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1818-20.

COMMERCIAL RETALIATION.

485

the provincial restrictions were repealed, and Congress followed up the attack by a "navigation act "* directed against the British West Indies. This provided, in the first place, that no ship owned wholly or in part by a subject of Great Britain could enter the United States if it came from a port in any part of his Majesty's dominions from which American-owned vessels were excluded; and, in the second place, that when a British ship laden with American products cleared from one of our ports she must give bond not to land her cargo at any British port closed by the first section of the act.

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The effect was immediate. The General Assembly of the island of Jamaica voted a memorial to the Prince Regent setting forth "the dreadful evils they were threatened with," and praying for the adoption of measures to avert them. The Governor of St. Lucia, where a drought destroyed the products of the earth, opened the port of Castries to lumber and provisions from the United States in any vessel," even though such vessel had neither register, clearance, nor papers of any kind save a manifest of her cargo. And the British Government," by Orders in Council, turned Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and St. John, in New Brunswick, into free ports in which the products of the West Indies could be exchanged for flour, potatoes, tar, pitch, potash, beans, poultry, live stock, and lumber of every sort from the United States. Once more Congress struck back, and in 1820 shut the ports of the United States to British vessels from New Brunswick, from Nova Scotia, Lower Canada, Newfoundland, the island of Cape Breton, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Caicos and their dependencies, and from every port or place belonging to Great Britain in the West Indies or on the continent of America south of the United States, and required that all British West India goods must be imported direct from the place of production.|| This cut

*Act of April 15, 1818.

Niles's Weekly Register, October 31, 1818, vol. xv, p. 156.

Ibid., September 26, 1818, vol. xv, p. 80.

* Act of Parliament, May 8, 1818. Orders in Council, May 30, 1818. Act of Congress, May 15, 1820.

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off all trade with the British Indies, opened the way for smuggling on a great scale, and forced from Parliament an act which admitted American ships, laden with certain goods, into specified ports in Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the West Indies, but taxed goods coming from the United States ten per cent more than like articles from the British North American colonies. Monroe, thereupon, by proclamation,† opened the ports of the United States to British West Indian products, subject to a like extra duty of ten per cent when brought in British vessels, on which was imposed a further duty of one dollar a ton. Congress at its next session reduced the tonnage duty to ninety-six cents, and limited British ships to a direct trade between the colonies and the United States. Great Britain a few months later retaliated and met this with a duty of four shillings and sixpence a ton on American shipping trading in her West Indies.* No finer exhibition was ever made of the folly of retaliation when carried to an extreme. Again the purposes of statesmen were confounded by the acts of the people; illicit trade sprang up, smuggling flourished, the island authorities encouraged it, and thousands of dollars worth of goods called by names other than their own went through the custom-houses duty free. A senator from Connecticut, long engaged in the West Indian trade, used to narrate an incident which well illustrated the state to which colonial commerce was now brought. He shipped, on one occasion, a cargo of candles, the importation of which was prohibited, but the custom-house inspector declared they were herrings, and as such they passed without question.]]

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When matters had gone on in this wise for two years Great Britain revised her policy. To nations with colonies she offered reciprocity, mother country against mother country, colonies against colonies. To nations without colonies she offered the same trade in her colonial ports that was given to her and her possessions in their ports, provided the proposition was accepted within a year. Neither act

*Act of June 24, 1822.

+ August 24, 1822.

Act of March 1, 1823.

* Orders in Council, June 17, 1823.

Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, vol. vii, p. 429. A Acts of June 27 and July 5, 1825.

1826.

THE BRITISH WEST INDIES CLOSED.

487

was ever officially made known to the United States, nor was their purpose, nor the construction to be placed on them, ever explained. Indeed, the colonial officers whose duty it was to enforce the acts could not agree as to their meaning. In one island they were interpreted to mean one thing, and in another something else. Nevertheless, the act of July fifth, though not officially known, was submitted to Congress, for the United States must accept before July, 1826, or take the penalty. But as Congress did nothing, Adams, the moment the session closed, despatched Albert Gallatin to London to reopen the long-suspended negotiation. Gallatin reached London in August, 1826, and before he had time to deliver his letter of credence was met with an Order of Council, dated July twenty-seventh, which decreed that on and after December first no vessel from the United States should enter a port of the British West Indies.* Expostulation was vain. Great Britain would not yield, and the loss of trade was made much of by the friends of Jackson in the campaign for the presidency then well under way.

* Message of Adams, December 5, 1826. See also Gallatin-Canning Correspondence, Niles's Register, vol. xxxi, pp. 268–277, and Report of Committee on Commerce made to the House of Representatives. Ibid., pp. 355–361.

CHAPTER LII.

THE PEOPLE IN CONTROL.

In the previous chapters of this history an attempt has been made to describe that peaceful and happy revolution through which our country passed between the day when war was a second time ended with Great Britain and the day when a triumphant people sent Andrew Jackson to the White House. It has been my purpose to show how, with the fall of Napoleon and the return of peace, questions of foreign policy which for two-and-twenty years had divided Federalists and Republicans ceased to distract the people; how a period of good feeling, of political calm followed; how, during this time, there arose questions of a domestic kind, the regulation of the currency, the charter of a national bank, the protection of manufactures, the use of the public domain, the construction of roads and canals at Government expenses, the rights of the States and their status under the Constitution; how these questions fostered the growth of sectionalism, rent the once harmonious Republican party in pieces, brought about the contest of 1824, and made straight the way for the election of Andrew Jackson. An attempt has been made to describe the life of the people in the cities, in the towns and villages, on the frontier; their ideas on government, on banking, on labor, on education, on literature, on the social problems of the time, have been reviewed; the astonishing betterment in the conditions of life brought about by new inventions and discoveries, new means of locomotion, and the rise of new industries, and new ways of gaining a livelihood, have all been described, and it is now time to turn to the second phase of that politi

1825.

THE DEFEAT OF JACKSON.

489

cal contest waged by the friends of Adams, Clay, and Jackson.

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The defeat of Jackson in the House of Representatives was followed by an outburst of indignation from every journal controlled by his friends. "Expired at Washington," said one," on the ninth of February, of poison administered by the assassin hands of John Quincy Adams, the usurper, and Henry Clay, the virtue, liberty, and independence of the United States." "The sale of the presidency to Mr. Adams," said another, "has disheartened many worthy persons and made them doubt the capacity of the people for self-government.' "Five Western States," exclaimed a third, "bought and transferred to the usurper like so many live cattle or a drove of negroes! The people stand aghast and are lost in amazement." The people were indeed astonished, and more than one Western member of the House of Representatives found it necessary to explain to his constituents beyond the mountains just how the election of Adams came about. A Tennesseean assured his supporters, in a circular letter, that he could put aside his grief for the defeat of Jackson, and even forget how deep had been the affront to the pride of his much-injured State, if it were with the will of the people that these things were done. But it is not Jackson that has been defeated, nor Tennessee that has been overlooked. It is the sovereign will of the people, the almighty voice of this great nation, that has been set at defiance. Is ours a government of the people? Is their will subject to no control but that which they themselves, not their servants, have placed over it? And have we in less than half a century come to this, that the first magistrate can be chosen not by the choice, but against the known, expressed, and solemn choice of at least seventeen of the twenty-four States, and, worse than all, by the votes of the six States falsely given by their representatives against the known will of their constituents? The fact is undeniable that the votes of seven States were given against General Jackson, of which six-those of Maryland, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, and Louisiana-were cast for Mr. Adams, and that of North Carolina for Mr. Crawford.

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