USA > New Hampshire > History of New Hampshire, Volume III > Part 2
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A HISTORY
lookers can not always be considered; they perhaps should keep out of the way as much as possible and let their grievances be arbitrated when blood has cooled.
Mr. Plumer, in his message, pleads for an indissoluble Union of the States and that "the people of the United States are the source of sovereignty." He urges a well armed and trained militia and calls attention to the importance of encour- aging agriculture and manufactures, to take the place of depart- ing commerce. The following clause is important now and shows the rightful limitation of the powers of corporations. The greater the corporations, the more needful is the caution. The following is wholesome reading for our times:
Acts of incorporation of various kinds have within a few years increased in this State; and many of them, being in the nature of grants, cannot with propriety be revoked without the previous consent of the grantees. Such laws ought therefore to be passed with great caution; many of them should be limited to a certain period and contain a reservation authorizing the legis- lature to repeal them, whenever they cease to answer the end for which they were made, or prove injurious to the public interest.
The second gubernatorial message of William Plumer, November 1812, after war with Great Britain had been declared, breathes the same spirit as the message above quoted. It is specially hard on the national history of our mother country :
Britain, whose history for centuries has been characterized by war and devastation, has become so inured to blood and slaughter, that her govern- ment has acquired the habit of committing wrongs and inflicting insults upon the nations of the earth. . . . Her spies are endeavoring to alienate our citizens, subvert our government, and dismember the union of the States. And to add to this catalogue of atrocious crimes-crimes tinged with the deepest dye-have we not sufficient reason to believe, that she has excited the numerous tribes of Savages, with whom her subjects have long been con- nected in trade, to wage war against us, a war whose characteristic is in- discriminate cruelty, and whose object is extermination. Where is the na- tion, ancient or modern, that has borne such treatment without resentment or resistance? Where is the nation that is passive under such humiliating degradation and disgrace? Surely wrongs like these imperiously demand redress.
Then he goes on to justify the war by appealing to the Sacred Scriptures, forgetting that he was no longer a Baptist minister, but a deistic free-thinker. The men of the tribe of Benjamin once refused to give up lewd and dastardly culprits
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and for this offense the other tribes of Israel made war on the Benjamites and slew one hundred thousand of them. "And we have the sure word of testimony, that God approved of that war * Is not the agency of the ALMIGHTY, in the nature and fitness of things, employed in promoting the cause of truth and justice, and in supporting and vindicating the equal rights HE has himself established? Our cause is just." Thus all partisans and rulers like to array God on their side. It is the old argument of Abraham, when he pled with God to spare Lot's family, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Therefore,-we and God must win the fight. Mr. Plumer only reechoed the pleas and arguments of people in all times who feel themselves unjustly treated. The Republican newspapers of 1812 were full of such appeals to patriotism and the sense of justice. Nevertheless, in the following year the Federalists rallied their forces and elected for his last time John Taylor Gilman to the office of governor by a majority of only two hundred and fifty votes out of more than thirty-five thousand thrown. Governor Plumer returned to power in 1816 and held the office of governor, by reelection, till 1819.
In 1812 the State Prison was built at Concord, at an expense of thirty-seven thousand dollars. The criminal code of the State was revised. Whipping and the pillory ceased to be legal penalties. Capital punishment was abolished for all offenses save murder and treason.
It was during the administration of John Taylor Gilman, in 1813. that an act of the legislature abolished the superior and inferior courts, removing twenty-one judges from office in a manner that many thought to be unconstitutional. A supreme court and a circuit court of common pleas took the place of the former courts, and Jeremiah Smith was made chief justice, with Arthur Livermore and Caleb Ellis as associates, able men who greatly improved the courts. In some counties the old judges attempted to hold courts at the same time with the new, and some refractory sheriffs had to be removed.
At the June session of the legislature, in 1814, Jeremiah Mason was elected to the senate of the United States, a man whose honorable career and great abilities deserve more ex- tended notice.
JEREMIAH MASON
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A HISTORY
Jeremiah Mason easily won the reputation of being among the foremost lawyers of New Hampshire. Few have equaled him in the entire history of the State. He was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, April 27, 1768, and was descended from Captain John Mason, who came from England in 1630 and settled at Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was graduated at Yale College in 1788. He began his legal career at Westmoreland in 1791 but removed to Walpole three years later, whence he went to Portsmouth in 1797. He soon gained an extensive practice and was made Attorney-General in 1802, which office he held three or four years. "As a prosecuting officer, he was courteous, in- flexible, and just ; careful that the guilty should not escape, and that the honest should be protected. He was impartial, almost judicial, in the administration of his great office. He had no morbid eagerness for conviction ; and never permitted, as some- times occurs, an unworthy wrangling between the official prose- cuting and the zeal of the other party defending. His official course produced exactly the ends it was designed to do. The honest felt safe; but there was a trembling and fear in the evil disposed, that the transgressed law would be vindicated. Very much confined to his profession, he never sought office or political elevation. Yet he held decided opinions upon all political quesions, and cultivated acquaintance with all the lead- ing subjects of the day ; and no man was more keenly alive than he to whatever transpired at home or abroad, involving the great interests of the civilized world. His political principles, opinions, judgments, were framed upon those of the men of the times of Washington. From these, to the last, he never swerved. The copy was well executed. His conversation on subjects of state were as instructive and interesting as upon professional topics. He had the same reach of thought, and exhibited the same comprehensive mind and sagacity quick and far-seeing, with regard to political things and men, as he did in professional affairs. His influence was, therefore, hardly the less from the fact, that he was not actively engaged in political life. There was an additional weight given to his judgment, arising from his being a disinterested beholder only. The looker-on upon a contest can sometimes form a more independ- ent and impartial opinion of its course and its results, than those who are actually engaged in it."
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In 1813 Mr. Mason was elected United States Senator and was in congress till he resigned his seat, in 1817. He was after- ward a member of the New Hampshire legislature for several years and assisted in revising the code of the State. He was urged to become Chief Justice of the Superior Court of the State, but refused that honor. In 1824 he was again a candidate for United States Senator, elected in the House and defeated in the Senate. After a long residence in Portsmouth, where he was admired and respected for his great abilities and hospitable and friendly character, he removed, in 1832, to Boston. As president of the Branch Bank in Portsmouth he had some trials and made some persons unfriendly. His biographer says: "Mr. Mason was a great man in a small town. In intellectual force there was no one equal to him, and no one second to him. But some men bear with impatience the sway of an understanding superior to their own; and thus, while he had the respect of all, while he had many warm friends, there were some who feared him and some who envied him. He had not the char- acter or the manners which make men popular. He never angled for the good opinion of others. Conscious of his strength, and careless of consequences, he never suppressed what he thought and never uttered what he did not think. He read men with a sharp and penetrating glance. No form of weakness could escape him; and for such weakness as took the form of vanity or pretension he had an intolerant contempt, which he took no pains to conceal. He always spoke his mind with great freedom. His powers of sarcasm were great; he said pointed and pregnant things which were forgotten by himself, but never by those against whom they were directed. Men who are universally popular, of whom everybody speaks well, usually have in their characters something of weakness, or something of insincerity; and the kind of unfriendliness which Mr. Mason called forth was really a tribute to his intellectual force and the manliness of his nature."
In Boston he took rank as a counselor with such men as Webster and Choate. His opinion was sought on difficult and intricate cases, involving commercial and constitutional law, as well as the construction of wills. He knew law and how to apply it. He had the reputation of being a very great lawyer and a very tall man, being six feet and seven inches in height.
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A HISTORY
Upon his death, in 1848, Daniel Webster made the principal address in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, in the course of which he said, "The characteristics of Mr. Mason's mind, as I think, were real greatness, strength and sagacity. He was great through strong sense and sound judgment, great by comprehensive view of things, great by high and elevated pur- poses. Perhaps sometimes he was too cautious and refined, and his distinctions became too minute; but his discrimination arose from a force of intellect and quick-seeing, far-reaching sagacity, everywhere discerning his object and pursuing it steadily. Whether it was popular or professional, he grasped a point and held it with a strong hand. He was sarcastic sometimes, but not frequently ; not frothy or petulant, but cool and vitriolic. Unfortunate for him on whom his sarcasm fell. His conversa- tion was as remarkable as his efforts at the bar. It was original, fresh and suggestive; never dull or indifferent. He never talked when he had nothing to say. He was particularly agreeable, edifying and instructive to all about him; and this was the charm of the social intercourse in which he was connected.
"As a professional man, Mr. Mason's great ability lay in the department of the Common Law. In this part of jurisprudence he was profoundly learned. He had drunk copiously from its deepest springs ; and he had studied, with diligence and success, the departures from the English Common Law, which had taken place in this country, either necessarily, from difference of con- dition, or positively, by force of our own Statutes. In his addresses, both to courts and juries, he affected to despise all eloquence, and certainly disdained all ornament ; but his efforts, whether addressed to one tribunal or the other, were marked by a degree of clearness, directness and force, not easy to be equaled. There were no Courts of Equity, as a separate and distinct jurisdiction, in the State of New Hampshire during his residence in that State. Yet the Equity Treatises and Equity Reports were all in his library, not 'wisely ranged for show,' but for constant and daily consultation ; because he saw that the Common Law itself was growing every day more and more liberal; that Equity principles were constantly forcing them- selves into its administration, and within its rules; that the subjects of litigation in the Courts were constantly becoming,
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more and more, such as escaped from the technicalities and the trammels of the Common Law, and offered themselves for dis- cussion and decision on the broader principles of general juris- prudence."
Mr. Mason was always a man of decided religious convic- tions, and after his removal to Boston united with the Episcopal church, his interest in spiritual things growing with advancing years. His whole life was an honor to his profession and to the States in which he lived.1
During these years of political struggle between the Feder- alists and Republicans a prominent agent of the latter party was the New Hampshire Patriot, a newspaper that was launched in Concord in 1808 by Isaac Hill, afterwards governor of the State. Mr. Hill had served his apprenticeship with the proprietor and publisher of the Amherst Cabinet. He speedily acquired a reputation throughout the State and beyond as a political writer and journalist. He took charge of the American Patriot after it had been published but six months as an uncertain venture, changed its name slightly, with less ambitious title, and made it a guide and moulder of public opinion. It became the most widely read newspaper of the State, made so by the intense convictions, literary style and political soundness of Mr. Hill. He was equally opposed to British and French aggressions upon American commerce. There were but two Republican news- papers in the State, while there were ten managed by the Federalists, but the New Hampshire Patriot was a match for them all. Even under the editorship of William Hoit the American Patriot had been outspoken in its criticisms of the conduct of England. She was accused of atrocities, treacheries and injustices with all the forcible words at command. Mr. Hill fought fiercely and boldly for American rights. In his first editorial he speaks of the "evil spirit of Federalism stalking up and down our land seeking whom it may devour." He spares not his scorn and sarcasm for those who would excuse French injustice and British perfidy. The sins of a few are laid at the door of an entire nation, when the spirit of war has made enemies of friends. Those who stay at home and write and talk show more hatred than those who fight the battles.
1 The material for this sketch has been drawn from his Memoir, written by George S. Hillard.
Chapter II THE WAR OF 1812
Chapter II
THE WAR OF 1812.
Causes of the War-England's Reason for the Impressment of Seamen-A War of Passion-Inequality of the Contestants-The State Militias -- New Hampshire Troops in the War-Portsmouth Guarded-Example of Daniel Webster-Success of American Privateers-Failure of the Land Forces-General Henry Dearborn-Colonel James Miller-Surrender of Detroit by General Hull-Difference between American and English Ac- counts of a Battle-"I'll Try"-General Ripley-General John McNeill- General Timothy Upham-Captain John W. Weeks-Message of Gover- nor John Taylor Gilman-Reply of the Senate-Federalists Opposed to the War-The Hartford Convention-Benjamin West and Mills Olcott -Cost of the War and Little Gained.
T HE causes of the War of 1812 have already been briefly mentioned and are well known. They were the destruc- tion of American commerce and the impressment of American seaman by the British. Hence it has been called the War for Sailors' Rights. In the capture of American neutral vessels France was as much at fault as was England. Both of those powers, long at war, had declared a blockade of the enemy's entire coast, and they swept in every vessel they could find. The United States had no navy of any consequence with which to defend her shipping. The policy of Jefferson had been to reduce both army and navy, and thus to decrease taxation and at the same time pay off the national debt. He paid off forty millions, but in the end the policy was that of the penny wise and pound foolish. Prior to July 1812 the British had captured eight hundred and seventeen American vessels; the French had made five hundred and fifty-eight captures; and the Neapolitans, forty-seven. These figures are taken from the President's message of that year, with an accompanying detailed report. The treachery of Napoleon the First was shown in that, not- withstanding the pretended revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees, he ordered, in 1810, the capture of all American vessels in French ports. This led to the confiscation of ten million
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dollars' worth of property. The country was divided in its sentiments. Most of the northern States, New England in particular, sympathized more strongly with England. The vote for war was carried by States south of Pennsylvania. The ad- vocates of peace argued that the country was unprepared for war, which proved to be lamentably true; that there was as much reason for making war on France as on England; that matters were no worse in 1812 than they were five years before. The advocates of war thought that with a volunteer militia we were going to overrun Canada quickly and annex it by conquest.
The reason for the impressment of American seamen by the British has not been sufficiently understood. The development of American commerce after the revolutionary war was rapid. We had the timber at hand for the construction of vessels. We could then build ships more cheaply than other nations could. This caused the enlistment of many English subjects in the service of American merchant vessels, and some of them sought naturalization to escape the liability of service in English ves- sels, for England had always claimed the right of impressing her sailors at need, wherever they might be found, and had exercised that right ever since the war of the American Revolu- tion. The main inducement offered to English seamen to serve in American vessels was nearly thrice the amount of wages. This was due to the generally higher price of labor in the United States. To this day seamen in American vessels demand and receive higher wages than in the service of any other nation, and this is one reason for the destruction of our merchant marine. The English, too, held that a born Briton must be treated always as a Briton, and that he could not alienate his nationality ; we, on the other hand, have claimed that America is the refuge for all nations. Perhaps the policy in both cases has been dictated by the fact that we needed immigrants to develop our broad territories, while England needed all her men for self-defense. There were many desertions among British seamen. Sometimes whole crews would go ashore in an American port and fail to return. At first effort was made to distinguish between English and American seamen, but this was not always easy, and often Americans were seized and kept in English service for years, because they could not prove, to the
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A HISTORY
satisfaction of English officials, that they were Americans. Thus between March II, 1803 and August 31, 1804, an official report to congress showed that one thousand three hundred and thirty-eight American seamen had been pressed into service on English vessels. The number of complaints registered with the secretary of state before the war was six thousand two hundred and fifty-seven, and there must have been several thousands more who never registered complaint. It was admitted that sixteen hundred native-born Americans were serving on English vessels in 1811 by impressment, and nearly two thousand more claimed to be Americans. When the war began twenty-five hundred of these impressed Americans refused to fight against their country, and consequently they were sent to Dartmoor and other English prisons, where those who survived remained till the end of the war. New England suffered more than any other part of our country, both from capture of her vessels and impressment of her seamen, yet New England was more opposed to the declaration of war than any other section. Her leaders thought that war could be averted by diplomacy, and this proved to be true, for only five days after the declaration of war by the American congress the British government revoked the objectionable Orders in Council which had been objects of popular disfavor and diplomatic controversy. It has been stated that an Atlantic cable, if then in existence, would have prevented the War of 1812. Lord Liverpool said with some truth, in 1813, "that the war on the part of America had been a war of passion, of party spirit, and not a war of policy, of interest, or of necessity."
That it was a war of hasty passion is shown by the lack of preparation. Presidents Jefferson and Madison had imbued the people with the notion that freemen would spring to arms at a moment's notice to defend their rights; that untrained soldiers could fight as well as well-drilled and experienced troops; that the State militias were as good as a standing army. The people stopped not to consider that eight millions of people were declaring war upon twenty millions, who had the assistance of powerful colonies ; that the annual revenue of the United States was about ten millions, while that of England was three hundred and fifty millions; that our national army consisted of only
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sixty-seven hundred soldiers, while England had hundreds of thousands, trained in the Napoleonic wars; that the United States had a navy of sixteen sea-going vessels to oppose to England's fleet of eight hundred and thirty ships. Our fleet was manned by about five thousand seamen, and England's by one hundred and fifty thousand. It was thought that our land forces, led by superannuated left-overs from the revolutionary period, would sweep everything before them, while not much was expected from our little navy. The exact reverse proved true. Our seamen were unsurpassed in the management of vessels, and our naval commanders were brave and competent. The old officers in the army had to be set aside and troops had to be trained before we made any headway in Canada.
It is remarkable how the State militias of the North clung to the doctrine of State Rights. The States wanted to control their own militia and not suffer them to go outside of State limits. Governor Plumer, in his message, opposed this interpre- tation of the Constitution and argued that the President had a right to call upon the militia for aid whenever and wherever it was needed. New York once refused such aid, when it was implored under trying circumstances. New England feared in- vasion of her coasts and wanted to keep all her men at home. She had little interest in the campaign about Detroit. New Hampshire detached three thousand five hundred men from her militia and organzed them for service at the call of the Presi- dent. The militia of the State at that time consisted of thirty- seven regiments. There were three Major-Generals and six Brigadier-Generals, none of whom had a chance to become dis- tinguished in the war.
On requisition by General Henry Dearborn of troops for the defense of Portsmouth two companies, commanded by Captain Robert Neal and Captain Samuel Shackford, were detached from General Clement Storer's brigade and stationed in that place in June 1812. New Hampshire men helped to garrison Fort McClary, but such troops saw no opportunity for active service. British cruisers were seen off the coast and an attack was so much feared that some women and children, with household valuables, were removed into the interior. Lieu- tenant-Colonel Moody Bedel opened a recruiting office in
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A HISTORY
Concord for volunteers in the regular army or on privateersmen. Three hundred and ninety-seven recruits joined his regiment, the eleventh United States infantry, at Burlington, Vermont. This regiment was mainly from New Hampshire.
In November, 1812, eleven companies of volunteers rendez- voused at Concord and were organized as the First Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteers, commanded by Colonel Aquila Davis of Warner. In the following January the regiment was disbanded, and the enlisted men were distributed to regiments in the regular army, most of them in the forty-fifth United States regiment, of which Aquila Davis was lieutenant-colonel. Many reenlisted at the end of the year, that regiment being made up principally of New Hampshire men. A voluntary corps of infantry was organized, composed of men who were not liable by law to do military service, to be called upon only in case of invasion of the State, but no foreign foe, in any war, ever set foot on the soil of New Hampshire.
It was represented that the northern part of the State was in danger of invasion, and at the suggestion of Governor Plumer and by order of General Dearborn a company of detached militia from the brigade of General John Montgomery was stationed at Stewartstown, under command of Captain Ephraim H. Mahurin of Stratford, who as lawyer, sheriff, surveyor and commissioner had a long career of usefulness in Coos county. This company served six months. John Page Jr., was lieutenant of this company, who afterward served as United States senator and governor of his State. This company was relieved in Janu- ary, 1813, by a company under command of Captain Edmund Freeman of Lebanon.
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