CHAPTER XXVII.

VIEW OF THE WAR OF 1812-MR. MADISON ON HIS

W

APPOINTMENTS.

HEN the war was declared, for several reasons, whether well founded or not, New England opposed it. One of the grounds of her disaffection was the perverse one that the Administration contemplated the conquest and addition of Canada to the United States. New England opposed the purchase of Louisiana, as that presented a vast new field for slavery; and now here was a scheme which would have gone far toward equalizing the free and slave territory in putting Canada against Louisiana; and this she also opposed. A President from the slave-holding section favored and supported this project, who, had he been led by a similarly narrow sentiment, must have opposed the very thing he was trying to carry out, as likewise would have done all the supporters of the scheme and the Administration from the slave-holding section. When war was declared the friends of the Administration said that opposition must stop. New England did not believe this, and assumed that only an abject, absolute despotism would undertake to interfere with her disposition to do as she saw fit in the case. And her conduct to the last has been portrayed with some degree of fullness in previous chapters.

During the Rebellion, from 1860 to 1865, there was

a large body of men in New England and the North generally, who also claimed, in the same spirit, the right to oppose the war for the Union. But they belonged to the political descendants of those who most warmly supported the War of 1812, the opponents of the Hartford Convention Federalists. In 1860 to 1865 the same Federal (then become Republican) majority declared that opposition must cease, and did not consider it despotism to make it cease, to all practical purposes. The end justified the means. But between 1814 and 1862 there was a difference only in degree of the principles appealing to the wise and patriotic obligations of men. The followers of Mr. Jefferson, the founders of the present Democratic party, bitterly opposed the prospective war with France in 1798. Among the most stubborn, if not foolish and wicked, of these Republican opponents of a war with France at that time was Mr. Madison. But these Democrats were mainly the war party of 1812, and 1846. And when the very life of the Nation was at stake during the War of the Rebellion this whole party in one section became armed traitors, and from this party in the North arose their apologizers, sympathizers, and abettors.

In 1832, when General Jackson sent out his first argument against the nullifiers, and when his supporters thought they knew very well what his second one would be, the old Republicans, from whom came the Jacksonian and present Democratic party, were ready to back him at every step. That is, especially at the North. If the War of 1812 had been Mr. Adams's, or Alexander Hamilton's, or any other good Federalist's, instead of James Madison's, would not the case

have been quite different with Federal New England? If Andrew Jackson had been in the place of Abraham Lincoln, and pursuing the same course, in 1861, how great would have been the defection in the ranks of the Northern Democracy? So infernal are the influences and machinations of party that the very hearts, characters, and principles of men, "the people" and the leaders, are degraded and changed by them. Here questions of good and evil, truth and falsity, right and wrong, are made to depend greatly on who is in and who is out. To the ins nothing is wrong but getting out, to the outs nothing is right but getting in.

New England had her Hartford convention in 1814, nor did she think then, nor has she ever since for a moment been willing to admit, that it had any purpose but a good and patriotic one, like the "Peace Convention" of 1861. And in spite of all that has been said and the appearances to the contrary, this may be true.

It would, perhaps, be fair and proper to take the evidence of the men who composed the Hartford Convention, as conclusive touching its work and character. In other matters their testimony would have been taken the world over. Still in a glimpse from this far-off day, the mass of New England Federalists appear to have been extremely perverse people during the War of 1812; and after viewing the whole case, over and over, it is difficult to frame a palliation for their conduct. Such a conclusion must also be reached from a close investigation of all other similar oppositions to the majority, or to the regularly established administration of the Government.

There is little or no difference of opinion to-day as

to the constitutional character of any Administration since the foundation of the Union.

And, perhaps, no man of respectable judgment now lives, who could believe that the peaceful Presidency of Abraham Lincoln would have resulted in the destruction of the "peculiar institution" of the South. It was a wild partisan mistake which supposed that it would do so. Circumstances made it a war Administration, and the destruction of slavery became a necessary and unavoidable war engine. In any other hands it would have been as wise and necessary.

One of the charges against Mr. Madison was that he selected his army officers from the ranks of his partisans, the Republicans (Democrats). In New England it was said that everybody knew that Henry Dearborn, or as he was called "Granny" Dearborn, was entirely unfit to command the army, and if Mr. Madison had not been blinded by party preferences he would have been able to see this, as others did at first. It was claimed that all his selections in New England were notoriously incompetent in military matters. But there, as every place else, the best possible selections were made. Mr. Madison could not trust at the head of military affairs, in the quarter where, perhaps, the majority of the most able men were inimical to the war, men whose inclinations would unfit them either to carry out the purposes of the Administration, or become the depositaries of the secrets of the service.

The egregious blunders of the first year or two of the war as to general officers was, perhaps, unavoidable. It was experimentation, but not politics, which produced the inefficiency of the army. Necessity brought forward in the last year of the war men who

had the requisite qualifications. These were the results of experiment and development. Even not omitting Mr. Jefferson's, the first six Administrations, and perhaps a few after that time, were not partisan, to any great extent, in the selection of men for carrying on the Government.

It was stoutly held by the Federalists that Mr. Madison "bartered the peace of his country for the poor bauble of a second term of office." But Mr. Madison would have been re-elected had there been no war. He knew that. The declaration of war did not swell his majority, and even as to its influence upon his renomination there may well be a doubt, a matter sufficiently set out in a previous chapter. This charge against Mr. Madison rested on the same foundation as that of bargain and corruption against John Quincy Adams, who never could have done a mean act towards his country, or a dishonorable one towards his fellowman; it was a thing of partisan imagination.

Many of the Federalists did then hold, and many of their descendants, especially in New England, do still hold to the opinion that the War of 1812 was originated simply in the interest of the Republican (Democratic) party; that it was prosecuted in party spirit; and being the war of the Administration was chiefly disastrous to the country, and wholly disgraceful to its authors. The first item in this charge, as to the causes leading to the war, has been fully enough displayed in other parts of this volume.

An apologizer for New England at that period, says:

"Who, then, has a right to accuse them of treason? Not the Nullifier, nor the Disunionist, nor the Secessionist, all clamorous for the destruction of the Union, whenever, in their opinion, the