The Hartford Convention

TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT COMMITTEE ON HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS The Hartford Convention 1/ PUBLISHED FOR THE TERCENTENARY COMMISSION BY THE YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 9 74.6 *934 TER, XXIV Connecticut State library 50008371! - -y Service Center South Main Street ''etown, Connecticut 06457 TERCENTENARY COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT COMMITTEE ON HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS The Hartford Convention WILLIAM EDWARD BUCKLEY I HE Hartford Convention of 1814-1815 has always been a subject of the greatest interest. The contrast between what the country expected the Convention to do and what it Tactually did, the deep secrecy which surrounded it, the bitter controversy about its real purpose which raged for years after its adjournment—all these factors have aroused the curiosity of students and given rise to many attempts to explain the Convention. It has been de- nounced as an assembly of traitors plotting to destroy the Union, and lauded as a group of devoted patriots working to soothe the just wrath of oppressed and out- raged New England and so to save the Union. This essay makes no pretense of adding any new information on the subject, but aims merely to present a reasonably com- plete account of the Hartford Convention for the reader who is not inclined to seek out the longer treatment given in biographies of members of the Convention or in the more extended histories of the time. Two warnings should be given at the start. In exploring the period of the Hartford Convention we enter a time when the national government was still in the stage of experiment. The union of the country under the Con- stitution had been brought about with much difficulty after years of dissension among the newly independent states, each jealous of its sovereignty and reluctant to surrender to a central government any of its powers. Could the new government endure? That question could not be answered in 1814 with any more assurance than we can now bring to predicting the future of the League of Nations. Until the Civil War finally established the principle that no section could withdraw from the Union, threats of secession were likely to arise whenever a group of states felt seriously aggrieved. Moreover, the political atmosphere of the period from 1790 to 1816 is strange to us. Political convictions then were of the utmost importance, so intensely felt that it was difficult even for well-balanced and temperate men to think of the opposition party without bitterness. To the rank and file of the Federalists, the Democrats1 seemed a vulgar, ignorant mob at best, at worst a group of "knaves and blockheads." To the Democrats, the Federal- ists appeared abandoned traitors fawning at the feet of the British government, a blindly selfish aristocracy who de- served little better treatment than the French nobility had received a few years before during the Reign of Terror. II The hatred of the Federalists for Jefferson was bitter. Though his policies were more moderate than either his friends or his enemies had expected, he had removed 1 The term Democrats to designate the opponents of the Federalists has been used for convenience, though it is not precisely correct. 1 Federalists from office and replaced them by Democrats. He had purchased the vast Louisiana territory, and his dismayed opponents foresaw the creation of new states in this great region to reduce still further the importance of the old seaboard states in the Union. His sympathy with the French Revolution made him an object of ab- horrence to the aristocratic and conservative element in New England to which Great Britain now seemed the defender of the established order against French attack. The passage of the Embargo Act in 1807, moreover, gave the commercial group in New England a definite and important grievance. Though the policy of restric- tion of trade and the war which followed encouraged manufacturing in New England and brought great pros- perity, the immediate effect of the embargo was to destroy foreign trade and to hamper greatly coastwise commerce. The New England air was filled with excited talk of re- sistance to the embargo, of a convention of the commercial states, and of possible withdrawal from the Union. In the autumn election of 1808 the Democratic news- papers appealed for support on the ground that a vote for the Federalist candidates was a vote for a New Eng- land confederacy under British protection. In fact, no convention of the commercial states was called, and early in 1809 the Embargo Act was repealed. The Non- Intercourse acts which took its place removed all restric- tions on the coasting trade, and allowed commerce with all European nations except France and England, leaving some opportunity for trade even with them. The excite- ment in New England subsided. Soon, however, new causes for dissatisfaction arose. The congress of the 1811-1812 session contained the group of "war hawks" from the West and South, whose voices were strong for war with Great Britain. For a time 3 many of the Federalists voted with the war hawks as a political manoeuvre. They felt that the Democratic clam- or for war was insincere, that the war would not injure New England further, and that, if the conflict came, the administration would manage it so badly that the Feder- alists might be returned to power on a wave of popular resentment. Nevertheless the Federalist votes were cast against the declaration of war. Conflict with Great Britain was too horrible a thought for the Massachusetts men whose sentiments had been expressed at a Federalist dinner in Boston, in honor of the British minister recently dismissed from Washington, in the toast "The world's last hope—Britain's fast-anchored isle." The story of New England's part in the war is not a pleasant one, but it must be remembered that national sentiment was weak in 1812, and that the bitterness of party feeling blinded many men to the full significance of their actions. Immediately after the declaration of war the Massachusetts legislature passed resolutions urging the people to protest against the war, and asking them not to volunteer except for defensive operations. The governor proclaimed a public fast to atone for the wickedness of the administration's action in declaring war. Then began the long conflict over the state militia. In June the war department asked the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut to order out certain units of the militia for coast defence. Both governors re- fused, declaring that the Constitution gave the president authority over the militia only "to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions," and that none of these emergencies existed. The Con- necticut legislature endorsed the governor's action, de- nounced the war as unnecessary, and took steps to form a state army. In July, 1812, delegates were appointed by 4 several Massachusetts counties to a state convention which was to take some action against the war, but the moderate Federalists opposed the plan and it was dropped. The discontent in New England seemed to offer a chance for the enemy to profit. The British government may have hoped for a separation of the New England states from the Union or for a declaration of neutrality. It is more likely, however, that the British ministry de- sired to use New England as a source of supplies and to weaken the Madison administration by encouraging the opposition. Whatever the motive, the New England states were exempted from the blockade which the Brit- ish navy began along the Atlantic coast, and New Eng- land products were exempted from the general prohibi- tion of American goods in the West Indies. An extensive trade with Canada was carried on from New England during a great part of the war. On October 27, 1814, Sir George Prevost, commander of a British army which was preparing to invade the United States from Canada, wrote to the war office that two-thirds of the British forces in Canada were eating beef provided by American contractors, and drawn mainly from New York and Vermont. This circumstance, he added, as well as the shipment of large sums in specie from New England into Canada, was common knowledge in the United States. In December, 1813, Madison recommended a new and rigorous embargo bill to cut off this trade with the enemy. In his message to congress the president stated that the British armies were obtaining from our merchants supplies which were necessary to keep them in the field against our armies. When the proposed measure was passed, the New England Federalists again broke into wrath, and towns of western Massachusetts once more 5 petitioned the legislature to call a convention "for pro- curing such alterations in the federal constitution as will give to the Northern States a due proportion of representa- tion, and secure them from the future exercise of powers injurious to their commercial interests." The moderate element, which was in control of the Massachusetts legislature, suggested that action be postponed until after the spring elections. When the new session assembled in the spring of 1814, the embargo act, which had not been workable in some respects, had been repealed, and the president, at the suggestion of the British government, had appointed a commission to negotiate peace. Conse- quently the Massachusetts legislature took no action. The events of the later spring and summer of that year, however, were momentous. In April and July the national government tried to raise new war loans. Although the banks of New England held most of the specie of the country, and although this section, because of the in- crease of manufacturing and the trade with the enemy, was prosperous, New England followed its usual course by refusing to subscribe to the loans.

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