USA > Vermont > The story of Vermont (1889) > Part 6
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O long as her first Gov- ernor lived there was only one political party GLAS.R ERCUSS in Vermont-the EG. BRIST A Chittenden party. That shrewd and virtuous man had Medat voted by Congress INTER CLASS. AMERI. ET BRIT. DIE XI SEPT. SUPE MDCCCXIII to Macdonough cheated the British RA bayonets by homespun diplomacy; he had guided the State safely through the trying times of its independence ; he was spared to see it at last united with the other commonwealths. He was the father of the State and year after year with a single exception he was re-elected by its grateful citizens to the chief office in their gift. In the summer of 1797 failing health forced him to resign the post of Governor and he died soon after full of years and honor.
Thomas Chittenden was not a popular hero like Allen. His name is scarcely known outside of the
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State he served. Yet it should rank with those of Adams and Hancock and Morris, for of the great men whom the Revolutionary period called forth to bear the burden of the public safety he was one of the wisest and purest. Chittenden was a genuine Yankee; he was a typical Vermonter. A plain, hard-working farmer with only an average educa- tion he possessed much native keenness of vision, great coolness and almost unerring judgment. His task was one of the most difficult that ever con- fronted a leader of the people and yet it cannot now be seen that he ever made or sanctioned more than one serious blunder. He has been most sharply criticised for that portion of his official career which, more than any other, showed his keenness of insight, his judgment and his devotion to the popular cause. This was, of course, his deceit of the British in the closing years of the war. The charge that he really desired a British alliance need not be seri- ously considered. It has been made, but there is no apparent justification in the facts. His services in that trying period are now generally recognized and appreciated.
At the very foundation of the republic the people had divided, on constitutional questions, into two great parties. Of these the Federalists believed in what would now be called a strongly centralized government ; they were accused by their opponents
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of a secret hankering after the British fleshpots and the gewgaws of royalty. The Republicans pro- fessed the strongest admiration for France and held that, in home politics, the best government was that which governed least and left most to the States. The virulence of party strife was somewhat allayed by Washington's commanding influence so long as he remained President; it seemed to rage with even greater fury after his death. In Vermont, as we have seen, the voters were, at the time of the adoption of the constitution, Federalists for the most part ; they so remained during Chittenden's life, though there was a strong and active minority of the French party. The successor of Chittenden was also a Federalist, Isaac Tichenor. He had been Chief Justice. In the absence of a popular choice for governor he was appointed by the Legis- lature, but was thereafter elected to the office for a number of successive years. He was not long, how- ever, to enjoy the support of a Legislature in sym- pathy with his political views.
The year 1798 was one of high political excite- ment growing out of the passage of the alien and sedition laws, an act which cost President Adams and the Federalist party the control of affairs. These laws exercised a vast influence upon the early political history of the country but were deemed wholly foreign to the spirit of its free insti-
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tutions. They permitted the President to expel from the country any alien whose presence here might be thought a source of danger and fixed a penalty for seditious language employed toward those in authority. The first provision was assailed as an invasion of the right of sanctuary upon the soil of America accorded to foreign exiles; the second was termed a blow at free speech. The Leg- islatures of Kentucky and Virginia passed resolu- tions denouncing Adams and his laws. To these resolutions the Assembly of Vermont felt bound to make answer by emphatic declamation that "it belongs not to State Legislatures to decide on the constitutionality of laws made by the general gov- ernment; this power being exclusively vested in the judiciary courts of the nation." This was sound Federalist doctrine, but it was not long to find favor with the people.
Another fruitful source of partisan strife was the great duel which France and Great Britain were then fighting out on land and sea. In its result the whole civilized world felt so deep an interest that all other nations of any importance were, at one time or another and in varying, kaleidoscopic combinations, drawn into the strife. Neither side was at all careful of the rights of neu- trals; the encroachments of each in turn upon American commerce brought forth emphatic re-
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monstrances from the people of America. So long as the Federalists held the power in State and nation it was France against which the weightiest protests were uttered. In 1798, Governor Tichenor and the Federalist Legislature " viewed with alarm " the increasing insolence of France and roundly
In the Green Mts ~M: Mansfield
abused that new republican power. But a change was at hand.
Partly through the hostility to the alien and sedition acts, partly because Great Britain had the power and the will to harm American com- merce more than France, and partly, too, from
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that tendency to vibrate between two opposing parties which usually marks the political course of constitutional governments, the Republicans, or Democratic Republicans, as the French party was called, gained control of Federal affairs just at the beginning of the century. In the following year Vermont also elected a Republican Legis- lature, though Governor Tichenor was, with a single exception, successively re-elected until 1809. He was a worthy man with a clear head and a strong will. His chief legacy to his successors was the practice of opening the sessions of the Legislature with a speech or message, now common in all the States. He was the first but by no means the last Governor to use these official utterances to belabor his political opponents; the Legislature replying in kind, the early years of the century witnessed some very bitter disputes. But the business of the State does not seem to have been neglected. The legislators had not learned the trick of making party questions out of matters of public concern really unconnected with political divisions. They did their work promptly and with good judgment and their wrangling with the Governor did little harm so far as can now be seen.
The practice of displacing political opponents from office without just cause began in Vermont
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during this period. The first remarkable instance on record was the ousting of Chief Justice Israel Smith in 1798, on the sole ground that he was a Republican. When Jefferson was elected Presi- dent he removed many Federalist United States officials in Vermont and replaced them by good Republicans, and his party in the Legislature began the same work with vigor in 1803. It is probable
that these removals then as now often worked in the wrong direction, for the only break in Governor Tichenor's long lease of power was made by the election in 1807 of the deposed Chief Justice Israel Smith to his office.
The question of slavery even thus early was one which entered into political divisions. In 1804 Massachusetts, through its Federalist I.egislature, proposed a Constitutional amendment changing the apportionment of representatives in Congress. As the Constitution then stood, three fifths of the slave population of the slave States was added to the entire free population to fix the basis of Con- gressional apportionment. The proposal of the Massachusetts Legislature - an eminently fair and just one - was that thereafter only the free popu- lation be reckoned. This proposition was opposed by all the Republican States and favored by the Federalist ones for obvious political reasons. The free North was generally Federalist, while
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the slave States were Republican. Yet had it been possible to so amend the Constitution, the slave power would not have wielded for so many years the commanding power in our national councils which it did. It is even possible that the downfall of the hateful system might have come earlier and cost less. Vermont in this matter went with its party against most of the other free States in opposing the change. This, however, is the only instance on record where, in any important decision, the State sided with slavery.
In 1809, the Legislature still remained Repub- lican, and an ardent partisan of that stripe, the Rev. Jonas Galusha, a Baptist clergyman, was elected Governor. It was perhaps this good man of whom the story is related that upon his first appearance in the Assembly, some wag shouted "Now sing ' Mear,'" that being the preacher-governor's favorite hymn. His candidacy must have been a good thing for the Republican party, for its members were often charged with copying the irreligion of the French, as well as espousing their political fortunes, and the nomination of a well-known clergyman was a refutation of this idea stronger in its effect than in its logical cogency.
With France and Great Britain fighting in Europe and their respective partisans bickering in America, it was evident that any war waged by the
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United States with either power must necessarily be a party war, supported only by a majority and sullenly opposed by the party out of power. Such in fact was the War of 1812 into which the country was finally driven by the increasing insolence of Great Britain. It was not a popular war. It was most strenuously opposed by the Federalists in New England who carried their obstructive meas- ures almost to the verge of secession.
Vermont too was found among the opposing States when the war was fairly begun. In the year 1813, after a long period of uninterrupted control by the French party, Martin Chittenden, a son of the first governor and a stanch Federalist, was elected Governor. The Legislature chosen at the same election was also of that party. Vermont was again in line with the rest of New England and its opposition to a war which, though practically forced upon the country, was in essentials causeless and profitless, was certainly not without some reason.
But the Vermonters did not carry their oppo- sition to the war to such a point as to sit passive when an invasion of the State was threatened. As of old the British prepared to cut the Union asunder by sending an army down Lake Cham- plain. As of old, too, the attempt ended in an ignominious failure, and the men of Vermont were found valiantly fighting for their homes and country.
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The campaign of 1813 was brief but not unevent- ful. Early in the summer an American sloop of war, the Growler, was captured by the British . gunboats on the upper lake. The Americans after- ward equipped a small fleet and the British sailors were driven back into Canada, but not before they had taken and destroyed the barracks at Platts- burg, and crossed the lake for an unsuccessful attack upon Burlington. From the latter city an American force set out for the invasion of Canada, but was repulsed at Chateaugay and returned to winter quarters at Plattsburg. In November, 1813, Governor Chittenden issued his order recall- ing to the State a regiment of the militia which had been drafted into the service of the United States. Most of the officers disobeyed the summons and remained in Plattsburg, but the privates generally availed themselves of the opportunity to return home. No enemy was to be feared before spring ; there was nothing to be done at Plattsburg save to repair the ruined barracks, and the men probably reasoned that they could find chopping and digging enough to do at home. It is likely that these homely considerations had quite as much to do with the issuance of Governor Chittenden's order as had his opposition to the war.
For several miles below the falls at Winooski, the Otter Creek, flowing gently toward the lake,
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affords a safe and excellent anchorage for vessels of moderate size. Here during the winter and spring of 1814, upon the shores of the creek and upon its waters after the ice had melted, was fitted out a fleet which was to win one of the most signal naval victories in a war the most glorious achieve- ments of which were upon the water. The timber for its construction was cut in the surrounding hills; the saw-mills just above sang merrily at their patriotic task; blacksmiths heated their forges and fashioned nails and bolts from the glowing iron ; cannon and ammunition were brought from the South, naval stores were collected, masts and spars were tapered from native trees and sails were bent to fit them. There had been during the previous year a few vessels upon the lake; with these and the new fleet there floated upon the creek, when all the preparations were complete in May, rather more than a dozen small craft. These were the flag-ship Saratoga of twenty-six guns, one brig, two schooners and eleven open galleys.
In command of all was a quiet man of irregular but pleasing features, who bore the title of Lieu- tenant in the United States Navy. He had served under Bainbridge and Decatur, and stories were told of his prowess by those who watched him day by day as he directed the fitting out of the fleet, and who took much comfort from the quiet confidence
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of his bearing. This man was Thomas McDonough, a name now high on his country's roll of honor .*
Once again the stirring nervous times which the graybeards among them remembered so well, when Burgoyne and Carleton came up the lake and Frazer chased the flying militia across the State, seemed to have come upon the Vermonters. A host of men were advancing down the lake to crush the Yankee troops at Plattsburg. Rumor greatly magnified their number but it was large enough in fact to justify forebodings. General Prevost had under his command full fourteen thousand men. Some of these were Peninsular veterans who had fought under Wellington; some were raw levies, but well armed and officered; some were Indian allies from the Canadian and Western tribes. Rumor did not need to magnify the British naval force. Every schoolboy in Vermont knew long be- fore the glint of the British Commodore Downie's white sails were seen in the north that his flagship, the Confiance, mounted thirty-eight guns, that he had one brig, two sloops of war and twelve gun- boats, manned by a force of British tars nearly twice as strong as McDonough's. So large was Prevost's force that it was already September before he had
* " His skill, seamanship, quick eye, readiness of resource and indomitable pluck, are beyond all praise. Down to the time of the Civil War he is the greatest figure in our naval history. A thoroughly religious man, he was as generous and humane as he was skillful and brave ; one of the greatest of our sea-captains, he has left a stainless name behind him." - Roosevelt's " War of 1812."
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completed his preparations and appeared before Plattsburg. The hastily re-built intrenchments of that lake town were manned by less than half the number of Prevost's men, and many of these were raw levies who had never smelt powder in actual conflict.
Behind the American intrenchments were to be seen many of the men who had returned to Vermont in the previous autumn at Governor Chittenden's order. They had plowed their fields and cut and stored their crops for winter before the long- expected messengers came riding through the land in every direction crying out as they went that the British were coming and it was time to rally for defense. Catching their muskets from the chimney pieces, the Vermont militia-men gathered from far and near, crossed the lake and took their places behind the rude works of defense which covered the American line.
From May till September McDonough's fleet had been awaiting the British onset. But as soon as Prevost's forces were fairly under way, down came the British ships prepared to do battle on the same day that the army attacked Plattsburg. Almost at the beginning of the action a shot from the Con- fiance broke in pieces a hen-coop on the deck of the Saratoga. It was then that an imprisoned cock that had lain in cramped quarters for many a day
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with no better fate in prospect than to be inglori- ously eaten, won undying fame by flying to the bul- wark and crowing a shrill defiance at the invaders.
" Hurrah!" cried some of the crew ; others rudely imitated the outcry of the cock, and the action was continued in a whirlwind of cheery yelling which raised the spirit of the Americans not a little. All took it as an augury of certain victory. In two hours the British fleet was completely routed and Commodore Downie killed. Prevost heard the victorious cries of the Yankee sailors, saw that the supporting fleet was driven back and retreated before the hot fire of the defenders of Plattsburg. He has been accused of giving up the battle too soon. It is probable that he could have driven away the defenders from the town by sheer force of numbers. It is also possible that, remembering Burgoyne's fate, he did not care to risk the ultimate capture of his entire force, cooped up on the lake with no fleet to assist it. However that may be, he never stopped running until Canada was reached. By that time he had lost, of his fine army, in battle and by desertion, some two thousand men.
The victory was, considering the disparity of the forces engaged, one of the most brilliant of the whole war. The hot fight on the lake was wit- nessed by thousands of non-combatants from the Vermont shore and the Legislature of the State
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was so impressed by the value of McDonough's service in driving back the intruders that the Assembly voted to him a present of a fine farm overlooking the scene of the victory. This was the last time that a British force ever vexed the soil of Vermont. The war closed with the end of the year and Jackson's brilliant victory at New Orleans, which was its last pitched battle, was fought after the declaration of peace, but before the news had reached this side of the Atlantic.
Nearly fifty years after the close of the war, in the dark days of the opening rebellion, General Scott said with a feeling tremor in his voice : " Give me your Vermont regiments ; all your Ver- mont regiments. I remember the Vermonters at Lundy's Lane." It was when the army for the suppression of the rebellion was being called to- gether from all parts of the Union, when all eyes were turned on Washington and the grim old sol- dier was bending under the weight of cares and responsibilities too great for his years. The Ver- monters, in spite of Governor Chittenden, had fought with all their old Revolutionary vigor on other fields than that of Plattsburg. From the ear- liest days they were fighting men when there was occasion or excuse for fighting, and in 1812 a little difference of opinion about the expediency of the war was not allowed to keep them out of the
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thickest of the scrimmage where the most and hard- est blows could be given and were to be expected.
The war meant nothing; it decided nothing. Neither side was victorious, though the advantage in the fight seems to have been on the American side on the sea and with their foe on land. The hostilities simply stopped of their own accord when the allies against France put Napoleon upon Elba in the fond expectation that the "Corsican up- start " would stay there, and the peace of Europe remain undisturbed; they were not resumed in the brief but eventful campaign which began with Napoleon's escape and ended with Waterloo and St. Helena. The Federalists had been right in opposing a war which was caused solely by Euro- pean complications ; the Republicans were right in insisting that British aggressions upon neutral commerce were unbearable.
One service, indeed, the war did render to the people of America. It stilled for a time the strife of parties and brought them closer together than they had been since the War of Independence. . When the President of the United States was forced to flee from Washington; when the Brit- ish officers mocked the proceedings of Congress in the vacant hall of the Capitol and then burned it to the ground, the insult brought the people in closer union once more and the Federalists rejoiced
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quite as heartily as did the Republicans over Jack- son's brilliant victory at New Orleans. The Demo- cratic Republican party had declared war as a meas- ure of party necessity at a time when the country seemed almost equally divided between them and their opponents. They came out of it so much strengthened that their candidate for President, James Monroe, received one hundred and eighty- three out of the two hundred and seventeen elec- toral votes in the election of 1816, and was re- elected in 1820, receiving out of two hundred and thirty-two electoral votes two hundred and thirty- one. The eight years of his administration have always been called the "era of good feeling," be- cause of the lack of STATUE OF political strife, and the kindly regard in which all held the administra- LAFAYETTE COLLEGE CREY tion. Yet those who fondly imagined that BURLINGTON Vr. political contentions were permanentlystilled were destined to a rude awakening.
It is hardly necessary to say that Vermont, which went into the war a Federalist State,
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came out of it Republican in politics and supported Monroe both in 1816 and 1820. Martin Chitten- den's term of office was brief and from the close of the war to 1822, that stanch sympathizer with France, the Rev. Jonas Galusha, was successively elected Governor. In the latter year he was succeeded by Richard Skinner, and he in turn gave way in 1823 to C. P. Van Ness who held office for three consecutive years.
The swing of the political pendulum had by this time brought New England back to the Federalist allegiance, though not to the Feder- alist name. The old party of Washington and Hamilton and the Adamses had vanished but its legitimate successor was that wing of the great Monroe party which followed John Quincy Adams rather than Jackson when the inevitable division came. It was not possible that the practically unanimous election by which Monroe had been chosen in 1820 could be repeated in 1824. Politi- cal questions had risen out of their graves to stand again between two national parties and John Quincy Adams, though a member of Monroe's cabinet, was the leader under whom the old Federalists who had supported his father ranged themselves for the contest of that year. The clumsy title National Republican was for a while used by the Adams party to distinguish itself from the Democratic
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Republicans, but the latter soon dropped half of their distinctive name and became known as Democrats merely, while the former transmitted through the Whigs a great part of their politi- cal creed and heritage to the Republican party of to-day.
With New England went Vermont in that momentous and hard-fought Presidential cam- paign which brought the era of good feeling to an end. Adams received the vote of Vermont, but did not control a majority of the electors. He was finally chosen President in the House of Representatives by the help of Henry Clay.
From that day to the present, it is reasonably correct to say, the political complexion of Vermont has never changed. The era of party changes within the State lasted less than a quarter of a century. Excepting the brief ascendancy of the anti-Masonic clique, which could hardly be called a political party at all, Vermont has remained steadfast to the National Republican party and to its successors. Political overturns and ups and downs have formed no part of its subsequent history. The only politi- cal changes have been that the dominant force has been known from time to time by different names. It has added new issues born of new events to the old doctrines of the tariff, internal improve- ments and the constitution which the Federalists
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held ; and the minority, clinging with equal stead- fastness to the doctrines of Smith and Galusha, has in like manner undergone some changes under the stress of new questions and altered conditions. Such instances of political consistency are rare in the stories of the States.
The War of 1812 had been an ever-present menace of disaster to Vermont so long as it lasted, but very little real damage had been done. The British gained no foothold in the State and there were no such Indian outrages and forced levies of horses and forage as made Burgoyne's march memorable. But hot upon the heels of war came an enemy whose ravages were far more destructive of property and the cause of not insignificant human want and misery. The famous cold sum- mer of 1816 was especially vigorous in Vermont where the limit between spring thaw and autumn frost is at best comparatively short. The crops were an utter failure, the winter closed in extraordi- narily early, and a large proportion of the people literally faced starvation until the lengthening days brought some relief from the cold and gave promise of another harvest. The summer of 1817 was an improvement upon the preceding one, though by no means an average year in produc- tiveness. Since then the earth has failed not to reward the labors of the husbandmen, and the
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