Island Sound. But this was the afterthought of
1826. Madison's policy in 1809-10 was rather to
conciliate than provoke " those in a certain quar-
ter." He could not command entire unanimity
even in his own party. Congress passed the winter
in vain efforts to find some common ground, not
merely for Democrats and Federalists, but for the
280 JAMES MADISON
Democrats alone. Various measures were pro-
posed to meet the critical condition of the country.
Some were too radical ; some not radical enough ;
and none were so acceptable that it was not easy
to form combinations for their defeat. All were
agreed that the non-importation act must be got
rid of ; but the difficulty was to find a way to be
rid of it so that the nation should at once maintain
its dignity, assert its rights, and escape a war.
The President would have preferred that all Brit-
ish and French ships be excluded from American
ports, and that importations from both countries
should be prohibited except in American vessels ;
and a bill to this effect was one of several that was
defeated in the course of the session. But at last,
in May (1810), an act was passed excluding only
the men-of-war of both nations, but suspending the
non-importation act for three months after the ad-
journment of Congress. The President was then
avithorized, when the three months were passed, to
declare the act again in force against either Great
Britain or France, should the commercial orders or
decrees of either nation be continued in force while
those of the other were repealed.
If the aim of the dominant party had been to
devise a scheme sure to lead to fresh complications
more difficult to manage than any that had gone
before, it could not have hit upon a better one
than this. Hitherto, in all the perplexities and
anxieties of the situation, the government had,
at least, kept its relations to other powers in its
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 281
own hands, to conduct tliem, whether wisely or
unwisely, in its own way. It could resent or sub-
mit to encroachments upon the commerce of the
country, as seemed most prudent ; it could close
or open the ports, as seemed most judicious ; or it
could join forces with that one of its two enemies
whose alliance promised to secure respect on the
one hand, and compel it on the other. But now
it had tied itself up in a knot of provisos. It
would do something if England would do some-
thing else, or if France would do something else.
If the proposition was accepted by England and
was not accepted by France, then the United
States would remain in friendly relations with
England, and assume by comparison an unfriendly
attitude toward France ; and if France accepted
the condition and England declined it, then the
situation would be reversed. Nothing would be
gained in either case that might not have been
gained by direct negotiation, and, no doubt, on
better terms. But if the proposition now offered
should be disregarded by both powers, the situa-
tion would be worse than before. This evidently
was Madison's view of the question. He wrote to
Pinkney, the minister at the Court of St. James,
a month after the act was passed : " At the next
meeting of Congress, it will be found, according
to present appearances, that instead of an adjust-
ment with either of the belligerents, there is an
increasing obstinacy in both ; and that the incon-
veniences of embargo and non-intercourse have
282 JAMES MADISON
been exchanged for the greater sacrifices, as well
as disgrace, resulting from a submission to the
predatory system in force." Not that he wanted
war; his faith in passive resistance was still un-
shaken ; embargo and non-intercourse he was still
confident would, if persisted in long enough, surely
bring the belligerents to terms. But as to this act,
he weighs the chances as in a balance. In England
some impression may be made by the prices of
cotton and tobacco, — "cotton down at ten or eleven
cents in Georgia ; and the great mass of tobacco in
the same situation." He has, however, no " very
favorable expectations." But as to France, he evi-
dently is not without hope that she will be wise
enough to see that " she ought at once to embrace
the arrangement held out by Congress, the renewal
of a non-intercourse with Great Britain being the
very species of resistance most analogous to her
professed views." But he was clearly not san-
guine.
If that was his wish, however, it was gratified.
Napoleon did take advantage of the act, but in
such a way as to reverse the relative positions of
the two nations by seizing for France and taking
from the United States the power or the will to
dictate terms. The French minister, Champagny,
announced in a letter merely, in August, the revo-
cation of the Berlin and Milan decrees from the
1st of the following November ; and, a day or two
after, such new restrictions were imposed upon
American trade, by prohibitory duties and a navi-
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 283
gation act, as pretty mucli to ruin what little there
was left of it. The revocation of the edicts, more-
over, was coupled with the conditions that Great
Britain should not only recall her order in council,
but renounce her " new principles of blockade," or
that the United States should " cause their rights
to be respected by the English." Napoleon had in
this three ends to gain, and he gained them all:
First, to secure France against a renewal of the
non-importation act of the United States, if the
President should accept tliis conditional recall of
the decrees as satisfactory ; second, to leave those
decrees virtually unrepealed, by making their recall
depend upon the action of England, who, he well
knew, would not listen to the proposed conditions ;
and, third, to involve the United States and Eng-
land in new disputes, which might lead to war.
Everything turned out as the emperor wished.
The President accepted the conditional withdrawal
of the French decrees, as in accordance with the
act of Congress; England refused to recognize a
contingent withdrawal as a withdrawal at all ; and
the result at length was war between England and
the United States.
The acquiescence of the President in the decision
of Napoleon was the more significant inasmuch
as Mr. Smith, the secretary of state, had assured
the French government, when a copy of the act
of May was sent to it, that there could be no
neofotiation under the act until another matter was
disposed of. A decree, issued at Rambouillet in
284 JAMES MADISON
March, 1810, and enforced in May, ordered the
confiscation of all American shi23s then detained
in the ports of France, and in Sj^anish, Dutch,
and Neapolitan ports under the control of France.
The loss to American merchants, including ships
and cargoes, was estimated to be about forty
million dollars. This decree was ostensibly in
retaliation of that act of non-intercourse passed by
Congress more than a year before, and was, there-
fore, a retrospective law. The non - intercourse
act, moreover, had expired by its own limitation
months before many of these ships were seized ;
but all, nevertheless, were confiscated, though
some of them had entered the ports merely for
shelter. By order of the President, Smith wrote
to Armstrong, the American minister at Paris,
that " a satisfactory provision for restoring the
property lately surprised and seized, by the order
or at the instance of the French government, must
be combined with a repeal of the French edicts,
with a view to a non-intercourse with Great Brit-
ain ; such a provision being an indispensable evi-
dence of the just purpose of France toward the
United States." The injunction was repeated a
few weeks later ; but when the emperor's decision
upon the decrees was announced, in August, the
" indispensable " was dispensed with, and a few
months later an absolute refusal of any compen-
sation for the spoliation under the Kambouillet
decree was quietly submitted to.
But meanwhile the President, in Xovember,
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 285
issued a proclamation announcing that France had
complied with the act of the previous May and
revoked the decrees, while the English orders in
council remained unrepealed. But England still
had three months, according to the act, in which to
make her choice between a recall of her orders in
council or the alternative of seeing the American
non-intercourse act revived against her. But, it is
to be observed, the French minister's announce-
ment of the acceptance of the act of May was not
made till August, and then the revocation of the
decrees was not to take effect till November. No-
vember came bringing with it the President's pro-
clamation, when it soon appeared that there was
still to be " tarrying in the eating of the cake."
The decrees were to remain in force at least three
months longer, till it should be known whether
Great Britain would comply with those terms which
France — not the United States — made the con-
dition of revoking the orders in council ; and if
Great Britain did not comply, then the French
decrees were not revoked. The legality of the
President's proclamation, of course, was ques-
tioned. There was, as Josiah Quincy said in de-
bate in the House, the following February (1811),
" a continued seizure of all the vessels which came
within the grasp of the French custom-house, from
the 1st of November down to the date of our last
accounts." Other members, not more earnest, were
less temperate in the expression of their indigna-
tion at what, one of them said, would be called
286 JAMES MADISON
swindling in tlie conduct of private affairs ; while
another declared that the President was throwinsj
the peojile " into the embrace of that monster at
whose perfidy Lucifer blushed and hell stands
astonished." France knew all this while what
England's decision would be. She was ready to
rescind the orders in council when the French
edicts were revoked, but she did not recognize a
mere letter from the French minister, Chamj^agny,
to the American ambassador as such revocation.
The second French condition, that England should
abandon her " new principles of blockade " and
accept in their place a new French principle, was
peremptorily rejected by the English ministry.
That proposition opened a question not properly
belonging to an agreement touching the decrees
and orders, — a question of what was a blockade,
and what could properly be subject to it. Napo-
leon's doctrine was, not only that a paper blockade
was not permissible by the law of nations, but that
there could be no right of blockade " to ports not
fortified, to harbors and mouths of rivers, which,
accordino^ to reason and the usasfe of civilized
nations, is applicable only to strong or fortified
places." Mr. Emott, a member of the House
from New York, said in debate that the United
States might well be grateful to both England and
France, if they would agree upon this doctrine as
good international law ; since in that case, as there
were no fortified places in the United States, she
would never be in peril of a blockade. But it was
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 287
precisely wliat England would not admit nor even
discuss as relevant to an agreement to revoke the
orders and decrees.
To " this curious gallamatry," as Quincy called
it, " of time present and time future, of doing and
refraining to do, of declaration and understand-
ing of English duties and American duties," was
added another ingredient of Madison's own devis-
ing. The American ministers in England and
Erance were instructed that Great Britain would
be expected to include in the revocation of her
orders in council the blockade of a portion of
the coast of France, declared in May, 1806 ; and
the President offered, unasked, a pledge to the
French emperor, that this should be insisted upon.
Whether he meant to make it easier for Napoleon
and harder for Great Britain to respond to the act
of May is a question impossible to answer; but
the opponents of the policy he was pursuing were
careful to point out that the act of May said
nothing whatever, either of this or any other block-
ade ; that when, the year before, the agreement
was made with Erskine, the President did not pre-
tend that the orders in council included blockades ;
and that it was remarkable that he should forget
his own declaration regarding the monstrous spoli-
ation of a few months before by the French, under
the Kambouillet decree, and yet remember this
British order of blockade of four years before,
which everybody else had forgotten. Indeed, so
completely had it passed out of mind, that the
288 JAMES MADISON
American minister in London, Mr. Pinkney, was
obliged to ask the British foreign secretary whether
that order had been revoked or was still considered
as in force. It had never been formally with-
drawn, was the answer, though it had been com-
prehended in the subsequent order in council of
January, 1807. England refused, however, to
recall specifically this blockade of 1806, for that
would have been construed as a recoonition of
Napoleon's right to demand an abandonment of
her " new principles of blockade ; " but in fact — â–
as the British minister in Washino^ton afterward
acknowledged — the recall of the order in council
of 1807 would have annulled the order of blockade
of 1806, which it had absorbed.
The truth is, the whole negotiation was a trial
of skill at dijjlomatic fence, in which England
would not yield an inch to the United States or
to France. Madison and his party were more than
willing to aid Napoleon; and Napoleon hoped to
defeat both his antagonists by turning their swords
against each other. A quite different result would
have followed had France been as willing as Eng-
land apparently was that the commercial edicts
should be considered without regard to other
questions ; or if the American Executive had
insisted that it would accept their unconditional
revocation, pure and simple and not otherwise,
from either power, as was contemplated in the act
of May, 1810. But instead, when Congress rose
in March, 1811, it left behind it an act renewing
MADISON AS PRESIDENT 289
non-intercourse with England, in accordance with
Napoleon's demand that the United States should
" cause their rights to be respected by the Eng-
lish." This meant war.
CHAPTER XIX
WAR WITH ENGLAND
In May, 1811, there occurred one of those acci-
dents which happen on purpose, and often serve
as a relief when the public temper is in an exas-
perated and almost dangerous condition. This was
the fight between the American frigate President,
of forty-four guns, and the English sloop-of-war
Little Belt, of eighteen guns. This vessel belonged
to the British squadron which was ordered to the
American coast to break up the trade from the
United States to France ; and the President was
one of the few ships the government had for the
protection of its commerce. The ships met a few
miles south of Sandy Hook, chased each other in
turn, then fired into each other without any rea-
sonable pretext for the first shot, which each ac-
cused the other of having fired. The loss on board
the English ship, in an encounter which lasted
only a few minutes, was over thirty in killed and
wounded, while only a single man was slightly
wounded on board the President. It was, as Mr.
Madison said, an " occurrence not unlikely to
bring on repetitions," and that these would " prob-
ably end in an open rupture or a better under-
WAR WITH ENGLAND 291
standing, as the calculations of the British govern-
ment may prompt or dissuade from war." This
certainly was obvious enough ; though it would be
a great deal easier for England to bring on a war
than to avert it, in the angry mood in which the
majority of the Democratic party then was. But
Mr. Madison preserved his equanimity. Consider-
ing his old proclivity for France, and his old dislike
of England, his impartiality between them is rather
remarkable. But his aim was still to keep the
peace while he abated nothing of the well-founded
complaints he had against both powers. When a
new Congress assembled in the autumn he was care-
ful to point out in his message the delinquencies of
France as well as the offenses of England. He
insisted that while England should have acknow-
ledged the Berlin and Milan decrees to be revoked
and have acted accordingly, France showed no dis-
position to repair the many wrongs she had inflicted
upon American merchants, and had lately imposed
such " rigorous and unexpected restrictions " upon
commerce that it would be necessary, unless they
were speedily discontinued, to meet them by
"corresponding restrictions on importations from
France."
This tone is even more pronounced in his let-
ters for some following months. If anything, it
is France rather than England that seems to be
looked upon as the chief offender, with whom there
was the greater danger of armed collision. A fort-
night after Congress had assembled he wrote to
292 JAMES MADISON
Barlow, the new minister to France, that though
justified in assuming the French decrees to be so
far withdrawn that a withdrawal o£ the British
orders might be looked for, " yet the manner in
which the French government has managed the
repeal of the decrees, and evaded a correction of
other outrages, has mingled with the conciliatory
tendency of the repeal as much of irritation and
disgust as possible." " In fact," he adds, " with-
out a systematic change from an appearance of
crafty contrivance and insatiate cupidity, for an
open, manly, and upright dealing with a nation
whose example demands it, it is impossible that
good-will can exist; and that the ill-will which
her policy aims at directing against her enemy
should not, by her folly and iniquity, be drawn
off against herself." French depredations upon
American commerce in the Baltic were " kindling
a fresh flame here," and, if they were not stopped,
"hostile collisions will as readily take place with
one nation as the other ; " nor would there be any
hesitation in sending American frigates to that sea,
" with orders to suppress by force the French and
Danish depredations," were it not for the " danger
of rencounters with British ships of superior force
in that quarter."
By this time, however. Congress, under the lead
of 3^ounger, vigorous men — chief among them
Clay and Calhoun — panting for leadership and
distinction, was beginning its clamor for war with
England. How much respect had Madison for
WAR WITH ENGLAND 293
this movement, and how much faith in it? A
letter to Jefferson of February 7 answers both
questions. Were he not evidently amused, he
would seem to be contemptuous. " To enable the
Executive to step at once into Canada," he says,
"they have provided, after two months' delay,
for a regular force requiring twelve to raise it,
and after three months for a volunteer force, on
terms not likely to raise it at all for that object.
The mixture of good and bad, avowed and dis-
guised motives, accounting for these things, is curi-
ous enough, but not to be explained in the compass
of a letter." This is not the tone of either hope
or fear. If war was in his mind at that time, it
was not war with England. Three weeks later he
writes to Barlow at Paris. On various points of
negotiation between that minister and the French
government, he observes much that " suggests dis-
trust rather than expectation." He complains of
delay, of vagueness, of neglect, of discourtesy, of
a disregard of j^ast obligations as to the libera-
tion of ships and cargoes seized, and of late con-
demnations of ships captured in the Baltic ; and
concerning all these and other grievances he says :
" We find so little of explicit dealing or substan-
tial redress mingled with the compliments and
encouragements, which cost nothing because they
mean nothing, that suspicions are unavoidable ; and
if they be erroneous, the fault does not lie with
those who entertain them." He believed that
France, in asking for a new treaty, which he thinks
294 JAMES MADISON
annecessary, is only seeking to gain time in order
to take advantage of future events. The com-
mercial relations between the two countries are so
intolerable that trade "will be prohibited if no
essential change take place." Unless there be in-
demnity for the great wrongs committed under the
Rambouillet decree, and for other spoliations, he
declares that " there can be neither cordiality nor
confidence here; nor any restraint from self-
redress in any justifiable mode of effecting it."
The letter concludes with the emphatic assertion
that, if dispatches soon looked for " do not exhibit
the French government in better colors than it
has yet assumed, there will be but one sentiment
in this country; and I need not say what that
will be."
Congress all this while was lashing itself into
fury against England. The ambitious young lead-
ers of the Democratic party in the House were,
so to speak, " spoiling for a fight," and they chose
to have it out with England rather than with
France. Not that there was not quite as much
reason for resentment against France as against
England. Some, indeed, of the more hot-headed
were anxious for war with both; but these were
of the more impulsive kind, like Henry Clay,
who laufrhed in scorn at the doubt that he could
not at a blow subdue the Canadas with a few
regiments of Kentucky militia. But war with
England w^as determined upon, partly because
the old enmity toward her made that intolerable
WAR WITH ENGLAND 293
which to the old affection for France was a bur-
den lightly borne ; and partly because the instinc-
tive jealousy of the commercial interest, on the
part of the planter-interest, preferred that policy
which would do the most harm to the North. On
April 1, 1812, just five weeks after the writing of
this letter to Barlow, Mr. Madison sent to Con-
gress a message of five lines recommending the
immediate passage of an act to impose " a general
embargo on all vessels now in port or hereafter
arriving for the period of sixty days." It was
meant to be a secret measure ; but the intention
leaked out in two or three places, and the news
was hurried North by several of the Federalist
members in time to enable some of their constitu-
ents to send their ships to sea before the act was
passed. Nor, probably, was it a surprise to any-
body ; for war with England had been the topic of
debate in one aspect or another all winter, and the
purpose of the party in power was plain to every-
body. That the embargo was intended as a pre-
paration for war was frankly acknowledged. An
act was speedily passed, though the period was
extended from sixty to ninety days. Within less
than sixty days, however, another message from
the President recommended a declaration of war.
On June 3 the Committee on Foreign Relations,
of which Calhoun was chairman, reported in favor
of " an immediate appeal to arms," and the next
day a declaratory act was passed. Of the seventy-
nine affirmative votes in the House, forty-eight
296 JAMES MADISON
were from the South and West, and of the other
thirty-one votes from the Northern States, fourteen
were from Pennsylvania alone. Of the forty-nine
votes against it, thirty-four were from the Northern
States, including two from Pennsylvania. On the
17th, a fortnight later, the bill was got through
the Senate by a majority of six.
Mr. Madison for years had opposed a war with
England as unwise and useless, — unwise, because
the United States was not in a condition to go to
war with the greatest naval power in the world ;
and useless, because the end to be reached by war
could be gained more certainly, and at infinitely
less cost, by peaceful measures. The situation had
not changed. Indeed, up to within a month of
the message recommending an embargo as a pre-
cursor of war, his letters show that, if he thought
war was inevitable, it must be with France, not
England. But the faction determined upon war
must have at their command an administration to
carry out that policy. Their choice was not lim-
ited to Madison for an available candidate. Who-
ever was nominated by the Democrats was sure
to be chosen, and Madison had two formidable
rivals in James Monroe, secretary of state, and De
Witt Clinton, mayor of New York, both eager for
war. The choice depended on that question and
between the embargo message of April 1 and the
war message of June 1, the nomination was given
to Madison by the congressional caucus. It was
understood, and openly asserted at the time by tl'.e