A Brief History of the United States Part 31

4. Great Britain claimed a right to take her subjects off American s.h.i.+ps, and while impressing many British sailors into her navy, she impressed many Americans also.

5. She sent vessels of war to our coast to search our s.h.i.+ps, and in 1807 even seized sailors on board an American s.h.i.+p of war, the _Chesapeake_.

6. Congress retaliated with several measures cutting off trade with France and Great Britain; these failing, war on Great Britain was declared in 1812.

7. War on land was begun by attempts to invade Canada from Detroit, Niagara, and northeastern New York. These attempts failed, and Detroit was captured by the British.

8. In 1813 Perry won a great naval victory on Lake Erie; and the American soldiers, after a reverse at Frenchtown, invaded Canada and won the battle of the Thames.

9. In 1814 the Americans won the battles of Chippewa and Lundys Lane, but were later driven from Canada. A British invasion of New York met disaster at Plattsburg Bay.

10. Along the seaboard the British blockaded the entire coast, seized the eastern part of Maine, took Was.h.i.+ngton and burned the public buildings, and attacked Baltimore.

11. Later New Orleans was attacked, but in 1815 Jackson won a signal victory and drove the British from Louisiana.

12. On the sea our vessels won many s.h.i.+p duels.

13. Peace was made in 1814, just as the New England Federalists were holding their Hartford Convention. The war resulted in strengthening the Union and making it more respected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLINTLOCK MUSKET, SUCH AS WAS USED IN THE WAR OF 1812.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MODERN MILITARY CARBINE.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] During the war, in 1803, the frigate _Philadelphia_ ran on the rocks in the harbor of Tripoli, and was captured by the Tripolitans. The Americans then determined to destroy her. Stephen Decatur sailed into the harbor with a volunteer crew in a little vessel disguised as a fis.h.i.+ng boat. The Tripolitans allowed the Americans to come close, whereupon they boarded the _Philadelphia_, drove off the pirate crew, set the vessel on fire, and escaped unharmed.

[2] The French decrees and British orders in council were as follows: (1) Napoleon began (1806) by issuing a decree closing the ports of Hamburg and Bremen (which he had lately captured) and so cutting off British trade with Germany. (2) Great Britain retaliated with an order in council (May, 1806), blockading the coast of Europe from Brest to the mouth of the river Elbe. (3) Napoleon retaliated (November, 1806) with the Berlin Decree, declaring the British Isles in a state of blockade, and forbidding English trade with any country under French control. (4) Great Britain issued another order in council (November, 1807), commanding her naval officers to seize any neutral vessel going to any closed port in Europe unless it first touched at a British port, paid duty, and bought a license to trade.

(5) Napoleon thereupon (December, 1807) issued his Milan Decree, authorizing the seizure of any neutral vessel that had touched at any British port and taken out a license. Read Adams's _History of the U. S._, Vol. III, Chap. 16; Vol. IV, Chaps. 4, 5, 6; McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. III, pp. 219-223, 249-250, 272-274.

[3] The British sailor was hanged at Halifax. The three Americans were not returned till 1812. Read Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Vol. I, pp. 305- 308.

[4] The Federalists ridiculed the embargo as the "terrapin-policy"; that is, the United States, like a terrapin when struck, had pulled its head and feet within its sh.e.l.l instead of fighting. They reversed the letters so that they read "o-grab-me," and wrote the syllables backward so as to spell "go-bar-'em."

[5] Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. III, pp. 279-338.

[7] The people would gladly have given him a third term. Indeed, the legislatures of eight states invited him to be a candidate for reflection.

In declining he said, "If some termination to the services of the Chief Magistrate be not fixed by the Const.i.tution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally four years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance." The examples of Was.h.i.+ngton and Jefferson established an unwritten law against a third term for any President.

[8] James Madison was born in Virginia in 1751, and educated partly at Princeton. In 1776 he was a delegate to the Virginia convention to frame a state const.i.tution, was a member of the first legislature under it, went to Congress in 1780-83, and then returned to the state legislature, 1784- 87. He was one of the most important members of the convention that framed the United States Const.i.tution. After the adoption of the Const.i.tution, he led the Republican party in Congress (1789-97). He wrote the Virginia Resolutions of 1798, and in 1801-9 was Secretary of State under Jefferson.

As the Republican candidate for President in 1808, he received 122 electoral votes against 47 for the Federalist candidate Charles C.

Pinckney. He died in 1836.

[9] Henry Clay, the son of a Baptist minister, was born in Virginia in 1777 in a neighborhood called "the Slashes." One of his boyhood duties was to ride to the mill with a bag of wheat or corn. Thus he earned the name of "the Mill Boy of the Slashes," which in his campaigns for the presidency was used to get votes. His education was received in a log- cabin schoolhouse. At fourteen he was behind the counter in a store at Richmond; but finally began to read law, and in 1797 moved to Kentucky to "grow up with the country." There he prospered greatly, and in 1803 was elected to the state legislature, in 1806 and again in 1809-10 served as a United States senator to fill an unexpired term, and in 1811 entered the House of Representatives. From then till his death, June 29, 1852, he was one of the most important men in public life; he was ten years speaker of the House, four years Secretary of State, twenty years a senator, and three times a candidate for President. He was a great leader and an eloquent speaker. He was called "the Great Pacificator" and "the Great Compromiser," and one of his sayings, "I had rather be right than be President," has become famous.

[10] William Henry Harrison was a son of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was born in Virginia in 1773, served in the Indian campaigns under St. Clair and Wayne, commanded Fort Was.h.i.+ngton on the site of Cincinnati, was secretary of the Northwest Territory, and then delegate to Congress, and did much to secure the law for the sale of public land on credit. He was made governor of Indiana Territory in 1801, and won great fame as a general in the War of 1812.

[11] Tec.u.mthe's efforts in the South led to a war with the Creeks in 1813- 14. These Indians began by capturing Fort Mims in what is now southern Alabama, and killing many people there; but they were soon subdued by General Andrew Jackson. Read Edward Eggleston's _Roxy_; and Eggleston and Seelye's _Tec.u.mseh and the Shawnee Prophet_.

[12] Gerry was a native of Ma.s.sachusetts and one of the delegates who refused to sign the Const.i.tution when it was framed in 1787. As a leading Republican he was chosen by Adams to represent his party on the X. Y. Z.

Mission. As governor of Ma.s.sachusetts he signed a bill rearranging the senatorial districts in such wise that some towns having Federalist majorities were joined to others having greater Republican majorities, thus making more than a fair proportion of the districts Republican. This political fraud is called Gerrymandering. Gerry died November 23, 1814, the second Vice President to die in office.

[13] Eighteen states cast electoral votes at this election (1812). The electors were chosen by popular vote in eight states, and by vote of the legislature in ten states, including Louisiana (the former territory of Orleans), which was admitted into the Union April 8, 1812. The admission of Louisiana was bitterly opposed by the Federalists. For their reasons, read a speech by Josiah Quincy in Johnston's _American Orations_, Vol. I, pp. 180-204.

[14] Perry's flags.h.i.+p was named the _Lawrence_, after the gallant commander of the _Chesapeake_, captured a short while before off Boston. As Lawrence, mortally wounded, was carried below, he said to his men, "Don't give up the s.h.i.+p." Perry put at the masthead of the _Lawrence_ a blue pennant bearing the words "Don't give up the s.h.i.+p," and fought two of the largest vessels of the enemy till every gun on his engaged side was disabled, and but twenty men out of a hundred and three were unhurt. Then entering a boat with his brother and four seamen, he was rowed to the _Niagara_, which he brought into the battle, and with it broke the enemy's line and won.

[15] The story of the naval war is told in Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Part Third; and in Roosevelt's _Naval War of 1812_.

[16] In this battle the great Indian leader Tec.u.mthe was killed.

[17] In New England the ruin of commerce made the war most unpopular, and it was because of this that the British did not at first blockade the New England coast. British goods came to Boston, Salem, and other ports in neutral s.h.i.+ps, or in British s.h.i.+ps disguised as neutral, and great quant.i.ties of them were carried in four-horse wagons to the South, whence raw cotton was brought back to New England to be s.h.i.+pped abroad. The Republicans made great fun of this "ox-and-horse-marine."

[18] For a description of the scenes in Was.h.i.+ngton, read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. IV, pp. 138-147; or Adams's _History of the U. S._, Vol. VIII, pp. 144-152; or _Memoirs of Dolly Madison_, Chap. 8.

[19] Read Holmes's poem _Old Ironsides_.

[20] This battle was fought on a clear moonlight night and was full of dramatic incidents. A storm had lashed the sea into fury and the waves were running mountain high. Wave after wave swept the deck of the _Wasp_ and drenched the sailors. The two sloops rolled till the muzzles of their guns dipped in the sea; but both crews cheered heartily and fought on till, as the _Wasp_ rubbed across the bow of the _Frolic_, her jib boom came in between the masts of the _Wasp_. A boarding party then leaped upon her bowsprit, and as they ran down the deck were amazed to see n.o.body save the man at the wheel and three wounded officers. As the British were not able to lower their flag, Lieutenant Biddle of the _Wasp_ hauled it down.

Scarcely had this been done when the British frigate _Poictiers_ came in sight, and chased and overhauled the _Wasp_ and captured her.

[21] Of all the British frigates captured during the war, the _Macedonian_ was the only one brought to port. The others were shot to pieces and sank or were destroyed soon after the battle. The _Macedonian_ arrived at Newport in December, 1812. When the lieutenant bearing her flag and dispatches reached Was.h.i.+ngton, he was informed that a naval ball was being held in honor of the capture of the _Guerriere_ and another s.h.i.+p, and that their flags were hanging on the wall. Hastening to the hotel, he announced himself and was quickly escorted to the ballroom, where, with cheers and singing, the flag of the _Macedonian_ was hung beside those of the other two captured vessels.

[22] In October, 1812, the frigate _Ess.e.x_, Captain Porter in command, sailed from Delaware Bay, cruised down the east and up the west coast of South America, and captured seven British vessels. But she was captured near Valparaiso by the British frigates _Cherub_ and _Phoebe_ in March, 1814. In January, 1815, the _President_, Commodore Decatur, was captured off Long Island by a British squadron of four vessels. In February the _Const.i.tution_, Captain Stewart, when near Madeira, captured the _Cyane_ and the _Levant_.

[23] Some idea of the difficulty of travel and the transmission of news in those days may be gained from the fact that when the agent bearing the treaty of peace arrived at New, York February 11, 1815, an express rider was sent post haste to Boston, at a cost of $225.

[24] The states of Vermont and New Hamps.h.i.+re sent no delegates to this convention; but three delegates were appointed by certain counties in those states. When Connecticut and Rhode Island chose delegates, a Federalist newspaper published in Boston welcomed them in an article headed "Second and Third Pillars of a New Federal Edifice Reared." Despite the action of the Hartford Convention, the fact remains that Ma.s.sachusetts contributed more than her proportionate share of money and troops for the war.

[25] The report is printed in MacDonald's _Select Doc.u.ments_.

CHAPTER XXI

RISE OF THE WEST

TRADE, COMMERCE, AND THE FISHERIES.--The treaty of 1814 did not end our troubles with Great Britain. Our s.h.i.+ps were still shut out of her West Indian ports. The fort at Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River, had been seized during the war and for a time was not returned as the treaty required. The authorities in Nova Scotia claimed that we no longer had a right to fish in British waters, and seized our fis.h.i.+ng vessels or drove them from the fis.h.i.+ng grounds. We had no trade treaty with Great Britain. In 1815, therefore, a convention was made regulating trade with Great Britain and her East Indian colonies, but not with her West Indies; [1] in 1817, a very important agreement limited the navies on the Great Lakes; [2] and in 1818 a convention was made defending our fis.h.i.+ng rights in British waters. [3]

BANKS AND THE CURRENCY.--But there were also domestic affairs which required attention. When the charter of the Bank of the United States (p.

224) expired in 1811, it was not renewed, for the party in power denied that Congress had authority to charter a bank. A host of banks chartered by the states thereupon sprang up, in hope of getting some of the business formerly done by the national bank and its branches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.]

In three years' time one hundred and twenty new state banks were created.

Each issued bank notes with a promise to exchange them for specie (gold or silver coin) on demand. In 1814, however, nearly all the banks outside of New England "suspended specie payment"; that is, refused to redeem their notes in specie. Persons having gold and silver money then kept it, and the only money left in circulation was the bank notes--which, a few miles away from the place of issue, would not pa.s.s at their face value. [4]

Business and travel were seriously interfered with, and in order to provide the people with some kind of money which would pa.s.s at the same value everywhere, Congress in 1816 chartered a second Bank of the United States, [5] very much like the first one, for a period of twenty years.