The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 31

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770

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In this dark hour the Federalists were, indeed, nearly extinct, and when Massachusetts in 1804 gave her electoral vote to Jefferson it seemed as if the end could not be far distant. In fact the Federalist party would soon have perished utterly had it not been for the amazing blunders of Jefferson's second term, which gave the party a new lease of life and a vigorous and partially successful existence. This revival had not begun when an incident occurred, familiar to all who know the history of Boston, and which forcibly illustrates the violent party divisions of the town. This was the famous shooting of young Austin by Thomas Selfridge, - the former a Democrat, the latter a Federalist. The story of the death of Austin and the con- sequent trial of Selfridge are told in this History by another hand,1 and do not need repetition here. The affair was made a party question ; the newspapers were full of flings at Federalist murders and their impunity, and the talk, criticism, and invective connected with it give a vivid picture of the heated politics of Boston at that time. But the fervor of partisan feeling was soon to glow with a still fiercer heat, owing to the course of the world's history, in which the United States -the only neutral nation and still shackled by colonial feelings - was the foot-ball of the two great contending forces, Napoleon Bonaparte and the English Government. Into the stream of these mighty events, which are world-wide in their scope, the fortunes of Boston were strongly drawn. The renewal of hostilities by Napoleon had thrown the trade of all nations, and particularly that of England, the dom- inant power of the commercial world, into confusion. From this disorder the United States, as the only neutral with a strong merchant-marine, reaped a rich harvest, the fruits of which fell of course largely to New England, and therefore to Boston. It was the golden era of the American merchant- service, in which much of the best ability and the most daring enterprise were concentrated. Always alert and flushed with success, the New Eng- land sea-captains and merchants of Boston took quick advantage of the troubles of Europe to engross rapidly the carrying trade of the world,

pervaded the whole administration of Washing- ton." The first marble statue ever erected in America is said to have been one of Hamilton, by Ball Hughes the Boston sculptor, which stood in the Merchants' Exchange in New York, and was destroyed in the fire of 1835. The original

plaster model of it is now preserved in Albany. Jag. of Amer. Hist., 1881, p. 466.

1 [See the chapter in Vol. IV. on "The Hench and Bar," by Mr. John T. Morse, Jr. Dr. J. C. Warren was called to dress the wounds. See Life of J. C. Warren, i. 67. - ED.]

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and to heap up handsome fortunes from its enormous profits. We may see all this energy, courage, and enterprise depicted in the now almost forgotten voyages of Cleaveland and Delano, and learn how strong and true the genius for the sea is in the New England race.1 But we can also see there the dark side of the picture; not merely the normal dan- gers and hardships, but the insult and pillage inflicted by French and English, and the helpless, manly wrath and indignation of the Amer- ican seamen. Our success and prosperity after the outbreak of war in Europe was in truth too obvious, and soon aroused the unsleeping jealousy of England. Seizures began to be made by British cruisers; then came unwarrantable condemnations in the British admiralty courts; and then op- pressive Orders in Council. The first sensation was one of angry pride and keen disappointment at interference with our apparently boundless sources of profit. Sharp remonstrances and resolutions went out from Boston to spur the lagging Executive. The Federalist leaders, who regarded Eng- land as the bulwark of civilization against the all-destroying French Revo- lution personified in Napoleon, were overborne; and, while reprobating these violent measures in secret, seemed about to lose their last hold upon the people, and were forced to see their Governor, Caleb Strong, replaced by Lasullivan a leading Democrat, James Sullivan.2 They were properly helpless before the righteous indignation which blazed up more fiercely than ever when the English, not content with despoiling our merchant-vessels, fired upon the national flag flying from a national ship.3 If Mr. Jefferson had at that supreme moment declared war and ap- pealed to the country, he would have had the cordial support of the mass of the people not only in New England but in Boston itself; but it was not to be. The President faltered as the Federalists rallied and renewed their attack, fell back on his preposterous theories of commercial warfare, well suited to his timidity and love of shuffling, and forced the celebrated embargo through both Houses of Congress. The support of New England in the trying times which were at hand was lost to the adininistration, and the political game in that important section of the country was once more in the hands of those Federalist chiefs whose headquarters werc at Boston. The Federalism of Boston had in fact remained steady in every trial, al- though there was a moment when Jefferson might have sapped its strength. It had been heard in Washington for years through the eloquent lips of

1 [See Mr. H. A. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV. - ED.]

2 [Engravings of Stuart's portrait of James Sullivan can be found in T. C. Amory's Life of Governor Sullivan, and in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., i. In 1834 it fell to the lot of William Sullivan, the son of Governor Sullivan, who had taken the opposite side in politics, to publish his Pub- lic Men of the Revolution and the period im- mediately following; and to make the motives

and principles of the Federalists better known, he gave his book the greater latitude of familiar letters. In 1847 his son reissued it, much en- larged. William Sullivan was born in 1774. It was he who said : " Dignified civility, based upon self-respect, is a gentleman's weapon and de- fence." William Sullivan died in 1839. See Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 317. - ED.] 8 [John Lowell in Peace without Dishonor, War without Hope, tried to allay the excitement. - ED.]

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THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.

Josiah Quincy,1 whose voice now rose clearer and stronger than ever, trumpet- tongued against the embargo policy. The defection of John Quincy Adams on this same measure gave the town another strong and outspoken repre- sentative in the Senate in the person of James Lloyd, a leading merchant ; and thus equipped in Washington, Boston faced the impending troubles.

So bitter was the feeling against England, so strong the sense of wounded national pride, that even the embargo was received in Boston at first with silent submission; but its operation told so severely upon both town and State that hostility to the administration rapidly deepened and strengthened. We can now hardly realize the effect of this measure upon Boston; but one fact lets in a flood of light. The tonnage of the United States in 1807 was, in round numbers, eight hundred and fifty thou- sand tons, and of this three hundred and ten thousand tons belonged to Massachusetts alone. The total cessation of commerce fell therefore upon Boston with blighting effect. Her merchant-ships rotted at the wharves, or were hauled up and dismantled. The busy ship-yards were still and silent, and all who gained their living by them were thrown out of work.2 The fisheries were abandoned and agriculture was distressed. If in Philadelphia seamen marched in large bodies to the City Hall for relief, we can imagine what the condition of the seafaring population must have been in Boston. Ruin threatened the merchants, and poverty stared the laboring classes in the face. Gradually all this began to tell upon the temper of the people ; riots and insurrections were feared by men of all parties; and the Federalists now found willing listeners when they pointed out to a people naturally brave and ready to fight, that the injuries inflicted by England were trifling in comparison with the total destruction of trade caused by their own Government; that the embargo had not as usual a limitation, but might become permanent ; and that, however it might be disguised, the only nation really benefited by the embargo was the French. Slowly political power returned to the party constantly in opposition to Jefferson and all

1 [Of Mr. Quincy his daughter says : "The desertion of his friends and the violence of his opponents were great elements of his success. He was a Federalist from principle, but too in- dependent to join in party measures. When in Congress, some of the leading Federalists did not support him as he could have wished. They would not believe that their representative in Washington could have clearer views of the policy of the administration than they had, sit- ting in their insurance offices in Boston. .. . But he remained true to the Federalists, and they rewarded him in 1820 by striking his name from their list of senators without giving him the least intimation that they intended doing so. He felt this deeply, but he went to the caucus and spoke in favor of the ticket from which his name had been struck. This made hin gener- ally popular, and by being put into the House VOL. III. - 27.

of Representatives he was brought before the people, and made speaker; and in the conven- tion held on the separation of Maine, he became justly appreciated, and would have been run for governor the next year had he not accepted the office of municipal judge." Mr. Quincy's political conduct can be traced only too scantily in Ed- mund Quincy's Life of his father. Something of his Congressional career, with a fac-simile of " Josiah the First," a monarchical squib of which his opponents thought him a fit subject, is given in Lossing's Field-book of the War of 1812. The Congressional documents which he gathered dur- ing his service at Washington are now in the Public Library, and serve in part to make the collection of United States documents in that library what is presumably the best in existence. - ED.]

2 [See Mr. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV .- ED.]

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his works. Resistance began to crop out on all sides. Pickering attacked Governor Sullivan in a violent pamphlet; Samuel Dexter argued in court against the constitutionality of the embargo, and juries refused to convict for infractions of the hated law. The Federalists carried the Legislature, and passed resolutions denouncing the embargo and questioning its con- stitutionality; while the town of Boston instructed its representatives, in : town-meeting, to resist the embargo in terms which recalled the days of Sam Adams and the Port Bill, and which induced John Randolph to remind Jefferson of the fate of Lord North in a former difficulty with the Puritan town. Then it was that John Quincy Adams thought treason and secession were afoot in Boston, and warned the administration of its peril. He was mistaken as to the extent of the danger, for there was no treason, and nothing worse than ominous whisperings of secession. The ripeness of the times and of the public in Boston for desperate measures was sufficient to excite such suspicions; but the Federalists did not aim at violence. In the state of society then existing, in the opportunity offered, and in the condition of the times, it is a matter of wonder that passions were so controlled ; for it is not easy to appreciate now the mental concen- tration in that day and generation. There was no art, no literature, no science ; the only great branch of business was laid low by the embargo; there were none of the thousand and one interests which now divide and absorb our energy and activity. Absolutely the only source of intellectual excitement was politics; and to this were confined the mental forces of a small, vigorous, cultivated, and aristocratic society, which flung itself into politics with its whole heart and soul. They were a convivial race, these Federalist leaders in Boston, and were wont to dine together at three o'clock ; and at five, when the ladies left the room, Madeira and politics flowed with- out stint until midnight and after. It is small wonder that their politics werc heated, that ex-senators and governors bandied harsh words in the offices of State Street or demanded explanations in the newspapers, and that the traditional feuds and bitterness of 1808, although softened and ap- parently forgotten, have survived in Boston among those who inherit them even to the present day.

With matters in this state, the passage of the enforcing act aroused such anger, the attitude of New England became so menacing, that the Northern Democrats quailed; and led by such “ pseudo Republicans" as Joseph Story, who were not ready to sacrifice their homes to Mr. Jefferson's theories, they repealed the embargo. There was a great sigh of relief; and when the Erskine arrangement was made, the sails of the merchant-ships again whitened the harbor of Boston. The more reasonable policy of Mr. Madison was only temporary, however, in its effects, and was soon replaced by vacillation and by labyrinthine complications, into which it is unneces- sary to enter. The relaxation, however, sufficed to loosen the hold of the Federalists, and Governor Gore was replaced by Elbridge Gerry, whose administration was in itself enough to strengthen and give victory once

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more to his opponents. He denounced in a message the publications of the Federal press, which were, indeed, vituperative and coarse to a high degree, especially in Boston ; and he endeavored to bring in the power of the government to punish the 2 Gery aggressors. He also supported a plan of arrang- ing election districts for partisan purposes, which was so bad, and at that time so unheard of, that it gave a new word to the language. All this en . abled the Federalists to defeat him by a close vote, in which they were aided by the gathering clouds of conflict, which broke, June 18, 1812, in Mr. Madison's declaration of war against England.1

The preceding years of mercantile restrictions had not only hardened and embittered the Federalist leaders, but had estranged the affections and worn out the temper of the people of Boston and of New England, ready enough to have supported a manly war policy in 1807. Their trade had been crippled, and had crumbled away before restrictive measures; the navy, which they chiefly manned and in which they believed, had been neglected, and they were in no humor for a war which put the finishing stroke to their commercial prosperity and activity for the time being. They were perfectly ready to sympathize with the protest of the Federalist representatives against the war, which they accepted with sullen dislike. Some of the Federalist leaders, notably Samuel Dexter,2 conceiving that party differences should be buried in the presence of the enemy, seceded ; but the Federalist majorities only grew with each election, while the belief that the war was needless and unjust, and was part and parcel of a general policy designed to ruin New England, spread daily and gained favor, carry- ing with it resistance to the administration. Into the controversies thus engendered it is not fitting to enter here, although they involved the for tunes of the town, for they were wide and far reaching, and chiefly con- cerned the Nation and States. The general sentiment in Boston seems to have settled down into a determination to do nothing in active support of offensive war, but resolutely to defend themselves against any foreign ag- gression. This they were called upon to do before the war closed.8

In 1814 the British policy of coast descents was extended to New Eng- land ; scattered attacks were made, accompanied with burning and pillage, and the sails of English cruisers could daily be descried from Boston. The town was in a defenceless condition, the forts almost useless, and owing to the bitter quarrels with the administration no help had been given, or was

1 [The news of this declaration reached Bos- ton June 23, 1812, and the General Court, then in session, passed a vote, 406 to 240, disapprov- ing of it. General Dearborn, as the United States officer commanding in Massachusetts, immediately made a requisition on Governor Strong for a body of the militia, eight com- panies of which were to be assigned to Bos- ton; but the Governor refused to issue his

proclamation for other ends than for the mili- tia to be held in readiness for an emergency. - ED.]

º [Sec Sargent's Reminiscences of Dexter, p. 77 .- ED.]

8 [The events leading up to the war, and the part played in it by Boston, are detailed in General Palfrey's chapter in the present volume. - ED.Į

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

to be looked for, from the national government. The people of Boston and of Massachusetts had, however, no mind to endure the fate of Washington, and took prompt measures to AMESBURY SAL&BUK HAV LLH protect themselves. The old forts were put in order, and a new one, Fort Strong, was MI THUEN thrown up on Noddle's Island, the work being rapidly per- ANDUYER formed by large bodies of ready volunteers under the direction of Loammi Baldwin, the engineer.1 The militia were called out and stationed at the forts and at other points, ready to repel the expected attack, which fortu- DANYE AP nately never came.

The exposed condition of the capital and of the other seaports however, and the neglect of the national government, did much to precipitate the crisis in the relations of State and Nation which had CHELSE been long impending. In October the THE GERRYMANDER.2 Legislature took steps toward concerted action among the New England States, with a view to defending themselves and forcing upon the administration the policy which they believed to be right. The result was the famous Hartford Convention, whose history belongs to the State and to New Eng- land, and not to Boston; although the feeling which led to that meeting

1 [See Sumner's East Boston, p. 397. See eralist, and the old districts were restored. In also General Palfrey's chapter in the present the Boston Gazette for April 15, 1813, there volume. - ED.]

2 [In 1812, while Gerry was governor, the Democratic Legislature, in order to secure an in- creased representation of their party in the State Senate, districted the State in such a way that the shapes of the towns, forming such a district in Essex, brought out a territory of singular outline. This was indicated on a map which Russell, the editor of the Centinel, hung in his office. Stuart, the painter, observing it, added a head, wings, and claws, and exclaimed, "That will do for a salamander !" "Gerrymander ! " said Russell, and the word became a proverb. An engraving of the fabulous beast was circulated later through the State on a broadside ; and from one of these, preserved by the late Isaac P. Davis, the above cut, reduced from the original, seven inches high, is copied. But the process had accom- plished its purpose, for while the Federalist majority in the State was sixteen hundred and two, the senate stood twenty-nine Democratic to eleven Federalist members. The next year pro- duced a change; the legislature became Fed-

is an "obituary notice" of the monster, with a cut representing him bent up in his coffin, and a sketch of his grave-stone: "Hatched, Feb. 11, 1812; died, April 5, 1813." Such is the story told by Buck- ingham in his Reminiscen- ces. But other claimants have been put forward. The place is said to have been Colonel Israel Thorn- dike's house in Summer Street ; the artist, Tisdale; the sponsor, Alsop. See Drake's Landmarks of Mid- dlesex, p. 321. The reader will observe that the back line of the body in the large cut forms a profile carica- ture of Gerry, with the nose at Middleton. - ED.]

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found its fullest expression, perhaps, in the capital, where the newspapers, notably the Daily Advertiser then just started, urged strong measures and hinted at secession, and where the younger and more violent portion of the Federalist party was ripe for almost any step. The Handlow Jegy 4th 1815- Nathan Dane Hef. Otis, old and trusted leaders, however, threw themselves into the gap, determined to commit no overt act, but to check and control the movement at that time and leave the future to shape their subsequent course. Boston was rep- resented at Hartford by Timothy Pigelong Joshua Thomas Sam. & Wilde Joseph Lyman George Cabot, who was chosen president of the convention, and by Wil- liam Prescott, Harrison Gray Otis, and Timothy Bigelow. The result was as Mr. Quincy prophesied, -a " great pamphlet," and the committee sent to Washington reached there at the same time as the news of the Ghent treaty.

Daniel Walde George Bliss Hodyoh Boyles

Peace was received in Boston with ringing of bells and with every form MASSACHUSETTS SIGNERS.1 of rejoicing, public and private ;2 and by none was it more welcomed than by the Federalists. The effect of the war on Boston was severe in the extreme. Not only

1 [These are the signatures of the delegates of probate in Plymouth County. Wilde, though from Massachusetts to the final report of the born in Taunton, gained his carly reputation as a lawyer in Maine, became a Justice of the Su- preme Court of Massachusetts, and removed to Boston in 1831. Lyman and Bliss were important men in the Connecticut Valley. Longfellow, of Portland, was the father of the poet. Waldo was of Worcester. Hartford Convention. Of this number, Cabot was born in Salem, but latterly lived in Boston. Dane was a lawyer in Beverly ; necessarily prac- tising much in Boston, acquiring eminence; the founder of a law professorship at Cambridge, and the author of the ordinance of 1787. Otis was well known. Prescott was the father of the Theodore Dwight's History of the Hartford Convention is in vindication of it. ~ ED.] historian, and son of the Colonel Prescott of Bunker Hill fame. Bigelow had been a lawyer of ! | See Mr. Josiah P. Quincy's chapter on "Social Life in Boston," in Vol. IV., and Mr. Edmund Quincy's Life of Josiah Quincy, p. 360 .- ED.] Worcester County, speaker of the Massachusetts Ilouse of Representatives, and was the father-in- law of Abbott Lawrence. Thomas was a judge

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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

was commerce, the great source of industry and wealth, wholly cut off, but the dependence upon England, now so difficult to realize, not only

GEORGE CABOT.1

for every manufactured article of luxury but for many of the necessities of life, had, by the cessation of intercourse, brought a sense of privation

1 [No likeness of George Cabot of a maturer age exists, and the present cut follows a portrait owned by Colonel Henry Lee, kindly placed at my disposal, which represents him at sixteen. It is a pastel drawing. Mr. Lodge, the writer of this chapter, published in 1877 the Life and Let- ters of George Cabot, consisting chiefly of Letters, which had been preserved by Mr. Cabot's corre- spondents, with elucidatory introductions to the several chapters. Mr. Cabot had himself before his death destroyed almost all the papers re- maining in his own hands. On the Hartford Convention, however, Mr. Lodge's excursus is prolonged and valuable ; and in writing it he had the use of the Pickering manuscripts (over sixty

volumes in all) in the Massachusetts Historical Society, and also the letters of Governor Strong. Mr. Lodge has also drawn somewhat from Ham- ilton's Works, and from Gibbs's Administration of Washington and Adams, and in a smaller de- gree from the Life of Timothy Pickering as con- tinued by Mr. Upham. In turn Mr. Lodge's work has been drawn upon in part by Mr. Henry Adams in his Documents relating to New Eng- land Federalism, 1800-1815, which was pub- lished in 1877; nor should there be forgotten the Memoir of John Quincy Adams, published in 1858 by President Quincy, and the voluminous Memoirs, based largely upon Adams's Diary, which have been issued in twelve volumes by his

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THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.

and loss into every household. But the war, and the policy of commercial restriction preceding it, had upon Boston a deep and lasting effect, which was hardly perceived at the moment, but which changed her business char- acter, and has powerfully influenced her politics from that day to this. In the first years of the nineteenth century Boston was a great commercial centre and nothing else. Mr. Jefferson with his embargo and its kindred measures, and the War of 1812, shook the whole financial and economical system of the town. Commerce was crippled, at times almost extin- guished, and comparatively large masses of capital were set loose and left idle, while at the same time an immense fund of enterprise and activity was unemployed. The result was to force all this capital and enterprise into other charrels, where they had begun to flow very slowly. Manufactures received a great impetus ; and the capital, which had been turned aside by the policy of the administration, did not, when peace came, revert to its old pursuits. From being a strong free-trade town, Boston became as vigo- rously protectionist before the first quarter of a century closed. Mr. Jeffer- son seems to have designed to reduce the commercial interest and weaken New England by his policy; he certainly regarded with complacency the fact that it would have that tendency. The result was that manufactures were stimulated; the progress of Boston was changed, not arrested; and New England industries were for years protected at the expense of his beloved South.

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The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III, Part 31

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897 Publication date: 1880-1881 Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood Number of Pages: 770

Author: Jewett, Clarence F; Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897
Publication date: 1880-1881
Publisher: Boston : J.R. Osgood
Number of Pages: 770