Book: Formation of the Union

A >> Albert Bushnell Hart >> Formation of the Union





122. THE FIRST PROTECTIVE TARIFF (1816).


[Sidenote: Increase of duties.]
[Sidenote: Jefferson's attitude.]

The protection controversy had hardly appeared in Congress since the
memorable debate of 1789 (Section 76). From time to time the duties had
been slightly increased, and in 1799 a general administrative tariff act
had been passed. The wars with the Barbary powers had necessitated a
slight increase of the duties, known as the Mediterranean Fund, and this
had been allowed to stand. Up to the doubling of the duties in 1812 the
average rate on staple imports was only from ten to fifteen per cent, and
the maximum was about thirty per cent. The whole theory of the Republican
administration had been that finance consisted in deciding upon the
necessary expenses of government, and then in providing the taxes
necessary to meet them. This theory had been disturbed by the existence of
a debt which Jefferson was eager to extinguish; and he therefore permitted
the duties to remain at a point where they produced much more than the
ordinary expenditure of the government.

[Sidenote: The manufacturers.]
[Sidenote: The West.]

A change had now come over the country. The incidental protection afforded
by the increase of duties, and then by the war, had built up manufactures,
not only in New England, but in New York and Pennsylvania. In these
strongholds of capital and trade there was a cry for higher duties, and it
was much enforced by the attitude of the Western members. There were a few
staple crops, particularly hemp and flax, which could not be produced in
the face of foreign competition, and for which Western States were
supposed to be adapted. Hence a double influence was at work in behalf of
a protective tariff: the established industries pleaded for a continuance
of the high duties which had given them an opportunity to rise; and the
friends of young industries asked for new duties, in order that their
enterprises might be established.

[Sidenote: Dallas's tariff bill.]
[Sidenote: Opponents.]
[Sidenote: Advocates.]

Accordingly, in February, 1816, Secretary Dallas made an elaborate report
in favor of protective duties. John Randolph, who still posed as the
defender of the original Republican doctrine, protested. "The
agriculturist," said he, "has his property, his lands, his all, his
household gods to defend;" and he pointed out what was afterward to become
the most effective argument against the tariff: "Upon whom bears the duty
on coarse woollens and linens and blankets, upon salt and all the
necessaries of life? Upon poor men and upon slaveholders." Webster,
representing the commercial interest of New England, decidedly opposed the
tariff, especially the minimum principle, and succeeded in obtaining a
slight reduction. One of the strongest defenders of the tariff was
Calhoun. Manufactures, he declared, produced an interest strictly
American, and calculated to bind the widespread republic more closely
together. The chief supporter of the system was Henry Clay of Kentucky,
the Speaker of the House. His argument was that the country ought to be
able to defend itself in time of war, It was not expected at this time
that a protective tariff would become permanent. In a few years, said a
committee of the House, the country would be in a condition to bid
defiance to foreign competition.

[Sidenote: Protective policy.]
[Sidenote: The minimum.]

The act as passed April 27, 1816, had favorable votes in every State in
the Union except Delaware and North Carolina. The opposition was strong in
the South and in New England. Madison signed the bill and accepted the
policy, and even Jefferson declared that "We must now place the
manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist." The act imposed duties of
twenty-five per cent upon cotton and woollen goods, and the highest ad
valorem duty was about thirty per cent. In addition, no duty was to be
less than six and a quarter cents a yard on cottons and woollens: hence as
improvements in machinery caused a rapid lowering of the cost of
production abroad, the duty grew heavier on coarse goods, in proportion to
their value, till it was almost prohibitory. The act was accepted without
any popular demonstrations against it, and remained in force, with some
unimportant modifications, until 1824. One purpose undoubtedly was to show
to foreign governments that the United States could discriminate against
their trade if they discriminated against ours.


123. MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION (1817-1825).


[Sidenote: Monroe's election.]
[Sidenote: The cabinet.]

The election of 1816 proved that the Federalists could no longer keep up a
national organization. They were successful only in Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Delaware. On March 4, 1817, therefore, James Monroe took
his seat as the President of a well-united people. Although he had been
the friend and candidate of Randolph, he represented substantially the
same principles as Jefferson and Madison. His cabinet was the ablest since
Washington's; he gathered about him four of the most distinguished public
men in the country. His Secretary of State was John Quincy Adams, one of
the negotiators of the treaty of Ghent. His Secretary of the Treasury was
William H. Crawford of Georgia, who had shown financial ability in
Congress and in Madison's cabinet. For Secretary of War he chose John C.
Calhoun, who had in the six years of his national public service become
renowned as an active and almost a passionate advocate of the use of large
national powers. His Attorney-General was William Wirt of Virginia.

[Sidenote: Party strength.]

These young men represented an eager policy, and in their national
principles had advanced far beyond the old Federalists; but the people had
been somewhat startled by the boldness of the preceding Congress, and many
of the members who would have agreed with the President had lost their
seats. Throughout the whole administration Jefferson at Monticello, and
Madison at Montpelier, remained in dignified retirement; from time to time
Monroe asked their advice on great public questions.

[Sidenote: Commercial treaties.]

One of the first tasks of the administration was to restore the commercial
relations which had been so disturbed by the Napoleonic wars. Algiers had
taken advantage of the War of 1812 to capture American vessels. In 1815
the Dey was compelled on the quarter-deck of Decatur's ship to sign a
treaty of peace and amity. All our commercial treaties had disappeared in
the war, and had to be painfully renewed. In 1815 a commercial convention
was made with Great Britain, and in 1818 the fishery privileges of the
United States were reaffirmed. The West India trade was still denied, but
a retaliatory act brought Great Britain to terms, and it was opened in
1822.


124. TERRITORIAL EXTENSION (1805-1819).


[Sidenote: Northern boundary.]
[Sidenote: Oregon.]
[Sidenote: Boundary treaty.]

The administration inherited two serious boundary controversies, one with
England, and another with Spain. Some progress had been made toward
running the northeast boundary, till in 1818 the commissioners disagreed.
The northwest boundary had now come to be more important. A few months
before the annexation of Louisiana, Jefferson had sent an expedition to
explore the country drained by the Columbia River, which had been
discovered by a Boston ship in 1791. This expedition, under Lewis and
Clark, in 1805 reached tributaries of the Columbia and descended it to its
mouth, anticipating a similar English expedition. Nevertheless, the
Hudson's Bay Company established trading-posts in the region. Monroe
settled the difficulty for the time being by a treaty with Great Britain
in 1818, providing that the disputed region lying between the Rocky
Mountains and the Pacific Ocean and extending indefinitely northward
should be jointly occupied by both countries. At the same time the
northern boundary was defined from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky
Mountains.

[Sidenote: West Florida.]
[Sidenote: Spanish treaty.]

A year later another treaty with Spain gave to the United States a region
which Jefferson had longed for in vain. Ever since 1803 the United States
had asserted that West Florida had come to it as a part of Louisiana (§
99). Spain steadfastly refused to admit this construction or to sell the
province. In 1810 Madison by proclamation took possession of the disputed
region, and a part of it was soon after added to Louisiana. East Florida
could not possibly be included within Louisiana, but as a detached
peninsula it was of little value to Spain. John Quincy Adams now undertook
a negotiation for the settlement of all outstanding difficulties with
Spain, and on Feb. 22, 1819, a treaty was signed: East Florida was ceded
for a payment of about $6,500,000, and at the same time the western
boundary of Louisiana was settled. An irregular line was described from
the Gulf to the forty-second parallel; it was not far distant from the
watershed south and west of the tributaries of the Mississippi. Then came
the triumph of the whole negotiation: Adams obtained from Spain a
renunciation of all claims north of the forty-second parallel, as far west
as the Pacific. Our hold upon Oregon was thus much strengthened.


125. JUDICIAL DECISIONS (1812-1824).


[Sidenote: New judges.]
[Sidenote: Authority asserted.]

Two departments of the federal government had now shown their belief that
the United States was a nation which ought to exercise national powers How
did it stand with the judiciary department? Of the judges of the Supreme
Court appointed by Washington and Adams but two remained in office in
1817; but the new justices, as they were appointed, quietly accepted the
constitutional principles laid down by Marshall, their Chief Justice and
leader. Among them was Joseph Story of Massachusetts, whose mastery of
legal reasoning and power of statement gave him unusual influence. After
the Marbury case in 1803 (§ 96) the Court refrained for some years from
delivering decisions which involved important political questions. In
1809, however, it sustained Judge Peters of the Pennsylvania District
Court in a struggle for authority against the governor and legislature of
that State (§ 110). The courts were victorious, and the commander of the
militia, who had opposed them with armed force, was punished.

[Sidenote: Appeals taken.]
[Implied powers affirmed.]

The legislation of 1815 and 1816 showed to the Court that its view of the
Constitution was accepted by the people; and it now began a series of
great constitutional decisions, which put on record as legal precedents
the doctrines of implied powers and of national sovereignty. In the great
cases of Martin _vs._ Hunter's Lessee, and Cohens _vs._ Virginia, in 1816
and 1821, it asserted the right of the Supreme Court to take cases on
appeal from the State courts, and thus to make itself the final tribunal
in constitutional questions. At about the same time, in two famous cases,
McCullough _vs._ Maryland in 1819, and Osborn et al. _vs._ Bank of the
United States in 1824, the doctrine of implied powers was stated in the
most definite manner. Both cases arose out of the attempt of States to tax
the United States Bank, and the final issue was the power of Congress to
charter such a bank. The doctrine laid down by Hamilton in 1791 (§ 78) was
reaffirmed in most positive terms. "A national bank," said Marshall, "is
an appropriate means to carry out some of the implied powers, a usual and
convenient agent.... Let the end be within the scope of the Constitution,
and all means which are ... plainly adapted to that end, which are not
prohibited,... but consistent with the letter and spirit of the
Constitution, are constitutional." Although the tariff act was not tested
by a specific case, the spirit of the decision reached it also.

[Sidenote: State powers limited.]
[Sidenote: Impairment of contracts.]

Having thus asserted the authority of the nation on one side, the Court
proceeded to draw the boundary of the powers of the States on the other
side. In a question arising out of grants of land by the Georgia
legislature in the Yazoo district, it had been claimed that any such grant
could be withdrawn by a subsequent legislature. The Court held in Fletcher
_vs._ Peck, in 1810, that such a withdrawal was in contravention of
the constitutional clause which forbade the States to impair the
obligation of contracts. In 1819, in the celebrated case of Dartmouth
College _vs._ Woodward, this principle was pushed to an unexpected
conclusion. The legislature of New Hampshire had passed an act modifying a
charter granted in colonial times to Dartmouth College. Webster, as
counsel for the Board of Trustees which had thus been dispossessed,
pleaded that a charter granted to a corporation was a contract which could
not be altered without its consent. Much indirect argument was brought to
bear upon Marshall, and eventually the Court held that private charters
were contracts. The effect of this decision was to diminish the power and
prestige of the State governments; but the general sentiment of the
country sustained it. So united did all factions now seem in one theory of
national existence that in the election of 1820 Monroe received every vote
but one.


126. THE SLAVERY QUESTION REVIVED (1815-1820).


[Sidenote: Silent growth of slavery.]

Out of this peace and concord suddenly sprang up, as Jefferson said, "like
a fire-bell in the night," a question which had silently divided the Union,
and threatened to dissolve it. It was the question of slavery. During the
whole course of the Napoleonic wars the country had been occupied in the
defence of its neutral trade; since 1815 it had been busy in reorganizing
its commercial and political system. During this time, however, four new
States had been admitted into the Union: of these, two--Ohio and Indiana--
came in with constitutions prohibiting slavery; two--Louisiana and
Mississippi--had slaves. This balance was not accidental; it was arranged
so as to preserve a like balance in the Senate.

[Sidenote: Slavery profitable.]
[Sidenote: Slave-trade forbidden.]

The movement against slavery had by no means spent itself: there were
still emancipation societies both North and South. In 1794 Jay appeared to
suppose that cotton was not an American export (§ 85); but since the
invention of the cotton-gin in 1793 the cultivation of cotton by slave
labor had grown more and more profitable, and in 1820 that export was
valued at nearly twenty millions. The planters of the northern belt of
slaveholding States did not share in this culture, but they found an
increasing sale for their surplus blacks to their Southern neighbors; they
had, therefore, joined with members from the Northern States in the act of
March 2, 1807, to prohibit the importation of slaves. The act was
insufficient, inasmuch as the punishment provided was slight, and slaves
captured while in course of illegal importation were sold for the benefit
of the States into which they were brought, In 1820 the slave-trade was
made piracy, so that the nominal penalty was death.

[Sidenote: Schemes of colonization.]

One evidence of the uneasiness of the country on the slavery question was
the formation of the American Colonization Society in 1816. Its purpose
was to encourage emancipation, and thus to reduce the evils of slavery, by
drawing off the free blacks and colonizing them in Africa. It had a large
membership throughout the country; James Madison and Henry Clay were among
its presidents. Some States made grants of money in its aid, and after
1819 the United States assisted it by sending to the African colony slaves
captured while in course of illegal importation. The whole scheme was but
a palliative, and in fact rather tended to strengthen slavery, by taking
away the disquieting presence of free blacks among the slaves. The
Society, however, never had the means to draw away enough negroes sensibly
to affect the problem; the number which they exported was replaced many
times over by illegal importations from Africa.

[Sidenote: Fugitive slaves.]
[Sidenote: District of Columbia.]

In two other directions the nation had power over slavery, but declined to
exercise it The Fugitive Slave Act (Section 79) was found to be
ineffective. From 1818 to 1822 three bills to strengthen it were
introduced and strongly pressed, but nothing could be accomplished. In the
District of Columbia, where the United States had complete legislative
power, slavery existed under a very harsh code. Washington was a centre
for the interstate slave-trade, and John Randolph, himself a slaveholder,
could not restrain his indignation that "we should have here in the very
streets of our metropolis a depot for this nefarious traffic;" but
Congress took no action.

[Sidenote: Status of Louisiana.]

A question had now arisen which must be decided. The whole of the
Louisiana cession was slaveholding territory, and settlers had gone up the
Mississippi River and its western tributaries with their slaves. In 1819
it was found necessary to provide a territorial government for Arkansas;
and the people living about the Missouri River applied to be admitted as a
State with a slaveholding constitution.


127. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISES (1818-1821),


[Sidenote: Arkansas debate.]

The first step in the great slavery contest was a bill introduced into the
House in December, 1818, providing a territorial government for Arkansas.
Taylor of New York proposed that slavery be prohibited in the Territory;
McLane of Delaware suggested the "fixing of a line on the west of the
Mississippi, north of which slavery should not be tolerated." The test
vote on the exclusion of slavery was a tie, and Clay, as Speaker, cast his
vote against it. The new Territory lay west of the Mississippi, and
adjacent to Louisiana. The Northern members were, therefore, not disposed
to make the issue at that point, and on March 2, 1819, an Act was passed
organizing Arkansas, with no mention of slavery. Meanwhile, Illinois had
been admitted, making eleven free States.

[Sidenote: Proposed restriction on Missouri.]

Side by side with this debate had proceeded a discussion on the admission
of Missouri as a State. On Feb. 13, 1819, Talmadge of New York proposed as
an amendment "that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary
servitude be prohibited, ... and that all children of slaves born within
the said State after the admission thereof into the Union shall be free."
Missouri lay west of Illinois, which had just been admitted into the Union
as a Free State; the Northern members, therefore, rallied, and passed the
Talmadge amendment by a vote of eighty-seven to seventy-six. The Senate,
by a vote of twenty-two to sixteen, refused to accept the amendment; there
was no time for an adjustment, and Congress adjourned without action.

[Sidenote: Missouri bill.]
[Sidenote: Maine bill.]
[Sidenote: Compromise line.]

During 1819 the question was discussed throughout the Union. Several
legislatures, by unanimous votes, protested against admitting a new Slave
State, and when the new Congress assembled in 1819 it became the principal
issue of the session. Alabama was at once admitted, restoring the balance
of Slave and Free States. The people of Maine were now about to separate
from Massachusetts, and also petitioned for entrance into the Union. A
bill for this purpose passed the House on December 30, and a month later a
bill for the admission of Missouri, with the Talmadge amendment, was also
introduced into the House. The Senate, on Feb. 16, 1820, voted to admit
Maine, provided Missouri was at the same time admitted as a Slave State.
The House still refused to comply. Thomas of Illinois now proposed as a
compromise the principle suggested by McLane a year earlier,--that an east
and west line be drawn across the Louisiana cession, north of which
slavery should be prohibited. Fourteen Northern members united with the
seventy-six Southern members to form a bare majority against prohibiting
slavery in Missouri; the principle was thus abandoned, and the only
question was where the line should be drawn: the parallel of 36° 30' was
selected, but it was expressly provided that Missouri should be
slaveholding. On March 3 the compromise became a law.

[Sidenote: Missouri constitution.]

A year later a third difficulty arose. The people of Missouri had formed a
constitution which provided that free colored men should not be allowed to
enter the State under any pretext. Nearly the whole Northern vote in the
House was cast against admitting the State with this provision. Clay
brought about a compromise by which the Missourians were to agree not to
deprive of his rights any citizen of another State. Upon this
understanding Missouri was finally admitted.

[Sidenote: Friends of disunion.]
[Sidenote: Advantage to the South.]
[Sidenote: Advantage to the North.]

In form the compromises were a settlement of difficulties between the two
Houses; in fact they were an agreement between the two sections, by which
the future of slavery in every part of the Louisiana purchase was to be
settled once for all. Threats were freely made that if slavery were
prohibited in Missouri, the South would withdraw. Calhoun told Adams that
if the trouble produced a dissolution of the Union, "the South would be
from necessity compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive,
with Great Britain." Adams retorted by asking whether, in such a case, if
"the population of the North should be cut off from its natural outlet
upon the ocean, it would fall back upon its rocks bound hand and foot to
starve, or whether it would not retain its powers of locomotion to move
southward by land?" The compromise was, as Benton says, "conceived and
passed as a Southern measure," although Randolph called it a "dirty
bargain;" nevertheless, on the final test vote thirty-five Southern
members refused to admit the principle that Congress could prohibit
slavery in the Territories. The South gained Missouri, and a few years
later Arkansas came in as a slave State; but in the long run the advantage
was to the North. The South got the small end of the triangle; the North
the whole region now occupied by the States of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, the
Dakotas, and Montana, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Minnesota; and
the final struggle over slavery was postponed for thirty years.


128. RELATIONS WITH THE LATIN-AMERICAN STATES (1815-1823).


[Sidenote: The Spanish colonies.]
[Sidenote: Revolutions.]

While the attention of the country was absorbed by the Missouri struggle,
a new question of diplomacy had arisen. In 1789 almost every part of the
two American continents south of the United States, except Brazil, was
subject to Spain. The American Revolution had given a shock to the
principle of colonial government by European powers; the Spanish colonies
refused to acknowledge the authority of the French usurpers in Spain, and
in 1808 a series of revolts occurred. At the restoration of the Spanish
Bourbons in 1814, the colonies returned to nominal allegiance. The new
king attempted to introduce the old regime: the colonies had too long
enjoyed the sweets of direct trade with other countries, and they resented
the ungentle attempts to restore them to complete dependence; between 1816
and 1820 the provinces on the Rio de la Plata, Chile, and Venezuela again
revolted; and by 1822 there was a revolutionary government in every
continental Spanish province, including Mexico.

[Sidenote: The Holy Alliance.]
[Sidenote: Intervention proposed.]

When Europe was reorganized, after the fall of Napoleon, almost all the
powers entered into a kind of a treaty, known as the Holy Alliance, framed
Sept. 26, 1815. They announced the future principle of international
relations to be that of "doing each other reciprocal service, and of
testifying by unalterable good will the mutual affection with which they
ought to be animated," and that they considered themselves "all as members
of one and the same Christian nation." Within this pious verbiage was
concealed a plan of mutual assistance in case of the outbreak of
revolutions. When Spain revolted against her sovereign in 1820, a European
Congress was held, and by its direction the French in 1823 a second time
restored the Spanish Bourbons. The grateful king insisted that the
revolution of the Spanish colonies ought to be put down by a common effort
of the European powers, as a danger to the principle of hereditary
government.

[Sidenote: American interests.]
[Sidenote: Russian colonization.]
[Sidenote: English proposals.]

Here the interests of the United States became involved: they were trading
freely with the Spanish Americans; they sympathized with the new
governments, which were nominally founded on the model of the North
American republic; they felt what now seems an unreasonable fear that
European powers would invade the United States. At the same time the
Russians, who had obtained a foothold on the northwest coast fifty years
earlier, were attempting to establish a permanent colony, and on Sept. 24,
1821, issued a ukase forbidding all foreigners to trade on the Pacific
coast north of the fifty-first parallel, or to approach within one hundred
Italian miles of the shore. John Quincy Adams, who had a quick eye for
national rights, protested vigorously. Now came most gratifying evidence
that the United States was the leading power in America: in September,
1823, the British government proposed to our minister in England that the
two countries should unite in a declaration against European intervention
in the colonies. The invitation was declined, but the good will of Great
Britain was assured.

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