The Middle Period 1817-1858 Part 3

By a secret act of the year 1811, the Congress of the United States had declared its unwillingness to have Florida, or any part of it, pa.s.s from the hands of Spain into those of any other power, and had authorized the President to prevent it. Acting upon this authority, the President instructed General Gaines to go to Amelia Island and take possession of it.

[Sidenote: General Jackson placed in command in Florida. His orders.]

About ten days later, December 26th, 1817, the President a.s.signed General Jackson to the command of the {31} troops acting against the Indians. The day before the issue of the order to General Jackson, the War Department had received the news of the Indian attack upon Lieutenant Scott's boat while ascending the Appalachicola with supplies for the United States troops at Fort Scott. The cold-blooded ma.s.sacre of almost the entire crew of the boat apparently moved the War Department to more energetic measures. The order to General Jackson, besides investing him with the command, empowered him to call on the Governors of the adjacent Commonwealths for such military forces as he might deem necessary, with those already in the field, to overcome the Indians, and informed him that General Gaines had been instructed "to penetrate from Amelia Island, through Florida, to the Seminole towns, if his force would justify his engaging in offensive operations." "With this view," the order to Jackson continues, "you may be prepared to concentrate your forces, and to adopt the necessary measures to terminate a conflict which it has ever been the desire of the President to avoid, but which is now made necessary by their settled hostilities."

[Sidenote: Jackson's letter to President Monroe.]

When Jackson received these orders he was in Tennessee. He wrote immediately to the President: "Let it be signified to me through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States and in sixty days it will be accomplished." General Jackson naturally supposed that this letter was duly received and read by President Monroe, and that a subsequent order, giving him discretionary powers in the prosecution of the campaign, contained the answer to it. As we shall see, however, the President claimed later that he did not read Jackson's letter until a year after it was written and sent to him. It was certainly {32} the President's fault if he did not. General Jackson certainly could not be held accountable for the President's strange negligence in examining official correspondence, and he had good reason to think, from the tone of the order issued to him after his letter had had due time to be received and read, that the Administration desired him to occupy Florida.

Upon taking command Jackson called his Tennessee veterans to him, and reached with them the Florida frontier in March of 1818.

[Sidenote: Jackson's operations in Florida.]

When he advanced into Florida he found that the Spanish officials in Florida were in collusion with the Indians, and that the instigators of the hostilities were an Englishman, named Ambrister, and a Scotchman, named Arbuthnot, together with two Indian chiefs named Hillis Hajo and Himallemico.

An order from the War Department, of January 16th, 1818, instructed the commander of the United States forces in Florida that the honor of the nation required a speedy termination of the War with the Seminoles, "with exemplary punishment for hostilities so unprovoked."

Jackson naturally considered himself empowered to do speedy and thorough work. He felt it necessary to seize St. Mark's and Pensacola, in order to destroy the base of operations and the places of refuge of the enemy, and he caused the four ringleaders of the enemy to be executed. By the end of May (1818) the campaign was ended, and Florida was in the military possession of the United States. The President a.s.sumed the responsibility for Jackson's deeds, but offered to restore St. Mark's and Pensacola, and therewith the nominal possession of Florida, to Spain, so soon as Spain would garrison these points with forces able to maintain peace with the United States and {33} disposed to do so. Spain accepted the offer, fulfilled in a way the conditions, and the places were restored to her jurisdiction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLORIDA, at the Time of Acquisition.]

[Sidenote: The first Treaty for the cession of Florida to the United States.]

It was now manifest to Spain, however, that she could not control Florida, and that her possession of the province was, and could be, only nominal. She now, therefore, agreed to cede it to the United States. The treaty bears date of February 22nd, 1819. Its important provisions are contained in the second and third articles. By these articles Spain ceded the Floridas, with the adjacent islands dependent thereon, to the United States; and agreed with the United States that the boundary between the two powers in North America should be the west bank of the Sabine River from its mouth to the thirty-second parallel of north lat.i.tude, thence the line of longitude to the Red River, thence up the course of the Red River to the one-hundredth parallel of longitude from London, or the twenty-third from Was.h.i.+ngton, thence the line of longitude to the Arkansas River, thence the south bank of the Arkansas to its source, thence the line of longitude to the forty-second parallel of north lat.i.tude, and thence this line of lat.i.tude to the South Sea.

This settlement of boundary included that of all other claims, of whatever character, of the Government, citizens, or subjects of either power against the Government, citizens, or subjects of the other. All such were mutually renounced.

[Sidenote: Jackson's popularity in consequence of the Seminole War.]

The results of the Seminole War raised General Jackson to a still higher plane of popularity than he possessed as the hero of the War of 1812. It was evident that here was a character who would have to be reckoned with in future presidential contests. It is possible that Jackson's chief mentor, William B. Lewis, had {34} conceived, at this date, the idea of Jackson's candidacy for the highest place in the gift of the nation. And it is highly probable that the fears of all the existing aspirants for the presidency were excited by the appearance of this new and popular rival for public favor. It is difficult to explain upon any other theory the attempt made in Congress, during the session of 1818-19, to suppress Jackson by a vote of censure.

[Sidenote: The attempt in Congress to censure Jackson.]

This procedure certainly had no connection whatsoever with the question of slavery extension through the acquisition of Florida. When we find Tallmadge, of New York, the self-same person who introduced, at the same session, the proposition for restricting slavery in Missouri, defending Jackson's course in every particular, while Cobb, of Georgia, attacked it, and when we consider that John Quincy Adams, the life-long opponent of slavery, sustained Jackson in the cabinet, while Calhoun moved to bring him to account for disobedience to orders, we are bound to conclude that we have here nothing whatsoever to do with the question of slavery.

[Sidenote: The same attempt in the Cabinet.]

Crawford, of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury, was the prime aspirant for presidential honors, after Monroe should have completed his two terms, and Cobb was Crawford's right-hand man. Clay was also working up his plans. These two men felt it necessary to discredit Jackson in every possible way. Clay made a great bugbear out of Jackson's military heros.h.i.+p, and so threatening did he make it appear to the principle of civil government and republican inst.i.tutions that he really seemed frightened at it himself. Crawford set up the same strain, through Cobb, in a feebler key. Calhoun seems to have been animated rather by wrath at what he {35} conceived to be the violation of his orders, or, at least, the exceeding of his orders, than by jealousy of a presidential rival. His presidential fever had not, at that moment, reached a high degree. But what shall we say of Adams, who undoubtedly then considered himself a candidate for the successors.h.i.+p to Monroe, and who stood against the whole Cabinet in Jackson's defence, and carried the day against both Crawford and Calhoun combined. Of course it may be said that Adams thought his own turn would come before that of Jackson, and that he would gain Jackson's support by his att.i.tude. But against such a supposition must stand the fact that the Cabinet pledged itself to secrecy in regard to all that was proposed on the subject, and that for ten years Jackson supposed that Calhoun was the friend in the Cabinet who had successfully defended him against the other members under the lead of Crawford. The att.i.tude of Adams in the question was n.o.ble and disinterested, as well as patriotic, and had Jackson known of it in 1824, it is altogether probable that he would never have charged an unfair bargain with Clay upon Adams for his own defeat.

[Sidenote: The failure of the attempt to censure Jackson in Congress.]

Clay and Cobb represented that every movement made by Jackson, from the moment of his appointment to the command of the expedition to the end of hostilities, was illegal and in defiance of the orders of the War Department. They said he had no right to call upon his old soldiers instead of asking the Governor of Tennessee for the militia.

They claimed that he waged an offensive war upon his own responsibility against Spain, when the War Department had expressly forbidden him to attack the Spanish forts, and they accused him of murdering two prisoners of war. The House of Representatives showed what it thought of these accusations by voting {36} down the resolutions which contained the censure by a majority of nearly two to one, while the resolutions of like effect introduced into the Senate were laid on the table and never taken up for consideration.

[Sidenote: a.s.sumption of the responsibility for Jackson's acts by the Administration.]

The Administration had, under the influence of the Secretary of State, Mr. Adams, already a.s.sumed the responsibility for Jackson's acts, had upheld their legality, and was even then bringing its negotiations with Spain, in regard to the cession of Florida, to a successful close; while the British Government had refrained from any interference on account of the treatment of Ambrister and Arbuthnot.

[Sidenote: Jackson triumphant.]

The attempt to suppress Jackson broke down thus upon all sides, and he emerged from the a.s.saults of his rivals with a greater popularity than he had ever before enjoyed, and with improved prospects as a presidential candidate. With the wors.h.i.+p accorded to a hero he now enjoyed the sympathy extended to a martyr.

[Sidenote: The Treaty of Cession attacked in Congress, but ratified by the Senate.]

The Treaty itself, ceding the Floridas, did not escape attack. Adams regarded it as a great diplomatic triumph for the United States, but Clay expressed great disappointment with it, because it sacrificed, as he viewed it, the claims of the United States to the territory between the Sabine and the Rio del Norte. And Crawford, who was seizing every opportunity to discredit the Administration, by encouraging it to false measures from his place in the Cabinet, and then professing publicly his disapprobation of them, also saw in the point emphasized by Clay a prime occasion for making political capital.

The Senate showed what its members thought of such manoeuvres by a speedy and unanimous vote in ratification of the Treaty.

{37} [Sidenote: Rejection of the Treaty by the Spanish Government.]

The Spanish Government, on the other hand, rejected the Treaty. Mr.

Adams felt, at the moment, that this was a blow to his reputation as a diplomatist, and perhaps to his chances for the presidency. But it did not prove to be such. Had the Treaty been then ratified three large land grants made by the Spanish King to certain Spanish n.o.bles, at a date earlier than Mr. Adams had supposed, would not have been extinguished by it. The rejection of the Treaty by the Spanish Government, which at the same time sent another Amba.s.sador, General Vives, to take the place of Don Onis, and to renew negotiations on the subject, gave Mr. Adams the opportunity to insist upon the cession of Florida with the extinguishment of the above mentioned grants.

[Sidenote: Resumption of negotiations.]

When the new Amba.s.sador arrived, the country was in the midst of the excitement over the question of slavery extension in the Louisiana territory, the history of which will be related in a succeeding chapter. The effect of this agitation was to arouse some doubt in the minds of those opposed to the extension of slavery in regard to the expediency of any addition to the territory of the United States southward. Mr. Adams himself felt the influence of this doubt, and was prompted, in part at least, by it to a.s.sume an att.i.tude of indifference toward the new propositions of the Spanish Amba.s.sador. He gave the Amba.s.sador to understand that Spain could make such a treaty with the United States in regard to the subject as would be satisfactory to the latter, or take the consequences of leaving things as they were. The unshakable determination of Mr. Adams won the day, and the old Treaty, with a new provision extinguis.h.i.+ng the above mentioned land grants, was finally ratified by both Governments, two years after the date of {38} the original agreement between Mr. Adams and Don Onis.

[Sidenote: The new Treaty ratified by the Senate and by the Spanish Government.]

The vote of ratification by the Senate of the United States was again practically unanimous. Only four votes were recorded against it; and of these four one was cast by a brother-in-law of Mr. Clay, one by a subservient friend of the same gentleman, and one by a bitter personal enemy of General Jackson. The province was soon transferred to the United States and Jackson became its first territorial governor. With this the United States attained its natural boundary on the south, eastward from the mouth of the Mississippi, and a source of chronic irritation was removed.

[Sidenote: Political results of the Seminole War.]

It was to be expected that this territory would be erected into a Commonwealth in which the inst.i.tution of slavery would be legalized; but this did not deter the statesmen of the North from securing the great advantages just indicated. Radical abolitionism had not yet blinded them to the general and paramount interests of the Union. In fact, the results of the Seminole War and of the diplomacy of the Administration in connection with it had the immediate effect of diminis.h.i.+ng the ultra-Southern influence in the Government. They brought Adams and Jackson to the front, and set Crawford and Calhoun back in the course of their careers. They had, indeed, much to do, as we shall see later, with the development of the era of personal politics, which prevailed from 1824 to 1832, and which terminated finally in the separation of the all-comprehending Republican party into the Whig party and the Democratic party.

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CHAPTER III.

SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES BEFORE 1820

First Appearance of Slavery in the British North American Colonies--Early Theory of the Benefits of Slavery--The Earliest Legal Recognition of Slavery in the Colonies--Northern Colonies not well Adapted to Negro Labor--The Southern Colonies well Adapted to Negro Labor--Negro Slavery a Temporary Necessity in the South--Was Negro Slavery an Error and an Evil from the first?--Slavery Legislation in the Southern Colonies--Partus Sequitur Ventrem--Definitions of the Slave Cla.s.s--The Test of the Slave Status as Fixed by the Virginia Statute--The Legal Position of the Slave--Tendency Toward Serf.a.ge in the Code of 1705--Public Relations of the Slave System--The General Object of the Laws in respect to Slaves--Slavery and the Revolutionary Ideas of the Rights of Man--First Prohibition upon Slave Importation--Abolition of Slavery in the Northern Commonwealths after the Beginning of the Revolution--Slavery and the Const.i.tution of 1787--Reaction against the Humanitarian Principles of the Revolution--Abolition of the Foreign Slave-trade by Congress--Cotton Culture and the Cotton-gin--The Effect of the Return to the Arts of Peace upon the Ideas Concerning Slavery--Slavery During the War of 1812 and the Years just before and just after this War--Slavery in the Louisiana Territory--Slavery in the territory West of North Carolina and Georgia--Slavery in Louisiana a Different Question from Slavery in the North Carolina and Georgia Cessions--Interest in Slavery in Maryland and Virginia Increased by the Acquisition of Louisiana--The Domestic Slave-trade--The Relation of Slavery to the Diplomacy of the United States.

It is not easy to define the term slavery in the abstract without unfitting it for application to the great majority {40} of the systems of servitude which have ever existed. Especially will it be difficult to gain a correct conception of the relation between the white man and the negro in North America previous to 1860 by means of such a definition.

The inst.i.tution of negro slavery in the United States was an historical growth, which was in some respects unique. We shall, therefore, do better to follow the main stages of that development than to attempt at the outset any definition whatsoever. We may, in this manner, build up a true description of it, and escape the error frequently contained in the brevity of a definition and in the nature of an abstract proposition.

[Sidenote: First appearance of slavery in the British North American colonies.]

[Sidenote: Early theory of the benefits of slavery.]

It began its existence, like most inst.i.tutions and relations, as a social custom. Most of the historians record the appearance of a Dutch merchant s.h.i.+p at Jamestown, in the year 1619, having negroes on board, and inform us that twenty of them were sold to the colonists. What t.i.tle the Dutch traders had to such property, exactly what they sold to the colonists, and what rights the colonists acquired in or over such property, were defined, guaranteed, and secured by no existing statutes. If any of the parties to the transaction reflected upon these subjects at all, they must have supposed that the right of possession and the freedom of contract covered the whole case. There is certainly no evidence that any of these parties, or anybody else, had the faintest conception that the law of any state, or any principle of natural justice, or of reason, was violated or impaired by the procedure or the results of the procedure. It was a firmly and universally established opinion of the time that the attachment of infidels to Christians in a relation of servant to master was vastly beneficial to the infidel, certainly so when {41} the infidel was also a barbarian, and was taken out of slavery to a barbarian master, as was the case in respect to almost all of the negroes brought to the English colonies in North America.

We cannot dismiss this opinion as one of the errors of the dark ages.

It lives to-day as a principle of modern political science and practical politics, under the form of statement that civilized people have the right and duty to impose civilization upon uncivilized populations by whatever means they may deem to be just and proper.