At this time parties and principles were still plastic. This is illustrated by a letter written in the spring of 1823 to Monroe, by John Taylor, of Caroline, the leading exponent of the orthodox Virginia tenets of state sovereignty. The writer was evidently stirred by the recent publication, in Calhoun's Washington organ, of a series of letters signed A. B., [Footnote: Edwards, Illinois, 525; National Intelligencer, April 21-23, 1823; Am. State Papers Finance, V., 1-145.] in which Crawford was denounced for corrupt dealings with the banks, collusion with slave-traders, and intrigues in general. Calhoun himself had just ended a visit with Taylor when the latter wrote, bitterly condemning the "example of obtaining the presidency by crafty intrigues and pecuniary influence," as tending to transfer power to a moneyed aristocracy. Neither Calhoun nor Adams, in his opinion, was open to this objection, and neither of them, he thought, would prefer a protective tariff to a navy as a means of national defense. While he admitted his ignorance of Adams's views on the subject of division of power between the federal and state governments, he declared that Calhoun had no advantage on this point, for although the latter professed to consider the distribution of powers between the states and the central authority as "a distinguishing pre-eminence in our form of government," yet, in the opinion of Taylor, he destroyed "this pre- eminence by endowing the federal government with a supremacy over the state governments whenever they come in conflict." This was important testimony, following immediately on Calhoun's visit, and coming from the pen of a man who was primarily interested in the question.

In spite of these objections, which would seem to be insuperable from the point of view of this distinguished expositor of state sovereignty, Taylor was ready to take the initiative in a movement against Crawford, if Monroe, Jefferson, and Madison agreed. Although as between Calhoun and Adams, he intimated that "the Missouri question" made a distinction of considerable weight, [Footnote: Taylor to Monroe, April 29, 1823, Monroe Papers, MSS. in Cong. Libr.; cf. "Farmer's" attacks on Crawford as a protectionist, in Richmond Enquirer, noted in Niles' Register, XXIV., 306. See Calhoun to Gouverneur, April 28, 1823, N. Y. Publ. Libr., Bulletin, 1899, p. 324; Adams, Memoirs, VI., 356.] he did not press the point. James Barbour, the other senator from Virginia, also seriously thought of supporting Adams, [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 242, 450-452; see also Taylor's interview with Adams, May 26, 1824, ibid., 356, 357.] and it is clear that the secretary of state at this time was not regarded as unsafe in the Old Dominion. In the spring and summer of 1823, however, Crawford seemed to be clearly in the lead. He was supported by a well-organized press, which took its tone from the Washington newspapers; and until Calhoun, in retaliation, established a paper of his own to denounce Crawford's management of his department, he had effective control of the most influential organs of public opinion. [Footnote: Ibid., 47, 56, 57, 60, 62-64, 66.] He was a master of political manipulation; but among his rivals were men of almost equal skill in this respect.

Clay was again chosen speaker, on his return to the House of Representatives in December, 1823, by a triumphant majority, and, as the session advanced, he and Calhoun, with all the arts of fascinating conversation, plied the old and new members. At this critical period in his campaign, Crawford was overwhelmed by a stroke of paralysis (September, 1823), which wrecked his huge frame and shattered his career. Shut in a darkened room, threatened with blindness and the loss of speech, bled by the doctors twenty-three times in three weeks, unable to sign his official papers with his own hand, he was prevented from conducting his own political battle. But he kept his courage and his purpose, concealing his real condition from all but his most trusted intimates. Not until April, 1824, was he able to attend cabinet meetings, and within a month after that he suffered a relapse, which prevented his active participation in his duties until the fall. [Footnote: National Intelligencer, September 15, 1824; Life of W. W. Seaton, 160; King, Life and Corresp. of King, VI., 539; Adams, Memoirs, VI., 130, 270, 275, 356, 357, 387, 428, 435, 439; Univ. of North Carolina, James Sprunt Hist. Monographs, No. 2, pp. 69, 71; Edwards, Illinois, 492.]

Adams had the New England scruples against urging his cause personally, and took the attitude that the office of president should come from merit, not from manipulation. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, IV., 64, 242, 298, V., 89, 129, 298, 525; Dwight, Travels, I., 266.] Moreover, he saw that the practice of soliciting votes from members of Congress would render the executive subservient to that body. Although his uncompromising temper unfitted him for the tactics of political management, he was an adept in the grand strategy of the contest, and he noted every move of his adversaries. His replies to attacks were crushing, for he had the gift of clear and forcible exposition. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, V., 361, 496- 535, VI., 116-118; King, Life and Corresp. of King, VI., 475; Gallatin, Writings, II., 246.] But his greatest strength in the presidential contest lay in the fact that he was the only promising northern candidate.

Early in the campaign, Calhoun commented on the fact that five candidates were from the slave-holding states—a circumstance which, in his opinion, would give Adams great advantages if he knew how to improve them. [Footnote: Edwards, Illinois, 492.] Naturally, therefore, Adams gained the influential support of Rufus King, the chief antagonist of the slave section. At first decidedly hostile, King's final adhesion was given to him, not out of personal regard, but because he believed that the public should be aroused against "longer submission to a Southern Master.... He is the only northern Candidate, and as between him and the black Candidates I prefer him." [Footnote: King, Life and Corresp. of King, VI., 508, 510.] Steadily Adams increased his following in reluctant New England. [Footnote: Niles' Register, XXIII., 322, 342; Clay, Private Corresp., 98; Adams, Memoirs, VI., 235.] In New York he had an element of strength in the fact that the population was nearly evenly divided between the natives of that state and the settlers from New England. Of the delegation from the state of New York in the seventeenth Congress, for example, those who were born in New England were about equal to those born in the state itself. Nearly forty per cent, of the members of the New York constitutional convention of 1821 were born in New England. [Footnote: King, Life and Corresp. of King, VI., 413; Carter and Stone, Reports of New York Convention, 637; Force, Calendar (1823).] The adhesion of ex- Speaker Taylor, another of the champions of restriction in the Missouri struggle, furnished an able manager in New York.

Even the attitude of Van Buren was for a time in doubt, for he would gladly have retired from politics to accept a place on the bench of the supreme court of the United States; but Adams and King pressed his candidacy for this position in vain upon the president, and Van Buren finally gave his full support to Crawford. [Footnote: King, Life and Corresp. of King, VI., 512-517, 518-527; Adams, Memoirs, VI., 168, 173; Crawford to Van Buren, August 1, 1823, Van Buren Papers (MSS.); Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1904, p. 178.] So little did Adams appreciate the popular movement that was gathering about Jackson's name, that he advised his followers to support the "Old Hero" for the vice-presidency, "a station in which the General could hang no one, and in which he would need to quarrel with no one. His name and character would serve to restore the forgotten dignity of the place, and it would afford an easy and dignified retirement to his old age." [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 333.] In January, 1824, on the anniversary of the victory of New Orleans, Adams gave a great ball, attended by over a thousand people, in honor of his rival. [Footnote: Ibid., 220; Sargent, Public Men and Events, I., 48-51.]

After Jackson's return from the governorship of Florida, in 1821, his star steadily rose in the political horizon. His canvass was conducted by his neighbor, Major Lewis, who was one of the most astute politicians in American history, able subtly to influence the attitude of his volcanic candidate and to touch the springs of political management. On July 20, 1822, the legislature of Tennessee formally nominated the general for the presidency. [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, III., 20; Niles' Register, XXII., 402.]

This gave the signal of revolt by the states against the congressional caucus. Clay rallied his own forces, and in 1822 and 1823 was nominated [Footnote: Niles' Register, XXIII., 245, 342; Ohio Monitor, January 4, 1823; National Republican (Cincinnati), January 14,1823; King, Life and Corresp., VI., 487; Clay, Private Corresp., 70. ] by members of the legislatures of Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, and Louisiana. [Footnote: National Intelligencer, April 12, 1823; Ky. Reporter, April 21. 1823.] Alabama nominated Jackson; and Mississippi, by a tie vote, proposed both Adams and Jackson. [Footnote: McMaster, United States, V., 68.] These nominations by states showed that, however the west might be divided, it was a unit in resistance to the selection of a president by a combination of congressmen. It was believed that the spirit of the Constitution was violated by this method, which made the executive depend on the legislative body for nomination; and that a minority candidate might win by the caucus. This became the rallying cry of Jackson, whose canvass was conducted on the issue of the right of the people to select their president; [Footnote: Sargent, Public Men and Events, I., 57; Parton, Jackson, III., 17, 40, 41.] and the prevalent discontent and industrial depression made the voters responsive to this idea. The movement was one of permanent significance in American history, for it represented the growth of democracy, and led the way to the institution of the national nominating convention.

In the fall of 1823, Tennessee returned Jackson to the Senate, having chosen him over one of the prominent leaders of the Crawford party, and, shortly afterwards, the legislature sent to the other states a vigorous resolution, asking them to unite in putting down the congressional caucus. [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, III., 21; Niles' Register, XXV., 114, 137, 197, 292; McMaster, United States, V., 60; Tyler, Tylers, I., 341; Richmond Enquirer, January 1, 6, 13, 1824.] In Virginia and many other states the Tennessee resolutions gave rise to agitation which strengthened the popular feeling against congressional dictation. [Footnote: McMaster, United States, V., 60-62, 64; Dallinger, Nominations, 19 n., 54.] Although Adams at first considered the congressional caucus as one of the "least obnoxious modes of intrigue," he also finally threw his influence against the system and announced that he would not accept a nomination by that body. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 191, 236.]

Realizing that, in spite of his illness, Crawford could command the largest following in Congress, the friends of all the other candidates united their forces in an effort to prevent the meeting of the caucus. Already it was evident to the Georgian's supporters that the only thing that could bring him the victory was insistence upon party unity and discipline, and on February 14, 1824, sixty-six of the two hundred and sixteen Democrats in Congress gathered for the last congressional caucus which nominated a president. That these were practically all Crawford men was shown by his nomination with only four opposing votes. [Footnote: Dallinger, Nominations, 19; Niles' Register, XXV., 388-392, 403; Hammond, Pol. Hist, of N.Y., II., 149; McMaster, United States, V., 64; Life of W.W. Seaton, 173; Annals of Cong., 18 Cong., I Sess., I., 358.] Gallatin had been persuaded to return from Paris, and he received the nomination for vice-president, in order to hold the state of Pennsylvania in Crawford's column; but it proved a forlorn hope, for this old companion-in-arms of Jefferson found Pennsylvania "Jackson mad."

Calhoun, seeing that he had lost the northern state on which he had founded his hopes of success, and despairing of making inroads upon Crawford's southern forces after the congressional caucus, sought his political fortunes in an alliance with his rival. [Footnote: Clay, Private Corresp., 87.] The result was that, in a state nominating convention held at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (March 4, 1824), Jackson was almost unanimously nominated by that state for president, and Calhoun was named for the vice-presidency. In vain the managers of Crawford sought to throw discredit upon Jackson by the publication of his correspondence with Monroe, in which he had pleaded for recognition of the Federalists; [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, II., 357, III., 20; Monroe, Writings.] the letters added to his strength, and finally Gallatin was induced to withdraw from the unequal contest, in order that an attempt might be made to persuade Henry Clay to accept the vice-presidency under Crawford. [Footnote: Gallatin, Works, II., 297-300; Adams, Life of Gallatin, 604; Clay, Private Corresp., 100-103; Sargent, Public Men and Events, I., 57.]

The conflict was not entirely a matter of personal politics. Jackson had raised the popular movement against the congressional caucus into a distinct issue—the right of the people to choose their own president. Clay's "American system" of internal improvements and the protective tariff furnished others. We have seen that these subjects were hotly debated in Congress during the spring months of 1824. As the pre-eminent champion of these interests, Clay had a large following in the states of the Ohio Valley, as well as in New York The early popularity of Calhoun in Pennsylvania was also due, in part, to his record as a friend of tariff and internal improvements. Upon that subject, on July 3, 1824, he gave an exposition of his constitutional principles to Garnett, of Virginia, in which he showed some tendency to moderate his position. [Footnote: Houston, Nullification in S. C., 143.] When interrogated upon his views in respect to the tariff, Jackson replied, in a letter to Coleman, avowing himself a moderate protectionist and a supporter of the doctrine of the promotion of manufactures in order to create a home market; and in the Senate he voted for the tariff of 1824, and in favor of internal improvements. [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, III., 34, 35; Niles' Register, XXVI., 245; Wheeler, Hist, of Cong., II., 231.] Crawford was embarrassed by the need of reconciling his southern support with his following in the middle states upon these subjects. While his treasury reports indicated a preference for a revenue tariff, they were sufficiently ambiguous to create opposition in the south and a loss of support in the north. The issue of internal improvements he evaded by professing himself in favor of a constitutional amendment, for which he tried in vain to secure the support of his friends in the Georgia legislature. [Footnote: King, Life and Corresp. of King, VI., 496, 500; Niles' Register, XXIV, 306; Gilmer, Sketches, 294.]

Adams announced that his policy with reference to the opposing interests of the country was "conciliation, not collision"; but he declared that there was no constitutional question involved, either in the tariff or in internal improvements, [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 353, 451; cf. 343.] and he was frankly in favor of the latter, while he professed himself satisfied with the tariff of 1824, as a reasonable compromise between the conflicting interests. If changed at all, he believed that the tariff should be reduced. An attempt was made to bring him into disrepute in the south for his negotiation of a convention in 1824 with England for the international regulation of the slave-trade. This subject had been forced upon his reluctant attention early in his career as secretary of state. While he was willing to join in declaring that traffic piracy, he was very proud of his record as a steadfast opponent of the right of search in any form. It was too valuable political capital to be given up, even if he had not espoused the cause with all his energy. To all propositions, therefore, for conceding the right of search of suspected slavers, Adams had turned a deaf ear, as he did to proposals of mixed courts to try cases of capture. But in the convention of 1824, declaring the slave-trade piracy under the law of nations, he had offered to concede the right of British vessels to cruise along our coasts to intercept slavers, and this clause the Senate struck out, whereupon England refused to ratify it.[Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 321, 338, 345; Monroe, Writings, VII., 22; King, Life and Corresp. of King, 571, 572; DuBois, Slave Trade, 139, 140.]

On the whole, however, while candidates were forced to declare themselves on important questions, and while there were distinct sectional groupings in Congress, which revealed conflicting interests in economic policy, issues were not clearly drawn in this campaign. Indeed, it was difficult for any one of the candidates to stand on a clear-cut platform without losing some of the support essential to his success. "Could we hit upon a few great principles, and unite their support with that of Crawford," wrote his friend Cobb, shortly before the election, "we could succeed beyond doubt." [Footnote: Cobb, Leisure Labors, 216; Shepard, Van Buren, 92.]

As the year 1824 drew towards its close, the heat of the struggle was transferred to New York. Nowhere was the revulsion of popular feeling against caucus control more clearly manifested than in that state. The feeling was aggravated by the fact that the Albany Regency, under Van Buren, stubbornly refused to concede the popular demand for the repeal of the state law for choice of presidential electors by the legislature. The political machine's control of the legislature insured New York's vote to Crawford; but if the choice were confided to the people, no one could predict the result. Out of these conditions a new combination sprang up in New York, which took the name of the "People's party," and sought not only to transfer the choice of electors to the people, but to overturn the Albany Regency. So rapidly did the discordant elements of New York Clintonians and anti-Clintonians combine in this party, that Crawford's managers, in an effort to break the combination, introduced a resolution in the legislature removing DeWitt Clinton from his office of canal commissioner. The purpose was to split the People's party by compelling its members to revive their old antagonisms by taking sides for or against Clinton. Although the resolution was carried by a decisive majority, the indignity placed upon the champion of the Erie Canal aroused popular resentment and increased the revolt against the Regency. In September, 1824, the People's party met in a state convention at Utica and nominated Clinton for governor. [Footnote: On the New York campaign, see Rammelkamp, Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1904, p. 177; Hammond, Pol, Hist, of N. Y., II., chaps, xxix.-xxxii.; Weed, Autobiography, chap. xv.; McMaster, United States, V., 71-73.]

While this campaign (which resulted in an overwhelming victory for the People's party) was in progress, the legislature met to choose electors. So clearly marked was the trend of public opinion that many members broke away from their allegiance to Crawford. The Senate nominated electors favorable to him, but in the Assembly the Adams men predominated, although they were not in a majority. After several days of deadlock, a combination ticket, made up of Adams electors and certain Clay men who had been named on the Senate's ticket, was suddenly presented to the Assembly and passed, with the aid of Crawford men, who thought that if the matter could be brought to a joint ballot they could then win and exclude Clay from the contest. But the Adams men had conciliated the supporters of Clay by guaranteeing to them five electoral votes, which were expected, if the ultimate choice of the president should come to the House of Representatives, to make Clay one of the three candidates before that body. [Footnote: Clay, Private Corresp., 99, 104, 106; National Intelligencer, September 15, 1824; Van Buren to Crawford, November 17, 1824; Van Buren Papers (Cong. Libr.).] The Clay following, therefore, supported the Adams ticket on the joint ballot, with the result that Adams secured 25 electors, Clay 7, and Crawford 4. When the electoral college met in December, Clay lost three of his votes, so that New York finally gave 26 to Adams, 5 to Crawford, 4 to Clay, and 1 to Jackson. Thus the Adams men had failed to carry out their agreement with the followers of Clay; had not these three Clay votes been withdrawn he would have tied Crawford for third place. Louisiana, although New York's electoral college voted in ignorance of the fact, had already deserted Clay. [Footnote: N. Y. American, December 3, 1824; N. Y. Com. Adv., December 14, 1824; Weed, Autobiography, 128, is in error; L. E. Aylsworth, Clay in Elec. of 1824 (MS. thesis).] The choice of electors in Louisiana was made by the legislature, in the absence of several Clay men, and the combined Jackson and Adams ticket received a majority of only two votes over Clay. [Footnote: Sargent, Public Men and Events, I., 67; Niles' Register, XXVII., 257; Adams, Memoirs, VI., 446.] Thus vanished the latter's hopes of becoming one of the three candidates to be voted on by the House of Representatives.

In the country as a whole, Jackson received 99 electoral votes, Adams 84, Crawford 41, and Clay 37. For the vice-presidency, Calhoun was chosen by a vote of 182, while Sanford, of New York, received the vote of Ohio, together with a portion of that of Kentucky and New York; Virginia voted for Macon, of North Carolina; Georgia for Van Buren; and scattering votes were given for Jackson and Clay. No presidential candidate had a majority, and, in accordance with the Constitution, the House of Representatives was to decide between the three highest candidates.

To Clay, powerful in Congress, fell the bitter honor of deciding between his rivals. Jackson had a decisive plurality of the electoral vote, and even the Kentucky legislature, under the dominance of the "relief party, "urged the representatives from that state to cast their vote in his favor.[Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 446.] But although Jackson was popular in the west, Clay had long been hostile to the candidacy of this military chieftain, and could not well alter his opinion. Moreover, Clay's presidential ambitions stood in the way of this choice. It would not have been easy for him to become Jackson's successor, both because of the difficulty of electing two successive candidates from the west and because Calhoun had already anticipated him in the alliance. With Crawford, he was on better terms; but that candidate was clearly in the minority, his health was gravely impaired, and his following was made up largely of the opponents of the policies which Clay represented.[Footnote: Ibid., VII., 4; Niles' Register, XXVII., 386.] He determined, therefore, to use his influence in behalf of Adams—the rival who had borne away from him the secretaryship of state and whose foreign policy had been the target of his most persistent attacks. On the other hand, the recognition of the Spanish-American republics and the announcement of the Monroe Doctrine had made Adams in a sense the heir of Clay's own foreign policy, and, in the matter of tariff and internal improvements, Adams was far more in accord with him than was Crawford.

As the day approached on which the House was to make its choice, friends of Clay, including his "messmate," Letcher, of Kentucky, sought Adams to convey to him the friendly attitude of Clay and their hope that their chieftain might serve himself by supporting Adams.[Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 447, 457, 473-475.] They made it perfectly clear that by this they intended to suggest for Clay a membership in his cabinet. Without giving explicit promises, Adams made it equally clear to these visitors that, if he were chosen by the votes of western delegations, he should naturally look to the west for much of the support that he should need. In short, Adams's diary, like a book of judgment, shows that he walked perilously, if safely, along the edge of his conscience at this time. "Incedo super ignes,"[Footnote: Ibid., 453.] he wrote—"I walk over fires." But his diary records no vulgar bargaining with Clay, although he talked over with him the general principles which he would follow in his administration.

The adhesion of Clay by no means assured Adams's election: the result was not fully certain until the actual vote was given. Missouri and Illinois were long in doubt,[Footnote: Ibid., 469.] and in the case of both of these states the vote was cast by a single person. Cook, of Illinois, was a personal friend of Adams, and, although the plurality of the electoral vote of that state had been in favor of Jackson, Cook, giving a strained interpretation of his pre-election promises to follow the will of his constituency, cast his vote in favor of Adams. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 443, 473, 476, 495; Edwards, Illinois, 261-265.] With Scott, of Missouri, Adams made his peace in an interview wherein he gave him assurances with respect to newspaper patronage and the retention of his brother, a judge in Arkansas territory, who was threatened with the loss of his office because he had killed his colleague in a duel. He also secured the vote of Louisiana, by the one delegate who held the balance of power; and he won the Maryland member who had its decisive vote, by the statement given through Webster, that his administration would not proscribe the Federalists. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 492, 499; Webster, Writings (National ed.), XVII., 378.] Friends of all the other candidates were busy in proposing combinations and making promises which cannot be traced to their principals. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 476, 495, 513; Clay, Private Corresp., 109, 111; Parton, Jackson, III., 56.]

When the vote was taken, Adams was found to have thirteen states, Jackson seven, and Crawford four. [Footnote: See map.] Adams controlled New England, New York, and the Ohio Valley, with the exception of Indiana, together with Maryland, Missouri, and Louisiana. The grouping of the Jackson vote showed a union of the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey with South Carolina, Tennessee, and the cotton states of the southwest. The Crawford territory included Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware. Van Buren had received the electoral vote of Georgia for the vice- presidency, and he still exercised a powerful influence in New York. Adams had to face, therefore, the possibility of a union between two of the ablest politicians in the nation, Calhoun and Van Buren, both of whom saw that their political fortunes were involved in the triumph of Andrew Jackson; and Jackson's popularity was extraordinary even in the western states which voted for Adams. Even as he saw victory approaching, the New England leader was filled with gloomy forebodings over the prospects. "They are nattering for the immediate issue," he recorded in his diary, "but the fearful condition of them is that success would open to a far severer trial than defeat."



CHAPTER XVI

PRESIDENT ADAMS AND THE OPPOSITION (1825-1827)

For eight years President Monroe had administered the executive department of the federal government-years that have been called the "Era of Good Feeling." The reader who has followed the evidences of factional controversy among the rival presidential candidates in the cabinet, and noted the wide-spread distress following the panic of 1819, the growing sectional jealousies, the first skirmishes in the slavery struggle, and the clamor of a democracy eager to assert its control and profoundly distrustful of the reigning political powers, will question the reality of this good feeling. On the other hand, in spite of temporary reverses, the nation as a whole was bounding with vigor in these years of peace after war; and if in truth party was not dead, and a golden age had not yet been given to the American people, at least the heat of formal party contest had been for a time allayed. The bitterness of political warfare in the four years which we are next to consider might well make the administration of the last of the Virginia dynasty seem peaceful and happy by contrast.

Monroe's presidential career descended to a close in a mellow sunset of personal approval, despite the angry clouds that gathered on the horizon. He had grown in wisdom by his experiences, and, although not a genius, he had shown himself able, by patient and dispassionate investigation, to reach judgments of greater value than those of more brilliant but less safe statesmen. Candor, fair- mindedness, and magnanimity were attributed to him even by those who were engaged in bitter rivalry for the office which he now laid down. He was not rapid or inflexible in his decisions between the conflicting views of his official family; but in the last resort he chose between policies, accepted responsibility, and steered the ship of state between the shoals and reefs that underlay the apparently placid sea of the "Era of Good Feeling." How useful were his services in these transitional years appeared as soon as John Quincy Adams grasped, with incautious hands, the helm which Monroe relinquished.[Footnote: On Monroe's personal traits, see Adams, Memoirs, IV., 240 et passim; J. Q. Adams, Eulogy on the Life and Character of James Monroe; Schouler, United States, IV., 201-207.] "Less possessed of your confidence in advance than any of my predecessors," wrote President Adams, in his first annual message, "I am deeply conscious of the prospect that I shall stand more and oftener in need of your indulgence." In his reply to the notification of his election by the House, after adverting to the fact that one of his competitors had received a larger minority of the electoral vote than his own, he declared that, if his refusal of the office would enable the people authoritatively to express their choice, he should not hesitate to decline; [Footnote: Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 293.] he believed that perhaps two-thirds of the people were adverse to the result of the election.[Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VII., 98; cf. ibid., VI., 481.] In truth, the position of the new president was a delicate one, and he was destined neither to obtain the indulgence asked nor the popular ratification which he craved. By receiving his office from the hands of the House of Representatives in competition with a candidate who had a larger electoral vote, he fell heir to the popular opposition which had been aroused against congressional intrigue, and especially against the selection of the president by the congressional caucus. More than this, it was charged that Clay's support was the result of a corrupt bargain, by which the Kentucky leader was promised the office of secretary of state. This accusation was first publicly made by an obscure Pennsylvania member, George Kremer, who, in an unsigned communication to a newspaper, when Clay's decision to vote for Adams was first given out, reported that overtures were said to have been made by the friends of Adams to the friends of Clay, offering him the appointment of secretary of state for his aid to elect Adams; and that the friends of Clay gave this information to the friends of Jackson, hinting that for the same price they would close with the Tennesseean. When these overtures, said the writer, were rejected, Clay transferred his interest to Adams. [Footnote: Niles' Register, XXVII., 353.]

Stung to the quick, Clay rushed into print with a denunciation of the writer as a dastard and a liar, and held him responsible to the laws which govern men of honor. [Footnote: Ibid., 355.] In reply to this evident invitation to a duel, Kremer avowed his authorship and his readiness to prove his charges. If Clay had known the identity of his traducer, he would hardly have summoned him to the field of honor, for Kremer was a well-meaning but credulous and thick-headed rustic noted solely for his leopard-skin overcoat. The speaker, therefore, abandoned his first idea, and asked of the House an investigation of the charges, which Kremer reiterated his readiness to prove. But when the investigating committee was ready to take testimony, the Pennsylvania congressman refused to appear. He was, in fact, the tool of Jackson's managers, who greatly preferred to let the scandal go unprobed by Congress. If Clay transferred his following to Adams, the charge would gain credence with the masses; if he were not made secretary of state, it would be alleged that honest George Kremer had exposed the bargain and prevented its consummation. In vain, in two successive and elaborate addresses, [Footnote: Address of 1825 and of 1827, in Clay, Works (Colton's ed.), V., 299, 341.] did Clay marshal evidence that, before he left Kentucky, he had determined to vote for Adams in preference to Crawford or Jackson, and that there was no proof of Kremer's charge. [Footnote: Clay, Address to the Public (1827), 52; ibid., Works (Colton's ed.), IV., 109; Adams, Memoirs, VII., 4.] In vain was evidence produced to show that friends of Jackson [Footnote: Clay, Works (Colton's ed.), I., chaps. xvi., xvii.; Parton, Jackson, III., 56, 110-116.] and Crawford [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 464, 513, VII., 91.] solicited Clay's support by even more unblushing offers of political reward than those alleged against Adams. To the end of his career, the charge remained a stumbling-block to Clay's ambitions, and the more he denounced and summoned witnesses [Footnote: See, for example, testimony of congressmen, Niles' Register, XXVIII., 69, 133, 134, 203; Address of David Trimble (1828).] the more the scandal did its poisonous work.

After all, it was Adams who gave the charge immortality. Even if he had appreciated the power of public feeling he would not have hesitated. If the accusation was a challenge to the spirited Kentuckian, it was a call to duty to the Puritan. Two days after his election, Adams, asking Monroe's advice about the composition of the cabinet, announced that he had already determined to appoint Clay secretary of state, "considering it due," said he, "to his talents and services to the western section of the Union, whence he comes, and to the confidence in me manifested by their delegations." [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 508.] Clay spoke lightly of the threatened opposition as a mere temporary ebullition of disappointment at the issue of the election, [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 509.] and after a short interval accepted the appointment. [Footnote: For his reasons, see Clay, Works (Colton's ed.), IV., 114, 192.]

Up to this time Jackson had kept his temper remarkably; but now that Adams had called to the department of state the man who made him president, the man who justified his choice by the statement that Jackson was a "military chieftain," the great deep of his wrath was stirred. Clay seemed to him the "Judas of the West," and he wrote a letter, probably for publication, passionately defending the disinterestedness of his military services, calling attention to the fact that Clay had never yet risked himself for his country, and soothing himself in defeat by this consolation: "No midnight taper burnt by me; no secret conclaves were held; no cabals entered into to persuade any one to a violation of pledges given or of instructions received. By me no plans were concerted to impair the pure principles of our republican institutions, nor to prostrate that fundamental maxim, which maintains the supremacy of the people's will." [Footnote: Niles' Register, XXVIII., 20; Parton, Jackson, III., 77.]

On his way back to Tennessee, he spread broadcast in conversation his conviction that "honest George Kremer" had exposed a corrupt bargain between Clay and Adams, [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, III., 107.] and to this belief he stuck through the rest of his life, appealing, when his witnesses failed him, to the stubborn fact of Clay's appointment. [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, III., 110-116.] In October, 1825, Tennessee renominated Jackson, who accepted, and resigned his seat in the Senate, accompanying his action with a plea for a constitutional amendment rendering congressmen ineligible to office during their term of service and for two years thereafter, except in cases of judicial appointment. The purpose was evidently to wage a new campaign to give effect to "the will of the people." [Footnote: Ibid., III., 95; Niles' Register, XXIX., 155.]

Although he realized that an organized opposition would be formed, Adams sought to give a non-partisan character to his administration. [Footnote: Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 295-297.] In spite of the low opinion expressed in his diary for the honesty and political rectitude of the secretary of the treasury, he asked him to retain his office, but Crawford refused. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 506, 508.] Ascertaining that Gallatin would also decline the place, [Footnote: Ibid., Life of Gallatin, 607; Gallatin, Writings, II., 301.] he appointed Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, then serving as minister to England. Jackson's friends made it clear that he would take unkindly the offer of the department of war, and Adams gave that office to James Barbour, of Virginia. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 510; cf. ibid., 450.] He retained Southard, of New Jersey, as secretary of the navy, William Wirt, of Virginia, as attorney-general, and McLean, of Ohio, as postmaster-general. The latter selection proved peculiarly unfortunate, since it gave the influence and the patronage of the post-office to the friends of Jackson. For the mission to England, he first selected Clinton, and after his refusal he persuaded Rufus King to take the post. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 523.] Since King's acceptance of the senatorship at the hands of the Van Buren element in New York, he had been less a representative of the Federalists than in his earlier days; but the appointment met in some measure the obligations which Adams owed to supporters in that party.

Far from organizing party machinery and using the federal office- holders as a political engine, he rigidly refused to introduce rotation in office at the expiration of the term of the incumbent—a principle which "would make the Government a perpetual and unintermitting scramble for office." [Footnote: Ibid., 521.] He determined to renominate every person against whom there was no complaint which would have warranted his removal. By this choice he not only retained many outworn and superfluous officers and thus fostered a bureaucratic feeling, [Footnote: Fish, Civil Service, 76- 78.] but he also furnished to his enemies local managers of the opposition, for these office-holders were, in general, appointees of Crawford, in his own interest, or of McLean, in the interest of Calhoun and Jackson.

So rigidly did Adams interpret his duty in the matter that only twelve removals altogether were made during his term. [Footnote: Fish, Civil Service, 72.] He even retained the surveyor of the port of Philadelphia, whose negligence had occasioned the loss of large sums of money to the government and whose subordinates were hostile to Adams. Under such conditions, the friends of the administration had to contend not only against their enemies, but against the Adams administration itself, which left its power in the hands of its enemies to be wielded against its friends. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VII., 163.] Binns, the editor of one of the leading administration papers, in an interview was informed that the president did not intend to make any removals. "I bowed respectfully," said the editor, "assuring the president that I had no doubt the consequence would be that he himself would be removed so soon as the term for which he had been elected had expired. This intimation gave the president no concern." [Footnote: Parton, Jackson, III., 92; Adams, Memoirs, VII., 154.]

Another illustration of his tenacity in this matter, even in opposition to the wishes of Henry Clay, was his refusal to remove a naval officer at New Orleans who had made preparations for a public demonstration to insult a member of Congress who had assisted in electing Adams. Clay believed that the administration "should avoid, on the one hand, political persecution, and, on the other, an appearance of pusillanimity." But the president refused to remove a man for an intention not carried into effect, and particularly because he could frame no general policy applicable to this case which would not result in a clean sweep. Four-fifths of the custom officers throughout the Union, he thought, were opposed to his election. To depart in one case from the rule which he had laid down against removals would be to expose himself to demands from all parts of the country. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 546.]

The president who rejected these favorite instruments of political success was unable to find compensation in personal popularity or the graces of manner. Cold and repellent, he leaned backward in his desire to do the right, and alienated men by his testy and uncompromising reception of advances. And yet there never was a president more in need of conciliating, for already the forces of the opposition were forming. Even before his election he had been warned that the price of his victory would be an organized opposition to the measures of the administration, [Footnote: Ibid., 476, 481, 495, 506, 510.] and that Calhoun and his friends in South Carolina and Pennsylvania would be the leaders. [Footnote: Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1899, II., 230, 231; Calhoun, Works, III., 51; Sargent, Public Men and Events, I., 106, 109.]

The union of the opposition forces into a party was perfected slowly, for between Crawford, Jackson, and Calhoun there had been sharp rivalry. Virginia by no means relished the idea of the promotion of the military hero; and in New York Jackson had been sustained by Clinton in 1824 against Crawford, the candidate of Van Buren. The Senate ratification of the nomination of Clay (March 7, 1825) foreshadowed the alliance of southern interests with those of Pennsylvania; [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 525, VII., 69.] but only fourteen votes, including that of Jackson, were mustered against him, while among the twenty-seven who ratified the nomination was Van Buren. By the opening of the nineteenth Congress, in December, 1825, however, the situation might well have convinced Adams of the need of caution. Taylor, the administration candidate for speaker, was elected by a majority of only five against his opponents' combined vote, and, in the Senate, Calhoun appointed committees unfriendly to the president.

Nevertheless, in his first annual message [Footnote: Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 299.] Adams challenged his critics by avowing the boldest doctrines of loose construction. The tide of sentiment in favor of internal improvements was so strong [Footnote: Jefferson, Writings (Ford's ed.), X., 348.] that, to insure its complete success, it would have been necessary only for the executive to cease to interpose the checks which Monroe had placed upon this movement. Prudence would have dictated to a president anxious to enlarge his following the avoidance of irritating utterances upon this point. But Adams characteristically threw away his opportunity, choosing rather to make extreme proposals which he realized had slight chance of success, and to state broad principles of national power.

In this respect he went even further than Clay approved. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VII., 59, 61-63.] Defining the object of civil government as the improvement of the condition of those over whom it is established, not only did he urge the construction of roads and canals, but, in his enlarged view of internal improvements, he included the establishment of a national university, the support of observatories, "light-houses of the skies," and the exploration of the interior of the United States and of the northwest coast. Appealing to the example of European nations, as well as of various states of the Union, he urged Congress to pass laws for the promotion of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, the "encouragement of the mechanic and of the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the sciences, ornamental and profound." "Were we," he asked, "to slumber in indolence or fold up our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away the bounties of Providence and doom ourselves to perpetual inferiority?" Such a profession of faith as this sounded strangely in the ears of Americans, respectful of their constituents and accustomed to regard government as a necessary evil. At a stroke, Adams had destroyed his fair prospects of winning the support of Virginia, and, what is more, he had aroused the fears of the whole slave-holding section.

At the beginning of 1824 the legislature of Ohio passed a resolution in favor of the emancipation and colonization of the adult children of slaves, and was supported by the legislatures of at least six northern states, including Pennsylvania, while the proposal was attacked by all the states of the lower south. [Footnote: Ames, State Docs. on Federal Relations, No. 5, p. II (with citations); McMaster, United States, V., 204.] This followed soon after the excitement aroused by an attempted Negro insurrection in Charleston, [Footnote: McMaster, United States, V., 199; Atlantic Monthly, VII., 728.] in 1822, and from the fears aroused by this plot the south had not yet recovered. Already Governor Wilson, of South Carolina, was sounding the alarm in a message [Footnote: December 1, 1824. Ames, State Docs. on Federal Relations, No. 5, p. 13; Niles' Register, XXVII., 263, 292.] denouncing the Ohio proposition, and declaring that there would be more "glory in forming a rampart with our bodies on the confines of our territory than to be the victims of a successful rebellion or the slaves of a great consolidated government." Governor Troup, of Georgia, stirred by the same proposition, and especially by a resolution which Senator King, of New York, submitted (February 18, 1825) for the use of the funds arising from the public lands to aid in emancipating and removing the slaves, warned his constituents that very soon "the United States government, discarding the mask, will openly lend itself to a combination of fanatics for the destruction of everything valuable in the southern country"; and he entreated the legislature, "having exhausted the argument, to stand by its arms." [Footnote: Ames, State Docs. on Federal Relations, No. 5, p. 17; House Exec. Docs., 19 Cong., 2 Sess., IV., No. 59, pp. 69, 70.] While Georgia was in this frame of mind, the administration, as we shall see, [Footnote: Chap, xviii., below.] completed the breach by refusing to permit the survey of the Indian lands by the state, and thus forced the followers of Crawford in Georgia to unite with their former opponents in South Carolina.

Even in North Carolina, where there had been a considerable sentiment in favor of Adams, [Footnote: Univ. of North Carolina, James Sprunt Hist. Monographs, No. 2, pp. 79, 88, 106.] the conviction grew strong that, under such a loose construction of the Constitution as that which his message advocated, the abolition of slavery might be effected. The venerable Senator Macon, to whom Adams had at one time looked as a possible candidate for the vice- presidency, believed that the spirit of emancipation was stronger than that for internal improvements; and that the president's loose- construction doctrine would render it possible for Congress to free every slave. [Footnote: Ibid., 76, 106, 107.] One of the senators of South Carolina, desirous of supporting the administration in opposition to the Calhoun faction, begged Adams to include in his message some passage reassuring the south in the matter of slavery, but he received a chilling reply. [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VII., 57.] The speaker, Taylor, already obnoxious because of his previous championship of the proposed exclusion of slavery from Missouri, aroused the wrath of the south by presenting to the House a memorial from a "crazy Frenchman," who invited Congress to destroy all the states which should refuse to free their slaves. [Footnote: Ibid., 103.] In short, there was a wide-spread though absolutely unfounded fear that the administration favored emancipation, and that the doctrines avowed in the message of the president gave full constitutional pretext for such action.

On the other hand, the opposition was in no agreement on principles. [Footnote: Univ. of North Carolina, James Sprunt Hist. Monographs, No. 2, p. 79.] It was dangerous for the south to marshal its forces on an issue which might alienate the support of Pennsylvania. Much more safely could the enemies of the president press the charge that the favorite of the people had been deprived of his rights by a corrupt political intrigue. Consequently, a flood of proposed amendments to the Constitution poured upon both branches of Congress day after day, demanding the abolition of the choice of president by the House of Representatives and the exclusion of members of Congress from appointment to executive office during their term of service. [Footnote: Ames, Amendments to the Const., in Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1896, II., 21, 106, 339, 343.]

These measures were championed by McDuffie, Benton, and other friends of Calhoun and Jackson. Although they were undoubtedly called out in part by a sincere desire to effect a change in a system which was regarded as dangerous, they also served admirably the purpose of popular agitation. In pursuance of the same policy, a report proposing restrictions upon the executive patronage was made in the Senate (1826) by a committee which included Benton and Van Buren. This was accompanied by six bills, transferring a large share of the patronage from the president to the congressmen, and proposing the repeal of the four-year tenure of office act. [Footnote: Fish, Civil Service, 73; McMaster, United States, V., 432.] Six thousand copies of this report were printed for distribution, and the Puritan president, so scrupulous in the matter of the civil service that he disgusted his own followers, found himself bitterly attacked throughout the country as a corrupt manipulator of patronage.

The first fully organized opposition, however, was effected in the debates over Adams's proposal to send delegates to the Panama Congress, for here was a topic that permitted combined attack under many flags. In the spring of 1825 the ministers of Mexico and Colombia sounded Clay to ascertain whether the United States would welcome an invitation to a congress [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, VI., 531, 536, 542; International Am. Conference, Reports, etc., IV., "The Congress of 1826 at Panama," 23.] initiated by Bolivar, with the design of consolidating the Spanish-American policy, though at first the United States had not been included among the states invited. [Footnote: International Am. Conference, Reports, etc., IV., "The Congress of 1826 at Panama," 155.] Clay was predisposed to accept the overture, for he saw in the congress an opportunity to complete the American system, which he had long advocated and which appealed strongly to his idealistic view of the destiny of the new republics. [Footnote: See chap, xi., above.] But Adams was skeptical of the future of these new nations, and, as for an American system, he had once (1820) declared that we had one already, "we constituted the whole of it; there is no community of interests or of principles between North and South America." [Footnote: Adams, Memoirs, V., 176; cf. Am. Hist. Rev., XII., 113.]

Adams had learned something from Clay in the mean time, however, and his own share in announcing the Monroe Doctrine inclined him to favor the idea of such a congress, under careful restrictions, to safeguard our neutrality and independence. So the inquiries were met in a friendly spirit, and formal invitations were received from Mexico, Colombia, and Central America in the fall of 1825, defining more clearly the purposes of the congress and the mode of procedure. [Footnote: International Am. Conference, Report, IV., 24-34.] The explanations still left much to be desired, and it may be doubted whether the president would have accepted the invitation had not Clay's zeal influenced his decision.

As its proceedings finally showed, the real purpose of the congress was to form a close union of the new republics against Spain or other nations which might attack them or make colonial settlements in violation of their territory, and to determine the troops and funds to be contributed by each state for this end. Its general assembly was to meet every two years, and, during the war, its members were to be bound by the action of the majority. [Footnote: International Am. Conference, Report, IV., 169 (Bolivar's instructions); 184 (Treaty of Confederation framed by the Panama Congress).] Such an organization was manifestly dangerous to the predominance of the United States, and participation in it was incompatible with our neutrality and independence. Having reason to apprehend that the congress might go to this extent, the president, in determining to accept the invitation, also determined so to limit our representatives that they should have no power to commit either our neutrality or our independent action, unless their action were ratified by the government.

Nevertheless, the prospect of an American system from which the United States was excluded was not a pleasing one, and certain topics which were suggested for consideration made the situation really critical. The presence of a large French fleet off the coast of Cuba, in the summer of 1825, revived the apprehension of an invasion of that island, and both Colombia and Mexico contemplated an attack upon this remaining stronghold of Spain. The annexation of Cuba and Puerto Rico by any of the South American republics would unquestionably have meant the emancipation of the slaves, and already the spectacle of the black republic of Haiti had brought uneasiness to the south. In this juncture the administration endeavored to persuade the South American republics to suspend their expedition, and made overtures for Russian influence to induce Spain to recognize the revolted republics and thus avoid the danger of loss of her remaining possessions.

Adams sent a special message to the Senate (December 26, 1825), nominating two delegates to the Panama Congress. He attempted to disarm the gathering opposition by declaring that, although the commissioning of these delegates was regarded as within the rights of the executive, he desired the advice and consent of the Senate and the House of Representatives to the proposed mission. Among the topics named by Adams as suitable for discussion at the congress were the principles of maritime neutrality, and "an agreement between all of the parties represented at the meeting that each will guard by its own means against the establishment of any future European colony within its borders." This was a striking qualification of a portion of the Monroe Doctrine, and it indicates the anxiety of the executive not to commit the United States to any permanent defensive alliance of the American republics. Seeing their opportunity, however, the opposition brought in a report strongly antagonizing the recommendation of this congress, on the ground that it involved a departure from our time-honored policy of avoiding entangling alliances, that the congress would really constitute a government, and that the topics of discussion might better be handled by negotiation with the respective states. The opposition considered rather the purposes of the congress as contemplated by the South American promoters than the propositions which the United States was willing to discuss in the purely consultative body which Adams and Clay had in mind.

The knowledge, ignored in the executive message, that the congress proposed to deal with the problem of the slave-trade and of the destiny of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Haiti, kindled southern indignation at the idea of submitting the subject of slavery to the discussion of an international tribunal. In a notable speech, Hayne declared this an entirely "domestic question." "With respect to foreign Nations," said he, "the language of the United States ought to be, that it concerns the peace of our own political family, and therefore we cannot permit it to be touched; and in respect to the slave-holding States, the only safe and constitutional ground on which they can stand, is, that they will not permit it to be brought into question either by their sister States, or by the Federal Government." [Footnote: Register of Debates, 19 Cong., 1 Sess., II., pt. i., 165.] "The peace of eleven States in this Union," said Benton, "will not permit the fruits of a successful Negro insurrection to be exhibited among them." [Footnote: Register of Debates, 19 Cong., 1 Sess., II., pt. i., 330.]

This southern resentment against the submission of the question of our connection with slavery and with the insurrectionary Negro republics to the discussion of a foreign tribunal, was combined with the opposition of northern men like Van Buren to engaging the United States in a system for the control of American affairs by a congress. Thus the enemies of the administration were brought into unison. Nevertheless, the Senate assented to the mission (March 14, 1826) by a vote of 24 to 19; and, after an animated debate, the House, by a vote of 134 to 60, made the necessary appropriations. It was a barren victory, however, for one of the delegates died while on his way, and the other reached Panama after the Congress had adjourned. Although a subsequent session was to have been held at Tacubaya, near the city of Mexico, dissensions among the Spanish- American states prevented its meeting. [Footnote: Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 329; International Am. Conference, Report, IV., 81, 113, 173-201.]



CHAPTER XVII

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND FOREIGN TRADE

(1825-1829)

What Adams had nearest at heart in his administration was the construction of a great system of roads and canals, irrespective of local interests, for the nation as a whole. [Footnote: Wheeler, Hist. of Cong., II., 154; Adams, Memoirs, VII., 59, VIII., 444; cf. chap, xiii., above.] To "exalt the valleys and lay low the mountains and the hills" appealed to his imagination. He hoped that the increased price of the public lands, arising from the improved means of communication, would in turn furnish a large and steadily increasing fund for national turnpikes and canals. But the American people were not anxious for a system of scientific administration, either of the public domain or of internal improvements. Although Benton could not secure sufficient support to carry his measure for graduating the price of the public lands and donating those which found no purchasers at fifty cents an acre, [Footnote: Meigs, Benton, 165-172.] he voiced, nevertheless, a very general antagonism to the management of the domain by the methods of the counting- house. Nor was the president able to control legislation on internal improvements. The report of the engineers appointed under the general survey act of 1824 provided for the development of the routes of national importance. [Footnote: State Papers, 18 Cong., 2 Sess., V., Doc. 83 (February 14, 1825); cf. ibid., 19 Cong., 2 Sess., II., Ex. Doc. No. 10 (December 7, 1826).] But local interests and the pressure of corporations eager to receive federal subscriptions to their stock quickly broke down the unity of the system.

The Senate declined to take action on a resolution introduced December 20, 1825, by Senator Van Buren, of New York, which denied Congress the power to make roads and canals within the respective states, and proposed a constitutional amendment for the grant of the power under limitations. [Footnote: Register of Debates, 19 Cong., 1 Sess., II., pt. i., 20; Ames, Amendments of the Fed. Const. (Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1896), 71, 261.] Provision had been made in 1825 for extending the Cumberland Road from Wheeling to Zanesville, Ohio, and for surveys through the other states of the northwest to Missouri, and appropriations were annually made for the road, until by 1833 it was completed as far as Columbus, Ohio. Nevertheless, that highway was rapidly going to destruction, and a counter project, ultimately successful, was already initiated for relinquishing the road to the states through which it passed. [Footnote: Young, Cumberland Road, chap. vii.; Hulbert, Historic Highways, X.]

Over two and a third million dollars was appropriated for roads and harbors during the administration of John Quincy Adams, as against about one million during the administrations of all of his predecessors combined. Acting on the line of least constitutional resistance opened by Monroe, when he admitted the right of appropriation for internal improvements, though not the right of construction or jurisdiction, extensive appropriations were made for roads and canals and for harbors on the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. Far from accepting Adams's ideal of a scientific general system irrespective of local or party interests, districts combined with one another for local favors, corporations eagerly sought subscriptions for their canal stock, and the rival political parties bid against each other for the support of states which asked federal aid for their roads and canals.

By the middle of this administration the popularity of internal improvement appropriations seemed irresistible, although southern states raised their voices against it and complained bitterly that they were neglected. The example of the Erie Canal, which was open by 1825, seemed to furnish proof of the success that awaited state canal construction. States were learning that English capital was ready for investment in such undertakings and that Congress could donate lands and subscribe for stock.

By acts of 1825 and 1826, Pennsylvania initiated its extensive state system of roads and canals to reach the Ohio, the central part of New York, and the Great Lakes. [Footnote: Hulbert, Historic Highways, XIII., chap, iv.; Worthington, Finances of Pennsylvania, 22.] The trunk line of this system united Philadelphia with Pittsburgh by a horse railway to Columbia on the Susquehanna, thence by a canal along that river and its tributary, the Juniata, to Hollidaysburg, where stationary engines carried the freight over a series of inclined planes across the thirty-six miles of mountains, to reach the western section of the canal at Johnstown on the Conemaugh, and so by the Allegheny to Pittsburgh. Sectional jealousies delayed the work, and piled up a debt incurred partly for branch canals in various parts of the state; but by 1830 over four hundred miles of canal had been built in Pennsylvania and five hundred more projected. Not until 1835 was the trunk line between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh fully in operation, however, and in the decade after 1822 the total expenditure for internal improvements in the state amounted to nearly twenty-six million dollars, of which over ten millions was contributed by individual subscription. But the steam railroad proved too strong a competitor, the state was plunged too deeply in debt, and it was not many years before the public works were sold, and the era of the corporation opened.

Meanwhile the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal project [Footnote: Hulbert, Historic Highways, XIII., chap, iii.; Ward, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies, XVII.)] had gained great impetus under the efforts of those who wished to turn the tide of western commerce to the Potomac River. The innate difficulties of the task, even more than the opposition of Baltimore, rendered abortive the efforts of the Potomac Company to make the river navigable above tide-water. But in 1823 public interest in Virginia and Maryland was aroused by the plan of a great canal to run alongside of the Potomac to its upper streams, and thence to connect with the Monongahela or Youghiogheny in order to reach the Ohio. At a convention which met in Washington in the fall of 1823, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia were largely represented by delegates enthusiastic over this new highway to the west. Even Baltimore acquiesced in the undertaking after a provision giving the right to tap the canal by a branch to that city, so that her western trade should not be diverted to the Potomac cities.

By 1826 the company was duly chartered by Virginia and Maryland; Pennsylvania's consent was also obtained; and the financiering of the enterprise seemed feasible by joint subscription to the stock by Maryland, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and the federal government. Under the general survey act of 1824, the route was surveyed, including an extension to Lake Erie by way of a canal from the Ohio. But when, in 1826, the board of engineers published its estimate of the cost of the canal, it was seen that the larger plans were doomed, for the total cost was placed at over twenty-two million dollars. This was practically prohibitive, for the whole capital stock of the Chesapeake and Ohio Company was only six millions. Congress made a million-dollar subscription to the stock of the company, but only the eastern section of the canal could be begun; the completion of navigation between the coal-fields on the upper Ohio and Cumberland on the Potomac must be postponed.

Baltimore's interest in the grand design of canal communication between that city and Pittsburgh quickly disappeared. Nearer to the Ohio Valley than any other seaport, she had built turnpikes to connect with the national road, and thus shared with Philadelphia the western trade. But now New York and Pennsylvania were undertaking canal systems which were certain in the long run to destroy the advantages of Baltimore. In desperation, her far-sighted and courageous merchants inaugurated the plan of a railroad across the mountains to the Ohio, grasping the idea that as the canal had shown its superiority over the turnpike, so this new device would win the day over the canal. In 1827 and 1828 charters for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were granted by Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

At Washington, on July 4, 1828, President Adams stripped off his coat, amid the cheers of the crowd, and thrust the spade into the ground in signal of the beginning of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal; but on the same day a rival celebration was in progress at Baltimore, where the venerable signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, placed the foundation- stone to commemorate the commencement of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, first of the iron bonds between the east and the west. When Adams thus won the plaudits of the people for his evidence of ability to break the conventions of polite society and use a laborer's tool, it was perhaps the only time that he and democracy came into sympathetic touch. But he was aiding in a losing cause, for, though Carroll was a man of the past, destiny was working on the side of the movement which he represented. In the field of transportation, the initiative of individuals and of corporations during the next two generations proved superior to that of state or nation.

In the mean time, Ohio, eager to take advantage of the competition of these rival routes from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, and wishing to develop the central region of the state, undertook in 1825 a state system of canals connecting the Ohio with Lake Erie. [Footnote: Morris, Internal Improvement in Ohio (Am. Hist. Assoc., Papers, III.), 107; see also McClelland and Huntington, Ohio Canals.] The Ohio Canal began at Portsmouth and followed the valleys of the Scioto and the Cuyahoga to Cleveland, while another canal extended from Cincinnati along the Miami to Dayton. By branches connecting with the Pennsylvania system, this net-work of water-ways was intended to give alternative outlets for the rapidly growing surplus of the state. Wheat which sold for from twenty-five to thirty-seven cents per bushel in central Ohio in 1825 brought double the amount in 1832 when the canal began to be effective; and it sold for a higher price a hundred miles west of Pittsburgh than it did sixty miles to the east of that city, where water transportation was lacking. [Footnote: Quar. Jour. of Econ., XVII., 15; Dial, in Ohio Archaeological and Hist. Soc., Publications, XIII., 479.] An example of the rivalry of the followers of Adams and of Jackson in conciliating western interests is furnished in the case of Ohio, just prior to the campaign of 1828, when each party in Congress persisted in supporting its own bill donating lands for the canals of that state. Owing to the fear of each that the other party would gain the credit of the measure, both bills were passed, and Ohio received double the amount originally asked. [Footnote: Benton, Abridgment, X., 197 n.] It was small wonder that Indiana, Illinois, and other western states memorialized Congress for aid in their own plans for canals.

The activity of the states, no longer waiting for the federal government to construct a national system; the rapidly growing demand for the relinquishment of the national road to the states within which it lay; and the activity of corporations, all pointed to a new era in internal improvements. The states were ready to receive appropriations, but they preferred to build their own roads and dig their own canals. The state and the corporation were replacing the national government as the controlling power in internal improvements, and Adams's conception of a national system of turnpikes and canals had failed.

Nor was President Adams successful in carrying out a system of complete maritime reciprocity. After the War of 1812, Great Britain and the United States agreed upon the abolition of discriminating duties on ships or products engaged in the trade between the two countries; [Footnote: Cf. Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. xvi.] but England reserved her right to exempt her American possessions from this reciprocity. By excluding the ships of the United States from the trade with the English West Indies, England denied a profitable avocation to American ship-owners; while, at the same time, the liberal arrangements of the United States permitted her vessels freely to enter the ports of this country with their cargoes of English manufactures, and to carry thence to the West Indies lumber, flour, and provisions to exchange for the molasses and sugar of the islands.

This ability to make a triangular voyage, with profits on each transaction, gave such advantage to British ships that they were able to carry on the trade between the United States and England at a rate below that which American vessels could afford. Driven to seek some remedy, the Yankee merchants and skippers turned to the Orient. The trade with China and the East Indies developed rapidly, and our tonnage registered for foreign trade increased from 583,000 tons in 1820 to 758,000 in 1828. [Footnote: Marvin, American Merchant Marine, chap. ix.] Ninety per cent. of our foreign commerce was carried in our own vessels, and, from this point of view, American shipping enjoyed one of the most prosperous periods in its history. [Footnote: Pitkin, Statistical View (ed. of 1835), 363; Soley, "Maritime Industries," in Shaler (ed. of 1894), United States, I., 538.] Smuggling was extensively carried on in the West Indies, and a war of retaliatory legislation in regard to shipping characterized the whole decade.

In 1825 Parliament passed a somewhat obscure act which opened the ports on a more liberal system of reciprocity. To nations without colonies she offered the same shipping rights in her colonies which such nations gave to England and her possessions. The act provided that it must be accepted within a year by nations who desired to avail themselves of its provisions. President Adams preferred to deal with the question by diplomacy, and Congress neglected to pass the legislation necessary to accept the offer. When Gallatin, who had been sent to England to treat of this matter, opened his negotiations in 1826, he was informed that it was too late. The stipulated time having elapsed, American vessels were definitely excluded from the West Indies in 1826 by orders in council. [Footnote: Adams, Gallatin, 615-620; cf. MacDonald, Jacksonian Democracy (Am. Nation, XV.), 201.] In the campaign of 1828 Adams was blamed for the failure to seize this opportunity, but the generally prosperous condition of our shipping not only moderated the discontent, but even led to a law (May 24, 1828) intended to place American vessels in complete control of our foreign commerce by providing for the abolition, by proclamation of the president, of all discriminating duties against such nations as should free ships of the United States from corresponding discriminations. In the long run, this reciprocity act proved a mistake; the end of Adams's administration marked the beginning of a decline in the prosperity of the merchant marine. [Footnote: Soley, in Shaler, United States, I., 540.]

American commerce during this period by no means kept pace with the growing wealth and population of the country. [Footnote 2: Sterns, Foreign Trade of the United States, 1820-1840, in Jour. Pol. Econ., VIII., 34, 452.] As we have seen, the staple states produced the lion's share of the domestic exports, and the internal exchange favored by the protective tariffs restrained the foreign importations. Aside from the depression in 1821, following the panic of 1819, and the extraordinary rise in 1825, the exports in general exhibited no marked increase or decline between 1820 and 1829. Imports showed a value of nearly seventy-four and one-half million dollars in 1820, ninety millions in 1825, and sixty-seven millions in 1829. [Footnote 3: Soley, in Shaler, United States, I., 538; cf. Pitkin, Statistical View (ed. of 1835), 177; W. C. Ford, in Depew, One Hundred Years of Am. Commerce, I., 23.] During the whole of Adams's administration, New York preserved its easy lead in domestic exports, although, as the west leaped up to power, New Orleans rose rapidly to a close second in exports of domestic origin. The southern cities retained merely the same proportion of the exports of domestic origin which they had in 1820, in spite of the great increase of cotton production. New York and New Orleans gained a large fraction of this trade, and Massachusetts changed its proportion of domestic exports only slightly during the whole decade. Over three-fourths of the cotton went to the British Isles, while almost all the pork and beef, and two-thirds of the flour, went to the West Indies, South America, and Great Britain's American colonies. [Footnote: Pitkin, Statistical View, 121-137.]

The statistics of commerce repeat the same story of increasing national self-dependence which was told by the development of manufactures, internal trade, and transportation, and even by the diplomatic policy of the United States. The nation was building an empire of its own, with sections which took the place of kingdoms. The west was already becoming the granary of the whole country. But in the development of this "American system," the navigating portions of New England and the staple states of the south and southwest found themselves at a disadvantage. Their interest lay in a free exchange across the ocean.

Although many minor treaties of commerce and navigation were negotiated by Clay during this administration, all his other diplomatic efforts met with failure, among them attempts to purchase Texas and to procure a treaty with England for the rendition of fugitive slaves who had escaped to Canada—strange evidences of the political concessions of the northern president.



CHAPTER XVIII

REACTION TOWARDS STATE SOVEREIGNTY (1816-1829)

From the close of the War of 1812, an increasing reaction was in progress in various states against the ardent nationalism which characterized the country at that time. The assertion of the doctrine of state sovereignty by the Hartford Convention in 1814 [Footnote: Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. xv.] so aroused the other sections of the country that particularism was for the time discredited. Leaders of Virginia politics even approved a rumor that Madison would march troops against New England; Judge Roane, later a champion of Virginia's sovereignty, denounced the "anarchical principles" of the section. [Footnote: Randolph-Macon College, John P. Branch Hist. Papers, II., 18.] In that period, when Calhoun and the other leading statesmen of South Carolina supported the protective tariff and the bonus bill, when Madison, the author of the Virginia resolutions of 1798, signed the bill for the recharter of the national bank, when Chief-Justice Marshall, a son of Virginia, was welding firm the bonds of nationalism in his great series of decisions limiting the powers of the states and developing the doctrine of loose construction of the Constitution, [Footnote: Babcock, Am. Nationality (Am. Nation, XIII.), chap. xviii.] and when New England itself was explaining away the particularistic purposes of the Hartford Convention, it might well seem that the days of state sovereignty had come to an end.

Even then, however, the pendulum was starting to swing in the opposite direction. The crisis of 1819 and the decisions of the supreme court asserting the constitutionality of the national bank under the broad national conception of the Constitution, produced protests and even resistance from various states whose interests were most affected. Ohio in 1819 forcibly collected a tax on the branch bank of the United States, in defiance of Marshall's decision rendered earlier in the year in the case of McCulloch vs. Maryland; and in 1821 her legislature reaffirmed the doctrines of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, and passed an act withdrawing the protection of the laws of the state from the national bank, [Footnote 2: Ames, State Docs. on Federal Relations, No. 3, p. 5.] and even persisted in her resistance after the decision (Osborn vs. Bank of U. S., 1824) against the state. But the proceeds of the tax were ultimately restored. Nor was Ohio alone in her opposition to this decision. Kentucky was almost equally excited, and Senator R. M. Johnson made a vain attempt in 1821 to procure an amendment to the Constitution providing that in controversies in which a state was a party the Senate of the United States should have appellate jurisdiction. [Footnote: Annals of Cong., 17 Cong., I Sess., I., 23, 68, 96; Ames, State Docs., No. 3, p. 17; Ames, Amendments to the Const., in Am. Hist. Assoc., Report 1896, II., 161; Niles' Register, XVII., 289, 311, 447.] Judge Roane, chief-justice of Virginia, in a series of papers in the Richmond Enquirer, challenging the nationalistic reasoning of the court, asserted that the Constitution resulted from a compact between the states, [Footnote 2: Randolph- Macon College, John P. Branch Hist. Papers, II., 106-121.] and in this attack he was heartily supported by Jefferson. [Footnote 3: Jefferson, Writings (Ford's ed.), X., 140, 189, 229.] Justice Marshall, in Cohens vs. Virginia [Footnote 4: 6 Wheaton, 264.] (1821), decided that the supreme court had appellate jurisdiction in a case decided by the state court where the Constitution and the laws of the United States were involved, even though a state was a party.

Virginia's attorneys maintained, on the contrary, that the final construction of the Constitution might be given by the courts of every state in the Union; and Judge Roane, whose own decision had been overturned, again appealed to his fellow-citizens in a strong series of articles. Again Jefferson denounced the consolidating tendencies of the judiciary, "which, working like gravity without any intermission, is to press us at last into one consolidated mass." Virginia entered her solemn protest against the decision, and her House of Delegates reaffirmed the argument of Virginia's counsel, and asserted that neither the government of the state nor of the United States could press the other from its sphere. In effect, Virginia's position would have given the state a veto on the will of the federal government, by the protection which her courts could have extended to the individual subject to her jurisdiction under the interpretation placed by the state upon the Constitution. [Footnote: Randolph-Macon College, John P. Branch Hist. Papers, II., 28; Jefferson, Writings (Ford's ed.), IX., 184; cf. ibid., X. passim; Madison, Writings, III., 217-224; Ames, State Docs. on Federal Relations, No. 3. p. 15; Niles' Register, XX., 118; 6 Wheaton 385.] The leading expositor of Virginia reaction in this period was John Taylor of Caroline, the mover of the resolutions of 1798. His "Construction Construed", published in 1820, was introduced by a preface in which the editor said: "The period is indeed by no means an agreeable one. It borrows new gloom from the apathy which seems to run over so many of our sister states. The very sound of State Rights is scarcely ever heard among them; and by many of their eminent politicians is only heard to be mocked at." Taylor himself was led to write the book by the agitation over the Missouri question and the case of McCulloch vs. Maryland. One of its purposes was to insist that sovereignty was not divided between the separate spheres of the state and federal government, but rested rather in the people of the several states. Two years later, in his "Tyranny Unmasked", Taylor developed the idea that the division of the power of the people between the federal and state governments would be nugatory if either Congress or the supreme court could exclusively determine the boundaries of power between the states and the general government. His remedy for usurpation was the "state veto," which was to be "no mere didactic lecture," but involved the right of resisting unconstitutional laws. He met the difficulty that the people of one state would construe the Constitution for the people of all the states, by the answer that it was the lesser evil. [Footnote: Taylor, Tyranny Unmasked, 258, 262.] Again in 1823, in his "New Views of the Constitution", he expounded the same ideas, and dwelt upon the position of the states as the defenders of separate geographical interests against oppression by the majority of the nation. He saw a grave danger in the relinquishment to Congress of the power to deal with local and dissimilar geographical interests by loose-construction legislation upon such subjects as banks, roads, canals, and manufactures. It would tend to produce geographical combinations; sections by combining would exploit and oppress the minority; "Congress would become an assembly of geographical envoys from the North, the South, and the West." Against these evils, the Constitution, according to his view, had provided by confining geographical interests within state lines instead of "collecting them into one intriguing arena." The states, reposing on their sovereignty, would interpose a check to oppressive action and to the combination of sectional interests against the minority. [Footnote 1: Taylor, New Views (ed. of 1823), 261 et seq.]