1814]

PEACE

Gage's example, sailed to Halifax.

343

One of the episodes of

the flight from Washington shows the heroism of the President's wife, though the President himself showed little. Dolly Madison was determined that the Stuart portrait of Washington, hanging in the White House, should not fall into the hands of the British. She cut it from its frame, and escaped with it under her arm. It now hangs in one of the reception-rooms of the mansion.

In April, 1814, Napoleon abdicated and was sent into exile at Elbe. Europe was at peace. England could concentrate her fleets and her armies upon America. She planned another "Spanish Armada." A powerful fleet of fifty ships, armed with over one thousand guns, should sail from Jamaica, with over twenty thousand soldiers who had driven Napoleon into exile. This armament should swoop down upon New Orleans.

Andrew Jackson, who for several years had been fighting Indians in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, was in command of the city. The British under General Pakenham, a brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, landed in December, and on the 8th of January, 1815, began the attack. Jackson had thrown up earthworks with here and there a cotton bale, and behind these the Americans awaited the attack. The defenses were rude; the defenders were rough frontiersmen, militia, and a few squads of free colored men. Twice the British attacked; twice they fell back with fearful losses. Over half the English army was killed or wounded. The Americans lost only seventy-one. General Pakenham had been killed by a sharpshooter, a free negro. It was Bunker Hill, with victory for the Americans. Never before had the British army suffered such a defeat save under Braddock.

The British, in February, took Mobile, but peace had already been signed at Ghent, on the 24th of December. A cablegram would have prevented the battle of New Orleans, as it might have prevented the whole war. The treaty, negotiated on our part by John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, and James A. Bayard (of Delaware), went into details for the settlement of our boundaries, for the cessation of Indian hostilities, and for the

abolition of the slave trade. Save as to the Indians, it said not a word about the causes of the war. But the "news from Ghent'' was "good news," as Robert Browning has told us. The war was over. Our victories at sea put an end to the impressment of our sailors. While Gen

eral Harrison had been subduing the Indians in the Northwest, General Jackson had been subduing them in the region we now call Alabama and Mississippi. Never again, east of the Mississippi, did they give the settlers serious alarm. Though the treaty was silent about the American doctrine that "free ships make free goods," it practically implied that a nation that could maintain the doctrine would be suffered to practice it.

In spite of the blunders of the war, the Americans had fought well. The war produced two popular heroes, the "Hero of the Tippecanoe," and the "Hero of New Orleans." Ovations befell them thick and fast. Everybody said that each would be President some day.

war.

Three results of far-reaching importance grew out of the American manufacturing began, and Congress was asked to pass laws to encourage and protect it. American goods, it was said, could compete with those of European make, if American manufactures were duly protected. A tariff for protection was the result. After 1816 political parties divided on the tariff question. The rapid settlement of the West and the improvements in business and transportation disclosed the pressing need of a reliable currency. Whether this should be supplied by a United States bank or by state banks was a question on which the country divided. The charter of the old United States bank expired in 1812, and Congress refused to renew it. The war of 1812 was carried on by loans and treasury notes. No sooner was the war over, than a powerful movement set in to have the bank rechartered, or one like it established. In 1816, a new bank, the Bank of the United States, was chartered. It was the subject of political controversy for the next twenty years.

CHAPTER XXV

THE POLITICAL INTERREGNUM

1816-1828

In November, 1816, Monroe, Madison's Secretary of State, and Tompkins, lately governor of New York, were elected President and Vice-President, each receiving 183 electoral votes. They had been nominated by the congressional caucus. The Federalist vote was cast for Rufus King (34 votes) for President, and was scattered among five men, of whom Chief Justice Marshall was most eminent, for Vice-President. Indiana, though not admitted till December 11th, voted-the nineteenth state. Its legislature chose its presidential electors—the case in seven other states—as in 1812. Both houses were Democratic by larger majorities than ever before. The Federalist party had carried only three states, and these were its last victory. From this time it disappears from politics.

Two months after his inauguration, Monroe made a tour of the country, from Baltimore to Portland, through New Hampshire and Vermont, westward through Buffalo to Detroit, and return. It was a triumphal journey, filled with ovations. The war was over; the country was resuming its prosperity; politics were quiet. A national feeling was coming over the people. As The Boston Centinel happily said, it was the "era of good feeling," and the phrase, at once taken up by the country, is forever associated with Monroe's two administrations. In truth, the secret was, the world for the first time in centuries was at peace. Napoleon was at St. Helena.

But the era of good feeling cannot be said to have included the frontier; that is, the Florida and the Canadian borders. Though General Jackson had quieted the Creeks and Choctaws, by his expedition during the late war, and had compelled them to give up some of their lands, they

fully expected their ally, Great Britain, to win them back. So, in 1817, they could restrain themselves no longer, and fell upon the settlements. Florida was the refuge of pirates, runaway slaves, and desperadoes, as well as the home of the Seminoles and of a part of the Creeks. Jackson, ignoring the fact that it was Spanish soil, marched into West Florida, subdued it, hanged two Englishmen as spies, and routed the Indians. It was a high-handed act, and done without the knowledge of the Secretary of War, Calhoun, who wanted to discipline Jackson on account of it, but John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State, took Jackson's side and won over the President. This was the beginning of a controversy that ran on for thirty years and sharply divided the whole country long before it was over. Spain had a feeble hold on Florida, and the United States was sure to obtain it ere long.

The treaty of Ghent was a preliminary to a settlement of our Canadian boundaries. In October, 1818, the commissioners of the two countries agreed on our northern boundary from the Lake of the Woods to the "Stony Mountains," as the Rockies were called, along the line of 49° north latitude. In 1817, a part of the eastern boundary of Maine had been defined, but not satisfactorily to either country. By the treaty of 1818 both countries were to occupy Oregon for ten years.

On Washington's birthday, 1819, Spain sold the Floridas to the United States for five million dollars, and thus happily aided in bringing this lawless part of the country into peace and order. The treaty carefully defined our western boundary as far as Oregon. We had claimed that the Louisiana purchase extended as far west as the Rio Grande. This would have given us Texas. By the treaty of 1819, we gave up all claim to the province of Texas, and our Spanish boundary was carefully set down: from the Gulf of Mexico to the 32d degree of north latitude, thence northward to the Red River, thence westward to the 100th meridian, thence north to the Arkansas, and westward to its source "in the latitude 42° north, and thence by that parallel of latitude to the South Sea." There was no survey of the line, and part of it was not

1818-1819]

OREGON

347

only vague, but false to nature. this at the time.

However, nobody knew

Four nations were now reaching for Oregon and the control of the Pacific coast.

The American claim to Oregon was based on Captain Gray's discovery of the Columbia, in 1792; on the exploration of the country, by Lewis and Clark, 1805; on the settlement of the country, at Astoria, 1811, and on the treaty of 1818—a joint occupation with England.

The English claim to Oregon was based on Vancouver's voyage to the Columbia in 1792, a few days after Captain Gray discovered it; the partial occupation of the country by the Hudson Bay Company; the treaty of 1818, and the joint occupation. The Spanish claim to the Pacific coast was based on early conquest and occupation,* various treaties with France, and the treaty of 1819 with the United States. Spain did not claim Oregon.

The Russian claim to the Pacific coast was based on the discovery of Alaska by Vitus Bering, in 1741, the occupation of that country by Russian traders and missionaries; the decree of the emperor of Russia in 1822, fixing its southern boundary at 51° north latitude, and the settlement of a Russian colony in California, which practically ignored the boundary of 51°.

The United States contended that Oregon extended from the Rockies to the Pacific, and from 42° to 51°. It began to look as if Russia might push her claims to the Pacific coast, and possibly secure California. John Quincy Adams realized the gravity of the situation. He maintained that we ought to possess Texas and all of Oregon; he went further; no European nation should plant a colony either in North or in South America.

In 1819, the people of Missouri Territory asked for admission as a state, and submitted a constitution to Congress. It contained one provision excluding free persons of color from the state and another establishing slavery. The first provision raised the question whether a new state could make such an exclusion under the Constitution of the United States.† *See pp. 20-24.

Art. IV, Sec. 2, Clause I.