Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

In the division of parties which ensued the establishment of the federal government, Mr. Adams and Mr. Jefferson differed in systems of policy, and became heads of opposite divisions, but without becoming either unjust or unkind to each other. Mr. Adams sided with the party discriminated as federal; and in that character became the subject of political attacks, from which his competitor generously defended him, declaring that "a more perfectly honest man never issued from the hands of his Creator;" and, though opposing candidates for the presidency, neither would have any thing to do with the election, which they considered a question between the systems of policy which they represented, and not a question between themselves. Mr. Jefferson became the head of the party then called republican – now democratic; and in that character became the founder of the political school which has since chiefly prevailed in the United States. He was a statesman: that is to say, a man capable of conceiving measures useful to the country and to mankind – able to recommend them to adoption, and to administer them when adopted. I have seen many politicians – a few statesmen – and, of these few, he their pre-eminent head. He was a republican by nature and constitution, and gave proofs of it in the legislation of his State, as well as in the policy of the United States. He was no speaker, but a most instructive and fascinating talker; and the Declaration of Independence, even if it had not been sistered by innumerable classic productions, would have placed him at the head of political writers. I never saw him but once, when I went to visit him in his retirement; and then I felt, for four hours, the charms of his bewitching talk. I was then a young senator, just coming on the stage of public life – he a patriarchal statesman just going off the stage of natural life, and evidently desirous to impress some views of policy upon me – a design in which he certainly did not fail. I honor him as a patriot of the Revolution – as one of the Founders of the Republic – as the founder of the political school to which I belong; and for the purity of character which he possessed in common with his compatriots, and which gives to the birth of the United States a beauty of parentage which the genealogy of no other nation can show.

CHAPTER XXXII.

BRITISH INDEMNITY FOR DEPORTED SLAVES

In this year was brought to a conclusion the long-continued controversy with Great Britain in relation to the non-fulfilment of the first article of the treaty of Ghent (1814), for the restitution of slaves carried off by the British troops in the war of 1812. It was a renewal of the misunderstanding, but with a better issue, which grew up under the seventh article of the treaty of peace of 1783 upon the same subject. The power of Washington's administration was not able to procure the execution of that article, either by restoration of the slaves or indemnity. The slaves then taken away were carried to Nova Scotia, where, becoming an annoyance, they were transferred to Sierra Leone; and thus became the foundation of the British African colony there. The restitution of deported slaves, stipulated in the first article of the Ghent treaty, could not be accomplished between the two powers; they disagreed as to the meaning of words; and, after seven years of vain efforts to come to an understanding, it was agreed to refer the question to arbitrament. The Emperor Alexander accepted the office of arbitrator, executed it, and decided in favor of the United States. That decision was as unintelligible to Great Britain as all the previous treaty stipulations on this same subject had been. She could not understand it. A second misunderstanding grew up, giving rise to a second negotiation, which was concluded by a final agreement to pay the value of the slaves carried off. In 1827 payment was made – twelve years after the injury and the stipulation to repair it, and after continued and most strenuous exertions to obtain redress.

The case was this: it was a part of the system of warfare adopted by the British, when operating in the slave States, to encourage the slaves to desert from their owners, promising them freedom; and at the end of the war these slaves were carried off. This carrying off was foreseen by the United States Commissioners at Ghent, and in the first article of the treaty was provided against in these words; "all places taken, &c. shall be restored without delay, &c., or carrying away any of the artillery, or other public property originally captured in the said posts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, or any slaves or other private property." The British Government undertook to extend the limitation which applied to public property to that which was private also; and so to restore only such slaves as were originally captured within the forts, and which remained therein at the time of the exchange of ratifications – a construction which would have excluded all that were induced to run away, being nearly the whole; and all that left the forts before the exchange of ratifications, which would have included the rest. She adhered to the construction given to the parallel article in the treaty of 1783, and by which all slaves taken during the war were held to be lawful prize of war, and free under the British proclamation, and not to be compensated for. The United States, on the contrary, confined this local limitation to things appurtenant to the forts; and held the slaves to be private property, subject to restitution, or claim for compensation, if carried away at all, no matter how acquired.

The point was solemnly carried before the Emperor Alexander, the United States represented by their minister, Mr. Henry Middleton, and Great Britain by Sir Charles Bagot – the Counts Nesselrode and Capo D'Istrias receiving the arguments to be laid before the Emperor. His Majesty's decision was peremptory; "that the United States of America are entitled to a just indemnification from Great Britain for all private property carried away by the British forces; and, as the question regards slaves more especially, for all such slaves as were carried away by the British forces from the places and territories of which the restitution was stipulated by the treaty, in quitting the said places and territories." This was explicit; but the British minister undertook to understand it as not applying to slaves who voluntarily joined the British troops to free themselves from bondage, and who came from places never in possession of the British troops; and he submitted a note to that effect to the Russian minister, Count Nesselrode, to be laid before the Emperor. To this note Alexander gave an answer which is a model of categorical reply to unfounded dubitation. He said: "the Emperor having, by the mutual consent of the two plenipotentiaries, given an opinion, founded solely upon the sense which results from the text of the article in dispute, does not think himself called upon to decide here any question relative to what the laws of war permit or forbid to the belligerents; but, always faithful to the grammatical interpretation of the first article of the treaty of Ghent, his Imperial Majesty declares, a second time, that it appears to him, according to this interpretation, that, in quitting the places and territories of which the treaty of Ghent stipulates the restitution to the United States, his Britannic Majesty's forces had no right to carry away from the same places and territories, absolutely, any slave, by whatever means he had fallen or come into their power." This was the second declaration, the second decision of the point; and both parties having bound themselves to abide the decision, be it what it might, a convention was immediately concluded for the purpose of carrying the Emperor's decision into effect, by establishing a board to ascertain the number and value of the deported slaves. It was a convention formally drawn up, signed by the ministers of the three powers, done in triplicate, ratified, and ratifications exchanged, and the affair considered finished. Not so the fact! New misunderstanding, new negotiation, five years more consumed in diplomatic notes, and finally a new convention concluded! Certainly it was not the value of the property in controversy, not the amount of money to be paid, that led Great Britain to that pertinacious resistance, bordering upon cavilling and bad faith. It was the loss of an advantage in war – the loss of the future advantage of operating upon the slave States through their slave property, and which advantage would be lost if this compensation was enforced, – which induced her to stand out so long against her own stipulations, and the decisions of her own accepted arbitrator.

This new or third treaty, making indemnity for these slaves, was negotiated at London, November, 1826, between Mr. Gallatin on the part of the United States, and Messrs. Huskisson and Addington on the part of Great Britain. It commenced with reciting that "difficulties having arisen in the execution of the convention concluded at St. Petersburg, July 12th, 1822, under the mediation of his majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, between the United States of America and Great Britain, for the purpose of carrying into effect the decision of his Imperial Majesty upon the differences which had arisen between the said United States and Great Britain as to the true construction and meaning of the first article of the treaty of Ghent, therefore the said parties agree to treat again," &c. The result of this third negotiation was to stipulate for the payment of a gross sum to the government of the United States, to be by it divided among those whose slaves had been carried off: and the sum of one million two hundred and four thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars was the amount agreed upon. This sum was satisfactory to the claimants, and was paid to the United States for their benefit in the year 1827 – just twelve years after the conclusion of the war, and after two treaties had been made, and two arbitrations rendered to explain the meaning of the first treaty, and which fully explained itself. Twelve years of persevering exertion to obtain the execution of a treaty stipulation which solely related to private property, and which good faith and sheer justice required to have been complied with immediately! At the commencement of the session of Congress, 1827-28, the President, Mr. John Quincy Adams, was able to communicate the fact of the final settling and closing up of this demand upon the British government for the value of the slaves carried off by its troops. The sum received was large, and ample to pay the damages; but that was the smallest part of the advantage gained. The example and the principle were the main points – the enforcement of such a demand against a government so powerful, and after so much resistance, and the condemnation which it carried, and the responsibility which it implied – this was the grand advantage. Liberation and abduction of slaves was one of the modes of warfare adopted by the British, and largely counted on as a means of harassing and injuring one half of the Union. It had been practised during the Revolution, and indemnity avoided. If avoided a second time, impunity would have sanctioned the practice and rendered it inveterate; and in future wars, not only with Great Britain but with all powers, this mode of annoyance would have become an ordinary resort, leading to servile insurrections. The indemnity exacted carried along with it the condemnation of the practice, as a spoliation of private property to be atoned for; and was both a compensation for the past and a warning for the future. It implied a responsibility which no power, or art, or time could evade, and the principle of which being established, there will be no need for future arbitrations.

I have said that this article in the treaty of Ghent for restitution, or compensation, for deported slaves was brought to a better issue than its parallel in the treaty of peace of 1783. By the seventh article of this treaty it was declared that the evacuation (by the British troops) should be made "without carrying away any negroes or other property belonging to the American inhabitants." Yet three thousand slaves were carried away (besides ten times that number – 27,000 in Virginia alone – perishing of disease in the British camps); and neither restitution nor compensation made for any part of them. Both were resisted – the restitution by Sir Guy Carleton in his letter of reply to Washington's demand, declaring it to be an impossible infamy in a British officer to give up those whom they had invited to their standard; but reserving the point for the consideration of his government, and, in the mean time, allowing and facilitating the taking of schedules of all slaves taken away – names, ages, sex, former owners, and States from which taken. The British government resisted compensation upon the ground of war captures; that, being taken in war, no matter how, they became, like other plunder, the property of the captors, who had a right to dispose of it as they pleased, and had chosen to set it free; that the slaves, having become free, belonged to nobody, and consequently it was no breach of the treaty stipulation to carry them away. This ground was contested by the Congress of the confederation to the end of its existence, and afterwards by the new federal government, from its commencement until the claim for indemnity was waived or abandoned, at the conclusion of Jay's treaty, in 1796. The very first message of Washington to Congress when he became President, presented the inexecution of the treaty of peace in this particular, among others, as one of the complaints justly existing against Great Britain; and all the diplomacy of his administration was exerted to obtain redress – in vain. The treaties of '94 and '96 were both signed without allusion to the subject; and, being left unprovided for in these treaties, the claim sunk into the class of obsolete demands; and the stipulation remained in the treaty a dead letter, although containing the precise words, and the additional one "negroes," on which the Emperor Alexander took the stand which commanded compensation and dispensed with arguments founded in the laws of war. Not a shilling had been received for that immense depredation upon private property; although the Congress of the confederation adopted the strongest resolves, and even ordered each State to be furnished with copies of the schedules of the slaves taken from it; and hopes of indemnity were kept alive until extinguished by the treaty of '96. It was a bitter complaint against that treaty, as the Congress debates of the time, and the public press, abundantly show.

Northern men did their duty to the South in getting compensation (and, what is infinitely more, establishing the principle that there shall be compensation in such cases) for the slaves carried away in the war of 1812. A majority of the commissioners at Ghent who obtained the stipulation for indemnity were Northern men – Adams, Russell, Gallatin, from the free, and Clay and Bayard from the slave States. A Northern negotiator (Mr. Gallatin), under a Northern President (Mr. John Quincy Adams), finally obtained it; and it is a coincidence worthy of remark that this Northern negotiator, who was finally successful, was the same debater in Congress, in '96, who delivered the best argument (in my opinion surpassing even that of Mr. Madison), against the grounds on which the British Government resisted the execution of this article of the treaty.

I am no man to stir up old claims against the federal government; and, I detest the trade which exhumes such claims, and deplore the facility with which they are considered – too often in the hands of speculators who gave nothing, or next to nothing, for them. But I must say that the argument on which the French spoliation claim is now receiving so much consideration, applies with infinitely more force to the planters whose slaves were taken during the war of the Revolution than in behalf of these French spoliation claims. They were contributing – some in their persons in the camp or council, all in their voluntary or tax contributions – to the independence of their country when they were thus despoiled of their property. They depended upon these slaves to support their families while they were supporting their country. They were in debt to British merchants, and relied upon compensation for these slaves to pay those debts, at the very moment when compensation was abandoned by the same treaty which enforced the payment of the debts. They had a treaty obligation for indemnity, express in its terms, and since shown to be valid, when deprived of this stipulation by another treaty, in order to obtain general advantages for the whole Union. This is something like taking private property for public use. Three thousand slaves, the property of ascertained individuals, protected by a treaty stipulation, and afterwards abandoned by another treaty, against the entreaties and remonstrances of the owners, in order to obtain the British commercial treaty of '94, and its supplement of '96: such is the case which this revolutionary spoliation of slave property presents, and which puts it immeasurably ahead of the French spoliation claims prior to 1800. There is but four years' difference in their ages – in the dates of the two treaties by which they were respectively surrendered – and every other difference between the two cases is an argument of preference in favor of the losers under the treaty of 1796. Yet I am against both, and each, separately or together; and put them in contrast to make one stand as an argument against the other. But the primary reason for introducing the slave spoliation case of 1783, and comparing its less fortunate issue with that of 1812, was to show that Northern men will do justice to the South; that Northern men obtained for the South an indemnity and security in our day which a Southern Administration, with Washington at its head, had not been able to obtain in the days of our fathers.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MEETING OF THE FIRST CONGRESS ELECTED UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF MR. ADAMS

The nineteenth Congress, commencing its legal existence, March the 4th, 1825, had been chiefly elected at the time that Mr. Adams' administration commenced, and the two Houses stood divided with respect to him – the majority of the Representatives being favorable to him, while the majority of the Senate was in opposition. The elections for the twentieth Congress – the first under his administration – were looked to with great interest, both as showing whether the new President was supported by the country, and his election by the House sanctioned, and also as an index to the issue of the ensuing presidential election. For, simultaneously with the election in the House of Representatives did the canvass for the succeeding election begin – General Jackson being the announced candidate on one side, and Mr. Adams on the other; and the event involving not only the question of merits between the parties, but also the question of approved or disapproved conduct on the part of the representatives who elected Mr. Adams. The elections took place, and resulted in placing an opposition majority in the House of Representatives, and increasing the strength of the opposition majority in the Senate. The state of parties in the House was immediately tested by the election of speaker, Mr. John W. Taylor, of New-York, the administration candidate, being defeated by Mr. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, in the opposition. The appointment of the majority of members on all the committees, and their chairmen, in both Houses adverse to the administration, was a regular consequence of the inflamed state of parties, although the proper conducting of the public business would demand for the administration the chairman of several important committees, as enabling it to place its measures fairly before the House. The speaker (Mr. Stevenson) could only yield to this just sense of propriety in the case of one of the committees, that of foreign relations, to which Mr. Edward Everett, classing as the political and personal friend of the President, was appointed chairman. In other committees, and in both Houses, the stern spirit of the times prevailed; and the organization of the whole Congress was adverse to the administration.

The presidential message contained no new recommendations, but referred to those previously made, and not yet acted upon; among which internal improvement, and the encouragement of home industry, were most prominent. It gave an account of the failure of the proposed congress of Panama; and, consequently, of the inutility of all our exertions to be represented there. And, as in this final and valedictory notice by Mr. Adams of that once far-famed congress, he took occasion to disclaim some views attributed to him, I deem it just to give him the benefit of his own words, both in making the disclaimer, and in giving the account of the abortion of an impracticable scheme which had so lately been prosecuted, and opposed, with so much heat and violence in our own country. He said of it:

"Disclaiming alike all right and all intention of interfering in those concerns which it is the prerogative of their independence to regulate as to them shall seem fit, we hail with joy every indication of their prosperity, of their harmony, of their persevering and inflexible homage to those principles of freedom and of equal rights, which are alone suited to the genius and temper of the American nations. It has been therefore with some concern that we have observed indications of intestine divisions in some of the republics of the South, and appearances of less union with one another, than we believe to be the interest of all. Among the results of this state of things has been that the treaties concluded at Panama do not appear to have been ratified by the contracting parties, and that the meeting of the Congress at Tacubaya has been indefinitely postponed. In accepting the invitations to be represented at this Congress, while a manifestation was intended on the part of the United States, of the most friendly disposition towards the Southern republics by whom it had been proposed, it was hoped that it would furnish an opportunity for bringing all the nations of this hemisphere to the common acknowledgment and adoption of the principles, in the regulation of their international relations, which would have secured a lasting peace and harmony between them, and have promoted the cause of mutual benevolence throughout the globe. But as obstacles appear to have arisen to the reassembling of the Congress, one of the two ministers commissioned on the part of the United States has returned to the bosom of his country, while the minister charged with the ordinary mission to Mexico remains authorized to attend at the conferences of the Congress whenever they may be resumed."

This is the last that was heard of that so much vaunted Congress of American nations, and in the manner in which it died out of itself, among those who proposed it, without ever having been reached by a minister from the United States, we have the highest confirmation of the soundness of the objections taken to it by the opposition members of the two Houses of our Congress.

In stating the condition of the finances, the message, without intending it, gave proof of the paradoxical proposition, first, I believe, broached by myself, that an annual revenue to the extent of a fourth or a fifth below the annual expenditure, is sufficient to meet that annual expenditure; and consequently that there is no necessity to levy as much as is expended, or to provide by law for keeping a certain amount in the treasury when the receipts are equal, or superior to the expenditure. He said:

"The balance in the treasury on the first of January last was six millions three hundred and fifty-eight thousand six hundred and eighty-six dollars and eighteen cents. The receipts from that day to the 30th of September last, as near as the returns of them yet received can show, amount to sixteen millions eight hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-one dollars and thirty-two cents. The receipts of the present quarter, estimated at four millions five hundred and fifteen thousand, added to the above, form an aggregate of twenty-one millions four hundred thousand dollars of receipts. The expenditures of the year may perhaps amount to twenty-two millions three hundred thousand dollars, presenting a small excess over the receipts. But of these twenty-two millions, upwards of six have been applied to the discharge of the principal of the public debt; the whole amount of which, approaching seventy-four millions on the first of January last, will on the first day of next year fall short of sixty-seven millions and a half. The balance in the treasury on the first of January next, it is expected, will exceed five millions four hundred and fifty thousand dollars; a sum exceeding that of the first of January, 1825, though falling short of that exhibited on the first of January last."