the occasion for trial of the act of March 8, 1807, had arrived; a detachment of United States artillery was sent to the point of disturbance and the governor was ordered to discharge the militia, which was done. early in October. (President Jefferson to Governor Tompkins, New York, August 15, 1808; to Secretary Gallatin, August 15, 1808; to Secretary Dearborn, August 25, 1808; to Governor Wilkinson, August 30, 1808.) This was hastened, perhaps, by an unfortunate incident of the affair which occurred on the Winooski River on the 3d of August, where, in an encounter between a force of the militia and a party of smugglers, several of the former were killed and others wounded. The smugglers were arrested, tried, and convicted, one of them executed, and several others sentenced to ten years in prison." President Jefferson thus refers to this disturbance in his annual message for the year 1808: I have not thought it necessary, in the course of the last season, to call for any general detachments of militia or of volunteers under the laws passed for that purpose. For the ensuing season, however, they will be required to be in readiness should their service be wanted. Some small and special detachments have been necessary to maintain the laws of embargo on that portion of our northern frontier which offered peculiar facilities for evasion, but these were replaced as soon as it could be done by bodies of new recruits. By the aid of these and of the armed vessels called into service in other quarters the spirit of disobedience and abuse which manifested itself early and with sensible effect while we were unprepared to meet it has been considerably repressed. The act of January 7, 1809 (2 Stat. L., 506), which, by enlarging the scope of the embargo laws, so increased their unpopularity as to create a widespread public indignation which led to their speedy repeal, contained a clause which is of interest as showing the views of Congress at that time in the matter of the employment of the entire military power if necessary in the enforcement of the Federal laws. 11 and 13 were as follows: Sections SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, or such other person as he shall have empowered for that purpose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces or militia of the United States, or of the Territories thereof, as may be judged necessary, in conformity with the provisions of this and other acts respecting the embargo, for the purpose of preventing the illegal departure of any ship or vessel, or of detaining, taking possession of, and keeping in custody any ship or vessel, or of taking into custody and guarding any specie, or articles of domestic growth, produce, or manufacture, and also for the purpose of preventing and suppressing any armed or riotous assemblage of persons, resisting the custom-house officers in the exercise of their duties, or in any manner opposing the execution of the laws laying an embargo, or otherwise violating, or assisting and abetting violations of the same. SEC. 13. And be it further enacted, That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized to hire, arm, and employ thirty vessels, not exceeding in tonnage one hundred and thirty tons each, belonging to citizens of the United States, and so many seamen as shall be necessary to man the same, for immediate service, in enforcing the laws of the United States on the seacoast thereof and to dismiss the a See also Records of the Governor and Council of Vermont, vol. 5, p. 472. same from service whenever he shall deem the same expedient: Provided, however, That such hiring, arming, and employment shall not be for a term exceeding one year. And the said ships or vessels, when so hired and armed, shall be employed under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury. Immediately upon the passage of this act, and no doubt in anticipation of its reception by the country, the following letter, prepared by the President (Jefferson's Works, vol. 5, p. 418) was sent to the governor of every State: JANUARY 17, 1809. SIR: The pressure of the embargo, although sensibly felt by every description of our fellow-citizens, has yet been cheerfully borne by most of them, under the conviction that it was a temporary evil, and a necessary one to save us from greater and more permanent evils-the loss of property and surrender of rights. But it would have been more cheerfully borne but for the knowledge that while honest men were religiously observing it the unprincipled along our seacoast and frontiers were fraudulently evading it; and that in some parts they had even dared to break through it openly by an armed force too powerful to be opposed by the collector and his assistants. To put an end to this scandalous insubordination to the laws, the Legislature has authorized the President to empower proper persons to employ militia for preventing or suppressing armed or riotous assemblages of persons resisting the custom-house officers in the exercise of their duties, or opposing or violating the embargo laws. He sincerely hopes that during the short time which these restrictions are expected to continue no other instances will take place of a crime of so deep a dye. But it is made his duty to take the measures necessary to meet it. He therefore requests you, as commanding officer of the militia of your State, to appoint some officer of the militia, of known respect for the laws, in or near to each port of entry within your State, with orders, when applied to by the collector of the district, to assemble immediately a sufficient force of his militia, and to employ them efficaciously to maintain the authority of the laws respecting the embargo, and that you notify to each collector the officer to whom, by your appointment, he is so to apply for aid when necessary. He has referred this appointment to your excellency because your knowledge of characters, or means of obtaining it, will enable you to select one who can be most confided in to exercise so serious a power with all the discretion, the forbearance, the kindness even, which the enforcement of the law will possibly admit-ever to bear in mind that the life of a citizen is never to be endangered but as the last melancholy effort for the maintenance of order and obedience to the laws. A few days later an occasion arose for the exercise of the powers thus vested in the Executive, the story of which is thus told in a letter from Mr. Jefferson to Col. Charles Simms, collector for Virginia, but of the results of which the official records are silent: WASHINGTON, January 22, 1809. SIR: I received last night your letter of yesterday, and this being a day in which all the offices are shut, and the case admitting no delay, I inclose you a special order, directly from myself, to apply for aid of the militia adjacent to the vessel, to enable you to do your duty as to the sloop loading with flour. But I must desire that, so far as the agency of the militia be employed, it may be with the utmost discretion, and with no act of force beyond what shall be necessary to maintain obedience to the laws, using neither deeds nor words unnecessarily offensive. I salute you with respect.a a Jefferson's Works, vol. 5, p. 418. United States of America, to wit: JANUARY, 1809. Information being received that a sloop, said to be of one of the Eastern States, of about 1,500 barrels burden, is taking in flour in the Bay of Occoquan in Virginia, with intention to violate the several embargo laws, and the urgency of the case not admitting the delay of the ordinary course of proceeding through the orders of the governors of the States, I have therefore thought proper to issue these my special orders to the militia officers of the counties of Fairfax, Prince William, or of any other county of Virginia or of Maryland, adjacent to the river Potomak or any of its waters, wherein the said vessel may be found, and to such particular officer, especially to whom these my orders shall be presented by any collector of the customs, for any district on the said river or its waters, or by any person acting under their authority, forthwith on receiving notice, to call out such portion of the militia under his or their command as shall be sufficient, and to proceed with the same, in aid of the said collector, to take possession of the said sloop and her cargo wheresoever found in the said waters, and to detain the same until she shall be liberated according to law, for which this shall be his and their warrant. Given under my hand at Washington, this 22d day of January, eighteen hundred and nine. THOMAS JEFFERSON, President of the United States of America. NOTE.-President's Message (Washington) on the Embargo, March 28, 1794; Senate Journal, Third Congress, first session, p. 98; President's Message (Jefferson) on the Embargo, November 19, 1807, Executive Documents, Tenth Congress, first session; same, November 30, 1808, Executive Documents, Tenth Congress, second session; Report by (Gallatin) Secretary Treasury, December 8, 1808, Executive Documents, Tenth Congress, second session. III. FROM THE REORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY TO THE NEGRO INSURRECTIONS, 1831-THE NULLIFICATION EXCITEMENT, 1832-THE BLACK HAWK WAR, 1832-THE SABINE AFFAIR, 1836—INTRUDERS ON THE CHEROKEE LANDS, 1833-REMOVAL OF THE CHEROKEES, 1838-THE PATRIOT WAR, 1837-38-IOWA BOUNDARY LINE, 1839-THE DORR REBELLION, 1842-THE BOSTON FUGITIVE SLAVE CASES, 1851-THE ANTHONY BURNS RIOTS, 1854. * * It has been said that the provision of the act of February 28, 1795, as amended by the act of March 8, 1807, which made it lawful for the President to call forth the militia or the Federal land and naval forces to suppress an insurrection in any State against the government of such State, "on application of the legislature of such State, or of the executive when the legislature can not be convened," vests in the President the widest discretion. "By this act," says the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Luther v. Borden (7 Howard, 41), "the power of deciding whether the exigency has arisen upon which the Government of the United States is bound to interfere is given to the President. He is to act upon the application of the legislature or of the executive, and consequently he must determine what body of men constitute the legislature and who is the governor before he can act. The fact that two parties claim the right to the government can not alter the case, for both can not be entitled to it. If there is an armed conflict, it is a case of domestic violence, and one of the parties must be in insurrection against the lawful government. And the President must, of necessity, decide which is the government, and which party is unlawfully arrayed against it, before he can perform the duty imposed upon him by the act of Congress." (See also Woodbury dissent, ibid., 49.) It was not, however, until nearly fifty years after the enactment of this law that it became necessary for the President to consider the propriety of exercising this discretion. Up to that time all disturbances requiring Federal interposition had grown out of a violation of, or opposition to, the Federal laws. So far as the provision of the law relating to invasion was concerned, some interesting questions had arisen at the beginning of the second war with Great Britian as to the power of the President or of Congress to require the militia of a State to serve outside its own borders; but in the presence of the common peril these constitutional problems had readily solved themselves or been forgotten in the hurry of events. Negro insurrections, 1831. The year 1831 was one of unusual uneasiness throughout the slaveholding section of the country, consequent upon an apprehended uprising of the negroes. Early in the spring of that year strong and urgent representations were made to the War Department by the authorities of Louisiana that a revolt was threatened by the slaves, and that the presence of a military force in New Orleans was necessary to the preservation of order and to allay the apprehensions of the people. To quiet these fears two companies of infantry were sent to that city and orders were given to neighboring posts to hold the troops in readiness. for any emergency. Later in the season similar reports of disorderly conduct upon the part of the slaves came from Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and in order that a disposable force might be available to afford protection to such parts of the country as might require it, the garrison of Fort Monroe was augmented by five companies drawn from the northern seaboard. These apprehensions seemed well founded, when on the 24th of August intelligence was received from the mayor of Norfolk, Va., that a negro insurrection had broken out in Southampton County; that more than 50 persons had been massacred, and that the presence of the Federal troops was necessary for the preservation of order.1 Believing the situation to be imminent and pressing, the commandant at Fort Monroe at once dispatched a force of troops to the scene of disturbance, but beyond allaying the excitement and restoring the courage of the people the active service of the troops was not required. A few days later, on the application of the authorities of Newberne, in North Carolina, under the excitement which prevailed after the disturbances in Southampton, a detachment was sent from Fort Monroe to guard that city and to quiet the apprehensions of the citizens of that section. At the same time arms and ammunition were issued to the citizens of Hampton, upon the requisition of the militia. (Annual report of Major-General Macomb, November, 1831.) Whatever line of justification for this furnishing of troops in contravention of the statute may have been advanced at the time, does not appear of record. On the contrary, there is evidence that the presence of the troops was resented by the people of North Carolina, upon the ground that the situation was at no time beyond the control of the local authorities." 3 5 A year later there was great excitement throughout the country consequent upon the determination of the President to enforce the tariff laws. The tariff bill which became a law on March 31, 1824, had been a source of much opposition in Congress, and was received with disapproval throughout the South. The section was agricultural The nullification excitement, 1832. and a heavy consumer of imported goods. Cotton sent abroad was usually exchanged for goods that had to be brought in through the custom-house, thus increasing the cost of living without apparent compensation. It was regarded by one portion of the community as a measure to build up a commercial |