VOICES FROM AMERICA’S PAST
WEBSTER PUBLISHING COMPANY
ST. LOUIS ATLANTA DALLAS
The selections by Margaret Bayard Smith, from Forty Years of Washington Society, edited by Gaillard Hunt, which begin on pages 2 and 22, were reprinted through the courtesy of Charles Scribner’s Sons.
The picture on the cover and the picture on page 1, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, were reprinted through the courtesy of the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company of Boston, Massachusetts. The picture on page 22, of the Constitution and the Guerrière, was reprinted through the courtesy of the New York Public Library. The picture of a political speaker on the Fourth of July on page 37 and the picture of John Quincy Adams on page 56 were reprinted through the courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The early part of the last century was an exciting time to live in America. The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution, mostly old men by now, saw that their experiment in republican government had turned out to be a success. The nation was flourishing in these years like a healthy adolescent. There were growing pains, to be sure, but no one doubted now that the youngster would reach manhood. The question was: What is he going to be like?
The party battles of John Adams’ administration left the Federalist Party in ruins, and Thomas Jefferson succeeded to the presidency with an overwhelming popular mandate. During his first term, Jefferson increased his popularity through buying from France the enormous Louisiana Territory which doubled the size of the United States. By the time the Lewis and Clark Expedition returned from exploring the new land, people began to realize the immense possibilities that the Louisiana Purchase held for the future of the United States.
Jefferson’s second term was beset by foreign problems that culminated eventually in the War of 1812, during James Madison’s administration. Despite George Washington’s advice in his Farewell Address to stay out of entangling foreign alliances, America could not avoid being affected by events abroad. She was caught between the hammer and the anvil during Napoleon’s wars with the rest of Europe. The War of 1812 settled no issues but, soon afterward, the main Anglo-American problems left over from the Revolution were adjusted. Napoleon’s downfall at Waterloo removed France as an obstacle to American development.
The period known as the “Era of Good Feeling” followed the War of 1812. During the two terms of James Monroe, internal matters were the main concern of the country: tariffs, banking, domestic improvements, the admission of new states into the Union. With the Monroe Doctrine, which warned Europe to respect the independence of Latin America, the United States began to emerge as a power in the world. Even more important was the appearance of storm warnings heralding the eventual coming of the Civil War. The Missouri Compromise, which drew a line between slave and free territory, established an uneasy truce between the North and the South.
By the time John Quincy Adams became the sixth President, sectionalism was rapidly developing, and the balance of power between the East and the West, the industrial North and the agricultural South, was beginning to shift. The two-party system, which had largely disappeared with the collapse of the Federalists in 1800, was revived. In 1828 the long monopoly that Virginia and Massachusetts had enjoyed in supplying American Presidents came to an end with the election of Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and a new era began.
The selections in this booklet reflect most of the significant events of these years from 1801 to 1829. The Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the War of 1812, the Missouri Compromise, all are represented. In addition we have included accounts of some small events and background descriptions which give the flavor of the age. A proper notion of this period requires not only a knowledge of the major issues, such as understanding the Embargo Act or the significance of the Marbury vs. Madison decision, but also an appreciation of the quality of the experience of being an American in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Hence we have used such documents as Lorenzo Dow’s diary describing the life of a frontier preacher and Morris Birkbeck’s account of settling in Illinois.
In editing the manuscripts in this booklet, we have followed the practice of modernizing punctuation, capitalization, and spelling only when necessary to make the selections clear. We have silently corrected misspelled words and typographical errors. Wherever possible we have used complete selections, but occasionally space limitations have made necessary cuts in the original documents. Such cuts are indicated by spaced periods. In general, the selections appear as the authors wrote them.
Richard B. Morris James Woodress
The Lewis and Clark expedition
On election day in 1800, Thomas Jefferson won a clear victory over John Adams but almost did not became President. The Constitution required that presidential electors cast two ballots; the winner became President and the runner-up became Vice-President. Jefferson’s running mate, Aaron Burr, who had been nominated for Vice-President, received 73 electoral votes, the same number as Jefferson. This strange situation occurred because the Constitutional Convention had not anticipated the rise of party politics. When John Adams had defeated Jefferson in 1796, Jefferson, as the runner-up, was elected Vice-President. If parties had not developed by 1800, Adams, as Jefferson’s opponent, would surely have become Vice-President. But because parties had arisen, all 2 of Jefferson’s electors gave Burr their second vote. (A repetition of this kind of deadlock was avoided for future elections by the Twelfth Amendment.)
The Constitution stated that if the two leading candidates were tied, the election should be decided by the House of Representatives. The trouble was that in 1800 the House was controlled by the Federalists and not by Jefferson’s party. The Federalists nearly elected Burr President because they disliked him less than they disliked Jefferson.
Fortunately for the country, Federalist Alexander Hamilton, who knew Burr was unfit to be President, opposed his party’s plan to defeat Jefferson. But while this crucial decision was being made, the nation waited breathlessly. The excitement in Washington is recorded in the following selection from the notebook of Margaret Bayard Smith, wife of the editor of the National Intelligencer.
It was an awful crisis. The people, who with such an overwhelming majority had declared their will, would never peaceably have allowed the man of their choice to be set aside and the individual they had chosen as Vice-President to be put in his place. A civil war must have taken place, to be terminated in all human probability by a rupture of the Union. Such consequences were at least calculated on and excited a deep and inflammatory interest. Crowds of anxious spirits from the adjacent county and cities thronged to the seat of government and hung like a thunder cloud over the Capitol, their indignation ready to burst on any individual who might be designated as President in opposition to the people’s known choice. The citizens of Baltimore, who from their proximity were the first apprised of this daring design, were with difficulty restrained from rushing on with an armed force, to prevent—or if they could not prevent, to avenge this violation of the people’s will and in their own vehement language to hurl the usurper from his seat.
Mr. Jefferson, then President of the Senate, sitting in the midst of these conspirators, as they were then called, unavoidably hearing their loudly whispered designs, witnessing their gloomy and restless machinations, aware of the dreadful consequences which must follow their meditated designs, preserved through this trying 3 period the most unclouded serenity, the most perfect equanimity. A spectator who watched his countenance would never have surmised that he had any personal interest in the impending event. Calm and self-possessed, he retained his seat in the midst of the angry and stormy, though half-smothered passions that were struggling around him, and by this dignified tranquility repressed any open violence. Though insufficient to prevent whispered menaces and insults, to these, however, he turned a deaf ear and resolutely maintained a placidity which baffled the designs of his enemies.
The crisis was at hand. The two bodies of Congress met, the Senators as witnesses, the Representatives as electors. The question on which hung peace or war, nay, the union of the states was to be decided. What an awful responsibility was attached to every vote given on that occasion. The sitting was held with closed doors. It lasted the whole day, the whole night. Not an individual left that solemn assembly; the necessary refreshment they required was taken in rooms adjoining the Hall. They were not like the Roman conclave legally and forcibly confined; the restriction was self-imposed from the deep-felt necessity of avoiding any extrinsic or external influence. Beds, as well as food, were sent for the accommodation of those whom age or debility disabled from enduring such a long-protracted sitting. The balloting took place every hour—in the interval men ate, drank, slept or pondered over the result of the last ballot, compared ideas and persuasions to change votes, or gloomily anticipated the consequences, let the result be what it would.
With what an intense interest did every individual watch each successive examination of the ballot-box; how breathlessly did they listen to the counting of the votes! Every hour a messenger brought to the editor of the National Intelligencer the result of the ballot. That night I never lay down or closed my eyes. As the hour drew near its close, my heart would almost audibly beat, and I was seized with a tremour that almost disabled me from opening the door for the expected messenger....
For more than thirty hours the struggle was maintained, but finding the Republican phalanx impenetrable, not to be shaken in their purpose, every effort proving unavailing, the Senator from Delaware [James A. Bayard—actually a Representative], the 4 withdrawal of whose vote would determine the issue, took his part, gave up his party, for his country, and threw into the box a blank ballot, thus leaving to the Republicans a majority. Mr. Jefferson was declared duly elected. The assembled crowds, without the Capitol, rent the air with their acclamations and gratulations, and the conspirators, as they were called, hurried to their lodgings under strong apprehensions of suffering from the just indignation of their fellow citizens.
The dark and threatening cloud which had hung over the political horizon rolled harmlessly away, and the sunshine of prosperity and gladness broke forth and ever since, with the exception of a few passing clouds, has continued to shine on our happy country.
As the author of the Declaration of Independence and many memorable state papers, Thomas Jefferson was, with Abraham Lincoln, one of our two greatest presidential writers. The following speech, which he delivered on March 4, 1801, is an eloquent statement of democratic principles. Jefferson approached the office of President with humility and a conciliatory attitude towards his opponents. The simplicity and directness of his prose contrast greatly with the flowery and lengthy eloquence of most speakers in his day.
Friends and Fellow Citizens:
Called upon to undertake the duties of the first executive office of our country, I avail myself of the presence of that portion of my fellow citizens which is here assembled to express my grateful thanks for the favor with which they have been pleased to look towards me, to declare a sincere consciousness that the task is above my talents and that I approach it with those anxious and awful presentiments which the greatness of the charge and the weakness of my powers so justly inspire.
A rising nation spread over a wide and fruitful land, traversing all the seas with the rich productions of their industry, engaged in commerce with nations who feel power and forget right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond the reach of mortal eye; when I contemplate 5 these transcendent objects and see the honor, the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved country committed to the issue and the auspices of this day, I shrink from the contemplation and humble myself before the magnitude of the undertaking.
Utterly indeed should I despair, did not the presence of many whom I here see remind me that in the other high authorities provided by our Constitution, I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal, on which to rely under all difficulties.
To you then, gentlemen, who are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation and to those associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled sea.
During the contest of opinion through which we have passed, the animation of discussions and of exertions, has sometimes worn an aspect which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and to write what they think.
But this being now decided by the voice of the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all will of course arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good. All too will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable: that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind; let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection, without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.
And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered we have yet gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecution.
During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonized spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful 6 shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some, and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called, by different names, brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists.
If there be any among us who wish to dissolve this union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
I know indeed that some honest men have feared that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world’s best hope may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself?
I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth.
I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law; would meet invasions of public order, as his own personal concern.
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
Let us then pursue with courage and confidence our own federal and republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government.
Kindly separated by nature, and a wide ocean, from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right, to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow citizens resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them, enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed and practiced in various 7 forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter.
With all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow citizens, a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
The feud between Hamilton and Burr preceded the election of 1800, in which Hamilton opposed Burr’s election to the presidency. The rivalry between these two New Yorkers actually had begun during the Revolution and had continued throughout their political careers, but it reached a special intensity in 1800. As Vice-President under Jefferson, Burr had reached the peak of his career, but Jefferson, realizing that Burr almost had schemed his way into the presidency, undermined his influence in the Republican Party. In 1804, Hamilton again thwarted Burr’s ambitions by helping to defeat him for governor of New York. The duel soon followed.
Hamilton had no intention of firing at Burr and seems to have expected to die, for he made his will and arranged his affairs before crossing the Hudson River to New Jersey for the fatal duel on July 11, 1804. Burr had great charm and undenied ability, but it might have been better for him if he had died that day instead of Hamilton. He was an unscrupulous intriguer, and his subsequent career tarnished his reputation. In 1805, he tried to establish a political empire in the Mississippi Valley but he was captured and tried for treason. Though he was acquitted, he had to spend the next four years in exile. He later returned to an obscure law practice in New York.
In the selection that follows, David Hosack, the physician who attended Hamilton at the duel, describes the scene immediately after Burr 8 fired the fatal shot. He writes to William Coleman, editor of the New York Post, the paper Hamilton had founded.
To comply with your request is a painful task; but I will repress my feelings while I endeavor to furnish you with an enumeration of such particulars relative to the melancholy end of our beloved friend Hamilton, as dwell most forcibly on my recollection.
When called to him, upon his receiving the fatal wound, I found him half sitting on the ground, supported in the arms of Mr. Pendleton. His countenance of death I shall never forget. He had at that instant just strength to say, “This is a mortal wound, Doctor”; when he sunk away, and became to all appearance lifeless. I immediately stripped up his clothes, and soon, alas! ascertained that the direction of the ball must have been through some vital part. His pulses were not to be felt; his respiration was entirely suspended; and upon laying my hand on his heart, and perceiving no motion there, I considered him as irrecoverably gone. I however observed to Mr. Pendleton that the only chance for his reviving was immediately to get him upon the water.
We therefore lifted him up, and carried him out of the wood, to the margin of the bank, where the bargemen aided us in conveying him into the boat, which immediately put off. During all this time I could not discover the least symptom of returning life. I now rubbed his face, lips, and temples, with spirits of hartshorn, applied it to his neck and breast, and to the wrists and palms of his hands, and endeavored to pour some into his mouth. When we had got, as I should judge, about fifty yards from the shore, some imperfect efforts to breathe were for the first time manifest. In a few minutes he sighed, and became sensible to the impression of the hartshorn, or the fresh air of the water. He breathed; his eyes, hardly opened, wandered, without fixing upon any objects. To our great joy he at length spoke: “My vision is indistinct,” were his first words. His pulse became more perceptible; his respiration more regular; his sight returned.
... Soon after recovering his sight, he happened to cast his eye upon the case of pistols, and observing the one that he had 9 had in his hand lying on the outside, he said, “Take care of that pistol; it is undischarged, and still cocked; it may go off and do harm.—Pendleton knows (attempting to turn his head towards him) that I did not intend to fire at him.” “Yes,” said Mr. Pendleton, understanding his wish, “I have already made Dr. Hosack acquainted with your determination as to that.”... Perceiving that we approached the shore, he said, “Let Mrs. Hamilton be immediately sent for. Let the event be gradually broken to her; but give her hopes.”
Looking up, we saw his friend Mr. Bayard standing on the wharf in great agitation. He had been told by his servant that General Hamilton, Mr. Pendleton, and myself, had crossed the river in a boat together, and too well he conjectured the fatal errand, and foreboded the dreadful result. Perceiving, as we came nearer, that Mr. Pendleton and myself only sat up in the stern sheets, he clasped his hands together in the most violent apprehension; but when I called to him to have a cot prepared, and he at the same moment saw his poor friend lying in the bottom of the boat, he threw up his eyes and burst into a flood of tears and lamentation. Hamilton alone appeared tranquil and composed. We then conveyed him as tenderly as possible up to the house. The distresses of this amiable family were such that till the first shock was abated, they were scarcely able to summon fortitude enough to yield sufficient assistance to their dying friend.
... During the night he had some imperfect sleep; but the succeeding morning his symptoms were aggravated, attended, however, with a diminution of pain. His mind retained all its usual strength and composure. The great source of his anxiety seemed to be in his sympathy with his half-distracted wife and children. He spoke to her frequently of them. “My beloved wife and children,” were always his expressions. But his fortitude triumphed over his situation, dreadful as it was. Once, indeed, at the sight of his children brought to the bedside together, seven in number, his utterance forsook him. He opened his eyes, gave them one look, and closed them again till they were taken away. As a proof of his extraordinary composure of mind, let me add that he alone could calm the frantic grief of their mother. “Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian,” were the expressions with which he frequently, 10 with a firm voice, but in a pathetic and impressive manner, addressed her. His words, and the tone in which they were uttered, will never be effaced from my memory. At about two o’clock, as the public well knows, he expired.
The duel between the former Secretary of the Treasury and the Vice-President provided high drama, but far more important was an event that had occurred the year before in Washington. This event was a Supreme Court decision written by Chief Justice Marshall, the decision known as Marbury vs. Madison. It established the principle that the Supreme Court may declare unconstitutional any law passed by Congress that conflicts with the Constitution. This principle has become so well accepted today that we can hardly realize it ever had to be stated. Its effect, however, was to strengthen the system of checks and balances between the three main branches of our government.
Marbury was an obscure justice of the peace, appointed by President Adams just before his term expired. The lame-duck Federalist administration went out of office before Marbury received his commission, and Marbury appealed to the Supreme Court to force James Madison, the new Secretary of State, to give it to him. The Supreme Court declared that Marbury deserved his commission but that it could not grant it. The reason was that the law saying the Court could do this was contrary to the Constitution and therefore invalid. In the portion of the decision that follows, Chief Justice Marshall argues the principle that Congress may not give powers not specifically authorized by the Constitution to the courts or to anyone else.
The question whether an act, repugnant [opposed] to the Constitution, can become the law of the land is a question deeply interesting to the United States but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognize certain principles, supposed to have been long and well established, to decide it.
That the people have an original right to establish, for their 11 future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right is a very great exertion; nor can it, nor ought it, to be frequently repeated. The principles, therefore, so established are deemed fundamental. And as the authority from which they proceed is supreme, and can seldom act, they are designed to be permanent.
This original and supreme will organizes the government and assigns to different departments their respective powers. It may either stop here or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments.
The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it or that the legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.
Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.
If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law; if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
Certainly, all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and, consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.
Marshall goes on to refute the argument that the Supreme Court should concern itself only with interpreting the law, regardless of the Constitution. Then he quotes specific passages from the Constitution:
It is declared that “no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.” Suppose a duty on the export of cotton, of tobacco, or of flour; and a suit instituted to recover it. Ought judgment to be rendered in such a case? Ought the judges to close their eyes on the Constitution and only see the law?...
“No person,” says the Constitution, “shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.” Here the language of the Constitution is addressed especially to the courts. It prescribes directly for them, a rule of evidence not to be departed from. If the legislature should change that rule and declare one witness, or a confession out of court, sufficient for conviction, must the constitutional principle yield to the legislative act?
From these, and many other selections which might be made, it is apparent that the framers of the Constitution contemplated that instrument as a rule for the government of courts as well as of the legislature.
Why otherwise does it direct the judges to take an oath to support it? This oath certainly applies in an especial manner to their conduct in their official character. How immoral to impose it on them if they were to be used as the instruments, and the knowing instruments, for violating what they swear to support!
At the end of the decision the Chief Justice concluded that the language of the Constitution confirmed and strengthened the principle essential to all written constitutions “that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void.”
The great event of Jefferson’s first term was the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory, that vast tract of land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, from the Canadian border to the Gulf of 13 Mexico. The purchase of this land from Napoleon was not a premeditated act but rather the result of seizing an opportunity that presented itself. President Jefferson started out merely to buy New Orleans from France but ended up with more than 800,000 square miles. The agreed-on price was about $15,000,000, or something like two cents per acre.
Napoleon had forced Spain to give Louisiana back to France after Spain had held the territory nearly forty years. Just before the letter in the following account was written, the Spanish Intendant (director) of New Orleans, who had not yet turned over the city to France, closed the port to American commerce. Because most of the produce of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys reached eastern and foreign markets via New Orleans, closing the port seemed almost an act of war against the United States. At this point Jefferson sent James Monroe to Europe as special minister to buy New Orleans. It turned out just then that Napoleon needed money to renew his war against England, and the entire territory was purchased within a few weeks. The events which led to the purchase are described in the following letter that Jefferson wrote on February 3, 1803, to Robert Livingston, the American minister to France.
A late suspension by the Intendant of New Orleans of our right of deposit there, without which the right of navigation is impracticable, has thrown this country into such a flame of hostile disposition as can scarcely be described. The western country was peculiarly sensible to it as you may suppose. Our business was to take the most effectual pacific measures in our power to remove the suspension, and at the same time to persuade our countrymen that pacific measures would be the most effectual and the most speedily so. The opposition caught it as a plank in a shipwreck, hoping it would enable them to tack the western people to them. They raised the cry of war, were intriguing in all the quarters to exasperate the western inhabitants to arm and go down on their own authority and possess themselves of New Orleans, and in the meantime were daily reiterating, in new shapes, inflammatory resolutions for the adoption of the House.
As a remedy to all this we determined to name a minister extraordinary to go immediately to Paris and Madrid to settle this 14 matter. This measure being a visible one, and the person named peculiarly proper with the western country, crushed at once and put an end to all further attempts on the Legislature. From that moment all has become quiet; and the more readily in the western country, as the sudden alliance of these new federal friends had of itself already began to make them suspect the wisdom of their own course. The measure was moreover proposed from another cause. We must know at once whether we can acquire New Orleans or not. We are satisfied nothing else will secure us against a war at no distant period; and we cannot press this reason without beginning those arrangements which will be necessary if war is hereafter to result.
For this purpose it was necessary that the negotiators should be fully possessed of every idea we have on the subject, so as to meet the propositions of the opposite party, in whatever form they may be offered; and give them a shape admissible by us without being obliged to await new instructions hence. With this view, we have joined Mr. Monroe to yourself at Paris, and to Mr. Pinckney at Madrid, although we believe it will be hardly necessary for him to go to this last place.
Exploring the Missouri River Valley and the Rocky Mountain area long had been a cherished project of President Jefferson. He had talked about it periodically since the Revolution, and when he became President he set about to make his dream come true. Even before the United States owned the Louisiana Territory, Capt. Meriwether Lewis, Jefferson’s secretary, and William Clark, younger brother of George Rogers Clark, had been picked to head an expedition to explore the West.
The journey did not begin, however, until May, 1804, when the expedition left St. Louis. Capt. Lewis led his explorers up the Missouri River to what is now North Dakota, and before cold weather set in they built huts and a stockade for winter quarters. The next spring they moved on up the river in dugout canoes (pirogues) towards the mountains. The following selection from Capt. Lewis’ journal of the expedition was set down on April 13, 1805, when the party was at the junction of the Missouri and the Little Missouri rivers, still in North Dakota.
15Being disappointed in my observations of yesterday for longitude, I was unwilling to remain at the entrance of the river another day for that purpose, and therefore determined to set out early this morning; which we did accordingly; the wind was in our favour after 9 A.M. and continued favourable until 3 P.M. We therefore hoisted both the sails in the White Pirogue, consisting of a small square sail and spritsail, which carried her at a pretty good gait, until about 2 in the afternoon when a sudden squall of wind struck us and turned the pirogue so much on the side as to alarm Charbonneau [the interpreter], who was steering at the time. In this state of alarm he threw the pirogue with her side to the wind, when the spritsail gibing was as near oversetting the pirogue as it was possible to have missed. The wind, however, abating for an instant, I ordered Drouillard [also an interpreter] to the helm and the sails to be taken in, which was instantly executed, and the pirogue being steered before the wind was again placed in a state of security. This accident was very near costing us dearly. Believing this vessel to be the most steady and safe, we had embarked on board of it our instruments, papers, medicine, and the most valuable part of the merchandise which we had still in reserve as presents for the Indians. We had also embarked on board ourselves, with three men who could not swim, and the squaw [Sacajawea, the Shoshone wife of Charbonneau, who showed the party the way across the Continental Divide and obtained horses and protection for them from the Shoshones] with the young child, all of whom, had the pirogue overset, would most probably have perished, as the waves were high, and the pirogue upwards of 200 yards from the nearest shore; however, we fortunately escaped and pursued our journey under the square sail, which shortly after the accident I directed to be again hoisted.
By the end of May the expedition had moved halfway across Montana, still following the Missouri River:
Today we passed on the starboard [right] side the remains of a vast many mangled carcasses of buffalo which had been driven 16 over a precipice of 120 feet by the Indians and perished; the water appeared to have washed away a part of this immense pile of slaughter and still there remained the fragments of at least a hundred carcasses. They created a most horrid stench. In this manner the Indians of the Missouri destroy vast herds of buffalo at a stroke; for this purpose one of the most active and fleet young men is selected and disguised in a robe of buffalo skin, having also the skin of the buffalo’s head with the ears and horns fastened on his head in form of a cap. Thus caparisoned he places himself at a convenient distance between a herd of buffalo and a precipice proper for the purpose, which happens in many places on this river for miles together; the other Indians now surround the herd on the back and flanks, and at a signal agreed on all show themselves at the same time moving forward towards the buffalo.
The disguised Indian or decoy has taken care to place himself sufficiently nigh the buffalo to be noticed by them when they take to flight, and running before them they follow him in full speed to the precipice, the cattle behind driving those in front over and seeing them go do not look or hesitate about following until the whole are precipitated down the precipice forming one common mass of dead and mangled carcasses. The decoy in the meantime has taken care to secure himself in some cranny or crevice of the cliff which he had previously prepared for that purpose.
By August 13 the expedition was crossing the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass on the border between Montana and Idaho. In the selection that follows, Capt. Lewis describes the party’s meeting with the Shoshone Indians.
We had not continued our route more than a mile when we were so fortunate as to meet with three female savages. The short and steep ravines which we passed concealed us from each other until we arrived within 30 paces. A young woman immediately took to flight; an elderly woman and a girl of about 12 years old remained. I instantly laid by my gun and advanced towards them. They appeared much alarmed but saw that we were too near for them to escape by flight; they therefore seated themselves on the 17 ground, holding down their heads as if reconciled to die, which they expected no doubt would be their fate. I took the elderly woman by the hand and raised her up, repeated the word tab-ba-bone and stripped up my shirt sleeve to show her my skin; to prove to her the truth of the assertion that I was a white man, for my face and hands, which have been constantly exposed to the sun, were quite as dark as their own. They appeared instantly reconciled, and the men coming up, I gave these women some beads, a few moccasin awls, some pewter looking-glasses, and a little paint.
I directed Drouillard to request the old woman to recall the young woman who had run off to some distance by this time, fearing she might alarm the camp before we approached and might so exasperate the natives that they would perhaps attack us without enquiring who we were. The old woman did as she was requested and the fugitive soon returned almost out of breath. I bestowed an equivalent portion of trinket on her with the others. I now painted their tawny cheeks with some vermillion, which with this nation is emblematic of peace. After they had become composed I informed them by signs that I wished them to conduct us to their camp, that we were anxious to become acquainted with the chiefs and warriors of their nation. They readily obeyed and we set out, still pursuing the road down the river.
We had marched about 2 miles when we met a party of about 60 warriors mounted on excellent horses, who came in nearly full speed. When they arrived, I advanced towards them with the flag, leaving my gun with the party about 50 paces behind me. The chief and two others who were a little in advance of the main body spoke to the women, and they informed them who we were and exultingly showed the presents which had been given them. These men then advanced and embraced me very affectionately in their way, which is by putting their left arm over your right shoulder, clasping your back, while they apply their left cheek to yours and frequently vociferate the word ah-hi-e, ah-hi-e, that is, I am much pleased, I am much rejoiced. Both parties now advanced and we were all caressed and besmeared with their grease and paint till I was heartily tired of the national hug.
I now had the pipe lit and gave them smoke; they seated themselves in a circle around us and pulled off their moccasins before 18 they would receive or smoke the pipe. This is a custom among them, as I afterwards learned, indicative of a sacred obligation of sincerity in their profession of friendship, given by the act of receiving and smoking the pipe of a stranger. Or which is as much as to say that they wish they may always go barefoot if they are not sincere; a pretty heavy penalty if they are to march through the plains of their country.
After crossing the Continental Divide, the expedition descended the Columbia River to the Pacific Coast, where they built a fort and spent the winter of 1805-1806. The next year they retraced their steps across the wilderness and returned to St. Louis in September, 1806, having been gone twenty-eight months. The expedition not only was a great adventure, but it also captured the imagination of the country. Not long afterwards fur traders began tapping the rich resources of the area, and by the middle of the century settlers were crossing the plains and mountains via the Oregon Trail.
Although Jefferson was re-elected in 1804 by a landslide victory, his popularity diminished greatly during his second term. The source of his troubles lay in Europe, where England and France were involved in the long, bitter Napoleonic Wars. England could not defeat Napoleon on land, but her navy was superior. Hence she blockaded the continent. France retaliated by counter-blockades. The United States, with a large merchant fleet but scarcely any navy, was caught in the middle. Hundreds of American ships were seized and their cargoes confiscated. Both England and France violated American neutral rights, but England, with the world’s strongest navy, was the chief offender. When a British warship, the Leopard, fired on and impressed American seamen from an American frigate, the Chesapeake, off the coast of Virginia, the United States was ready to fight.
President Jefferson, however, was determined to avoid war and answered the Chesapeake incident with a proclamation excluding British warships from American waters, but the British would not agree to stop impressing American seamen. In addition, to deal with the seizure of American ships, Jefferson persuaded Congress to pass the Embargo Act. 19 This act forbade American ships to leave for foreign ports. The result was that American ships rotted in the harbors and depression hit American business. Yet England and France were not hurt enough to come to terms. The Embargo Act had to be repealed.
About the time the Embargo Act was repealed, Washington Irving, America’s first important man of letters, wrote his History of New York. This book is a burlesque account of the old Dutch period in New York history, a very funny book, full of comic pictures of the Dutch governors and the early settlers. The book also contains some contemporary political satire in the chapters devoted to William the Testy. In the selections which follow you will see obvious references to the Chesapeake incident, the Embargo Act, and President Jefferson’s actions.
As my readers are well aware of the advantage a potentate has in handling his enemies as he pleases in his speeches and bulletins, where he has the talk all on his own side, they may rest assured that William the Testy did not let such an opportunity escape of giving the Yankees what is called “a taste of his quality.” In speaking of their inroads into the territories of their High Mightinesses, he compared them to the Gauls who desolated Rome, the Goths and Vandals who overran the fairest plains of Europe; but when he came to speak of the unparalleled audacity with which they of Weathersfield had advanced their [onion] patches up to the very walls of Fort Goed Hoop, and threatened to smother the garrison in onions, tears of rage started into his eyes, as though he nosed the very offense in question.
Having thus wrought up his tale to a climax, he assumed a most belligerent look, and assured the council that he had devised an instrument, potent in its effects, and which he trusted would soon drive the Yankees from the land. So saying, he thrust his hand into one of the deep pockets of his broad-skirted coat and drew forth, not an infernal machine, but an instrument in writing, which he laid with great emphasis upon the table.
The burghers gazed at it for a time in silent awe, as a wary housewife does at a gun, fearful it may go off half-cocked. The document in question had a sinister look, it is true; it was crabbed in text, and from a broad red ribbon dangled the great seal of the 20 province, about the size of a buckwheat pancake. Still, after all, it was but an instrument in writing. Herein, however, existed the wonder of the invention. The document in question was a PROCLAMATION, ordering the Yankees to depart instantly from the territories of their High Mightinesses, under pain of suffering all the forfeitures and punishments in such case made and provided. It was on the moral effect of this formidable instrument that Wilhelmus Kieft calculated, pledging his valor as a governor that, once fulminated [thundered] against the Yankees, it would in less than two months drive every mother’s son of them across the borders.
The council broke up in perfect wonder, and nothing was talked of for some time among the old men and women of New Amsterdam but the vast genius of the governor and his new and cheap mode of fighting by proclamation.
As to Wilhelmus Kieft, having dispatched his proclamation to the frontiers, he put on his cocked hat and corduroy small clothes, and, mounting a tall rawboned charger, trotted out to his rural retreat of Dog’s Misery....
Never was a more comprehensive, a more expeditious—or, what is still better, a more economical—measure devised than this of defeating the Yankees by proclamation—an expedient, likewise, so gentle and humane there were ten chances to one in favor of its succeeding, but then there was one chance to ten that it would not succeed: as the ill-natured Fates would have it, that single chance carried the day! The proclamation was perfect in all its parts, well constructed, well written, well sealed, and well published; all that was wanting to insure its effect was, that the Yankees should stand in awe of it; but, provoking to relate, they treated it with the most absolute contempt, applied it to an unseemly purpose, and thus did the first warlike proclamation come to a shameful end—a fate which I am credibly informed has befallen but too many of its successors.
So far from abandoning the country, those varlets [rascals] continued their encroachments, squatting along the green banks of the Varsche River, and founding Hartford, Stamford, New Haven, and other border towns. I have already shown how the onion patches of Pyquag were an eyesore to Jacobus Van Curlet and his 21 garrison; but now these moss-troopers increased in their atrocities, kidnaping hogs, impounding horses, and sometimes grievously rib-roasting their owners. Our worthy forefathers could scarcely stir abroad without danger of being outjockeyed in horseflesh or taken in in bargaining, while in their absence some daring Yankee peddler would penetrate to their household and nearly ruin the good housewives with tinware and wooden bowls....
It was long before William the Testy could be persuaded that his much-vaunted war measure was ineffectual; on the contrary, he flew in a passion whenever it was doubted, swearing that though slow in operating, yet when it once began to work it would soon purge the land of these invaders. When convinced, at length, of the truth, like a shrewd physician he attributed the failure to the quantity, not the quality, of the medicine, and resolved to double the dose. He fulminated, therefore, a second proclamation, more vehement than the first, forbidding all intercourse with these Yankee intruders, ordering the Dutch burghers on the frontiers to buy none of their pacing horses, measly port, apple sweetmeats, Weathersfield onions, or wooden bowls, and to furnish them with no supplies of gin, gingerbread, or sauerkraut.
Another interval elapsed, during which the last proclamation was as little regarded as the first, and the non-intercourse was especially set at naught by the young folks of both sexes, if we may judge by the active bundling which took place along the borders.
Irving concludes this satire of William the Testy’s proclamation by a comic account of how the Yankees captured Fort Goed Hoop. They sneaked into the fort while the Dutch soldiers were sleeping off their dinner, gave the defenders a kick in the pants, and sent them back to New Amsterdam.
The Constitution and the Guerrière
Despite the unpopularity of the Embargo Act, James Madison, Jefferson’s choice to succeed him in the presidency, was elected by a large margin. Madison had served a long career in public life, beginning with the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention and more recently serving as Secretary of State under Jefferson. In the following selection Margaret Bayard Smith again reports the Washington scene, this time the events of March 4, 1809, Inauguration Day. Note that she mixes up the sequence of events by starting with the reception after the inauguration before describing the inauguration.
Today after the inauguration we all went to Mrs. Madison’s. The street was full of carriages and people, and we had to wait near half an hour before we could get in—the house was completely filled, parlours, entry, drawing room and bed room. Near the door of the drawing room Mr. and Mrs. Madison stood to receive 23 their company. She looked extremely beautiful, was dressed in a plain cambric dress with a very long train, plain round the neck without any handkerchief, and beautiful bonnet of purple velvet, and white satin with white plumes. She was all dignity, grace and affability.
Mr. Madison shook my hand with all the cordiality of old acquaintance, but it was when I saw our dear and venerable Mr. Jefferson that my heart beat. When he saw me, he advanced from the crowd, took my hand affectionately, and held it five or six minutes; one of the first things he said was, “Remember the promise you have made me, to come to see us next summer; do not forget it,” said he, pressing my hand, “for we shall certainly expect you.” I assured him I would not, and told him I could now wish him joy with much more sincerity than this day 8 years ago.
“You have now resigned a heavy burden,” said I.
“Yes indeed,” he replied, “and am much happier at this moment than my friend.”
The crowd was immense both at the Capitol and here; thousands and thousands of people thronged the avenue. The Capitol presented a gay scene. Every inch of space was crowded and there being as many ladies as gentlemen, all in full dress, it gave it rather a gay than a solemn appearance—there was an attempt made to appropriate particular seats for the ladies of public characters, but it was found impossible to carry it into effect, for the sovereign people would not resign their privileges and the high and low were promiscuously blended on the floor and in the galleries. Mr. Madison was extremely pale and trembled excessively when he first began to speak, but soon gained confidence and spoke audibly.
Mrs. Smith now interrupts her letter (to her sister-in-law) and finishes it the next day. The event she describes is the inauguration ball at Long’s Hotel.
Last evening, I endeavored calmly to look on, and amidst the noise, bustle and crowd, to spend an hour or two in sober reflection, 24 but my eye was always fixed on our venerable friend [Jefferson]. When he approached my ear listened to catch every word, and when he spoke to me my heart beat with pleasure. Personal attachment produces this emotion, and I did not blame it. But I have not this regard for Mr. Madison, and I was displeased at feeling no emotion when he came up and conversed with me. He made some of his old kind of mischievous allusions, and I told him I found him still unchanged. I tried in vain to feel merely as a spectator; the little vanities of my nature often conquered my better reason.
The room was so terribly crowded that we had to stand on the benches; from this situation we had a view of the moving mass; for it was nothing else. It was scarcely possible to elbow your way from one side to another, and poor Mrs. Madison was almost pressed to death, for every one crowded round her, those behind pressing on those before, and peeping over their shoulders to have a peep of her, and those who were so fortunate as to get near enough to speak to her were happy indeed. As the upper sashes of the windows could not let down, the glass was broken, to ventilate the room, the air of which had become oppressive.
The War of 1812, like the Korean war of this century, was a conflict that neither side won. The young United States Navy scored some notable victories at sea but could not prevent the overwhelming naval power of the British from blockading American coasts and cutting off American commerce. The United States Army, with a few notable exceptions, was badly generaled and was outfought. General Hull surrendered Detroit without a fight, and General Dearborn, who set out to attack Montreal, marched to the Canadian border, lost his nerve, and turned back.
The War of 1812 was also like the Korean war in that it was unpopular with the political party out of office. Federalist New England refused to support it, calling the conflict “Mr. Madison’s War,” and seriously talked of secession. New England merchants traded with the enemy, and when Maine was occupied by the British, many Americans quickly took an oath of allegiance to the king. The Czar of Russia’s 25 offer to act as mediator between England and America was eagerly accepted. The peace talks, however, dragged on for nearly two years before a settlement, leaving things just as they were before the war, was agreed upon.
Although neither side won, the War of 1812 did have some important consequences. Historians see it as America’s second war for independence. The Revolution severed American ties with England. The War of 1812 removed any doubts in the minds of European powers that the United States was here to stay. Also, in the years following the war, America was able to settle her grievances with England and to force the Spanish out of Florida. And, for the first time, the United States could concentrate on internal problems.
The frigate Constitution, captained by Isaac Hull, already had a distinguished history when the War of 1812 began. She had been built in Boston during the trouble with France in 1797 and had taken part in the war with the Barbary pirates. The peace treaty with Tripoli had been signed in the captain’s quarters on the gun deck. A trim, fast, graceful ship, the frigate had been made from timbers of solid live oak, hard pine, and red cedar. The bolts, copper sheathing, and brass-work had been supplied by Paul Revere. This ship now is preserved as a museum at the Boston Navy Yard.
Congress declared war on England in June, 1812, and the next month Capt. Hull sailed from Chesapeake Bay. In August he encountered the British ship Guerrière, and the action that followed he reports in his dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy. Thus, the war began with a resounding sea victory.
Sir,
I have the honour to inform you, that on the 19th instant, at 2 P.M. being in latitude 41, 42, longitude 55, 48, with the Constitution under my command, a sail was discovered from the masthead bearing E. by S. or E.S.E. but at such a distance we could not tell what she was. All sail was instantly made in chase, and soon found we came up with her. At 3 P.M. could plainly see that she was a ship on the starboard tack, under easy sail, close on a 26 wind; at half past 3 P.M. made her out to be a frigate; continued the chase until we were within about three miles, when I ordered the light sails taken in, the courses hauled up, and the ship cleared for action. At this time the chase had backed his main top-sail, waiting for us to come down.
As soon as the Constitution was ready for action, I bore down with an intention to bring him to close action immediately; but on our coming within gunshot she gave us a broadside and filled away, and wore, giving us a broadside on the other tack, but without effect; her shot falling short. She continued wearing and maneuvering for about three-quarters of an hour, to get a raking position, but finding she could not, she bore up, and ran under top-sails and gib, with the wind on the quarter.
I immediately made sail to bring the ship up with her, and 5 minutes before 6 P.M. being along side within half pistol shot, we commenced a heavy fire from all our guns, double shotted with round and grape, and so well directed were they, and so warmly kept up, that in 15 minutes his mizen-mast went by the board, and his main-yard in the slings, and the hull, rigging, and sails very much torn to pieces. The fire was kept up with equal warmth for 15 minutes longer, when his main-mast, and fore-mast went, taking with them every spar, excepting the bowsprit; on seeing this we ceased firing, so that in 30 minutes after we got fairly along side the enemy she surrendered, and had not a spar standing, and her hull below and above water so shattered, that a few more broadsides must have carried her down.
After informing you that so fine a ship as the Guerrière, commanded by an able and experienced officer, had been totally dismasted, and otherwise cut to pieces, so as to make her not worth towing into port, in the short space of 30 minutes, you can have no doubt of the gallantry and good conduct of the officers and ship’s company I have the honour to command. It only remains, therefore, for me to assure you, that they all fought with great bravery; and it gives me great pleasure to say, that from the smallest boy in the ship to the oldest seaman, not a look of fear was seen. They all went into action, giving three cheers, and requesting to be laid close along side the enemy.
Enclosed I have the honour to send you a list of killed and 27 wounded on board the Constitution, and a report of the damages she has sustained; also, a list of the killed and wounded on board the enemy.
The naval campaigns of the War of 1812 were fought on the Great Lakes as well as in the Atlantic. Because British troops were based in Canada, the northern border of the United States inevitably became a battle line. Commodore Perry won another important sea victory a year after the Constitution defeated the Guerrière when his squadron defeated and captured a British squadron on Lake Erie. This was the battle which Perry reported to General William Henry Harrison in his famous remark: “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” In the two dispatches that follow, Perry gives a full account of the action to the Secretary of the Navy.
Sir,
It has pleased the Almighty to give to the arms of the United States a signal victory over their enemies on this lake. The British squadron, consisting of two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop, have this moment surrendered to the force under my command, after a sharp conflict.
Sir,
In my last I informed you that we had captured the enemy’s fleet on this lake. I have now the honour to give you the most important particulars of the action. On the morning of the 10th instant, at sunrise, they were discovered from Put-In-Bay, when I lay at anchor with the squadron under my command. We got under weigh, the wind light at south-west, and stood for them. At 10 A.M. the wind hauled to south-east and brought us to windward; formed the line and bore up. At 15 minutes before 12, the enemy commenced firing; at 5 minutes before 12, the action commenced on our part.
Finding their fire very destructive owing to their long guns, and its being mostly directed at the Lawrence, I made sail, and directed the other vessels to follow, for the purpose of closing with the enemy. 28 Every brace and bowline being soon shot away, she became unmanageable, notwithstanding the great exertions of the sailing master. In this situation, she sustained the action upwards of two hours within canister distance, until every gun was rendered useless, and the greater part of her crew either killed or wounded. Finding she could no longer annoy the enemy, I left her in charge of Lieutenant Yarnall, who, I was convinced, from the bravery already displayed by him, would do what would comport with the honour of the flag.
At half past two, the wind springing up, Captain Elliot was enabled to bring his vessel, the Niagara, gallantly into close action. I immediately went on board of her, when he anticipated my wish by volunteering to bring the schooner which had been kept astern by the lightness of the wind, into close action. It was with unspeakable pain that I saw, soon after I got on board the Niagara, the flag of the Lawrence come down, although I was perfectly sensible that she had been defended to the last, and that to have continued to make a show of resistance would have been a wanton sacrifice of the remains of her brave crew. But the enemy was not able to take possession of her, and circumstances soon permitted her flag again to be hoisted.
At 45 minutes past 2, the signal was made for “close action.” The Niagara being very little injured, I determined to pass through the enemy’s line, bore up and passed ahead of their two ships and a brig, giving a raking fire to them from the starboard guns, and to a large schooner and sloop, from the larboard side, at half pistol shot distance. The smaller vessels at this time having got within grape and canister distance, under the direction of Captain Elliot, and keeping up a well-directed fire, the two ships, a brig, and a schooner surrendered, a schooner and sloop making a vain attempt to escape.
Probably the most humiliating military defeat ever inflicted on the United States occurred in August, 1814, when British troops marched into Washington and burned the public buildings. This was a punitive action designed to teach the Americans a lesson and to demoralize the country. Official Washington fled at the approach of the British, and 29 in the following letter Dolly Madison, the President’s wife, describes her activities on the day before and her flight from the White House on the day of the British invasion.
Dear Sister—My husband left me yesterday morning to join General Winder. He inquired anxiously whether I had courage or firmness to remain in the President’s house until his return on the morrow, or succeeding day, and on my assurance that I had no fear but for him, and the success of our army, he left, beseeching me to take care of myself, and of the Cabinet papers, public and private. I have since received two dispatches from him, written with a pencil. The last is alarming, because he desires I should be ready at a moment’s warning to enter my carriage, and leave the city; that the enemy seemed stronger than had at first been reported, and it might happen that they would reach the city with the intention of destroying it. I am accordingly ready; I have pressed as many Cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation. I am determined not to go myself until I see Mr. Madison safe, so that he can accompany me, as I hear of much hostility towards him. Disaffection stalks around us. My friends and acquaintances are all gone, even Colonel C. with his hundred, who were stationed as a guard in this inclosure. French John [a faithful servant], with his usual activity and resolution, offers to spike the cannon at the gate, and lay a train of powder, which would blow up the British, should they enter the house. To the last proposition I positively object, without being able to make him understand why all advantages in war may not be taken.
Wednesday Morning, twelve o’clock. Since sunrise I have been turning my spy-glass in every direction, and watching with unwearied anxiety, hoping to discover the approach of my dear husband and his friends; but, alas! I can descry only groups of military, wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of arms, or of spirit to fight for their own fireside.
Three o’clock. Will you believe it, my sister? we have had a battle, or skirmish, near Bladensburg, and here I am still, within 30 sound of the cannon! Mr. Madison comes not. May God protect us! Two messengers covered with dust come to bid me fly; but here I mean to wait for him.... At this late hour a wagon has been procured, and I have had it filled with plate and the most valuable portable articles belonging to the house. Whether it will reach its destination, the Bank of Maryland, or fall into the hands of British soldiery, events must determine. Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and in a very bad humor with me, because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvas taken out. It is done! and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York, for safe keeping. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell!
Dolly.
British General Robert Ross landed with about four thousand men and marched into Washington without much opposition. The scene that took place during the burning is vividly described by a British officer, George Gleig, in A Narrative of the Campaigns of the British Army.
While the third brigade was thus employed [burning buildings], the rest of the army, having recalled its stragglers and removed the wounded into Bladensburg, began its march towards Washington. Though the battle was ended by four o’clock, the sun had set before the different regiments were in a condition to move; consequently this short journey was performed in the dark. The work of destruction had also begun in the city, before they quitted their ground; and the blazing of houses, ships, and stores, the report of exploding magazines, and the crash of falling roofs informed them, as they proceeded, of what was going forward. You can conceive nothing finer than the sight which met them as they drew near to the town. The sky was brilliantly illuminated by the 31 different conflagrations, and a dark red light was thrown upon the road, sufficient to permit each man to view distinctly his comrade’s face. Except the burning of St. Sebastian’s, I do not recollect to have witnessed ... a scene more striking or more sublime.
I need scarcely to observe that the consternation of the inhabitants was complete, and that to them this was a night of terror. So confident had they been of the success of their troops, that few of them had dreamed of quitting their houses or abandoning the city; nor was it till the fugitives from the battle began to rush in, filling every place as they came with dismay, that the President himself thought of providing for his safety. That gentleman, as I was credibly informed, had gone forth in the morning with the army, and had continued among his troops till the British forces began to make their appearance. Whether the sight of his enemies cooled his courage or not, I cannot say, but, according to my informer, no sooner was the glittering of our arms discernible, than he began to discover that his presence was more wanted in the Senate than with the army; and having ridden through the ranks, and exhorted every man to do his duty, he hurried back to his own house, that he might prepare a feast for the entertainment of his officers, when they should return victorious.
For the truth of these details, I will not be answerable; but this much I know, that the feast was actually prepared, though, instead of being devoured by American officers, it went to satisfy the less delicate appetites of a party of English soldiers. When the detachment sent out to destroy Mr. Madison’s house entered his dining parlor, they found a dinner table spread and covers laid for forty guests. Several kinds of wine, in handsome cut-glass decanters, were cooling on the sideboard; plate-holders stood by the fireplace, filled with dishes and plates; knives, forks, and spoons were arranged for immediate use; in short, everything was ready for the entertainment of a ceremonious party. Such were the arrangements in the dining room, whilst in the kitchen were others answerable to them in every respect. Spits, loaded with joints of various sorts, turned before the fire; pots, saucepans, and other culinary utensils stood upon the grate; and all the other requisites for an elegant and substantial repast were exactly in a state which indicated that they had been lately and precipitately abandoned.
32You will readily imagine that these preparations were beheld by a party of hungry soldiers with no indifferent eye. An elegant dinner, even though considerably overdressed, was a luxury to which few of them, at least for some time back, had been accustomed, and which, after the dangers and fatigues of the day, appeared peculiarly inviting. They sat down to it, therefore, not indeed in the most orderly manner, but with countenances which would not have disgraced a party of aldermen at a civic feast, and, having satisfied their appetites with fewer complaints than would have probably escaped their rival gourmands, and partaken pretty freely of the wines, they finished by setting fire to the house....
But, as I have just observed, this was a night of dismay to the inhabitants of Washington. They were taken completely by surprise; nor could the arrival of the flood be more unexpected to the natives of the antediluvian world than the arrival of the British army to them. The first impulse of course tempted them to fly, and the streets were in consequence crowded with soldiers and senators, men, women, and children, horses, carriages, and carts loaded with household furniture, all hastening towards a wooden bridge which crosses the Potomac. The confusion thus occasioned was terrible, and the crowd upon the bridge was such as to endanger its giving way. But Mr. Madison, having escaped among the first, was no sooner safe on the opposite bank of the river than he gave orders that the bridge should be broken down; which being obeyed, the rest were obliged to return and to trust to the clemency of the victors.
In this manner was the night passed by both parties; and at daybreak next morning, the light brigade moved into the city, while the reserve fell back to a height about a half mile in the rear. Little, however, now remained to be done, because everything marked out for destruction was already consumed. Of the Senate house, the President’s palace, the barracks, the dockyard, etc., nothing could be seen except heaps of smoking ruins; and even the bridge ... was almost wholly demolished.
Despite the general incompetence of the American leadership in the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson emerged from the campaigns as a 33 genuine war hero. The Battle of New Orleans, which ironically was fought after the peace treaty had been signed in Europe, was a great victory. Jackson’s troops, greatly outnumbered, barricaded themselves behind cotton bales and earthworks and mowed down the British as they stormed the American positions. In the two selections that follow, we print first the account of the battle by the British officer George Gleig and then General Jackson’s terse report to the Secretary of War.
OFFICER GLEIG:
The main body armed and moved forward some way in front of the pickets. There they stood waiting for daylight and listening with the greatest anxiety for the firing which ought now to be heard on the opposite bank. But this attention was exerted in vain, and day dawned upon them long before they desired its appearance. Nor was Sir Edward Pakenham disappointed in this part of his plan alone. Instead of perceiving everything in readiness for the assault, he saw his troops in battle array, indeed, but not a ladder or fascine [bundle of sticks to fill ditches] upon the field. The 44th, which was appointed to carry them, had either misunderstood or neglected their orders and now headed the column of attack without any means being provided for crossing the enemy’s ditch, or scaling his rampart.
The indignation of poor Pakenham on this occasion may be imagined, but cannot be described. Galloping towards Colonel Mullens, who led the 44th, he commanded him instantly to return with his regiment for the ladders, but the opportunity of planting them was lost, and though they were brought up, it was only to be scattered over the field by the frightened bearers. For our troops were by this time visible to the enemy. A dreadful fire was accordingly opened upon them, and they were mowed down by hundreds, while they stood waiting for orders.
Seeing that all his well-laid plans were frustrated, Pakenham gave the word to advance, and the other regiments, leaving the 44th with the ladders and fascines behind them, rushed on to the assault. On the left a detachment of the 95th, 21st, and 4th stormed a three-gun battery and took it. Here they remained for some time in the expectation of support; but none arriving, and 34 a strong column of the enemy forming for its recovery, they determined to anticipate the attack and pushed on. The battery which they had taken was in advance of the body of the works, being cut off from it by a ditch, across which only a single plank was thrown. Along this plank did these brave men attempt to pass; but being opposed by overpowering numbers, they were repulsed; and the Americans, in turn, forcing their way into the battery, at length succeeded in recapturing it with immense slaughter.
On the right, again, the 21st and 4th being almost cut to pieces and thrown into some confusion by the enemy’s fire, the 93d pushed on and took the lead. Hastening forward, our troops soon reached the ditch; but to scale the parapet without ladders was impossible. Some few, indeed, by mounting one upon another’s shoulders, succeeded in entering the works, but these were instantly overpowered, most of them killed, and the rest taken; while as many as stood without were exposed to a sweeping fire, which cut them down by whole companies. It was in vain that the most obstinate courage was displayed. They fell by the hands of men whom they absolutely did not see; for the Americans, without so much as lifting their faces above the rampart, swung their firelocks by one arm over the wall, and discharged them directly upon their heads. The whole of the guns, likewise, from the opposite bank, kept up a well directed and deadly cannonade upon their flank; and thus were they destroyed without an opportunity being given of displaying their valour, or obtaining so much as revenge.
Poor Pakenham saw how things were going, and did all that a General could do to rally his broken troops. Riding towards the 44th which had returned to the ground, but in great disorder, he called out for Colonel Mullens to advance; but that officer had disappeared, and was not to be found. He, therefore, prepared to lead them on himself, and had put himself at their head for that purpose, when he received a slight wound in the knee from a musket ball which killed his horse. Mounting another, he again headed the 44th, when a second ball took effect more fatally, and he dropped lifeless into the arms of his aide-de-camp.
Nor were Generals Gibbs and Keane inactive. Riding through the ranks, they strove by all means to encourage the assailants and recall the fugitives, till at length both were wounded and 35 borne off the field. All was now confusion and dismay. Without leaders, ignorant of what was to be done, the troops first halted and then began to retire, till finally the retreat was changed into a flight, and they quitted the ground in the utmost disorder. But the retreat was covered in gallant style by the reserve. Making a forward motion, the 7th and 43d presented the appearance of a renewed attack; by which the enemy were so much awed, that they did not venture beyond their lines in pursuit of the fugitives.
GENERAL JACKSON’S REPORT:
During the days of the 6th and 7th, the enemy had been actively employed in making preparations for an attack on my lines. With infinite labour they had succeeded on the night of the 7th, in getting their boats across from the lake to the river, by widening and deepening the canal on which they had effected their disembarkation. It had not been in my power to impede these operations by a general attack: added to other reasons, the nature of the troops under my command, mostly militia, rendered it too hazardous to attempt extensive offensive movements in an open country, against a numerous and well disciplined army.
Although my forces, as to number, had been increased by the arrival of the Kentucky division, my strength had received very little addition; a small portion only of that detachment being provided with arms. Compelled thus to wait the attack of the enemy, I took every measure to repel it when it should be made, and to defeat the object he had in view. General Morgan, with the New Orleans contingent, the Louisiana militia, and a strong detachment of the Kentucky troops, occupied an entrenched camp on the opposite side of the river, protected by strong batteries on the bank, erected and superintended by Commodore Patterson.
In my encampment everything was ready for action, when, early in the morning of the 8th, the enemy after throwing a heavy shower of bombs and congreve rockets, advanced their columns on my right and left, to storm my entrenchments. I cannot speak sufficiently in praise of the firmness and deliberation with which my whole line received their approach—more could not have been expected from veterans inured to war. For an hour the fire 36 of the small arms was as incessant and severe as can be imagined. The artillery, too, directed by officers who displayed equal skill and courage, did great execution.
Yet the columns of the enemy continued to advance with a firmness which reflects upon them the greatest credit. Twice the column which approached me on my left, was repulsed by the troops of General Carroll, those of General Coffee, and a division of the Kentucky militia, and twice they formed again and renewed the assault. At length, however, cut to pieces, they fled in confusion from the field, leaving it covered with their dead and wounded.
The loss which the enemy sustained on this occasion, cannot be estimated at less than 1500 in killed, wounded and prisoners. [The British actually lost over 2,000. American casualties: 8 killed, 13 wounded.] Upwards of three hundred have already been delivered over for burial; and my men are still engaged in picking them up within my lines and carrying them to the point where the enemy are to receive them. This is in addition to the dead and wounded whom the enemy have been enabled to carry from the field, during and since the action, and to those who have since died of the wounds they received. We have taken about 500 prisoners, upwards of 300 of whom are wounded, and a great part of them mortally. My loss has not exceeded, and I believe has not amounted to, 10 killed and as many wounded....
I have the honor to be, etc. Andrew Jackson
Incidentally, this battle was the last time that British and American troops ever fought each other. The next time they met on the field of battle they were allies in World War I.
Public speaker on the Fourth of July
James Monroe was the last of the quartet of Virginia Presidents which had begun with George Washington. He was elected after serving as Madison’s Secretary of State, but before that he had fought in the Revolution, sat in the Continental Congress, been a Senator, a governor, and a minister to France. His term as President is known as the Era of Good Feeling because of the absence of serious problems to divide the country. It was a period of rapid growth as settlers pushed west and the beginnings of the industrial revolution began to change the East.
During the early decades of the nineteenth century the wilderness across the Allegheny Mountains began to fill up with farmers. Throughout Jefferson’s administration there were occasional skirmishes with the 38 Indians, but gradually the Indians were pushed out of their traditional hunting grounds. While Madison was President, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, who had attempted to organize Indian resistance, was crushed by William Henry Harrison in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Meantime, Ohio had become a state in 1803, and in 1816, the year that James Monroe was elected President, Indiana was admitted to the Union. Two years later, Illinois joined the growing Union.
In the selections reprinted in this part of The Jeffersonians we have chosen four pieces that show various aspects of life in the Mississippi Valley. Here you will find examples of farm life, religion, and politics in the new states west of the mountains.
William Cooper Howells, the author of the next selection, was the father of a famous magazine editor and novelist, William Dean Howells. The elder Howells was taken to Ohio from England as a child and grew up on a farm while Ohio was a new state. His memories come from Recollections of Life in Ohio from 1813 to 1840.
One of the gatherings for joint work, which has totally disappeared from the agriculture of modern times, and one that was always a jolly kind of affair, was the cornhusking. It was a sort of harvest home in its department, and it was the more jolly because it was a gathering with very little respect to persons, and embraced in the invitation men and big boys, with the understanding that no one would be unwelcome. There was always a good supper served at the husking, and as certainly a good appetite to eat it with. It came at a plentiful season, when the turkeys and chickens were fat, and a fat pig was at hand, to be flanked on the table with good bread in various forms, turnips and potatoes from the autumn stores, apple and pumpkin pies, good coffee and the like. And the cooking was always well done, and all in such bountiful abundance that no one feared to eat, while many a poor fellow was certain of a square meal by being present at a husking. You were sure to see the laboring men of the vicinity out, and the wives of a goodly number of farm hands would be on hand to help in the cooking and serving at the table. The cornhusking has 39 been discontinued because the farmers found out that it was less trouble to husk it in the field, direct from the stalk, than to gather in the husk and go over it again. But in that day they did not know that much and therefore took the original method of managing their corn crop, which was this: as soon as the grain began to harden they would cut the stalks off just above the ears and save these tops for fodder, and if they had time they stripped all the blades off the stalks below the ears, which made very nice though costly feed. Then, as barn room was not usually over plenty, they made a kind of frame of poles, as for a tent, and thatched it, sides and top, with the corn tops placed with the tassel downward, so as to shed the rain and snow. This was called the fodder-house and was built in the barnyard. Inside they would store the blades in bundles, the husks, and the pumpkins that were saved for use in the winter. The fodder-house was commonly made ten feet high and as long as was necessary, and it was used up through the winter by feeding the fodder to the cattle, beginning at the back, which would be temporarily closed by a few bundles of the tops. It would thus serve as a protection for what might be stored in it till all was used up. The fodder-house was, of all things, a favorite place for the children to hide in and play. When the season for gathering the corn came the farmers went through the fields and pulled off the ears and husks together, throwing them upon the ground in heaps, whence they were hauled into the barnyard and there piled up in a neat pile of convenient length, according to the crop, and say four or five feet high, rising to a sharp peak from a base of about six feet. Care was taken to make this pile of equal width and height from end to end, so that it would be easily and fairly divided in the middle by a rail laid upon it.
When the husking party had assembled they were all called out into line, and two fellows, mostly ambitious boys, were chosen captains. These then chose their men, each calling out one of the crowd alternately, till all were chosen. Then the heap was divided, by two judicious chaps walking solemnly along the ridge of the heap of corn, and deciding where the dividing rail was to be laid, and, as this had to be done by starlight or moonlight at best, it took considerable deliberation, as the comparative solidity of the 40 ends of the heap and the evenness of it had to be taken into account. This done, the captains placed a good steady man at each side of the rail, who made it a point to work through and cut the heap in two as soon as possible; and then the two parties fell to husking, all standing with the heap in front of them, and throwing the husked corn on to a clear place over the heap, and the husks behind them. From the time they began till the corn was all husked at one end, there would be steady work, each man husking all the corn he could, never stopping except to take a pull at the stone jug of inspiration that passed occasionally along the line; weak lovers of the stuff were sometimes overcome, though it was held to be a disgraceful thing to take too much. The captains would go up and down their lines and rally their men as if in a battle, and the whole was an exciting affair.
As soon as one party got done, they raised a shout, and hoisting their captain on their shoulders, carried him over to the other side with general cheering. Then would come a little bantering talk and explanation why the defeated party lost, and all would turn to and husk up the remnants of the heap. All hands would then join to carry the husks into the fodder-house. The shout at hoisting the captain was the signal for bringing the supper on the table, and the huskers and the supper met soon after. These gatherings often embraced forty or fifty men. If the farmhouse was small it would be crowded, and the supper would be managed by repeated sittings at the table. At a large house there was less crowding and more fun, and if, as was often the case, some occasion had been given for an assemblage of the girls of the neighborhood, and particularly if the man that played the fiddle should attend, after the older men had gone, there was very apt to be a good time. There was a tradition that the boys who accidentally husked a red ear and saved it would be entitled to a kiss from somebody. But I never knew it to be necessary to produce a red ear to secure a kiss where there was a disposition to give or take one.
Religion played an important part in the lives of frontier settlers. Instead of the stern Puritanism of colonial New England, the religion of the West in the early years of the last century was highly evangelistic. 41 By this time, the Methodist movement had made a large number of converts and was particularly strong on the frontier. One tireless Methodist preacher was Lorenzo Dow, often known as “Crazy Dow,” who traveled throughout the United States during a long ministry. Though he lived until 1834, the selection that follows comes from his journal of 1804, when he visited Tennessee at the age of 27. He was then traveling about ten thousand miles a year by horse and on foot over trails and primitive roads. This selection is particularly interesting for its account of a backwoods religious fervor, almost a physical affliction, described by Dow as the jerks.
Next day I rode forty-five miles in company with Dr. Nelson across the dismal Allegheny mountains by the warm springs, and on the way a young man, a traveller, came in (where I breakfasted gratis at an inn) and said that he had but three sixteenths of a dollar left, having been robbed of seventy-one dollars on the way; and he being far from home, I gave him half of what I had with me.
My horse having a navel gall come on his back, I sold him with the saddle, bridle, cloak and blanket, etc., on credit for about three fourths of the value, with uncertainty whether I should ever be paid: thus I crossed the river French Broad in a canoe and set out for my appointment; but fearing I should be behind the time, I hired a man (whom I met on the road with two horses) to carry me five miles in haste for three shillings; which left me but one sixteenth of a dollar. In our speed he observed there was a nigh way by which I could clamber the rocks and cut off some miles: so we parted; he having not gone two thirds of the way yet insisted on the full sum.
I took to my feet the nigh way as fast as I could pull on, as intricate as it was, and came to a horrid ledge of rocks on the bank of the river where there was no such thing as going round; and to clamber over would be at the risk of my life, as there was danger of slipping into the river. However, being unwilling to disappoint the people, I pulled off my shoes, and with my handkerchief fastened them about my neck, and creeping upon my hands and feet with my fingers and toes in the cracks of the rocks with 42 difficulty I got safe over. In about four miles I came to a house and hired a woman to take me over the river in a canoe, for my remaining money and a pair of scissors; the latter of which was the chief object with her: so our extremities are other’s opportunities. Thus with difficulty I got to my appointment in Newport in time.
I had heard about a singularity called the jerks or jerking exercise, which appeared first near Knoxville in August last, to the great alarm of the people; which reports at first I considered as vague and false. But at length, like the Queen of Sheba, I set out to go and see for myself and sent over these appointments into this country accordingly.
When I arrived in sight of this town, I saw hundreds of people collected in little bodies; and observing no place appointed for meeting, before I spoke to any, I got on a log and gave out an hymn; which caused them to assemble round, in solemn attentive silence. I observed several involuntary motions in the course of the meeting, which I considered as a specimen of the jerks. I rode seven miles behind a man across streams of water and held meeting in the evening, being ten miles on my way.
In the night I grew uneasy, being twenty-five miles from my appointment for next morning at eleven o’clock; I prevailed on a young man to attempt carrying me with horses until day, which he thought was impracticable, considering the darkness of the night and the thickness of the trees. Solitary shrieks were heard in these woods, which he told me were said to be the cries of murdered persons. At day we parted, being still seventeen miles from the spot, and the ground covered with a white frost. I had not proceeded far before I came to a stream of water from the springs of the mountain, which made it dreadful cold; in my heated state I had to wade this stream five times in the course of about an hour, which I perceived so affected my body that my strength began to fail. Fears began to arise that I must disappoint the people, till I observed some fresh tracks of horses which caused me to exert every nerve to overtake them in hopes of aid or assistance on my journey, and soon I saw them on an eminence. I shouted for them to stop, till I came up; they inquired what I wanted; I replied I had heard there was meeting at Seversville by a stranger and was 43 going to it. They replied that they had heard that a crazy man was to hold forth there and were going also; and perceiving that I was weary, they invited me to ride, and soon our company was increased to forty or fifty who fell in with us on the road, from different plantations. At length I was interrogated, whether I knew anything about the preacher. I replied. “I have heard a good deal about him, and have heard him preach, but I have no great opinion of him.” And thus the conversation continued for some miles before they found me out, which caused some color and smiles in the company.
Thus I got on to meeting, and after taking a cup of tea gratis, I began to speak to a vast audience; and I observed about thirty to have the jerks. Though they strove to keep still as they could, these emotions were involuntary, and irresistible, as any unprejudiced eye might discern. Lawyer Porter (who had come a considerable distance) got his heart touched under the word and being informed how I came to meeting, voluntarily lent me a horse to ride near one hundred miles and gave me a dollar, though he had never seen me before.
Hence to Marysville, where I spoke to about one thousand five hundred; and many appeared to feel the word, but about fifty felt the jerks. At night I lodged with one of the Nicholites, a kind of Quakers who do not feel free to wear coloured clothes. I spoke to a number of people at his house that night. Whilst at tea I observed his daughter (who sat opposite to me at the table) to have the jerks; and dropped the tea cup from her hand in the violent agitation. I said to her, “Young woman, what is the matter?” She replied, “I have got the jerks.” I asked her how long she had it? She observed “a few days” and that it had been the means of the awakening and conversion of her soul by stirring her up to serious consideration about her careless state, etc.
Sunday, February 19th, I spoke in Knoxville to hundreds more than could get into the court house, the Governor being present. About one hundred and fifty appeared to have jerking exercise, among whom was a circuit preacher (Johnson) who had opposed them a little before, but he now had them powerfully; and I believe he would have fallen over three times had not the auditory been so crowded that he could not, unless he fell perpendicularly.
44After meeting I rode eighteen miles to hold meeting at night. The people of this settlement were mostly Quakers; and they had said (as I was informed) the Methodists and Presbyterians have the jerks because they sing and pray so much, but we are a still peaceable people, wherefore we do not have them. However, about twenty of them came to meeting, to hear one, as was said, somewhat in a Quaker line, but their usual stillness and silence was interrupted; for about a dozen of them had the jerks as keen and as powerful as any I had seen, so as to have occasioned a kind of grunt or groan when they would jerk. It appears that many have undervalued the great revival, and attempted to account for it altogether on natural principles; therefore it seems to me (from the best judgment I can form) that God hath seen proper to take this method, to convince people, that he will work in a way to show his power; and sent the jerks as a sign of the times, partly in judgment for the people’s unbelief, and yet as a mercy to convict people of divine realities.
Davy Crockett, who describes himself as an “ignorant backwoods bearhunter,” was just another poor frontier boy until he got into politics. Then he served in the state legislature and later in Congress. He became the fair-haired boy of Whig politicians when he broke with Andrew Jackson, his fellow Tennessee Democrat. Subsequently, his backwoods humor, tall tales, and picturesque personality were exploited by Whig journalists, and Crockett became a sort of folklore hero.
But Tennessee Democrats would not tolerate his desertion of their party and turned him out of office. After that, he went to Texas and died, as everyone remembers, during the heroic defense of the Alamo. The following selection is taken from A Narrative of the Life of Davy Crockett, which passes for his autobiography but which undoubtedly was ghostwritten for him. This account describes with typical frontier exaggeration Crockett’s first campaign for office.
In a little time I was asked to offer for the Legislature in the counties of Lawrence and Heckman. I offered my name in the month of February, and started about the first of March with a 45 drove of horses to the lower part of the State of North Carolina. This was in the year 1821, and I was gone upwards of three months. I returned, and set out electioneering, which was a brand-fire new business to me. It now became necessary that I should tell the people something about the government, and an eternal sight of other things that I knowed nothing more about than I did about Latin, and law, and such things as that. I have said before that in those days none of us called General Jackson the government [Jackson was not yet President, and Crockett was still a Democrat], nor did he seem in as fair a way to become so as I do now; but I knowed so little about it, that if any one had told me he was “the government,” I should have believed it, for I had never read even a newspaper in my life, or anything else, on the subject. But over all my difficulties, it seems to me I was born for luck, though it would be hard for any one to guess what sort. I will, however, explain that hereafter.
I went first into Heckman county, to see what I could do among the people as a candidate. Here they told me that they wanted to move their town nearer to the centre of the county, and I must come out in favor of it. There’s no devil if I knowed what this meant, or how the town was to be moved; and so I kept dark, going on the identical same plan that I now find is called “noncommittal.” About this time there was a great squirrel hunt on Duck River, which was among my people. They were to hunt two days; then to meet and count the scalps, and have a big barbecue, and what might be called a tip-top country frolic. The dinner, and a general treat, was all to be paid for by the party having taken the fewest scalps. I joined one side, taking the place of one of the hunters, and got a gun ready for the hunt. I killed a great many squirrels, and when we counted scalps, my party was victorious.
The company had every thing to eat and drink that could be furnished in so new a country, and much fun and good humor prevailed. But before the regular frolic commenced, I mean the dancing, I was called on to make a speech as a candidate; which was a business I was as ignorant of as an outlandish Negro.
A public document I had never seen, nor did I know there were such things; and how to begin I couldn’t tell. I made many apologies, and tried to get off, for I know’d I had a man to run 46 against who could speak prime, and I know’d, too, that I wasn’t able to shuffle and cut with him. He was there, and knowing my ignorance as well as I did myself, he also urged me to make a speech. The truth is, he thought my being a candidate was a mere matter of sport; and didn’t think for a moment that he was in any danger from an ignorant backwoods bear hunter. But I found I couldn’t get off, and so I determined just to go ahead, and leave it to chance what I should say. I got up and told the people I reckoned they know’d what I come for, but if not, I could tell them. I had come for their votes, and if they didn’t watch mighty close I’d get them too. But the worst of all was, that I could not tell them anything about government. I tried to speak about something, and I cared very little what, until I choked up as bad as if my mouth had been jamm’d and cramm’d chock full of dry mush. There the people stood, listening all the while, with their eyes, mouths, and ears all open, to catch every word....
At last I told them I was like a fellow I had heard of not long before. He was beating on the head of an empty barrel near the road-side, when a traveler, who was passing along, asked him what he was doing that for? The fellow replied that there was some cider in that barrel a few days before, and he was trying to see if there was any then, but if there was he couldn’t get at it. I told them that there had been a little bit of speech in me a while ago, but I believed I couldn’t get it out. They all roared out in a mighty laugh, and I told some other anecdotes, equally amusing to them, and believing I had them in a first-rate way, I quit and got down, thanking the people for their attention. But I took care to remark that I was as dry as a powder-horn, and that I thought it was time for us all to wet our whistles a little; and so I put off to the liquor stand, and was followed by the greater part of the crowd.
I felt certain this was necessary, for I knowed my competitor could open government matters to them as easy as he pleased. He had, however, mighty few left to hear him, as I continued with the crowd, now and then taking a horn, and telling good-humored stories, till he was done speaking. I found I was good for the votes at the hunt, and when we broke up I went on to the town of Vernon, which was the same [town] they wanted me to move. Here 47 they pressed me again on the subject, and I found I could get either party by agreeing with them. But I told them I didn’t know whether it would be right or not, and so couldn’t promise either way.
Their court commenced on the next Monday, as the barbecue was on a Saturday, and the candidates for Governor, and for Congress, as well as my competitor and myself, all attended.
The thought of having to make a speech made my knees feel mighty weak, and set my heart to fluttering almost as bad as my first love scrape with the Quaker’s niece. But as good luck would have it, these big candidates spoke nearly all day, and when they quit, the people were worn out with fatigue, which afforded me a good apology for not discussing the government. But I listened mighty close to them, and was learning pretty fast about political matters. When they were all done, I got up and told some laughable story, and quit. I found I was safe in those parts, and so I went home, and did not go back again till after the election was over. But to cut this matter short, I was elected, doubling my competitor, and nine votes over.
Morris Birkbeck was an Englishman who came to the United States and settled in southeastern Illinois where he founded the town of Albion. His account of the people and life in Illinois in 1817, just before it became a state, is good reporting. He has a sharp eye for detail, and because he was fresh from Europe, he sees and records the contrasts between the Midwestern backwoods and the Old World. The following selection comes from his book, Notes on a Journey in America, from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois.
August 1. Dagley’s, twenty miles north of Shawnee Town. After viewing several beautiful prairies, so beautiful with their surrounding woods as to seem like the creation of fancy, gardens of delight in a dreary wilderness, and after losing our horses and spending two days in recovering them, we took a hunter as our guide and proceeded across the Little Wabash to explore the country between that river and the Skillet-fork.
48Since we left the Fox settlement, about fifteen miles north of the Big Prairie, cultivation has been very scanty, many miles intervening between the little “clearings.” This may therefore be truly called a new country.
These lonely settlers are poorly off—their bread corn must be ground thirty miles off, requiring three days to carry to the mill and bring back the small horse-load of three bushels. Articles of family manufacture are very scanty, and what they purchase is of the meanest quality and excessively dear: yet they are friendly and willing to share their simple fare with you. It is surprising how comfortable they seem, wanting everything. To struggle with privations has now become the habit of their lives, most of them having made several successive plunges into the wilderness, and they begin already to talk of selling their “improvements” and getting still farther “back” on finding that emigrants of another description are thickening about them.
Our journey across the Little Wabash was a complete departure from all mark of civilization. We saw no bears, as they are now buried in the thickets, and seldom appear by day; but, at every few yards, we saw recent marks of their doings, “wallowing” in the long grass or turning over decayed logs in quest of beetles or worms, in which work the strength of this animal is equal to that of four men. Wandering without track, where even the sagacity of our hunter-guide had nearly failed us, we at length arrived at the cabin of another hunter, where we lodged.
This man and his family are remarkable instances of the effect on the complexion produced by the perpetual incarceration [imprisonment] of a thorough woodland life. Incarceration may seem to be a term less applicable to the condition of a roving backwoodsman than to any other, and especially unsuitable to the habits of this individual and his family; for the cabin in which he entertained us is the third dwelling he has built within the last twelve months, and a very slender motive would place him in a fourth before the ensuing winter. In his general habits the hunter ranges as freely as the beasts he pursues; labouring under no restraint, his activity is only bounded by his own physical powers: still he is incarcerated—“Shut from the common air.” Buried in the depth of a boundless forest, the breeze of health never reaches 49 these poor wanderers; the bright prospect of distant hills fading away into the semblance of clouds, never cheered their sight. They are tall and pale, like vegetables that grow in a vault, pining for light....
Our stock of provisions being nearly exhausted, we were anxious to provide ourselves with a supper by means of our guns, but we could meet with neither deer nor turkey; however, in our utmost need, we shot three raccoons, an old one to be roasted for our dogs and the two young ones to be stewed up daintily for ourselves. We soon lighted a fire and cooked the old raccoon for the dogs; but famished as they were, they would not touch it, and their squeamishness so far abated our relish for the promised stew that we did not press our complaining landlady to prepare it; and thus our supper consisted of the residue of our “corn” bread and no raccoon. However, we laid our bear skins on the filthy earth (floor there was none), which they assured us was “too damp for fleas,” and wrapped in our blankets slept soundly enough; though the collops [slices] of venison hanging in comely rows in the smoky fireplace and even the shoulders put by for the dogs and which were suspended over our heads would have been an acceptable prelude to our night’s rest, had we been invited to partake of them; but our hunter and our host were too deeply engaged in conversation to think of supper. In the morning the latter kindly invited us to cook some of the collops, which we did by toasting them on a stick, and he also divided some shoulders among the dogs; so we all fared sumptuously.
The cabin, which may serve as a specimen of these rudiments of houses, was formed of round logs with apertures of three or four inches between. No chimney, but large intervals between the “clapboards” for the escape of the smoke. The roof was, however, a more effectual covering than we have generally experienced, as it protected us very tolerably from a drenching night. Two bedsteads of unhewn logs and cleft boards laid across; two chairs, one of them without a bottom, and a low stool were all the furniture required by this numerous family. A string of buffalo hide stretched across the hovel was a wardrobe for their rags; and their utensils, consisting of a large iron pot, some baskets, the effective rifle and two that were superannuated [too old to use], stood about 50 in corners, and the fiddle, which was only silent when we were asleep, hung by them.
When the War of 1812 ended, the United States consisted of eighteen states—nine free and nine slave. Very soon Indiana was admitted as a free state, offset by Mississippi as a slave state. It was inevitable that this precarious balance between the North and the South would some day cause trouble, and the trouble came very soon. In 1818, Illinois entered as a free state, and the enabling legislation to admit Missouri was introduced in Congress in 1819.
The South assumed that Missouri would be a slave state, but a New York Congressman amended the Missouri statehood bill to provide for gradual freeing of the slaves there. The South reacted vigorously to keep from losing its equal representation in the Senate and blocked passage of the bill. Meanwhile, Alabama came in to balance Illinois, and there were eleven northern and eleven southern states.
The following year, when Maine applied for admission into the Union, Henry Clay of Kentucky engineered the famous Missouri Compromise. This agreement provided that Missouri would come in as a slave state but that no more slave states would be admitted from territory north of Missouri’s southern boundary. This compromise is important because it foreshadows the struggle between the North and South that eventuated in the Civil War a generation later. Although most of the oratory dealt with the slavery issue, the struggle also concerned the broader matter of political control in the West.
The following selections illustrate the debate in Congress over the Missouri question. The first speech is by Congressman Arthur Livermore of New Hampshire against the extension of slavery.
I propose to show what slavery is, and to mention a few of the many evils which follow in its train; and I hope to evince that we are not bound to tolerate the existence of so disgraceful a state of things beyond its present extent, and that it would be impolitic and very unjust to let it spread over the whole face of our Western 51 territory. Slavery in the United States is the condition of man subjected to the will of a master who can make any disposition of him short of taking away his life. In those States where it is tolerated, laws are enacted making it penal to instruct slaves in the art of reading, and they are not permitted to attend public worship or to hear the Gospel preached.
Thus the light of science and of religion is utterly excluded from the mind, that the body may be more easily bowed down to servitude. The bodies of slaves may, with impunity, be prostituted to any purpose and deformed in any manner by their owners. The sympathies of nature in slaves are disregarded; mothers and children are sold and separated; the children wring their little hands and expire in agonies of grief, while the bereft mothers commit suicide in despair. How long will the desire of wealth render us blind to the sin of holding both the bodies and souls of our fellow-men in chains!
But, sir, I am admonished of the Constitution, and told that we cannot emancipate slaves. I know we may not infringe that instrument, and therefore do not propose to emancipate slaves. The proposition before us goes only to prevent our citizens from making slaves of such as have a right to freedom. In the present slaveholding States let slavery continue, for our boasted Constitution connives at it; but do not, for the sake of cotton and tobacco, let it be told to future ages that, while pretending to love liberty, we have purchased an extensive country to disgrace it with the foulest reproach of nations.
Our Constitution requires no such thing of us. The ends for which that supreme law was made are succinctly stated in its preface. They are, first, to form a more perfect union and insure domestic tranquility. Will slavery effect this? Can we, sir, by mingling bond with free, black spirits with white, like Shakespeare’s witches in Macbeth, form a more perfect union and insure domestic tranquility? Secondly, to establish justice. Is justice to be established by subjecting half mankind to the will of the other half? Justice, sir, is blind to colors, and weighs in equal scales the rights of all men, whether white or black. Thirdly, to provide for the common defense and secure the blessings of liberty. Does slavery add anything to the common defense? Sir, the strength of a republic 52 is in the arm of freedom. But, above all things, do the blessings of liberty consist in slavery?
In the second selection we have chosen, Senator James Barbour of Virginia defends slavery:
The gentleman from Pennsylvania asks shall we suffer Missouri to come into the Union with this savage mark [of slavery] on her countenance? I appeal to that gentleman to know whether this be language to address to an American Senate, composed equally of members from States precisely in that condition that Missouri would be in, were she to tolerate slavery. Are these sentiments calculated to cherish that harmony and affection so essential to any beneficial results from our Union? But, sir, I will not imitate this course, and I will strive to repress the feeling which such remarks are calculated to awaken.
... They assure us that they do not mean to touch this property [slavery] in the old states.... What kind of ethics is this that is bounded by latitude and longitude, which is inoperative on the left, but is omnipotent on the right bank of a river? Such a doctrine is well calculated to excite our solicitude; for, although the gentlemen who now hold it are sincere in their declarations, and mean to content themselves with a triumph in this controversy, what security have we that others will not apply it to the South generally?
Let it not, however, be supposed that in the abstract I am advocating slavery. Like all other human things, it is mixed with good and evil—the latter, no doubt, preponderating.... Whether slavery was ordained by God Himself in a particular revelation to His chosen people, or whether it be merely permitted as a part of that moral evil which seems to be the inevitable portion of man, are questions I will not approach; I leave them to the casuists [debaters] and the divines [preachers]. It is sufficient for us, as statesmen, to know that it has existed from the earliest ages of the world, and that to us has been assigned such a portion as, in reference to their number and the various considerations resulting from a change of their condition, no remedy, even plausible, has 53 been suggested, though wisdom and benevolence united have unceasingly brooded over the subject.
However dark and inscrutable may be the ways of heaven, who is he that arrogantly presumes to arraign [challenge] them? The same mighty power that planted the greater and the lesser luminary in the heavens permits on earth the bondsman and the free. To that Providence, as men and Christians, let us bow. If it be consistent with His will, in the fullness of time, to break the fetter of the slave, He will raise up some Moses to be their deliverer. To him commission will be given to lead them up out of the land of bondage.
In the final selection James Stevens, Representative from Connecticut, pleads with Congress to accept the Compromise:
I have listened with pain to the very long, protracted debate that has been had on this unfortunate question. I call it unfortunate, sir, because it has drawn forth the worst passions of man in the course of the discussion....
If the deadliest enemy this country has, or ever had, could dictate language the most likely to destroy your glory, prosperity, and happiness, would it not be precisely what has been so profusely used in this debate—sectional vaunting?... Indeed, sir, there is no view of this unhappy division of our country but must be sickening to the patriot and in direct violation of the dictate of wisdom, and the last, though not least, important advice of the Father and Friend of his Country. He forbids the use of the words Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western, as descriptive of the various parts of your country.
But, sir, we have now arrived at a point at which every gentleman agrees something must be done. A precipice lies before us at which perdition [ruin] is inevitable. Gentlemen on both sides of this question, and in both Houses, indoors and out of doors, have evinced a determination that augurs ill of the high destinies of this country! And who does not tremble for the consequences?...
I wish not to be misunderstood, sir. I don’t pretend to say that in just five calendar months your Union will be at an end;...
54But, sir, I do say, and, for the verity of the remark, cite the lamentable history of our own time, that the result of a failure to compromise at this time, in the way now proposed, or in some other way satisfactory to both, would be to create ruthless hatred, irradicable jealousy, and a total forgetfulness of the ardor of patriotism, to which, as it has heretofore existed, we owe, under Providence, more solid national glory and social happiness than ever before was possessed by any people, nation, kindred, or tongue under Heaven.
Although the United States was mainly concerned with internal problems during Monroe’s presidency, there was one important policy established during this period in the area of foreign relations. This was the Monroe Doctrine. It was a statement of policy made by the President in a message to Congress in 1823, which defined the role of the United States in international affairs and which, in some respects, is still vital United States policy.
The Doctrine states that the United States will not tolerate further foreign colonial expansion by European powers in North or South America. This policy was necessary because Spain’s colonies in Latin America had recently revolted, and it looked as though the other European powers might try to reconquer Spain’s former colonies. In addition, Russia was moving southward from Alaska and claiming land down to the 51st parallel, which would have taken in much of what is now British Columbia. The Monroe Doctrine also declares that the United States will not interfere with existing European colonies in the Americas nor with the internal affairs of European nations. In the following selection we reprint part of the Monroe Doctrine.
In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of 55 necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers....
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.
In the war between those new Governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the competent authorities of this Government, shall make a ... change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security....
Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto [actually ruling] as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none. But in regard to those continents circumstances are eminently and conspicuously different.
It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent [North or South America] without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference.
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams, who succeeded James Monroe as President in 1825, was the son of John Adams, the second President. He too had served a long apprenticeship in government, having been Senator, minister to Great Britain and Russia, and Secretary of State. Although he served only one term and was defeated for re-election by Andrew Jackson, he was a forward-looking President. We illustrate his interest in science and the internal development of the United States by a portion of his first message to Congress. He begins with a plea that the object of government is to improve the lot of the people. He favors roads and canals, but even more, moral and intellectual improvements.
Upon this first occasion of addressing the Legislature of the Union, with which I have been honored, in presenting to their view the execution so far as it has been effected of the measures 57 sanctioned by them for promoting the internal improvement of our country, I can not close the communication without recommending to their calm and persevering consideration the general principle in a more enlarged extent....
Among the first, perhaps the very first, instrument for the improvement of the conditions of men is knowledge, and to the acquisition of much of the knowledge adapted to the wants, the comforts, and enjoyments of human life public institutions and seminaries of learning are essential. So convinced of this was the first of my predecessors in this office [George Washington], now first in the memory, as, living, he was first in the hearts, of our countrymen, that once and again in his addresses to the Congresses with whom he co-operated in the public service he earnestly recommended the establishment of seminaries of learning, to prepare for all the emergencies of peace and war—a national university and a military academy. With respect to the latter, had he lived to the present day, in turning his eyes to the institution at West Point he would have enjoyed the gratification of his most earnest wishes; but in surveying the city which has been honored with his name he would have seen the spot of earth which he had destined and bequeathed to the use and benefit of his country as the site for an university still bare and barren.
In assuming her station among the civilized nations of the earth it would seem that our country had contracted the engagement to contribute her share of mind, of labor, and of expense to the improvement of those parts of knowledge which lie beyond the reach of individual acquisition, and particularly to geographical and astronomical science. Looking back to the history only of the half century since the declaration of our independence, and observing the generous emulation with which the Governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia have devoted the genius, the intelligence, the treasures of their respective nations to the common improvement of the species in these branches of science, is it not incumbent upon us to inquire whether we are not bound by obligations of a high and honorable character to contribute our portion of energy and exertion to the common stock?...
In inviting the attention of Congress to the subject of internal improvements upon a view thus enlarged it is not my design to 58 recommend the equipment of an expedition for circumnavigating the globe for purposes of scientific research and inquiry. We have objects of useful investigation nearer home, and to which our cares may be more beneficially applied. The interior of our own territories has yet been very imperfectly explored. Our coasts along many degrees of latitude upon the shores of the Pacific Ocean, though much frequented by our spirited commercial navigators, have been barely visited by our public ships....
The establishment of an uniform standard of weights and measures was one of the specific objects contemplated in the formation of our Constitution, and to fix that standard was one of the powers delegated by express terms in that instrument to Congress. The Governments of Great Britain and France have scarcely ceased to be occupied with inquiries and speculations on the same subject since the existence of our Constitution, and with them it has expanded into profound, laborious, and expensive researches into the figure of the earth and the comparative length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in various latitudes from the equator to the pole....
Connected with the establishment of an university, or separate from it, might be undertaken the erection of an astronomical observatory, with provision for the support of an astronomer, to be in constant attendance of observation upon the phenomena of the heavens, and for the periodical publication of his observations. It is with no feeling of pride as an American that the remark may be made that on the comparatively small territorial surface of Europe there are existing upward of 130 of these light-houses of the skies, while throughout the whole American hemisphere there is not one. If we reflect a moment upon the discoveries which in the last four centuries have been made in the physical constitution of the universe by the means of these buildings and of observers stationed in them, shall we doubt of their usefulness to every nation? And while scarcely a year passes over our heads without bringing some new astronomical discovery to light, which we must fain receive at second hand from Europe, are we not cutting ourselves off from the means of returning light for light while we have neither observatory nor observer upon our half of the globe and the earth revolves in perpetual darkness to our unsearching eyes?
The Lewis and Clark expedition