THE HARTFORD CONVENTION

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vention in

Senator Pickering, in Washington, observed the meeting of the Hartford convention with delight. He had his following in it, mostly young men, who wished immediate steps taken toward separation. But another spirit prevailed. A The Congroup of more conservative men gained the ascendancy Session. and made George Cabot, a timid man, president. Two delegates appointed by popular meetings in New Hampshire and one chosen by the town of Windham, Vermont, presented themselves and were given seats, making the membership 26. The meetings were secret, and continued until January 5, when an adjournment was ordered to meet in Boston at the call of the president. An address was published in justification of its conduct, filled with ideas taken from Madison's Virginia Resolutions (see page 285), and upholding the opinion that a state should conduct her defense when invaded. Seven suggested amendments to the national constitution were also announced, which, with the report, were submitted to the states represented in the convention. From the people at large and from the legislature they met a warm approval; and Massachusetts and Connecticut sent delegates to lay the demands of New England before the national government. Just at this stage, when disunion seemed inevitable, came news of the treaty signed at Ghent, December 24, and the whole movement collapsed.

of New

Contemporaries freely charged the Hartford convention with promoting disunion, and sometimes it was pronounced traitorous. One of the members, Harrison Gray Otis, to vindicate himself in after years, published the journal of the con- Significance vention. But it was a mere skeleton of the proceeding, England and contained no speeches or other matter to show what Discontent. the delegates really intended. Theodore Dwight, secretary of the convention, published a history of the convention, but it was in the tone of an advocate, and has not been received as a frank statement. The amendments proposed by the convention demanded concessions which congress and the nation must have denied. They asked for a relinquishment of the compromise of the constitution by which three-fifths of the slaves were counted in representation and in the apportionment of direct taxes, for a two-thirds vote to admit a new state to the union, for a like vote to declare war, or to establish commercial non-intercourse, for the prohibition of officeholding to naturalized citizens, for the ineligibility of a president for two terms, and for the denial of the authority to lay an embargo longer than sixty days. The men who announced this program were experienced political leaders. They must have had some policy in reserve to be adopted if their demands were refused. They doubtless knew they had aroused a great popular impulse which could hardly be turned backward. It is difficult to believe they expected the national government to yield, and failing that, it seems very probable

that they meant to carry the movement they had so carefully and ably developed to its logical conclusion, some sort of disunion.

The Lesson of the War.

On the other hand, it must be remembered that the union in 1814 was not so sacred a thing as later. Recently entered into on the ground that it was best for the states to act together, it was to most men still a thing of political expediency. The New Englanders were in a position to ask what it was worth to their section. The extreme federalists repudiated the republican doctrines, rejected government by all the people, and Puritan as they were, felt an aversion to a government controlled by men openly charged with skepticism. They thought, also, about their commercial interests and about the possibility of being overwhelmed by new states. From their standpoint it was not unnatural to ask if the union was an advantage to New England. These thoughts were strongest in the minds of the extreme federalists. To them the collapse of their plans with the end of the war must have been a disappointment. But to the mass of New Englanders, moderate federalists as well as republicans, the passing of the crisis was probably a relief. They quickly regained their confidence in the union, and New England discontent immediately disappeared. The federalist party, from its apparent sympathy with the Hartford convention, received a blow from which it did not recover. One test of the efficiency of a state is its ability to meet a great crisis; for example, its ability to wage war. In this sense the war of 1812 gives us an opportunity to see how far we had come in the road of political self-direction since we became an independent power. Badly as the struggle was fought out, it was carried on more successfully than the revolution. Until it began we had not seriously determined whether or not we could make war. We had no army, and a weak navy. We had no corps of trained officers to marshal the citizen soldiers. We had no machinery of credit to enable the government to place its emergency loans, and the sense of nationality was not developed to enable the government to draw the support it ought to have from all sections. The calamities of the first two years of war showed every man these weaknesses, and the lesson was well learned. When war ended, the people were aroused, they had acquired a good military organization, they were determined to have an adequate navy, they had come to see the need of common effort, they were ready for a better financial system, and they were fighting their battles better than before. When the struggle was over, the whole system of inefficiency was a thing of the past. From that time to the present the nation has never gone back to the old state of unpreparedness, the army has been better organized, the navy has been respectable, and the national resources have been held in hand with a reasonable sense of national needs. The war of 1812 was worth all it cost in national humiliation; for it taught the American people to take seriously its function of national defense.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

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BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The general works on the period treated in this chapter are the books by Adams, McMaster, Schouler, Hildreth, and Wilson (see page 312), and Babcock, Rise of American Nationality (1906). Adams's treatment (vols. VI-IX) is the fullest, the best presented, and most scholarly, and it contains many extracts from original documents. Most histories of this period show too much sense of humiliation at the conduct of the war. It is perhaps a federalist survival. The war was badly conducted, and the people of the time were chagrined at its failures, but the historian may well suppress his feelings in order to unfold the patent causes of the failure. The only considerable work in this better spirit is Mahan, Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (1905).

The sources, legislative, diplomatic, executive, administrative, and others, are the same as for the preceding chapters (see page 312). Niles, Weekly Register, 76 vols. (1811-1849), begins to be valuable for this period. See also, Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, vol. III, chap. XIX (1906), and MacDonald, Select Documents (1898).

On the British side see Martineau, History of England, 4 vols. (American edition, 1864). Volume I deals with the years 1800-1815. The treatment is unsatisfactory, but an adequate history of England for this period remains to be written. Broderick and Fotheringham, The Political History of England (Hunt and Poole, editors), vol. XI (1906), treats the period in a condensed and dry manner, six pages being given to the war with the United States. Valuable documents are in Castlereagh, Correspondence, vols. VIII-X (1851-1853). See also the two English series, Parliamentary Debates (Cobbett) and Parliamentary Papers, and The Annual Register, 1810-1815. The best Canadian works are: Kingsford, History of Canada, 10 vols. (1887-1898), not always reliable for details; and Withrow, Popular History of the Dominion of Canada (1899).

Besides the biographies and writings of leading men cited on previous pages (see pages 275, 312) the following are useful: Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, 2 vols. (1887); Morse, Life of John Quincy Adams (1882); C. F. Adams, editor, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 12 vols. (1874-1877); Writings of John Quincy Adams (Ford, ed., 1913-); and Kennedy, Memoir of the Life of William Wirt, 2 vols. (ed. 1860).

Military Operations. On the American side the documents will be found in abundance in the American State Papers, Military Affairs, vol. I, and Naval Affairs, vol. I. Adams, History of the United States, vols. VI-IX, contains the best American account. It contains valuable extracts from reports. See also: C. J. Ingersoll, Second War between the United States and Great Britain, 4 vols. in two series (18451849, 1852), strongly republican; Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812 (1868), not always accurate in details; Brackenridge, History of the Late War between the United States and Great Britain (1817 and many later editions), a straightforward narrative; Johnson, History of the War of 1812-1815 (1882), clear and readable; and Soley, Wars of the United States, in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, vol. VII, contains good bibliography. The following special works are also useful: McAfee, History of the Late War in the Western Country (1816); Dawson, Civil and Military Services of Major General William Henry Harrison (1824); Cruikshank, Documentary History of the Campaigns upon the Niagara Frontier (1896-1904); Latour, Historical Memoir of the War in West Florida and Louisiana in 1814-1815 (English translation, 1816); Bassett, Life of Andrew Jackson, 2 vols. (1911); and Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, 3 vols. 1860.

British Operations. Treated in James, Military Occurrences of the Late War, 2 vols. (1818), worth reading, though questioned by American writers; Gleig, Campaigns of the British Army at Washington, Baltimore, and New Orleans (1821), a good account; Richardson, War of 1812 (1842, rev. ed. 1902), deals with the Canadian campaigns; and Tupper, Life and Correspondence of Major General Sir

Isaac Brock (rev. ed. 1847). For contemporary notice see The Annual Register, 1812-1815.

Naval Affairs. The leading American books are: Mahan, Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812, 2 vols. (1905), very judicious; Maclay, History of the United States Navy, 2 vols. (new ed. 1901-1902), readable and generally trustworthy; Maclay, History of American Privateers (1899); Coggeshall, History of the American Privateers and Letters of Marque during our War with England (1856). The British accounts are often at variance with the American accounts. See James, Naval History of Great Britain, vols. IV-VI (1886), Ibid., The Chief Naval Occurrences of the Late War (1817); and Williams, The Liverpool Privateers (1897). On the Treaty of Ghent the documents are to be found in American State Papers, Foreign, vol. III; Gallatin, Writings, and Adams's Memoirs contain valuable information about the negotiations. See also J. Q. Adams, The Duplicate Letters, the Fisheries, and the Mississippi (1822), and Ibid., Writings, W. C. Ford, ed. (1913-). Hildt, Early Diplomatic Negotiations of the United States with Russia (Johns Hopkins, Studies, 1906) has an account of the Russian offer of mediation.

New England Discontent. Adams is the best general authority. Other works are: Adams, Documents Relating to New England Federalism, 1800-1815 (1878); Dwight, History of the Hartford Convention (1833); Carey, The Olive Branch, or Faults on Both Sides (1814, many times reprinted); and Goodrich, Recollections of a Life-time, 2 vols. (1851), contains incidents relating to the Convention.

For Independent Reading

Maclay, A History of American Privateers (1899); Hollis, The Frigate Constitution (1900); _Goodrich, Recollections of a Lifetime, 2 vols. (1851); Dwight, Travels in New England and New York (1821-1822); Stone, Life and Times of Sa-go-ye-wa-ha, or Red Jacket (1841); Brighton, Admiral Sir P. V. Broke (1866); and Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison (1886).

CHAPTER XVI

SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

GROWTH OF THE WEST AND SOUTHWEST

THE vastness of the natural resources of the continent impressed the colonists from the earliest days, and the success of the revolution strengthened this confidence. Masters of their own future, the men of 1783 eagerly looked forward to an era of rapid empire-building. In imagination they saw the interior of the continent settled by many people and divided into rich and happy states. Already the tide of settlement had passed into Kentucky and Tennessee and was beginning to penetrate the region north of the Ohio and south of Lake Erie. Further south a similar movement was rolling back the forests of western Georgia.

Migration.

A glance at the early census returns shows how well the hopes of the men of 1783 were realized. In 1790 the West, exclusive of Georgia, had a population of 109,368, in 1815 the same territory Westward contained about 1,600,000 inhabitants; and in these were not included a very numerous migration from the East to western New York. This progress was achieved at the expense of the older states, which increased in the same period from 3,819,846 to about 6,800,000 inhabitants. As all Europe was then at war, emigration to America was inconsiderable, and the rapid gain in Western population came chiefly from the older states. The South contributed its share to Tennessee and Kentucky, and to the region immediately north of the Ohio. New England was not well adapted to agriculture, and stories of the opportunity in the West carried away a constant stream of humanity from her farms and villages. New England saw their departure with chagrin. The census reports indicate how disastrous it was for her. The population of Connecticut, 237,946 in 1790, was only 275,248 in 1820, and the population of Massachusetts, exclusive of Maine, grew from 378,787 to 523,287 within

the same period. Albany was the immediate objective Western of those who migrated, thence they traversed the Mohawk New York. valley to the rich Genesee lands beyond it, and on to the lake, which was reached at Buffalo about 1800. In all western New York were fertile lands to which the incomers were diverted. They soon passed beyond the state's borders, following the shore of the lake into northern Ohio, and thence into the much greater forest still farther