Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

IV. – Burning of the Caroline.

The Caroline is the last of the seven subjects in the arrangement which I make of them. I reserve it for the last; the extreme ignominy of its termination making it, in my opinion, the natural conclusion of a disgraceful negotiation. It is a case in which all the sources of national degradation seem to have been put in requisition – diplomacy; legislation; the judiciary; and even the military. To volunteer propitiations to Great Britain, and to deprecate her wrath, seem to have been the sole concern of the administration, when signal reparation was due from her to us. And here again we have to lament the absence of all the customary disclosures in the progress of negotiations. No protocol, no minutes, no memorandums: nothing to show how a subject began, went on, and reached its consummation. Every thing was informal in this anomalous negotiation. Wat Tyler never hated the ink-horn worse than our Secretary-negotiator hated it upon this occasion. It was only after a thing was finished, that the pen was resorted to; and then merely to record the agreement, and put a face upon it for the public eye. In this way many things may have been discussed, which leave no written trace behind them; and it would be a curious circumstance if so large a subject, and one so delicate as the State debts, should find itself in that predicament.

The case of the Caroline is now near four years old. It occurred in December of the year 1838, under Mr. Van Buren's administration; but it was not until March, 1841, and until the new administration was in power, that the question assumed its high character of a quarrel between the United States and Great Britain. Before that time, the outrage upon the Caroline was only the act of the individuals engaged in it. The arrest of one of these individuals brought out the British government. She assumed the offence; alleged the outrage to have been perpetrated by her authority; and demanded the release of McLeod, under the clear implication of a national threat if he was not surrendered. The release was demanded unconditionally – not the slightest apology or atonement being offered for the outrage on the Caroline, out of which the arrest of McLeod grew. The arrogant demand of the British was delivered to the new Secretary of State on the 12th day of March. Instead of refusing to answer under a threat, he answered the sooner; and, in his answer went far beyond what the minister [Mr. Fox] had demanded. He despatched the Attorney-general of the United States to New York, to act as counsel for McLeod; he sent a Major-general of the United States army along with him, to give emphasis to his presence; and he gave a false version to the law of nations, which would not only cover the McLeod case, but all succeeding cases of the same kind. I consider all this the work of the State Department; for General Harrison was too new in his office, too much overwhelmed by the army of applicants who besieged him and soon destroyed his life, to have the time to study the questions to which the arrest of McLeod, and the demand for his release, and the assumption of his crime by the British government gave rise. The Romans had a noble maxim – grand in itself, and worthy of them, because they acted upon it. Parcere subjectis, debellare superbos: Spare the humble – humble the proud. Our administration has invoked this maxim to cover its own conduct. In giving up McLeod they say it is to lay hold of the sovereign – that the poor servant is spared while the proud master is to be held to account. Fine phrases these, which deceive no one: for both master and servant are let go. Our people were not deceived by these grave professions. They believed it was all a pretext to get out of a difficulty; that, what between love and fear of the British, the federal party was unwilling to punish McLeod, or to see him punished by the State of New York; that the design was to get rid of responsibility, by getting rid of the man; and, that when he was gone, we should hear no more of these new Romans calling his sovereign to account. This was the opinion of the democracy, very freely expressed at the time; and so it has all turned out to be. McLeod was acquitted, and got off; the British government became responsible, on the administration's own principles; they have not been held to that responsibility; no atonement or apology has been made for the national outrage at Schlosser; and the President informs us that no further complaint, on account of this aggression on the soil and sovereignty of the Union, and the lives of its citizens, is to be made!

A note has been obtained from Lord Ashburton, and sent to us by the President, declaring three things – first, that the burning of the Caroline, and killing the people, was a serious fact; secondly, that no disrespect was intended to the United States in doing it; thirdly, that the British government unfeignedly hopes there will be no necessity for doing it again. This is the extent, and the whole extent, to which the special minister, with all his politeness and good nature, and with all his desire to furnish the administration with something to satisfy the public, could possibly go. The only thing which I see him instructed by his government to say, or which in itself amounts to a positive declaration, is the averment that her Majesty's government "considers it a most serious fact" that, in the hurried execution of this necessary service, a violation of the United States territory was committed. This is admitted to be a fact! – a serious fact! – and a most serious fact! But as for any sorrow for it, or apology for it, or promise not to commit such serious facts again, or even not to be so hurried the next time – this is what the minister nowhere says, or insinuates. On the contrary, just the reverse is declared; for the justification of this "most serious fact" as being the result of a hurried execution of a "necessary service," is an explicit averment that the aforesaid "most serious fact" will be repeated just so often as her Majesty's government shall deem it necessary to her service. As to the polite declaration, that no disrespect was intended to the United States while invading its territory, killing its citizens, setting a steamboat on fire, and sending her in flames over the falls of Niagara – such a declaration is about equivalent to telling a man that you mean him no disrespect while cudgelling him with both hands over the head and shoulders.

The celebrated Dr. Johnson was accustomed to say that there was a certain amount of gullibility in the public mind, which must be provided for. It would seem that our Secretary-negotiator had possessed himself of this idea, and charged himself with the duties under it, and had determined to make full provision for all the gullibility now extant. He has certainly provided quantum sufficit of humbuggery in this treaty, and in his correspondence in defence of it, to gorge the stomachs of all the gulls of the present generation, both in Europe and America.

Our Secretary is full of regret that McLeod was so long imprisoned, makes excuses for the New York court's decisions against him, and promises to call the attention of Congress to the necessity of providing against such detention in future. He says, in his last letter to Lord Ashburton:

"It was a subject of regret that the release of McLeod was so long delayed. A State court – and that not of the highest jurisdiction – decided that, on summary application, embarrassed, as it would appear, by technical difficulties, he could not be released by that court. His discharge, shortly afterward, by a jury, to whom he preferred to submit his case, rendered unnecessary the further prosecution of the legal question. It is for the Congress of the United States, whose attention has been called to the subject to say what further provision ought to be made to expedite proceedings in such cases."

Such is the valedictory of our Secretary – his sorrows over the fate of McLeod. That individual had been released for a year past. His arrest continued but for a few months, with little personal inconvenience to himself; with no danger to his life, if innocent; and with the gratification of a notoriety flattering to his pride, and beneficial to his interest. He is probably highly delighted with the honors of the occurrence, and no way injured by his brief and comfortable imprisonment. Yet the sorrow of our Secretary continues to flow. At the end of a year, he is still in mourning, and renews the expression of his regret for the poor man's detention, and gives assurances against such delays in future; – this in the same letter in which he closes the door upon the fate of his own countrymen burnt and murdered in the Caroline, and promises never to disturb the British government about them again. McLeod and all Canadians are encouraged to repeat their most serious facts upon us, by the perfect immunity which both themselves and their government have experienced. And to expedite their release, if hereafter arrested for such facts, they are informed that Congress had been "called" upon to pass the appropriate law – and passed it was! The habeas corpus act against the States, which had slept for many months in the Senate, and seemed to have sunk under the public execration – this bill was "called" up, and passed contemporaneously with the date of this letter. And thus the special minister was enabled to carry home with him an act of Congress to lay at the footstool of his Queen, and to show that the measure of atonement to McLeod was complete: that the executive, the military, the legislative, and the judicial departments had all been put in requisition, and faithfully exerted themselves to protect her Majesty's subjects from being harmed for a past invasion, conflagration, and murder; and to secure them from being called to account by the State courts for such trifles in future.

And so ends the case of the Caroline and McLeod. The humiliation of this conclusion, and the contempt and future danger which it brings upon the country, demand a pause, and a moment's reflection upon the catastrophe of this episode in the negotiation. The whole negotiation has been one of shame and injury; but this catastrophe of the McLeod and Caroline affair puts the finishing hand to our disgrace. I do not speak of the individuals who have done this work, but of the national honor which has been tarnished in their hands. Up to the end of Mr. Van Buren's administration, all was safe for the honor of the country. Redress for the outrage at Schlosser had been demanded; interference to release McLeod had been refused; the false application of the laws of war to a state of peace had been scouted. On the 4th day of March, 1841, the national honor was safe; but on that day its degradation commenced. Timing their movements with a calculated precision, the British government transmitted their assumption of the Schlosser outrage, their formal demand for the release of McLeod, and their threat in the event of refusal, so as to arrive here on the evening of the day on which the new administration received the reins of government. Their assumption, demand, and threat, arrived in Washington on the evening of the 4th day of March, a few hours after the inauguration of the new powers was over. It seemed as if the British had said to themselves: This is the time – our friends are in power – we helped to elect them – now is the time to begin. And begin they did. On the 8th day of March, Mr. Fox delivered to Mr. Webster the formal notification of the assumption, made the demand, and delivered the threat. Then the disgraceful scene began. They reverse the decision of Mr. Van Buren's administration, and determine to interfere in behalf of McLeod, and to extricate him by all means from the New York courts. To mask the ignominy of this interference, they pretend it is to get at a nobler antagonist; and that they are going to act the Romans, in sparing the humble and subduing the proud. It is with Queen Victoria with whom they will deal! McLeod is too humble game for them. McLeod released, the next thing is to get out of the scrape with the Queen; and for that purpose they invent a false reading of the law of nations, and apply the laws of war to a state of peace. The jus belli, and not the jus gentium, then becomes their resort. And here ends their grand imitation of the Roman character. To assume the laws of war in time of peace, in order to cover a craven retreat, is the nearest approach which they make to war. Then the special minister comes. They accept from him private and verbal explanations, in full satisfaction to themselves of all the outrage at Schlosser: but beg the minister to write them a little apology, which they can show to the people. The minister refuses; and thereupon they assume that they have received it, and proclaim the apology to the world. To finish this scene, to complete the propitiation of the Queen, and to send her minister home with legal and parchment evidence in his hand of our humiliation, the expression of regret for the arrest and detention of McLeod is officiously and gratuitously renewed; the prospect of a like detention of any of her Majesty's subjects in future is pathetically deplored; and, to expedite their delivery from State courts when they again invade our soil, murder our citizens, and burn our vessels, the minister is informed that Congress has been "called" upon to pass a law to protect them from these courts. And here "a most serious fact" presents itself. Congress has actually obeyed the "call" – passed the act – secured her Majesty's subjects in future – and given the legal parchment evidence of his success to her minister before he departs for his home. The infamous act – the habeas corpus against the States – squeamishly called the "remedial justice act" – is now on the statute-book; the original polluting our code of law, the copy lying at the footstool of the British Queen. And this is the point we have reached. In the short space of a year and a half, the national character has been run down, from the pinnacle of honor to the abyss of disgrace. I limit myself now to the affair of McLeod and the Caroline alone; and say that, in this business, exclusive of other disgraces, the national character has been brought to the lowest point of contempt. It required the Walpole administration five-and-twenty long years of cowardly submission to France and Spain to complete the degradation of Great Britain: our present rulers have completed the same work for their own country in the short space of eighteen months. And this is the state of our America! that America which Jackson and Van Buren left so proud! that America which, with three millions of people fought and worsted the British empire – with seven millions fought it, and worsted it again – and now, with eighteen millions, truckles to the British Queen, and invents all sorts of propitiatory apologies for her, when the most ample atonement is due to itself. Are we the people of the Revolution? – of the war of 1812? – of the year 1834, when Jackson electrified Europe by threatening the King of France with reprisals!

McLeod is given up because he is too weak; the Queen is excused, because she is too strong; propitiation is lavished where atonement is due; an apology accepted where none was offered; the statute of limitations pleaded against an insult, by the party which received it! And the miserable performers in all this drama of national degradation expect to be applauded for magnanimity, when the laws of honor and the code of nations, stamp their conduct with the brand of cowardice.

CHAPTER CIII.

BRITISH TREATY: NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY ARTICLE: MR. BENTON'S SPEECH: EXTRACT

The establishment of the low-land boundary in place of the mountain boundary, and parallel to it. This new line is 110 miles long. It is on this side of the awarded line – not a continuation of it, but a deflection from it; and evidently contrived for the purpose of weakening our boundary, and retiring it further from Quebec. It will be called in history the Webster line. It begins on the awarded line, at a lake in the St. Francis River; breaks off at right angles to the south, passes over the valley of the St. John in a straight line, and equidistant from that river and the mountain, until it reaches the north-west branch of the St. John, when approaching within forbidden distance of Quebec, it deflects to the east; and then holds on its course to the gorge in the mountain at the head of Metjarmette creek. A view of the map will show the character of this new line; the words of the treaty show how cautiously it was guarded; and the want of protocols hides its paternity from our view. The character of the line is apparent; and it requires no military man, or military woman, or military child, to say to whose benefit it enures. A man of any sort – a woman of any kind – a child of any age – can tell that! It is a British line, made for the security of Quebec. Follow its calls on the map, and every eye will see this design.

The surrender of the mountain boundary between the United States and Great Britain on the frontiers of Maine. This is a distinct question from the surrender of territory. The latter belonged to Maine: the former to the United States. They were national, and not State boundaries – established by the war of the Revolution, and not by a State law or an act of Congress; and involving all the considerations which apply to the attack and defence of nations. So far as a State boundary is coterminous with another State, it is a State question, and may be left to the discretion of the States interested: so far as it is coterminous with a foreign power, it is a national question, and belongs to the national authority. A State cannot be permitted to weaken and endanger the nation by dismembering herself in favor of a foreigner; by demolishing a strong frontier, delivering the gates and keys of a country into the hands of a neighboring nation, and giving them roads and passes into the country. The boundaries in question were national, not State; and the consent of Maine, even if given, availed nothing. Her defence belongs to the Union; is to be made by the blood and treasure of the Union; and it was not for her, even if she had been willing, to make this defence more difficult, more costly, and more bloody, by giving up the strong, and substituting the weak line of defence. Near three hundred miles of this strong national frontier have been surrendered by this treaty – being double as much as was given up by the rejected award. The King of the Netherlands, although on the list of British generals, and in the pay of the British Crown, was a man of too much honor to deprive us of the commanding mountain frontier opposite to Quebec; and besides, Jackson would have scouted the award if he had attempted it. The King only gave up the old line to the north of the head of the St. Francis River; and for this he had some reason, as the mountain there subsided into a plain, and the ridge of the highlands (in that part) was difficult to follow: our negotiator gives up the boundary for one hundred and fifty miles on this side the head of the St. Francis, and without pretext; for the mountain ridge was there three thousand feet high. The new part given up, from the head of the St. Francis to Metjarmette portage, is invaluable to Great Britain. It covers her new road to Quebec, removes us further from that city, places a mountain between us, and brings her into Maine. To comprehend the value of this new boundary to Great Britain, and its injury to us, it is only necessary to follow it on a map – to see its form – know its height, the depth of its gorges, and its rough and rocky sides. The report of Capt. Talcott will show its character – three thousand feet high: any map will show its form. The gorge at the head of the Metjarmette creek – a water of the St. Lawrence – is made the terminus ad quem of the new conventional lowland line: beyond that gorge, the mountain barrier is yielded to Great Britain. Now take up a map. Begin at the head of the Metjarmette creek, within a degree and a half of the New Hampshire line – follow the mountain north – see how it bears in upon Quebec – approaching within two marches of that great city, and skirting the St. Lawrence for some hundred miles. All this is given up. One hundred and fifty miles of this boundary is given up on this side the awarded line; and the country left to guess and wonder at the enormity and fatuity of the sacrifice. Look at the new military road from Halifax to Quebec – that part of it which approaches Quebec and lies between the mountain and the St. Lawrence. Even by the awarded line, this road was forced to cross the mountain at or beyond the head of the St. Francis, and then to follow the base of the mountain for near one hundred miles; with all the disadvantages of crossing the spurs and gorges of the mountain, and the creeks and ravines, and commanded in its whole extent by the power on the mountain. See how this is changed by the new boundary! the road permitted to take either side of the mountain – to cross where it pleases – and covered and protected in its whole extent by the mountain heights, now exclusively British. Why this new way, and this security for the road, unless to give the British still greater advantages over us than the awarded boundary gave? A palliation is attempted for it. It is said that the mountain is unfit for cultivation; and the line along it could not be ascertained; and that Maine consented. These are the palliations – insignificant if true, but not true in their essential parts. And, first, as to the poverty of the mountain, and the slip along its base, constituting this area of 893 square miles surrendered on this side the awarded line: Captain Talcott certifies it to be poor, and unfit for cultivation. I say so much the better for a frontier. As to the height of the mountains, and the difficulty of finding the dividing ridge, and the necessity of adopting a conventional line: I say all this has no application to the surrendered boundary on this side the awarded line at the head of the St. Francis. On this side of that point, the mountain ridge is lofty, the heights attain three thousand feet; and navigable rivers rise in them, and flow to the east and to the west – to the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic. Hear Captain Talcott, in his letter to Mr. Webster: (The letter read.)

This letter was evidently obtained for the purpose of depreciating the lost boundary, by showing it to be unfit for cultivation. The note of the Secretary-negotiator which drew it forth is not given, but the answer of Captain Talcott shows its character; and its date (that of the 14th of July) classes it with the testimony which was hunted up to justify a foregone conclusion. The letter of Captain Talcott is good for the Secretary's purpose, and for a great deal more. It is good for the overthrow of all the arguments on which the plea for a conventional boundary stood. What was that plea? Simply, that the highlands in the neighborhood of the north-west corner of Nova Scotia could not be traced; and that it was necessary to substitute a conventional line in their place. And it is the one on which the award of the King of the Netherlands turned, and was, to the extent of a part of his award, a valid one. But it was no reason for the American Secretary to give one hundred and fifty miles of mountain line on this side the awarded line, where the highlands attained three thousand feet of elevation, and turned navigable rivers to the right and left. Lord Ashburton, in his letter of the 13th of June, commences with this idea: that the highlands described in the treaty could not be found, and had been so admitted by American statesmen; and quotes a part of a despatch from Mr. Secretary Madison in 1802 to Mr. Rufus King, then U. S. Minister in London. I quote the whole despatch, and from this it appears – 1. That the part at which the treaty could not be executed, for want of finding the highlands, was the point to be constituted by the intersection of the due north line from the head of the St. Croix with the line drawn along the highlands. 2. That this point might be substituted by a conventional one agreed upon by the three commissioners. 3. That from this point, so agreed upon, the line was to go to the highlands, and to follow them wherever they could be ascertained, to the head of the Connecticut River. This is the clear sense of Mr. Madison's letter and Mr. Jefferson's message; and it is to be very careless to confound this point (which they admitted to be dubious, for want of highlands at that place) with the line itself, which was to run near 300 miles on the elevations of a mountain reaching 3,000 feet high. The King of the Netherlands took a great liberty with this point when he brought it to the St. John's River: our Secretary-negotiator took a far greater liberty with it when he brought it to the head of the Metjarmette creek; for it is only at the head of this creek that our line under the new treaty begins to climb the highlands. The King of the Netherlands had some apology for his conventional point and conventional line to the head of the St. Francis – for the highlands were sunk into table-land where the point ought to be, and which was the terminus a quo of his conventional line: but our negotiator had no apology at all for turning this conventional line south, and extending it 110 miles through the level lands of Maine, where the mountain highlands were all along in sight to the west. It is impossible to plead the difficulty of finding the highlands for this substitution of the lowland boundary, in the whole distance from the head of the St. Francis, where the King of the Netherlands fixed the commencement of our mountain line, to the head of the Metjarmette, where our Secretary fixed its commencement. Lord Ashburton's quotation from Mr. Madison's letter is partial and incomplete: he quotes what answers his purpose, and is justifiable in so doing. But what must we think of our Secretary-negotiator, who neglected to quote the remainder of that letter, and show that it was a conventional point, and not a conventional line, that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison proposed? and that this conventional point was merely to fix the north-west angle of Nova Scotia, where, in fact, there were no highlands; after which, the line was to proceed to the elevated ground dividing the waters, &c., and then follow the highlands to the head of the Connecticut? Why did our Secretary omit this correction of the British minister's quotation, and thus enable him to use American names against us?