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WHEN a destructive war had been carried on for two years,
when recruiting was slow, and the Government heavily in debt, and yet no way
appeared but to fight it out, it might have been expected that harsh
criticism of the policy of the Administration, coming from
the party that had steadily opposed the war, would subject that party to the
charge of being unpatriotic and untrue to the Union. It might also have
been expected that an opposition, which had become chronic could not but
become in some respects unjust. So when the Federalists in 1814 were
flooding the Legislatures of New England with memorials on the conduct of the
war, they could hardly restrain themselves from overdrawing the picture of
its failures, or from representing the condition of things before the war as
rather more paradisiacal than anybody had suspected.
And on the other hand, they were accused not only of
rejoicing in defeats of the national arms, but of plotting a separation of
New England from the other States, with a view of ultimately making her again
a part of the British Empire. That there were some Federalists who
contemplated a dissolution of the Union as a possible remedy for certain
difficulties, is quite probable, for such views were at that time not
confined to either party. The contingency of disunion was frequently
discussed by men of both parties. But that anybody seriously
contemplated a reunion with England, there has never been any evidence worth
considering. The story was gotten up by the Administration party, in
order to cast odium upon the Federalists; and the occurrence most freely used
to give color to it was the Hartford Convention, which unfortunately sat with
closed doors, and thus was easily misrepresented as a treasonable gathering.
In the third year of the war the hand of the enemy had
fallen heavily upon the coast of New England, and at the same time an
unpleasant feeling had arisen from the refusal of the United States
Government to pay the militia that had been in service under State
officers. In this crisis, the Legislature of Massachusetts, on the 16th
of October, by a vote of 260 to 90, passed a series of resolutions, the fifth
of which authorized the calling of a convention to confer "upon the
subject of their [the New England States] public grievances and concerns; and
upon the best means of preserving our resources; and of defense against the
enemy; and to devise and suggest for adoption by those respective States such
measures as they may deem expedient; and also to take measures, if they shall
think it proper, for procuring a convention of delegates from all the United
States, in order to revise the Constitution thereof, and more effectually to
secure the support and attachment of all the people, by placing all upon the
basis of fair representation.''
The letter addressed to the governors of other States set
forth the general objects of the proposed conference to be, "to
deliberate upon the dangers to which the eastern section of the Union is
exposed by the course of the war, and to devise, if practicable, means of
security and defense which may be consistent with the preservation of their
resources from total ruin, and adapted to their local situation, mutual
relations, and habits, and not repugnant to their obligations as members of
the Union."
In response to this call, a convention of twenty-six
delegates met at Hartford, Conn., December 15th, and sat for three
weeks. All sorts of absurd rumors as to the purpose of the Convention
were set afloat, and the President so far participated in the vague fears
thus excited, or pretended to, as to station a regiment of troops in
Hartford.
On the 5th of January 1815, the Convention adjourned, and
published a long report, wherein were set forth the difficulties that the
country labored under, and methods proposed by the Convention for adjusting
them. These were first discussed at length, and then summarized in a
series of resolutions: That unconstitutional drafts of militia should be
prevented; that the New England States should be empowered to defend their
own territory against the enemy; that representatives and direct taxes should
be apportioned among the States according to the number of their free
inhabitants; that a two-third vote of Congress should be required to admit a
new State; that embargoes for more than sixty days should be forbidden; that
a two-third Congressional vote should be required for the interdiction of
commercial intercourse, or for the declaration of offensive war; that
.naturalized citizens should not be eligible to Federal offices; that the
President should be ineligible for a second term, and should not be chosen
from the same State twice in succession; and, finally, that if these ends
were not attained, and peace not concluded, another convention should be held
in Boston in the following June.
This ought to have been plain enough for anybody to
understand; and yet allusions to ''the old blue-lights of the Hartford
Convention," as a synonym for treason, have come down to our own
day. Its popularity as a bugbear has never been exceeded. So
great was its influence in this regard, that it caused General Scott to
remember something which had never taken place. In his account of the
battle of Chippewa he says: ''And now the New England States were preparing
to hold a convention — it met at Hartford —perhaps to secede from the Union —
possibly to take up arms against it.
Scott's brigade, nearly all New England men, were most
indignant, and this was the subject of the second of the three pithy remarks
made to them by Scott just before the final conflict of Chippewa.
Calling aloud to the gallant Major Hindman, he said, 'Let us put down the
Federal Convention by beating the enemy in front. There's nothing in
the Constitution against that.' [Scott's Memoirs, vol. i., page
133.] There can be no question as to the intrinsic pithiness of
this remark; but if Scott made it, he must have been somewhat of a prophet,
for the battle of Chippewa was fought on the 5th of July, and the call for
the Convention was not issued till October. This shows the danger of
writing memoirs half a century after the events of which they treat.
The great news from the South, and the tidings of peace,
followed so quickly upon the adjournment of the Convention that its labors
went for naught, its members were subjected to merciless ridicule, and the
new convention proposed for June was never held.
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