffrage under property and residence qualifications the same as for white people. Though there were Negro quarters in some of the large towns, Negroes in general lived among the poorer white element on amicable terms. In some places there was still the so-called "Nigger Election," a mock performance follow- ing the regular election.
Again, Massachusetts was a source of antislavery influence in the West. The colony of Massachusetts people established
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on the Ohio was included in the first territory organized by Congress, which was also the first area in which slavery was prohibited by Congress. Massachusetts people participated in carrying out that law when the territories of Indiana and Illinois were organized.
In the intense rivalry between northern and southern States, which grew out of the annexation of Louisiana in 1803, Mass- achusetts members of Congress and Massachusetts legislatures were the most violent and determined opponents of the ex- tension of the United States southwestward. They also stood against the Missouri Compromise, which finally involved the admission of Maine as a State-a measure favored by Massachusetts.
THE SOCIAL ISSUE (1830-1860)
Nevertheless, there was a powerful element in Massachu- setts which, from 1830 to 1860, never ceased to protest against action or language within the boundaries of Massa- chusetts denunciatory of slavery. The chieftains in this move- ment were the so-called Cotton Whigs, partly made up of cotton manufacturers who did not wish to quarrel with the region that furnished the staple of their industry, and partly of shipowners who wanted to keep on good terms with the South. Furthermore, though the social magnates in Massa- chusetts violently quarrelled with each other over the Unitarian controversy, they reprehended strong language applied to Southern members of Congress and urbane visitors from the South. With exceptions noted farther on, the abolition movement in Massachusetts began with people of little social distinction or political influence. Except John Quincy Adams, no Senator or Representative from Massachusetts took up the cause either of the freedom of body for the slave, or the freedom of speech for the freemen. Daniel Webster, the mighty champion of the Union against nullification, never understood the force or the basis of the antislavery movement. The abolitionist, from 1830 on, was attacking property rights, social prestige, concord with the South, and even union of free and slaveholding States. So the possessing classes of
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the Commonwealth united in urging that things be left pre- cisely as they were, and in listening with approval to those who declared that, whatever the defects of the slave system, the Negro was much better off in chains in the South than in freedom in barbarous Africa. Was he not receiving the benefits of the Christian religion? It is always easy, when the "pocket nerve" is threatened, to declare that everybody should mind his own business and ignore that age-old question as to whether one is or is not one's brother's keeper.
THE POCKET NERVE (1830-1860)
More than that, the attack upon slavery was held to be utterly reprehensible since it was an attack upon the sacred right of private property, thus striking directly at the family and the state. In this instance, the fact that that property consisted of living and breathing human beings in no wise altered the bitter disapprobation of the patricians of Massa- chusetts. Since the merchant classes largely supported the churches, those organizations obeyed their masters' voices. When the abolitionists began their crusade, not a single Bos- ton church opened its door to them, until there came a stirring revolt within the church which saved it from the charge that on questions of human liberty it was wholly dead-or wholly controlled by Mammon.
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