HISTORYHISTORY — PAST AND PERSPECTIVE The Hartford Convention and confusion, and it would not be the last. For it was the , and the nation was under attack, facing armed in- vasion from Great Britain and threatened with dissolution by Northern states in a sectional conflict that foreshadowed in many ways the great Civil War of half a century later. Though the war President waged against the Red Coats was not nearly as long or costly as the later war against the Confederacy, Madison was, before it ended, nearly as despised in the North as Lincoln would James Madison be in Southern states. The claims of state sovereignty and the right to secede made by the Southern states that formed the Confederate States of America in 1861 are familiar to most readers. Lesser known are the similar claims made by the dissidents in the North during the conflict that had become known as “Mr. Madison’s War.” And it was insistence upon states’ rights and the threat of in Northern states that led to the Hartford Convention of 1814-15.

Morose Madison Madison had inherited from his prede- cessor, fellow Virginian Thomas Jeffer- son, all the hostility from merchants and shippers that grew out of Jefferson’s re- sponse to attacks on U.S. ships and the kidnapping of American seamen by Great Britain. Seeking to maintain neutrality in England’s war with France, Jefferson got Congress to pass the Embargo Act, pro- hibiting all trade with other nations, later In the Civil War, the North put an end to Southern to be replaced by the Non-Intercourse Act, which banned trade only with England and secession, but earlier it was Northerners who wanted out. France. Since England, the “Mistress of the Ocean,” had been America’s biggest by Jack Kenny great degree to take care of themselves.” trading partner and Napoleon’s empire in He feared the conflict would end in “dis- France held sway over many of the ports n a war that appeared headed to no solution of the Union.” Others in the re- of continental Europe, the embargoes successful conclusion, the president gion echoed the sentiment. The president’s dealt a heavy blow to a Northeast region I of the United States, a visitor report- struggles with an enemy at arms were where shipping was paramount. Indeed, ed, “looks miserably shattered and woe- magnified by disdain for the war and talk the country as a whole suffered, as U.S. begone. In short, he looked heart-broken.” of rebellion among the states in the North. exports, having doubled from $55 million The visitor, Senator Jeremiah Mason of There was open doubt of whether the na- to $108 million between 1803 and 1807, , saw “alarming indica- tion would survive. dwindled to whatever could be smuggled tions of impending dissolution.... If the It was not the first time the survival of out in 1808. But Southern planters found war goes on the States will be left in a the young republic was a subject of doubt new outlets in the more than 100 new cot- www.TheNewAmerican.com 35 HISTORYHISTORY — PAST AND PERSPECTIVE

for its anti-tax sentiment. Cotton Smith of recalled the For the first time, taxes were only state militia detachment in national The embargoes dealt a heavy blow to a imposed on the sale of gold, service on the very day the British burned Northeast region where shipping was silverware, jewelry, and Washington. But when Governor Martin watches. New Englanders Chittenden of Vermont attempted to re- paramount. Indeed, the country as a whole resented paying more in fed- call his state’s militia, some congressmen suffered, as U.S. exports, having doubled eral taxes while seeing little called for his indictment for treason. in the way of Washington’s Yet a prominent Virginian wrote in de- from $55 million to $108 million between provisions for the common fense of the aggrieved Northerners, while 1803 and 1807, dwindled to whatever defense. People and proper- enjoying the irony of welcoming a promi- could be smuggled out in 1808. ty went largely unprotected nent Northern Federalist rise to the cause in the coastal regions, regu- of states’ rights. Referring to Harrison larly bombarded and invad- Gray Otis, a Federalist leader in the Mas- ton and wool mills that had sprung up in ed by British forces. sachusetts Senate, a gloating John Ran- , where capital was being “In July of 1812,” wrote historian Sam- dolph of Roanoke wrote to diverted from shipping to manufacturing. uel Eliot Morison, “almost every regular Congressman Josiah Quincy: “I r ecollect The burden fell most heavily on the re- unit garrisoning coastal forts marched the time when with Mr. Otis, States rights gion’s merchants and its ship building and off to invade Canada, leaving the New were as nothing in comparison with the shipping companies. Thousands of sailors England coast defenseless except for the proud prerogatives of the Federal gov- were thrown out of work and, according militia.” Even after the War Department ernment. Then Virginia was building an to historian James Ellis, “As many as half offered to keep the Massachusetts men armory to enable her to resist Federal of the working men in the New England within the state if they were placed under usurpation. You will not infer that I attach coastal communities were unemployed. the command of Army officers, Governor the least blame to Mr. Otis: far from it. I Poor houses were overflowed, banks refused most presidential rejoice on the contrary to see him enlisted failed.” requisitions for militia. Every New Eng- on the side of the liberty of the subject and When the war with England began, land governor but John Gilman of New the rights of the States.” new taxes were levied on a nation noted Hampshire took the same stand. Gov. John Nearly broke and vexed by the double burden of paying the federal war taxes while providing for their own defense, some of the states petitioned the federal government for repatriation of their de- fense costs. Yet they were making their pleas to a government that was itself broke and driven out of its capital by the invad- ing British. In the , Republican leader John Holmes accused Governor Strong and his Federalist allies of disloyalty compounded by hypocrisy. “You complain that Massachusetts is left defenseless,” said Holmes. “You took the State out of the hands of the general government. You would not per- mit them to decide on the danger. You refused them the means to repel it, and now, forsooth, you complain that you are left defenseless.”

Faltering Union Even before the War of 1812, and apart from the hated embargoes, sectional ri- valries were threatening to break up the union. Just as Southern states would later oppose the admission of new Northern states, fearing the increase of the anti- To the “poor house”: The embargo on trade with England and France had a devastating effect slavery faction in Congress, Northerners on New England coastal communities, said historian James Ellis. “Poor houses were overflowed, feared the growing influence of the South banks failed.” in a country where Jefferson and Madi-

36 THE NEW AMERICAN • AugusT 6, 2012 expressed hatred of the administration and a determination to submit to its ‘tyranny’ no longer.” In Northhampton a gathering of Fed- eralists that included lexicographer Noah Webster produced a letter to circulate among the towns, suggesting that the root of the problem was neither the war nor the embargo, but “a perverse construction of the Constitution of the United States” that denied to the Northern states “their due weight and influence in our national coun- cils.” Among the problems the Federalists wanted remedied was a compromise es- sential to the passage of the Constitution in 1787, but one that remained a sore point in the Northern states. For purposes of both taxation and representation, three-fifths of all slaves were counted in the population figures produced by each census, thereby giving the Southern states greater repre- sentation in the House of Representatives On the plantation: The demands of the Hartford Convention were soon forgotten, but sectional and the Electoral College. rivalries between North and South would later lead to the Civil War and an end to slavery in America. A committee chaired by Sen. James Lloyd, Jr. reported to the Massachusetts son’s Republican (later called Democrat- utmost stench of despotism,” while citizens legislature that the best way “to prevent ic) Party had already achieved dominance. of Ellsworth likened Madison to Napoleon. that hostility to the Union” that would On January 4, 1811, as debate began in the People in Goldsborough complained that “terminate in its downfall” was for “the House of Representatives on statehood for even sleighs carrying food for their fami- Wise and Good, of those states which Louisiana, Rep. Quincy warned his col- lies were being stopped and searched by deem themselves oppressed to assemble leagues that a favorable vote by the Con- officials looking for contraband. Federalist with delegated authority.” The Lloyd Re- gress would make it “the duty of some to Cyrus King ran for Congress and won in port was adopted by the Massachusetts prepare definitely for a separation — ami- 1814 by rousing Maine voters with fiery House of Representatives by a vote of 178 cably if they can, violently if they must.” anti-Madison rhetoric. “If a simple king of to 43 and by 23 to 8 in the Senate. As early as 1808, Otis, then president of England, by his corrupt servants, chastised President Madison, meanwhile, was the Massachusetts Senate, proposed a con- New England with whips,” King declared, desperate for more troops. Early in 1812, vention of Northern states to take up their “the administration here chastised her with Congress authorized the president to aug- grievances against the national administra- scorpions.” In Massachusetts, state Senator ment the regular army with 50,000 volun- tion. Nothing came of it when the embargo Francis Blake of Worcester declared that if teers for one year’s service. Barely five was repealed soon after. At the outset of the Constitution permitted embargoes, he’d thousand signed on in the next six months. the war, Gouverneur Morris of , prefer British rule, “monarchy and all.” When authorized to call up 100,000 from who years earlier had signed the U.S. Con- “Had the President wished to turn New the state militias, the president found that stitution while representing Pennsylvania, England’s disaffection into sedition,” few who took up arms would cross the bor- called for a convention to “force the South- wrote Morison, “he could not have cho- ders of their own states. The United States ern states either [to] submit to what is just sen a better method; for the very word had 12 times the population of Canada, or break up the Union.” That proposal also embargo was a red rag to Massachusetts yet Henry Adams would observe that two went nowhere, since New York at that time federalism. It cut off the only legitimate months after the declaration of war, “the was controlled by Republicans. commerce that remained and ended the Canadians outnumbered the Americans at But in 1813, a new embargo banned fish- extensive smuggling over the Canadian every point of danger on the frontier.” ing outside of harbors and allowed trans- frontier, the profits of which had rec- By October of 1814, Madison and Sec- portation on inland waterways only by onciled many a Federalist to the war.” retary of War James Monroe had turned to permission of the president. The new law When the Massachusetts legislature met military conscription as the answer. Mon- inspired angry protests even in Republican in January 1814, petitions from all parts roe told Congress it had “a right by the Maine, where transportation by water was of the commonwealth began pouring in. Constitution to raise regular armies, and the only mode of travel in much of the east- “The tone of each was ominous,” Morison no constraint is imposed on the regular ern portion of the state. To Deer Isle resi- wrote. “There was no trace of animosity exercise of it.” In his recent biography of dents, “Madison’s embargo” reeked of “the against Great Britain, but every sentence Madison, Richard Brookhiser described

Call 1-800-727-TRUE to subscribe today! 37 HISTORYHISTORY — PAST AND PERSPECTIVE

egation , a Fed- cession. They also had the example of eralist leader who came out the French Revolution and its reign of New Englanders resented paying more of retirement, in his words, terror fresh in their memories. Even Jef- in federal taxes while seeing little in the “to keep the young hotheads ferson, once an open admirer of revolu- from getting into mischief.” tionary France, shuddered at the thought way of Washington’s provisions for the of a similar turn of events in America. Yet common defense. People and property The Hartford Convention when the Sage of Monticello denounced The Hartford Convention the delegates in Hartford as “Marats, went largely unprotected in the coastal followed the colonial tradi- Dantons and Robespierres,” referring to regions, regularly bombarded and invaded tion of gathering represen- influential French revolutionaries, his by British forces. tatives of some or all of the old rival managed to find colonies to air grievances, something more or less favorable to say prepare for war, or propose about them. They were “intelligent and the reaction of one of Monroe’s fellow Vir- changes in the structure of government. honest men who had lost touch with real- ginians. “John Randolph asked scornfully Prior to the American War for Indepen- ity,” Adams replied, while also describing what Monroe would have said to a similar dence, the Albany Congress of 1754 drew them as “servile mimics” of Jefferson and argument from [previous president] John delegates from seven of the 13 colonies his Republicans, who had harangued and Adams and answered his own question: to New York to prepare for an anticipated obstructed the Adams administration. Monroe would have urged armed defiance.” war with France. But the convention also And, in fact, Federalists in Massa- Congress rejected the proposed mili- proposed a plan for a federated colonial chusetts as early as 1811 were espous- tary draft, but by the fall of 1814, the New government that went unratified by any of ing doctrines that Jefferson and Madison Englanders were making final prepara- the colonies and would surely have been had championed by their authorship of tions for their convention. On December vetoed in London if passed. Then came the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 15, delegates from Massachusetts, Rhode the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 and the 1798, documents written to argue that Island, and Connecticut met in Hartford, first Continental Congress in 1774. That the states could nullify the federal Alien joined by representatives of a few counties the Hartford conclave was in the Ameri- and Sedition laws enacted by Adams and in Vermont and New Hampshire. Seeking can tradition was hardly a comfort to the his Federalists. In the fall of 1814, anti- to keep the more extreme elements at bay, governing class in 1814, however. For it Madison dissidents in New England were Massachusetts put at the head of its del- was a tradition tied to rebellion and se- speaking openly of nullification and inter- AP Images General ’s rout of the British in the on January 8, 1815, happened nearly two weeks after the signing of the treaty to end the fighting in the War of 1812.

38 THE NEW AMERICAN • AugusT 6, 2012 position — the right to declare void within their borders federal laws a state or group of states declare unconstitutional — and even secession. In a crisis spurred in no small measure by sectional rivalries, some Northerners none- theless both echoed Jefferson’s and Madison’s earlier arguments that the federal government must not be the final arbiter of its own powers, and foreshadowed the later claims by Southern states- men that the states that formed the union and joined it by exer- cise of their sovereign authority could, by that same authority, leave it. An editorial appearing on No- vember 1 of that year vehemently denied that any one state or section of the country could, of its own ac- cord, withdraw from the Union: The , signed December 24, 1814, in the Flemish city in present-day Belgium, brought an end to the War of 1812, but did not resolve any of the disputes that led to it. No man, no association of men, no state or set of states has a right to tion’s moderates, under the leadership of Andrew Jackson by the British at New Or- withdraw itself from the Union of its Cabot and Otis, kept control of the delib- leans. A defeat there might well have led to own accord. The same power which erations and produced a document calling a breakup of the Union. But Jackson’s rout knit us together can only unknit. for less drastic changes to the nation’s of the invaders demonstrated that England’s The same formality which forged Constitution. One proposed amendment efforts to subdue her former colonies were the links of the Union, is necessary would have eliminated the “three-fifths” fruitless and the men and firepower spent to dissolve it. The majority of states clause to deprive the South of the portion in North America would be better used in which form the Union must consent of its representation based on slaves. An- Europe against the French. Unknown to the to the withdrawal of any one branch other would have prohibited the election delegates in Hartford, both nations agreed of it. Until that consent has been ob- of two presidents from the same state in to end the fighting when they signed the tained, any attempt to dissolve the consecutive elections, an obvious rebuke largely inconclusive Treaty of Ghent on Union, or to obstruct the efficacy of to the administrations of Virginians Jef- December 24. “The Peace of Christmas its constitutional laws is Treason — ferson and Madison. Other amendments Eve” was also unknown to the combatants Treason to all intents and purposes. recommended by the convention included in New Orleans, who fought the famous the requirement of a two-thirds vote in battle in early January, after the treaty The argument became Abraham Lincoln’s each house of Congress for the admission had been signed but before news of it had 47 years later, but in 1814 it was the judg- of new states, for the “interdiction of com- crossed the Atlantic. ment of the Enquirer of Richmond, Vir- mercial intercourse” (with a 60-day limit The demands made by the Hartford Con- ginia. The editors of that publication un- on embargoes), and for declarations of vention were quickly forgotten. By the time wittingly indicted future generations of war. The convention adjourned on January the delegation from New England arrived Virginians and the secessionists of other 5, promising that if their demands were in Washington, news of the peace had pre- Southern states of “Treason to all intents not met they would meet again in June to ceded it, and the delegates went into hiding and purposes.” decide what “a crisis so momentous might to avoid the laughter and derision from Re- The decision in Hartford to deliberate in require.” Wrote Brookhiser: “The threat publicans in the nation’s capital. closed session further fueled speculation was obvious: give us what we want or we Wars eventually end, but sectional con- that the convention was plotting secession will secede.” flicts and the ideas that animate them live and/or armed rebellion against the Union. Some of the would-be rebels wanted on. The battle for states’ rights and nul- There was indeed talk of secession and secession and the making of a separate lification, along with threats of secession, other radical proposals at the convention, peace with England, a course seemingly would soon fall out of favor in the North. including a plan to kick the Western states made more plausible by the widespread But they would move to the South and out of the Union and return the govern- expectation of a British victory over the ignite a conflagration far greater than the ment to the original 13. But the conven- badly outmanned and outgunned forces of War of 1812. n

Call 1-800-727-TRUE to subscribe today! 39