Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
This article was downloaded by: [Linnaeus University]On: 06 October 2014, At: 15:22Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
American Nineteenth Century HistoryPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fanc20
A Singular and Awkward War: TheTransatlantic Context of the HartfordConventionAlison L. LaCroixPublished online: 16 Aug 2006.
To cite this article: Alison L. LaCroix (2005) A Singular and Awkward War: The TransatlanticContext of the Hartford Convention, American Nineteenth Century History, 6:1, 3-32, DOI:10.1080/14664650500121793
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14664650500121793
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
American Nineteenth Century HistoryVol. 6, No. 1, March 2005, pp. 3–32
ISSN 1466–4658 print/ISSN 1743–7903 (online) © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/14664650500121793
A Singular and Awkward War: The Transatlantic Context of the Hartford ConventionAlison L. LaCroixTaylor and Francis LtdFANC112162.sgm10.1080/14664650500121793American Nineteenth Century History1466-4658 (print)/1743-7903 (online)Original Article2005Taylor & Francis Ltd61000000March 2005AlisonLaCroix52 Garden Street, #5CambridgeMA [email protected]
This essay argues that the Hartford Convention of 1814–15 unfolded as part of a wide-ranging and vibrant debate concerning the role of the United States in the turbulentAtlantic community of the early nineteenth century. The author’s approach to the conven-tion stands in sharp contrast to those of other scholars, many of whom have treated theconvention as either the last gasp of the Federalist party or as a manifestation of NewEngland’s insularity during the War of 1812. This orthodox view fails to account for thedistinctly international quality of the convention. Review of newspapers and pamphletsproduced in and around Boston, the intellectual and political center of New England,during the period between late 1814 and early 1815 suggests that for all their ideologicaldifferences, both Republicans and Federalists in Massachusetts understood the conventionas attempting to negotiate a place for New England in the newly formed internationalrelations triangle that comprised Britain, France, and the United States.
Amidst the avalanche of leaflets that accosted the American reading public during the
closing months of the War of 1812 was a 46-page pamphlet published in Windsor,
Vermont, the lengthy title of which began, The Hartford Convention in an Uproar! andthe Wise Men of the East Confounded!. Upon opening the pamphlet, the reader was
greeted by a large, full-color cartoon spread across two pages and titled ‘The Hartford
Convention or Leap no Leap’ (Figure 1). In the cartoon, figures personifying
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island crouched on the edge of a rocky preci-
pice while debating whether to leap into the waiting embrace of Britain’s George III,
who coaxed his ‘Yankey boys’ with promises of ‘plenty molasses and codfish, plenty of
goods to smuggle’ and ‘[h]onours titles and nobility into the bargain.’ The Hanoverian
blandishments appeared to be prevailing upon the Massachusetts figure, who seemed
Alison L. LaCroix is a doctoral candidate in the department of history at Harvard University. Correspondence to:
Alison L. LaCroix, Department of History, Harvard University, Robinson Hall, 35 Quincey Street, Cambridge, MA
02138, U.S.A. ; Email: [email protected]
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
4 A. L. LaCroix
Fig
ure
1B
road
sid
e (‘
Th
e H
artf
ord
Co
nve
nti
on
or
Lea
p n
o L
eap
’). B
y p
erm
issi
on
of
the
Ho
ugh
ton
Lib
rary
, Har
vard
Un
iver
sity
.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 5
poised to drag both a reluctant, prayerful Connecticut and a puny, plaintive Rhode
Island along on his plunge into Britannic subservience.1Figure 1 Broadside (‘The Hartford Convention or Leap no Leap’) By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
A version of the cartoon had been published previously, but this particular
pamphlet focused on the most significant controversy that gripped New England from
late 1814 through the early months of 1815: how to understand and respond to the
Hartford Convention, an assembly of 26 delegates from five New England states that
met in Hartford, Connecticut from 15 December 1814, to 5 January 1815, with the aim
of formulating a unified New England response to the unpopular war. Regional divi-
sions within the United States had led to speculation since President James Madison’s
declaration of war in June 1812 that New England, with its dependence on foreign
shipping and commerce and its strong Federalist orientation, might choose to detach
itself from the rest of the young nation and negotiate a separate peace with Great
Britain. By the time the convention met in December 1814, disunion was a common
topic in popular political discussion. Would the New Englanders, with their famous
Yankee arrogance, decide to sever relations with the young Republic? Or would the
voices of moderation prevail at the convention, convincing the region that its destiny
was to lead its fellow states rather than to leave them behind? Most observers believed
that secessionist forces were in the minority, but wartime uncertainty and two years of
New England criticism of the Madison administration made the danger of disunion
imminent.
Looming over this array of conjectures was the larger specter of transatlantic poli-
tics and the still-uncertain role of the United States in the drama of European affairs.
Critics of the Hartford Convention quickly connected New England’s antiwar posture
with Old England’s program of global dominion. New England Federalists, for their
part, had long believed that conducting a war against England was tantamount to
providing aid and comfort to what they viewed as the tyranny of Napoleon’s France.
But one need not have heeded party rhetoric to have believed that the fate of the
United States was directly affected by the struggle between Britain and France for
European hegemony. Following Napoleon’s abdication and first exile in April 1814,
the heightened presence of Royal Navy frigates patrolling the waters within eyesight
of New England’s coastal towns, the Crown’s occupation of vast swaths of Maine, and
British troops’ burning of Washington, D.C. all serve to remind Americans that
their war with Great Britain was unfolding within a global system of alliances and
hostilities.
Into this transatlantic struggle came the Hartford Convention. Most historians have
treated the convention as an example of New England parochialism, viewing it as either
the hobbyhorse of a fringe group of reactionary Anglophiles or, more charitably, as the
last gasp of eighteenth-century elitist Federalism before the advent of the more demo-
cratic Jacksonian era.2 For example, James M. Banner, Jr., the preeminent scholar of
the convention, argues that the convention ‘reinforced the image of Federalist obstruc-
tionism and deepened the widespread conviction that the Federalist way was inappro-
priate to an expanding and democratizing nation.’3 Banner and other historians have
assumed that the convention’s contemporaries viewed it in a similarly cut-and-dried
manner and that the convention was widely seen as having little or nothing to do with
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
6 A. L. LaCroix
the larger issues at stake in 1814–15 – namely, the relationship of the United States to
the conflict that had consumed Europe for more than two decades. In short, Henry
Adams’s thesis that the convention represented the worst impulses of a power-hungry
minority ‘deluded … by local pride or prejudice’ has for the most part been accepted
by scholars of the early national period.4
The most obvious question surrounding the Hartford Convention is the following:
how seriously did its members consider disunion? This question, which has preoccu-
pied students of the convention from its conception in 1814 until today, is an impor-
tant one, but it is not the most important one. The most significant question about the
Hartford Convention is why: why did 26 of the most esteemed New England Federalists
cloister themselves for nearly three weeks, leaving no complete record of their doings,
inviting jibes and threats of violence from their opponents, perplexing their supporters,
and diverting the nation’s attention from the far-flung war raging across land and sea
to the Council Chamber underneath the cupola of the Connecticut State House? What,
in short, did these gentlemen think they were doing?
As this article will demonstrate, these gentlemen believed their project was nothing
less than rescuing New England from a desperate, dependent fate as a political and
cultural tributary. New England, they knew, had sparked the first flames of the Revo-
lution; New England, they knew, had husbanded the nation’s commercial and financial
bounty; New England, they believed, was the conscience of the nation. Yet all around
them, New England Federalists saw chaos, a world turned upside-down in the form of
the United States warring with Great Britain while that country battled both the gory
legatees of the French Revolution and the greatest military dictator that the modern
world had ever known. The Federalists believed that their countrymen, led first by
Thomas Jefferson and then by James Madison, had betrayed the Republic by abandon-
ing its founding principles of virtue, restraint, and liberty, culminating in a parricidal
nightmare war that pitted the United States against the last barrier to Continental
tyranny. And so the Federalists decided to act.
Believing that the federal government had abdicated its duty to uphold the values of
the nation and, more specifically, to protect northeastern towns and trade, the New
England Federalists attempted to leap out of the realm of domestic politics and onto
the transatlantic geopolitical stage. To be sure, their justifications for this audacious
move would shift, from October’s cocky disdain of the Madison administration based
on the possibility of a secret peace deal with Britain, to January’s legalistic protestations
that duress and necessity had compelled them to rise to the challenges of wartime by
assuming such burdens of nationhood as managing an army and collecting revenues.
Throughout the three-week lifespan of the Hartford Convention, transatlantic refer-
ence points formed the basis of both the participants’ motives and their observers’
understanding. Whether or not it ultimately led to disunion, the convention repre-
sented a moment of possibility for a pungent New England regionalism that yearned to
ascend to the heady levels of nationhood – and, indeed, that believed it was entitled to
the attention of the entire world. That it did not tells us less about the seriousness of the
New England Federalists’ international aspirations than about the rapidly changing
geopolitical landscape of the winter of 1814–15.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 7
Looking East to Europe: June 1812–October 1814
The American political landscape of the 1810s differed from that of the 1790s in several
key characteristics. With the basic political and legal structure of the nation established,
the focus of political discourse shifted to encompass a new and complex web of political
issues. On the domestic front, the lingering effects of the bitterly fought and narrowly
won election of 1800, combined with the spread of the slave economy following the
invention of the cotton gin in 1793 and the westward expansion that followed
Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, created new turmoil on the American political scene.
On the international front, Americans were riveted by the dramatic and still-bloody
aftermath of the French Revolution, the ongoing war between Britain and France, and
the unprecedented rise of Napoleon from first consul in 1799 to emperor in 1804. As
the Republic became embroiled in foreign affairs despite the stated desires of its leaders,
especially during the Quasi-War with France from 1798 to 1801, the Federalist–Anti-
Federalist binary of the 1780s and 1790s gave way to the first formal political parties in
United States history.
The parties of the 1800s and 1810s were characterized in significant part by their
orientation toward the two principal European powers. European reference points
served as vital nodes of political debate. Republicans identified with the exuberant
principles of the French Revolution and viewed Britain with deep suspicion, fearing
that George III (or, after 1811, the Prince Regent) and his advisors aimed to reestablish
control over the United States – and that loyalist holdovers in the United States would
help with the project. Federalists, for their part, believed that French radicalism had
seized the American populace, eroding traditional values of religion, hierarchy, and
property and leading to social degeneration. Consequently, American politicians spoke
in the language of Continental politics. Writing in 1799, John Quincy Adams applied
the epithet ‘Jacobinism’ to a cabal within his own Federalist party.5 Each camp
regarded the other as the dupe of a foreign power. If Federalists viewed Republicans as
godless, jacobinical followers of the deist Jefferson, Republicans saw Federalists as
Anglophilic would-be aristocrats. Each had its pet conspiracy theory: according to the
Republicans, the mercantile machinations of the ‘Essex Junto’ stalked the land, while
the Federalists saw clandestine Jacobin societies fomenting riots in every urban
coffeehouse.
Far from idle fear, by the early 1800s this anxiety had a basis in specific political
events. The brief peace that the 1802 Treaty of Amiens had brokered in the war between
France and Britain became a mere interlude when fighting resumed in 1803. The
Napoleonic Wars would not end until June 1815, at the battle of Waterloo. Because
American shipping depended heavily on trade with France and Britain, each of which
attempted to prohibit the new nation from aiding the other, the ‘logic of geography and
economics … ultimately involved the United States in the world struggle.’6 More
worrisome was the young Republic’s inability to command respect from European
powers. With buffeting on all sides by the British Orders in Council, which dramati-
cally circumscribed American trade with Europe and effectively ended American
neutrality British impressment of American sailors French seizure of neutral American
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
8 A. L. LaCroix
ships and the abortive embargo and nonintercourse policies, which hurt the American
economy far more than the European one, ‘Americans’ confidence in the viability of
their republican form of government began to erode in the early nineteenth century
under the pressure of foreign affairs,’ as Steven Watts puts it.7 This anxiety reached its
climax with Madison’s declaration of war against Great Britain on 19 June 1812.
Federalists throughout the United States opposed the declaration of war. New
England, home to the nation’s greatest concentration of Federalists and thus deeply
identified with the party, became the locus of opposition. Most New England Federal-
ists were unable to identify a single object for the sake of which they believed the nation
ought to go to war.8 Public discourse between 1807 and 1812 had been marked by fierce
debates about the need for an American response to continued European aggression,
which included impressments of American sailors and flagrant disregard of American
neutrality. From the Federalists’ point of view, however, the Madison administration
had repeatedly bungled foreign affairs, most notably by – as they saw it – giving in to
French coaxing and again suspending trade with Britain in January 1811.9 Like
Jefferson’s embargo of 1807, such measures infuriated New England Federalists, many
of whom were deeply involved in finance, shipbuilding, import and export trade, and
other forms of seaboard commerce. Cutting off trade with Britain, the United States’
chief commercial partner, spelled doom for northeastern industry, prosperity, and
even identity. More troubling, such a policy seemed to New England Federalists to
demonstrate a willful disregard for the genuine interests and concerns of their region.
In addition to their practical objections to war, many New Englanders questioned
the wisdom of turning against Britain while Britain was engaged in a life-or-death
struggle with Napoleonic France. Transatlantic reference points became more salient
as Federalists and Republicans squared off over the philosophical question of which
European nation was America’s true friend: Britain, birthplace of the rights of
Englishmen but also a monarchical aggressor; or France, the Republic’s revolutionary
cousin but also a bloody morass of Terror followed by Directory followed by absolute
empire. To the Federalists, the prospect of saving themselves and the Union as they
knew it looked bleak. The Madison administration appeared to have fallen completely
in thrall to Bonaparte. Worse, the Federalists feared, the rest of the nation had joined
this benighted project of destroying American commerce and delivering Europe to
despotism. Nevertheless, war came.
Massachusetts, especially Boston, quickly became the center of Federalist criticism
of the war.10 Massachusetts governor Caleb Strong greeted the news of war by
proclaiming a public fast ‘to atone for a declaration of war “against the nation from
which we are descended, and which for many generations has been the bulwark of our
religion.”11 The Massachusetts state legislature, known as the General Court, exhorted
the people of the Commonwealth to shed political divisions and unite behind a peace
party. As the war progressed, some New Englanders found ways to profit from the
hostilities. Smuggling and illicit trade with the enemy ultimately brought about a
strengthened American embargo of 1813, leading many Republicans to charge the
region with profiting from the war, while the federal government pleaded with citizens
to buy bonds and the public credit collapsed. Until Britain extended its blockade north
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 9
of New York in spring 1814, New England had claimed a virtual monopoly on foreign
imports.12 This monopoly was proudly announced in Federalist newspapers, which
advertised ‘New British Goods’ that were ‘just received from Halifax.’13 Commercial
success did not endear New England to the rest of the nation, most of which had no
choice but to endure the blockade’s effects. As Henry Adams later chided, New
England counted its money while the rest of the nation suffered, ‘pleased at the
contrast between her own prosperity and the sufferings of her neighbors.’14 The fact
that Congress repealed the embargo in April 1814 further dulled New England’s claims
to suffering, although the stepped-up British blockade effectively rendered the repeal
nugatory.
By the fall of 1814, New England Federalists had become increasingly alienated from
the federal government. Notwithstanding the jibes of Republicans and other support-
ers of the Madison administration, New England did bear a disproportionate share of
the costs of war, for its shipping and commercial industries suffered under the block-
ade and the general economic slowdown that gripped the nation. But perhaps even
more significant to New Englanders than the economics of the conflict was their
conviction that by declaring war on Britain, the ‘bulwark of our religion’ and ‘the
world’s last hope’ against tyranny, the United States had in effect sold its soul and its
ships to the diabolical Bonaparte.15 The theme of Republican collusion – whether
witting or unwitting – with French despotism and against British-style liberty cropped
up repeatedly throughout the months leading up to the Hartford Convention.
Although Napoleon had decamped on his first exile, to Elba, in April 1814, Federalists
did not expect any reprieve from the dire consequences of earlier alliances between
‘the Corsican Hyaena’ and ‘the Bat of Monticello.’16 Extreme rhetoric, to be sure, but
Federalists believed the urgency was warranted to save the Republic from the wrong
sort of foreign alliances.
Building on their legacy as oceangoing traders with connections to metropolitan
Europe, New England Federalists claimed the authority of transatlantic political
brokers. Just because the administration had committed the nation to a dangerous and
misguided war, lining up on the wrong side of European politics, New England
Federalists did not have to swallow their medicine and take their place among the
docile states. To be sure, the Constitution forbade the states from entering into ‘any
Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War,
unless actually invaded,’ but other, less formal measures were available to lift New
England out of the Union and give it a voice to comment on transatlantic politics.17
New England Federalists – especially in Boston – exercised what they viewed as their
right to involve themselves in European affairs by staging elaborate public spectacles in
celebration of British and allied victories over Napoleon. Boston Federalists celebrated
the defeat of Napoleon by Britain and the Sixth Coalition in the spring of 1814 with
what one Republican observer termed a ‘Bourbon Feast’ that featured music, sermons
praising the czar of Russia as ‘Alexander the Deliverer,’ and processions through the
streets. Observers noted the incongruity of such celebrations while British ships lurked
at the edge of Boston Harbor. One Republican diarist recorded his chagrin: ‘State
House illuminated and the blockading enemy join in the rejoicing with Boston
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
10 A. L. LaCroix
rebels!’18 The only celebrations of this magnitude held in Boston to mark the handful
of American successes focused on naval victories, for Federalists considered the build-
ing of the United States navy one of the greatest triumphs of John Adams’s administra-
tion – and its neglect one of the gravest mistakes of the Jefferson and Madison
administrations. But even the most famous naval gala, a 500-person dinner held in
September 1812 to honor the Constitution’s victory over the Guerrière, reached its
highest pitch of enthusiasm with a toast ‘To the Downfall of the Iron Colossus’ – i.e.,
Napoleon.19 Thus, the most acclaimed toast of the evening targeted not the belligerent
Britain but the looming threat of French aggression. The toast participants must have
been delighted in March 1813, when the defeat of the French army at Borodino
prompted a service of thanksgiving in Boston’s King’s Chapel, complete with a singing
of Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ and several addresses by prominent divines, followed
by a public dinner given by Harrison Gray Otis and held at the grand Exchange Coffee
House.20 More than any rhetorical device, these public celebrations marking watershed
European events manifested New England Federalists’ conviction that they were cred-
ible participants in transatlantic political discourse.
But all the public spectacles in the world could not bring the United States out of
what Federalists believed was a misguided war. New England Federalists’ outrage
culminated in autumn of 1814 with the call for a convention to discuss an appropriate
response to the Madison administration’s policies. By autumn 1814, New Englanders’
principal grievances focused on federal demands for use of state militias, fear of attack
by British ships that cruised close to the long New England coastline, and commercial
woes exacerbated by the combination of Congress’s strengthened embargo of late 1813
and the extension of the British blockade during the spring of 1814.21
Late summer of 1814 had truly seemed the darkest hour that the Republic had yet
faced, for the war had blazed its way to the center of American identity and self-respect.
In August, British troops had marched into Washington, D.C., devouring Dolley
Madison’s abandoned dinner and setting fire to the executive mansion after forcing
American soldiers to retreat earlier in the day at the disastrous battle contemporary
wits termed ‘the Bladensburg Races.’22 The nation’s coffers were distressingly depleted.
Worst of all, reports from Connecticut told of local residents using signal fires to alert
the Royal Navy when an American vessel was attempting to put out to sea and run the
blockade. By autumn 1814, the United States’ situation looked exceedingly bleak. As if
the tales of Connecticut’s disloyal ‘blue lights’ were not enough, now came the Hart-
ford Convention into the fray, presenting the real possibility that New England might
withdraw from the Union.23 The ‘second American Revolution’ threatened to undo
the first.
Toward Hartford – and Disunion?: October–December 1814
The idea of a regional convention to redress wartime grievances was not new. Extreme
Federalists led by Timothy Pickering had contemplated a ‘northern confederacy’ as
early as 1804, in response to what they viewed as the corrupt and misguided policies of
Jefferson’s administration, most notably the Louisiana Purchase.24 In 1808, the more
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 11
moderate Harrison Gray Otis had proposed a convention in Hartford ‘for the purpose
of providing some mode of relief that may not be inconsistent with the union of thesestates.’25 After the war began, Pickering and John Lowell floated the possibility of nego-
tiating a separate peace between New England and Britain and forming a breakaway
‘Eastern Republic’ consisting only of the original 13 states. ‘As abandoned by the
general government, except for taxing us, we must defend ourselves, so we ought to
seize and hold fast the revenues indispensable to maintain the force necessary for our
protection,’ Pickering wrote to Samuel Putnam.26 While Pickering and Lowell were
undoubtedly more radical than the majority of Federalists, and for this reason were not
selected to attend the Hartford Convention, they were not alone in proposing disunion
as one certain means of extricating New England from the war. Prior to the convention,
the Pickering-Lowell plan received the endorsement of every Federalist newspaper in
Boston.27
Far from crazed mutterings by a band of extremists, these plans for a breakaway
republic attracted serious attention from the British government. Indeed, Massachu-
setts governor Caleb Strong made overtures toward a separate peace with Britain in
November 1814 – shortly after the call went out for the convention.28 Strong dispatched
Thomas Adams, a Federalist from Castine in occupied Maine, to Halifax with a mission
to meet with Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, military commander of Castine and lieutenant
governor of Nova Scotia, ‘to ascertain whether Negociation will under existing circum-
stances be agreeable to the British Government.’29 Sherbrooke forwarded this commu-
nication to Lord Bathurst, the British colonial secretary. Bathurst’s response of 13
December – written with full knowledge that the treaty talks at Ghent appeared to be
reaching fruition – noted that Bathurst had discussed the matter with the Prince Regent
and granted Sherbrooke authority to negotiate a separate peace with New England in
the event of continued war. In addition, Bathurst wrote, ‘If the American Executive shall
menace an attack upon any State or States in consequence of having signed such armi-
stice,’ the British government would ‘furnish arms, accoutrements, ammunition,
Clothing, and naval Cooperation.’30 The war had ended by the time Bathurst’s letter
reached Sherbrooke, but the import of the exchange remained: British authorities took
seriously New England Federalists’ claim to nationhood.31
New England Federalists’ forays into international diplomacy remained clandestine
through the fall of 1814. Meanwhile, events closer to home unfolded quickly. In
September 1814, Strong called a special session of the General Court to consider such
measures as ‘the present dangerous state of public affairs may render expedient.’32 The
war seemed to be at an impasse; Maine had fallen into British hands; and talk of a
convention had reached fever pitch. By mid-October, the General Court had approved
a report authored by Otis that called for a convention to meet at Hartford in December
to discuss constitutional reform and New England’s future role in the Union. Through-
out New England, Federalists clamored for their leaders to act, demanding an end to
the ruinous war and the inertia that permitted the Madison administration to continue
its apparent policy of victimizing New England.33 As Otis’s report put it, the goal of the
convention was to permit the people’s delegates to confer ‘upon the subjects of their
public grievances and concerns, and upon the best means of preserving our resources
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
12 A. L. LaCroix
and of defence against the enemy,’ as well as to consider and propose that the states
adopt ‘such measures as they may deem expedient.’34 Disunion was not explicitly
mentioned as an agenda item, but it was everywhere else – in the air, in the newspapers,
in the street – during that fall and winter of 1814.
While invitations were being extended to the other New England states, the Federal-
ists in the Massachusetts legislature unanimously named the Commonwealth’s 12
delegates to the convention, choosing moderate men. This decision met with mixed
reviews. Many observers in Massachusetts lauded the legislature for its prudence,
while others such as Lowell criticized the delegates as excessively ‘timid, and frequently
wavering, – to-day bold, and tomorrow like a hare trembling at every breeze.’35
Shortly thereafter, Connecticut and Rhode Island accepted the invitation to the
convention and named seven and four delegates, respectively. New Hampshire and
Vermont did not fall in with their larger fellows quite as easily, however. Both states
declined the invitation, leaving several Federalist-dominated counties in each to elect
their own representatives, which added three more delegates to the convention for a
total of 26.
With nearly two months to elapse before the delegates would actually convene on 15
December 1814, the partisan press set to work, igniting a fiery debate that presaged the
one observers expected would unfold at Hartford. At the same time, news of American
peace commissioners’ ongoing negotiations with British representatives at Ghent
drifted back across the ocean to the waiting public, filling the columns alongside
dispatches of the latest naval encounters and events on the western front. As had been
the case since the advent of American political parties in the 1790s, the voices of parti-
san editors and pamphleteers converged on a few broad themes capable of application
to virtually any specific event.
Boston was the hub of both newspaper and pamphlet publishing in New England.
The Republican papers seized on the convention as the shameful exemplar of Federalist
perfidy, chanting ‘Free Trade and No Impressment’ and deriding the ‘Three-Legged
Stool Convention’ and the ‘Snuffbox Convention’ as the connivance of a ‘British
Junto.’36 Federalist journals parried in kind, bemoaning the imperial aspirations of
Madison and Monroe, coyly feinting with the subject of disunion, and praising the
Hartford Convention as the heir to the spirit of 1787. Not surprisingly, references to
the parties’ supposed European allegiances abounded. The specters of Napoleon and
George III (presumably a more resonant figure for Americans than the Prince Regent)
loomed over both Federalist and Republican diatribes with an urgency that suggested
something far more vital than mere partisan rhetoric. The eyes of both Federalists and
Republicans were turned eastward to the great figures across the Atlantic, not because
America’s war with Britain was a sideshow to the larger conflict between the European
powers but because the new nation’s military struggle replaced nearly two decades of
fruitless diplomacy, quasi-war, and embargo with a long-sought opportunity for
national distinction.
With the quest for national distinction, however, came the question of which part of
the nation would dominate. Much commentary dwelled on the possibility that New
England might run roughshod over the rest of the nation, or else separate itself entirely
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 13
and reemerge to claim sovereignty in its own right. More than ever, Federalist rhetoric
seemed calculated to inflame disunionist sentiments. ‘On or before the 4th July, if
James Madison is not out of office, a new form of government will be in operation in
the eastern section of the union,’ warned the Federalist Boston Gazette one month
before the delegates convened.37 Whether the comments came from Republicans or
Federalists, the nub of the issue remained the same: Federalist New England claimed a
place for itself in the international community insofar as it sought to articulate its own
relations with the world beyond American shores.
From the Republican point of view, this northeastern self-aggrandizement was
entirely out of order. The possibility that the convention’s moderate delegates might
recommend something short of disunion did not mollify Republicans. By calling for
a convention to discuss a regional response to the war and perhaps revisions to the
Constitution, New England Federalists appeared to posit not just states’ rights as
against the central government but the further right of states to combine behind an
alternative vision of foreign diplomacy and alliances. Such a view risked splitting the
nation, exposing its component parts to domination by other countries with oppor-
tunism and conquest in mind. This was hardly the cherished vision of the United
States as an independent nation free from ‘entangling alliances,’ a vision Americans
attributed to Washington’s Farewell Address.38 To Federalist observers, however, the
damage had already been done by two Republican presidents’ failure to realize that
the interests of the Republic lay with its steady British parents, not its flighty French
cousins. For both camps, then, the principal problem lay in the realm of transatlan-
tic politics. Both Federalists and Republicans feared domination of the United States
by foreign powers. Paradoxically, this fear riveted both parties’ attention on the
ongoing Continental conflict and its spillover effect on Europe’s transatlantic
progeny.
One popular Federalist refrain charged Madison with either colluding with or being
duped by the French emperor. In an oration delivered before an assembly in Charles-
town, Massachusetts, Joseph Tufts, Jr. began by cataloguing the horrors of the recent
struggles between France and Russia, emphasizing the destruction caused to Prussia by
Napoleon and his armies: ‘He caused the towns to decay, ruined commerce and manu-
factures, exhausted the treasury, watched the coast and searched the houses to confis-
cate colonial produce and burn English merchandise.’ Happily for the Prussians,
however, ‘their indignation did indeed break forth into a glorious flame,’ and Prussian
troops joined with other Continental armies to defeat the French at Leipzig. To
hammer home the perils of appeasing the enemy, Tufts contrasted Prussia’s fate with
that of Massachusetts. The Commonwealth had suffered tyranny under the embargo
and nonimportation regimes and was helpless to prevent the Republican administra-
tions from converting the Constitution ‘into a formidable engine of tyranny, adapted
to carry into effect the cruel system of the French ruler.’39 A few weeks later, the Centi-nel continued its attack on Madison, this time charging that a ‘military despotism’ was
overtaking the Republic and that ‘our President will be our Emperor and our General,
and his Secretary at War his Lieutenant.’41 A later installment likened New England to
brave Holland, which ‘threw off the yoke of Spain (our Virginia).’42 Even if the
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
14 A. L. LaCroix
language was pure hyperbole, the effect was to frame the debate squarely in terms of
transatlantic intrigue.
Republicans, for their part, mocked Federalists’ obsession with Napoleon. As one
waggish orator put it, French influence on America ‘is like the science of perpetual
motion, much talked of, but has never yet been discovered.’43 Yet many supporters of
the war engaged in their own form of hysterical conjecture about Federalists’ Anglo-
philic tendencies. One of the most discussed Republican pamphlets was a multilayered
satire titled The Fourth Book of the ‘Washington Benevolents,’ Otherwise Called the Bookof Knaves. Adopting a ponderous, biblical cadence, the author of the pamphlet likely
intended to coopt the grandiose tones of the Washington Benevolents, a Federalist
society founded in 1801.44 The numbered verses of the pamphlet included the follow-
ing scene of a purported gathering of the Benevolents:
Now being all weary they bent their way to the Old South, to hear TIMOTHY LOW-BIG, speak unto the people; all sat down to rest themselves on cushings, with theirfeet on fine carpets made in Albion.
2. And then they all sang together many songs, and made a great noise, and the houserang with their shouts to the Bulwark.
…
7. And Timothy dwelt long on his subject, and said unto them, trust not James, hewill deceive you, he purchases land from Napoleon too dear, he has made war againstthe holy Bulwark.45
In addition to parodying the Federalist preoccupation with Franco-American
conspiracy, the pamphlet painted the Benevolents as unctuous disciples of the
Hanoverian monarchy: ‘Now the priests began to pray to God to restore them to
George again, and to change the heart of James towards him, and cease wars and
fightings with the Bulwark.’46
As these passages illustrate, pamphlets of the era were filled with shorthand refer-
ences and subtle allusions – print culture’s equivalent of the stage whisper, insofar as
the cryptic meanings would have been comprehensible to the majority of readers of
political publications.47 Another familiar trope for both Republican and Federalist
public discourse was religion, a subject with mass appeal and well-understood conno-
tations. The full-throated political donnybrook of the 1800 election had made an issue
of Jefferson’s deism, and his Federalist opponents had exploited the connections
between this rejection of mainline Protestantism and the rise of anticlericalism and
secularism in revolutionary France. Federalists suspected that Jefferson’s deism was
merely one part of a thoroughgoing commitment to what they viewed as a godless
society.
The issue of religion also related to larger issues of European politics. Many Federal-
ist authors invoked a Puritan vision of religion in which the war represented God’s
punishment of the United States for associating itself with the passionate, degenerate
nations of Europe, through commerce and the luxury trade. Republican writers, mean-
while, became fixated on the notion that Federalists were closet papists, enamored of
Old World ritual and ostentation. The upshot in each case was distrust based on the
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 15
opposition’s suspect allegiance to a decidedly unrepublican, European worldview. Each
camp accused the other of disloyalty to the United States in the form of excessive loyalty
to a competing system of values and governance. Addressing a congregation at Dracut,
Massachusetts less than a month after the war had ended, the Reverend Samuel Stearns
attributed American involvement in the war to a kind of cosmopolitan contagion.
A righteous God, who is ever mindful of the ingratitude and wickedness of his people,and who never suffers deep national degeneracy to go unpunished, was pleased towithdraw his restraining influence from the passions of men, and soon the nations ofEurope, like some vast cataract, hurrying to destruction all that falls in its way, rushedon to war. … Till finally, our wise and long continued system of neutrality yielded tothe provocations and intrigues of the day; and in 1812, America was again at war withGreat Britain.48
In other words, the United States had been swept into the war by a combination of its
own moral backsliding and its proximity to European scheming.
While Stearns’s view suggested that the Republic as a whole was culpable for its sins,
Republican pamphleteers who likened Federalists to idolatrous Catholics argued that
the malfeasance was limited to a sect of disloyal heretics. The japing author of TheFourth Book of the ‘Washington Benevolents’ provided the following ‘Directions how to
find out a Boston STAMP MAN’: ‘First inquire if he has been with John Henry, if he
has attended the Cossack feasts and Te Deums.’49 Federalism was thus associated with
unsavory foreign influences, such as Russian czarism and Romish ritual. Similarly, in
The Hartford Convention in an Uproar, ‘Hector Benevolus’ satirized the worship habits
of another set of Washington Benevolents: taking Communion, entering the ‘sanctum
sanctorum,’ sitting behind a veil in a plush sanctuary, and chanting the following
prayer:
Our Mother who art in Europe, adored be thy name. Thy kingdom come: Thy will bedone in New-England as it is done in Ireland and its dependencies. …
Assist thou us, O Mother, we pray thee, in the glorious work of a dissolution of theUnion. Help us, we beseech thee, to separate the New England States from the others,to establish a monarchy, to erect a throne, and place a king thereon.50
Mariolatry and monarchy therefore completed the picture of the Washington Benevo-
lents’ nefarious habits, according to Republican pamphleteers. To Republicans, these
Federalists had been tainted by their interactions with the more outlandish forms of
Continental life. After all, no good republican would traffic in Catholicism or Cossack
feasts.
While newspaper commentaries typically exercised greater restraint than did
pamphlets, they too emphasized the nation’s distressing situation vis-à-vis foreign
powers. Approximately three weeks before the convention met, the Republican BostonPatriot featured a graphic at the top of its front page depicting a ‘Comparative View of
the American Confederation with the Hartford Convention States’ (Figure 2). Below
the legend ‘American Union!!!’ and an eagle device ranged a roster of 15 states and six
territories. Next to this array was a much narrower band comprising three states
(Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) under the heading ‘Hartford
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
16 A. L. LaCroix
Convention – British Union’ and an image of a crown. To drive the point home, the
editors exhorted the reader to ‘look at the three British pillars, and see how they march
in SOLID COLUMNS to attack the great confederation of States.’51
Figure 2 Boston Patriot, 23 November 1814. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
The Federalist Boston Gazette evidently believed that one so-called ‘British pillar’
possessed the fortitude to act courageously. Under the headline ‘The well equipt and
disciplined Ship; Massachusetts. – Caleb Strong, commander,’ the front page of its 31
March 1814 issue featured an image of a three-masted ship bearing the name ‘The
Massachusetts!’ on its stern (Figure 3). Below the image, text urged ‘the Independent
Voters of Massachusetts’ to cast their votes in the upcoming state election for Federalist
candidates such as Governor Strong. The legend beneath the picture and its accompa-
nying verse read, ‘At the approaching Election, Massachusetts expects, every Man will
do his duty.’52 Scores of tiny figures lined the masts, manning the yards in the tradi-
tional naval sign of respect.53 A variation on Lord Nelson’s famous signal to his ships
before the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 (‘England expects that every man will do his
duty’), the reference and its antecedent would have been obvious to any reader in 1814.
Figure 2 Boston Patriot, 23 November 1814. Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 17
Figure 3 Boston Gazette, 31 March 1814. By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
18 A. L. LaCroix
Massachusetts, the well-equipped and disciplined ship, claimed to inherit the storied
tradition of Britain’s greatest naval victory over France and Spain.Figure 3 Boston Gazette, 31 March 1814. By permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Thus, in contrast to Republican papers’ scorn for the ‘small, selfish, haughty nation’
of Britain, Federalists unabashedly linked themselves with the eighteenth-century
heritage of English rights and liberty.54 In this way, Federalists embraced a positive
vision of transatlantic connection, as opposed to the negative consequences they
attributed to the Madison administration’s purported collusion with France. This
positive vision saw the Hartford Convention as a direct descendant of Parliament and
a protector of the sovereignty of the people. In response to those who attacked the
convention, the Boston Gazette commented that right-thinking New England people
asked ‘who preserved the British Constitution, the tyrant James the 2d, or the Whig
parliament who passed the act of settlement? They ask again, who saved the rights of
the American people, Lord North, or the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the
Congress of the State now so denounced?’ Making the link to current events explicit,
the Gazette continued:
We now apply these examples to our own case. Who tries to save the Union, MR.MADISON, who has destroyed all those New-England Interests for which alone sheentered into the Union, or the New England Patriots, who are about to assemble tosee if they cannot regain the rights they have lost?55
In spite (or perhaps because) of their reputation as apologists for aristocracy, in the
international struggle of 1812–15 the Federalists aligned themselves with the historic
defenders of popular sovereignty against corrupt monarchy. Moreover, by explicitly
connecting Massachusetts Federalists with the Whig Parliament that brought about the
Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, this writer appealed to an Anglo-American concep-
tion of public virtue and responsible governance. Despite their obsession with interna-
tional conspiracies, Federalists allowed for a special and beneficial connection with one
exemplary country.
In addition to reminding readers of the United States’ valuable inheritance from
Britain, Federalists repeatedly attempted to cloak the Hartford Convention in the
sacred fabric of the Republic’s founding conventions of 1776 and 1787. From the
Federalist standpoint, the connection was obvious: in each case, a group of statesmen
met as an extrapolitical entity in order to modify fundamental principles of govern-
ment. The convention form was thus viewed as a uniquely republican innovation. As
an added bonus, conventions insulated the process of state-making from the grasping
ignorance of the mob, which Federalists associated with the democratic excesses of
the French Revolution.56 Describing the convention as a ‘measure sanctioned by the
antient usages of our country, and resting on the most venerable precedents,’ one
writer for the New-England Palladium asked, ‘Have we less liberty now than we had
under the monarchy of England? … A right once yielded is with difficulty
regained.’57
Nonsense, retorted the Republican Boston Patriot. Merely calling themselves a
convention could not insulate the Hartford delegates from charges of conspiracy
against their government. ‘If two or five States meet together and abrogate the
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 19
Constitution, it is treason against the Union.’ Any reasonable observer would ‘consider
the proposers and authors of it as the tools of the British Ministry.’58 Thus, for
Massachusetts Republicans, Federalists’ claims to the revolutionary spirit stemmed
from mere opportunism – and from British influence. Republican commentators
viewed the Hartford Convention as subversive, not as the inheritor of the founding
legacy.
In the months before the convention met, speculation as to its purpose and character
dominated popular debate. Most Republicans assumed that the aim of the convention
was to effect New England’s secession from the Union. What might follow such a decla-
ration was an open question, but Republican observers expressed outrage at the idea
that New England might presume to proclaim itself a proto-nation. The prospect of a
Republic of New England elicited jeers from Massachusetts Republicans, who contin-
ued to view the delegates as nothing more than British puppets. While the convention
was in session, the Boston Patriot chortled, ‘We do not know whether war is to be
proclaimed against the Emperor of Morocco, the Khan of Tartary, or the Dey of
Algiers; but one thing we do know, viz. – That it will not be declared against Britain.’59
Even as they mocked New England’s pretensions playing on the international stage,
however, Republicans acknowledged the possibility that the convention might ‘even-
tually lead to a dissolution of the government, and introduce as bloody a contest as was
exhibited in France.’60
The Federalists’ rhetoric gave Republicans ample reason to fear secession. Federalist
newspapers and pamphleteers in Massachusetts chanted disunion incessantly, remind-
ing readers that anything might happen at Hartford. A few weeks before the convention
met, the Columbian Centinel speculated that New England might secede and negotiate
a separate peace with Britain. As we have seen, such efforts were in fact underway at the
same time that the convention was assembling. Arguing that New England was
‘unquestionably absolved from all obligations to the United States, since the United
States have ceased to perform any of its obligations toward them,’ the Centinelconcluded that the convention ‘cannot do a more popular act, not only in New-
England, but throughout the Atlantic States, than to make a Peace for the good of the
whole.’61
During the crisis days of late 1814, when an attack on Boston was expected at any
moment, even the moderate Otis charged the federal government with abdicating its
duties to protect New England. In a letter to Christopher Gore, his close friend and a
United States senator from Massachusetts, Otis confided, ‘My present propensity is to
consider and to treat the administration as having abdicated the Government. … With
these feelings predominating and armies and detachments quartered in different parts
of the Country, what awaits us, but to be conquer’d piecemeal and to be exhausted and
ruined before we are conquered.’62 Facing the prospect of becoming collateral damage
in a war in which they believed they had no part, and left in the lurch by their own
government, New England Federalists steeled their resolve and planned to sever as
many ties as necessary for their own survival. They believed that the failures of the
federal government virtually compelled New England to step forward and lead the East
Coast out of war and into peace with Britain.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
20 A. L. LaCroix
New England Ascendant: December 1814–January 1815
By the time the convention delegates gathered at Hartford on 15 December 1814,
public speculation about their mission ran wild. Despite their vaunted disregard for the
convention, Republican newspapers devoted substantial space to its doings. In partic-
ular, they harped on the delegates’ allegiance to the British crown while at the same
time mocking the Federalists’ preoccupation with French influence on the Madison
administration. Republican pundits do not appear to have perceived the paradox in
this position. Thus, the convention members were ‘British Rats Skulking back to their
Holes,’ while further down the page the Patriot harrumphed over ‘those anti-American
dogmas … about French influence and the corruption of our administration … and a
string of epithets and invectives as void of truth as of decorum.’63 Republican politi-
cians portrayed themselves as unencumbered by foreign alliances, which they viewed
as dangerous per se. Federalists, on the other hand, never bothered to deny their affinity
for Britain; on the contrary, they saw no contradiction in touting the valiant Whig
Parliament even as they attacked Republicans for yielding to French plots.
Deep suspicion of the convention’s decision to enforce a rule of secrecy during the
proceedings, combined with an uneasy feeling that treason was afoot, spurred the
Madison administration to aggressive action. Secretary of State James Monroe, tempo-
rarily acting as secretary of war as well, ordered two regiments of infantry to Connect-
icut in December 1814. Fearing a British attack during the convention, perhaps in
concert with antiwar Federalists, Monroe dispatched Colonel Thomas Jessup of the
Twenty-Fifth Infantry to monitor the activities of the convention as well as the move-
ments of British ships in Long Island Sound, and to secure the federal armory at
Springfield, Massachusetts. In the event that force proved necessary, Monroe
instructed Jessup to avoid violence against civilians.64 Jessup, already antagonized by
Hartford’s ban on both military recruiting and the playing of martial music, made his
presence known throughout the city and engaged in a program of not-so-subtle harass-
ment of the convention. In addition to meeting regularly with the mayor of Hartford –
a convention member – and fruitlessly pressing him for details of the sessions, Jessup
proceeded ‘by flying a British flag at half-mast under an American flag, by ostenta-
tiously parading recruiting parties beating drums through the streets of Hartford, and
by taking his officers to balls where they displayed both their uniforms and their
recently acquired wounds.’65 The message was clear: if New England Federalists
insisted on the privileges of nationhood, the federal government would deal with them
accordingly. Those who fomented disunion during wartime would not be permitted a
safe haven in which to conspire.
Despite the administration’s fears, however, later reports suggested that moderates
ultimately controlled the convention. What little is known about the proceedings of the
convention stems largely from accounts that various members published after the fact,
most of them attempts to allay continued public suspicion about what had transpired
in the white-paneled rooms of the Connecticut State House. Moderate Federalists
dominated the sessions: party elder George Cabot of Massachusetts was named presi-
dent, while Theodore Dwight of Connecticut – not technically a member of the
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 21
convention – served as secretary. Otis opened the first meeting with a discussion of
New England’s defense in the event of a British attack, proposing a plan for the region
to take control of its portion of national revenue. Three committees were formed to
consider the militia situation, to draft proposed amendments to the federal Constitu-
tion (restoring, it was hoped, the power of the eastern states), and to draft the report of
the convention. Otis served on all three committees, while Lowell’s fellow extremist
Timothy Bigelow served on none.66 Despite Republican accusations of fecklessness and
impotence, ‘the debates were spirited, maneuverings were intensive, and all members
took seriously their responsibilities.’67
As the convention entered its third and final week, the clandestine nature of the
proceedings irked many observers, who referred to the assembly as a ‘secret
conclave.’68 Newspapers in Boston featured column upon column of accusations and
defenses of the convention, all of which speculated as to what the result of the conven-
tion would be.
Would they make a threat of secession? Would they be for keeping all their militia, asa home guard? Would they attack the non-intercourse Act of Congress as unconsti-tutional?
The best guess was made by Josiah Quincy. ‘What do you suppose will be the resultof this Convention?’ asked a friend who met him on the street one day, when it wasin progress. ‘I can tell you exactly,’ was his answer. … ‘A great pamphlet.’69
The Republican Independent Chronicle was less patient, echoing another paper’s query:
‘Without impeaching your intentions, it becomes a subject of serious enquiry to learn
what you are about?’70
The convention adjourned on 4 January 1815. Eight days later, the delegates made
clear what they were about. Josiah Quincy had guessed correctly: the product of the
convention was, if not quite a pamphlet, a report. The report, presumed to have been
authored by Otis, was immediately reprinted in most Massachusetts newspapers. In
contrast to much of the speculation that had swirled around the nation, it was not obvi-
ously inflammatory. But the report did echo some of the same themes that had
informed the past three months of debate: the war was a colossal mistake; the federal
government had taken revenue and troops from New England, leaving the region
unable to defend itself despite its obvious geographic vulnerability; thus uniquely
aggrieved, New England was justified in exceeding the normal scope of states’ behavior,
in taking steps to defend itself, and in assembling an extraordinary convention to
evaluate the region’s options.
Despite its moderate veneer, the report did not disguise the resolve of the convention
members. The federal government’s approach to raising an army, the report stated,
evidenced ‘a total disregard for the Constitution and a disposition to violate its provi-
sions, demanding from the individual States a firm and decided opposition.’ Likening
this ‘iron despotism’ to the capricious government of France, the report asserted that
New England should be granted control over ‘the remnant of her resources,’ not bled
to protect the rest of the country. ‘When emergencies occur which are either beyond
the reach of the judicial tribunals or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
22 A. L. LaCroix
forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute
their own decisions.’71 In the case of defense, the report included a resolution propos-
ing that the states ‘be empowered to assume upon themselves the defence of their terri-
tory against the enemy; and a reasonable portion of the taxes, collected within said
States, may be paid into the respective treasuries thereof.’72 The report thus argued that
a state could opt out of the corporate structure of the Union to collect its own revenue
and undertake its own defense: two prized benchmarks of independence, and two key
components of nationhood.
Yet this resolve was accompanied by repeated, almost legalistic invocations of ‘neces-
sity’ and the language of duress. ‘These States have thus been left to adopt measures for
their own defence,’ the report testified. ‘If the war be continued, there appears no room
for reliance upon the national government for the supply of those means of defence
which must become indispensable to secure these States from desolation and ruin.’73
The message was clear: New England Federalists had not chosen their path, but they
were determined to see their region through this crisis, even if it meant testing and ulti-
mately breaking the bonds of Union. ‘Our nation may yet be great, our union durable,’
the report stated. ‘But should this prospect be utterly hopeless, the time will not have
been lost which shall have ripened a general sentiment of the necessity of more mighty
efforts to rescue from ruin at least some portion of our beloved country.’74 In contrast
to the bold tones of a few months earlier, the New England Federalists now echoed the
resigned tone of Otis’s letter to Gore. New England was forced to make its own way in
the world because it had been abandoned by the national government. Cut loose from
the reciprocal benefits and burdens of membership in the Union, the region was
compelled to look to its own affairs and to try to negotiate a place for itself among the
community of nations.
Finally, the report set forth a list of seven proposed amendments to the federal
Constitution. The delegates clearly sought to return New England to its former posi-
tion of power and authority within the Union. Consequently, the amendments
proposed eliminating the so-called ‘three-fifths clause,’ thereby reapportioning repre-
sentation in Congress based only a state’s free population; requiring a two-thirds vote
of Congress to admit new states, establish commercial nonintercourse, or declare war;
restricting high elected office to American-born citizens; and barring the presidency to
both incumbents and candidates from the same state as the incumbent (an obvious
poke in the eye of Virginia, which at that point had held the presidency for all but four
of the nation’s 26 years under a chief executive).
Reaction to the report was swift but mixed. The Boston Patriot captured the senti-
ment of most Republicans by pronouncing the result ‘Pitiful! Wondrous pitiful!!’ The
author continued: ‘Thus ends the great federal “Crisis,” which has been nursed and
fostered for seven long years!’ Indeed, the author seemed crestfallen at the news that the
convention had resulted ‘not in the overthrow of the Constitution – not in the restora-
tion of peace between Britain and America – not in the decapitation of Napoleon, not
even in a separation of the States.’75 Federalist writers, meanwhile, leaped to the defense
of the convention. Seizing the opportunity to deride the ‘nefarious conspiracy’ that ‘was
formed by our publick functionaries to assassinate, basely and behind our backs, the
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 23
reputation and character of New England,’ the Massachusetts Spy observed tartly that
the convention’s report would disprove, once and for all, nagging accusations of disun-
ionist tendencies.76 Even the fiery Governor Strong shifted to a more conciliatory tone,
lauding the convention for not surrendering to a ‘fatal excess’ of sentiment ‘when the
passions of the multitude are inflamed.’77 For others, however, the report disappointed
because it failed to propose immediate disunion as the solution to New England’s trou-
bles.78 But the convention did not have an opportunity to produce this result, for
events in Europe diverted attention from the report almost as soon as it appeared.
The fact that the report did not advocate immediate secession or a separate peace
should not be construed as evidence that the convention did not consider such actions,
or that popular sentiment would not have supported a more radical set of recommen-
dations. The report mentions the pending peace talks at Ghent; did knowledge of the
negotiations give the delegates room to back away from disunion while still saving face?
Perhaps. Yet despite the moderate tones adopted by Strong and the Massachusetts Spy,
the text of the report clearly stated that the convention intended to reassemble and take
up the question of disunion if the ongoing negotiations at Ghent did not lead to peace.
Far from backing down from earlier invocations of states’ rights and federal malfea-
sance, the report frankly acknowledged that disunion might ultimately become neces-
sary. ‘Events may prove that the causes of our calamities are deep and permanent,’ the
report stated. ‘Whenever it shall appear that these causes are radical and permanent, a
separation, by equitable arrangement, will be preferable to an alliance by constraint
among nominal friends, but real enemies.’ By permitting certain delegates to recon-
vene the assembly ‘if in their judgment the situation of the country shall urgently
require it,’ the convention delegates claimed an ongoing right of self-determination for
New England.79
Thus, the ostensibly moderate report contained a sharp edge of militant sectional
spirit. Moreover, with its references to ‘alliances’ between states and its fears of
‘contempt and aggression from abroad,’ the report spoke in the international argot
that had characterized the pre-convention commentaries. Although the delegates
managed to curb their most extreme Federalist rhetoric, they clung to their regional
autonomy, warning with their report that New England had decided to give the
Republic another chance, not the other way around. Thus, just as the convention’s
critics had feared, the report declared that New England was determined to control its
place in the world.
Aftermath: The Lingering Taint of Treason
The people of New England could not have known it, but a peace treaty ending the
war between the United States and Great Britain had been signed at Ghent on 24
December 1814 – nine days after the convention first gathered at Hartford and less
than two weeks before the delegates issued their report. But news of the treaty did not
reach North America until the middle of February 1815. In the meantime, while
rumors of peace negotiations circulated, Strong dispatched a commission comprising
convention delegate Harrison Gray Otis and non-delegates Thomas Handasyd
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
24 A. L. LaCroix
Perkins and William Sullivan to Washington, where they were to lobby the adminis-
tration for federal funds to pay for Massachusetts’s defense, pursuant to the recom-
mendations of the convention.
While the three commissioners were en route to the capital, however, news of
Andrew Jackson’s stunning victory at New Orleans – followed ten days later by news
of peace – reached the East Coast. Instantly, the commissioners became the butt of
Republican jeers and ridicule. With the war over, the very idea of the convention
instantly became preposterous. The Hartford Convention in an Uproar! launched an
especially savage attack on the three commissioners, whom the author mocked as
‘The Three Wise Men of the East’:
IMPORTANT ARRIVAL!! Boston, March 17, 1815. Last night, came marching hometo their respective dwellings H.G.O. – T.H.P. and W.S. all the way from Washington,sadly beaten out, and to appearance much dejected, especially Counsellor S. Badroads, at this season, are bad enough, but to feel in addition the heavy weight ofpublic odium, is too much for common nerves.80
The fate of the convention seemed to be sealed. No longer threatened by disunionist
chatter, New Englanders were free to adopt a complacent, almost indulgent tone
toward the convention, reducing it to the assortment of cranks and naysayers familiar
to modern historians.
Yet even after the war had ended, pamphlets attacking the convention continued to
appear with what must have seemed oppressive regularity to beleaguered New England
Federalists. The year 1818 saw the publication of a pamphlet titled Blue-Lights, or TheConvention: A Poem in Four Cantos. The pamphlet lived up to its title. For 150 pages,
line upon line of rhyming verse called forth all the tropes of New England resistance in
order to ridicule the Hartford Convention. Following his apostrophes to various New
England towns notorious for their antiwar sentiment, the author reserved his most
sonorous cadences for the subject of his title: the craven blue lights. The extensive notes
that followed the epic poem explained dryly:
During the late war, when a squadron of United States vessels of war, then lying inthe harbor of a certain seaport town in Connecticut, intended sailing, there appearedin the air certain lights, which excited much astonishment. … Certain it is, that theships of the enemy lying off the harbor, appeared much alarmed, weighed theiranchors, stood off and on during the whole night, fearing, no doubt, some dreadfulhurricane, or perhaps concluding, that the lights served as signals to direct the courseof some Stonington Torpedo, about to pay them a visit.81
Other evidence besides repeated invocation of the blue lights suggests that the
convention did not recede into history as rapidly as either its critics or its supporters
might have hoped. The memory of the autumn and winter of 1814, when New England
was poised to detach itself from the Union, refused to fade. Those who had been asso-
ciated with the convention seemed to feel a need to unburden themselves of the reasons
for their involvement, producing tracts on the subject decades after the convention.
The most prolific of these apologists was Harrison Gray Otis, whose 1822 and 1823 bids
for the mayorship of Boston and the governorship of Massachusetts, respectively,
foundered in part on his association with the convention.82 Hoping to explain himself,
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 25
Otis twice published a set of letters to the editor of the Columbian Centinel ‘in Defence
of the Hartford Convention, and the People of Massachusetts.’ The letters emphasized
the moderate character of the convention, the sacrifice made by the delegates, and the
reasons for conducting the meetings in secret. Otis, too, felt compelled to address the
blue light issue, arguing that the story was ‘a mere ignis fatuus’ and that the convention
itself ‘was harmless as a Quaker meeting.’83
Similarly, Theodore Lyman, who had not attended the convention, and Theodore
Dwight, who had, issued their own accounts in 1823 and 1833, respectively. Lyman’s
anonymous Short Account of the Hartford Convention buttressed Otis’s writings and
argued that the convention had represented the will of the people of Massachusetts.
Lyman also provided short biographies of Massachusetts’s delegates and asked the
reader whether he believed that the men named ‘were capable of plotting a conspiracy
against the national government – of exciting to a civil war – of leading to a dissolution
of the Union – of submitting to an allegiance to George the Third.’84 Dwight’s Historyof the Hartford Convention focused almost exclusively on the events that provoked the
convention, repeating earlier commentators’ charges that the Madison administration
was largely to blame for the unpopularity of the war and reprinting the report and the
‘Secret Journal’ of the convention.85
Yet even these after-the-fact accounts emphasized the transatlantic context in which
the convention had taken place. Dwight’s History also echoed the convention report’s
claim of duress. ‘The great object of the states’ in calling the convention, he wrote, was
‘to perform the task which the national government had thrown upon them in 1812 …
and which had now become so imperative that there was no room to avoid it.’86 Even
at a remove of 18 years, Dwight still insisted that New England had acted like a nation,
and that it had been forced into that role. Even John Quincy Adams, no friend of the
Federalists by 1828, when he was writing, identified as one of the principal causes of the
convention ‘an utter detestation of the French Revolution and of France, and a
corresponding excess of attachment to Great Britain, as the only barrier against the
universal, dreaded empire of France.’87
For decades after the delegates adjourned, New Englanders continued to demand
explanations of the convention, and politicians responded in print. An assortment of
illustrious nineteenth-century politicians and historians lined up on either side of the
question whether the convention had seriously considered disunion. (For the affirma-
tive: John Quincy Adams and, in some passages, Henry Cabot Lodge; for the negative:
Lyman, Otis, Dwight, Samuel Eliot Morison, and, in some passages, Henry Cabot
Lodge.) Indeed, even sympathetic audiences remained interested in the convention, as
demonstrated by the publication of Otis’s letters in a Federalist newspaper. If the
convention had been viewed as nothing more than a clique of angry, irrelevant old
men, it is hard to imagine the reading public continuing to care so deeply about its
doings. But New England residents demanded ritual apologia from convention partic-
ipants, demonstrating an ongoing anxiety regarding what had nearly happened at
Hartford. Did disunion sentiment still linger in the breasts of Otis, Dwight, and others,
driving them to consider their region as equal to with the nations of Europe? New
Englanders insisted on knowing. They asked the questions because the answers still
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
26 A. L. LaCroix
mattered. The Federalist party did not simply expire in 1815, despite the claims of its
many critics.88
Conclusion: The Hartford Convention and the Atlantic World
The War of 1812 is often described as a necessary coda to the events of 1775–83, the
United States’ final engagement with European power struggles.89 Curiously, this view
has not extended to histories of the Hartford Convention, which typically view the
gathering of New England states not as an attempt to direct the nation’s involvement
with foreign powers but as the last act of an insular, isolated coterie of aristocratic
merchants. The political writings of the convention’s contemporaries, however,
suggest otherwise. Commentators at the time expended enormous amounts of energy,
ink, and eloquence on the assembly at Hartford precisely because they viewed it as an
important political act that sought to address broad questions of transatlantic alliances.
They disagreed profoundly, however, with respect to the appropriateness of this act.
After more than a decade of formal and informal war with both the great powers of
Europe, during which time the nation had divided itself along party lines that corre-
sponded to foreign allegiances, New England Federalists attempted to enter the fray
and defy the supremacy of the federal government to conduct affairs with other
nations.
Regardless of their particular stance with respect to New England’s gambit, both
Republican and Federalist observers remarked on the convention’s claim to a status
beyond that of a mere regional assembly. Both camps took for granted foreign inter-
vention in and alliances with elements within American society; both camps feared that
the wrong sort of alliances would lead to foreign domination. There the ideological
convergence ended. The debate surrounding the convention consistently spoke in
terms of world politics because both sides viewed the calling of the convention as a
claim by New England to a voice in the international community. But political parti-
sans disagreed violently in their attitudes toward this claim. While Federalist authors
clearly distinguished between benign and harmful alliances, accepting the British Whig
political heritage but rejecting what they viewed as Napoleonic tyranny, Republican
writers focused on the pitfalls of international involvement per se, mocking their oppo-
nents’ obsession with Bonaparte and citing evidence of Federalist ‘blue lights’ colluding
with Britain. Indeed, Republican commentators appeared at times to oppose allinternational connections – a surprising attitude, given some modern historians’
association of Federalism with narrow parochialism.
As befitted a young nation, the participants in the burgeoning culture of political
publishing feared that their leaders might be duped by foreign interference. Personified
as the ‘Corsican Hyaena’ and the wheedling king with his promises of molasses and
codfish, the great powers of Europe seemed to threaten the Republic’s survival. The
debate surrounding the Hartford Convention spoke directly to this anxiety regarding
the position of the United States within the Atlantic power structure. Traditional
accounts argue that the convention led directly – and only – to the subsequent decline
of the Federalist party. In so arguing, the traditional view strips the convention of its
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 27
international character and files it neatly under the heading of ‘Domestic Affairs – Party
Politics.’ But to contemporaries, the convention represented not the beginning of the
end of Federalism but the possibility that a part of the United States might detach itself
from the nation and enter the world spotlight on its own.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This essay is dedicated to the late Professor William E. Gienapp. I also wish to thank
William Birdthistle for his comments.
Notes
[1] Hector Benevolus [pseud.], The Hartford Convention in an Uproar! and the Wise Men of theEast Confounded! Together With a Short History of the Peter Washingtonians; Being the FirstBook of the Chronicles of the Children of Disobedience; Otherwise Falsely Called ‘WashingtonBenevolents’ (Windsor, Vt., 1815).
[2] The most comprehensive study of the Hartford Convention is Banner, To the HartfordConvention, which takes the latter view of the convention, as does David Hackett Fischer in TheRevolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jacksonian Democracy.
Works taking the former, dim view include Henry Adams, History of the United States ofAmerica; James Truslow Adams, New England in the Republic, and Roger H. Brown, TheRepublic in Peril. As Kevin M. Gannon notes, scholars have typically identified Federalist activ-
ities preceding the Hartford Convention as stemming from paranoia and conspiracy. Gannon,
‘Escaping “Mr. Jefferson’s Plan of Destruction”, 413–43.
[3] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 348–9.
[4] Adams, History of the United States, 8: 285.
[5] Adams to William Vans Murray, 15 Dec. 1799, The Writings of John Quincy Adams, 2: 445.
Ever an independent thinker, Adams attributed this species of extreme Federalism to excessive
English influence, despite his own and his party’s general affinity for British political thought.
[6] Goodman, The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts, 53.
[7] Watts, The Republic Reborn, 239.
[8] Many observers viewed the impressment in June 1807 of several sailors from U.S.S.
Cheseapeake by H.M.S. Leopard as the proximate cause of the war. The incident, in which the
Leopard fired three broadsides at the Chesapeake, killing three of its sailors and wounding 18,
led to a public outcry and calls for action. The Jefferson administration responded with the
embargo of 1807. By 1812, the incident still stood out in a mounting catalog of grievances
against Britain.
[9] Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 313.
[10] One of the most famous pamphlets published during the war, Mathew Carey’s Olive Branch,
described Boston as ‘the seat of discontent, complaint, and turbulence.’ Carey, The OliveBranch, 185, 189. Similarly, Connecticut was widely known as the ‘Gibraltar of Federalism.’
Reardon, ‘Religious and Other Factors, 93.
[11] Morison, ‘Our Most Unpopular War,’ 39.
[12] Coles, The War of 1812, 243.
[13] Boston Columbian Centinel, 23 Sept. 1812.
[14] Adams, History of the United States, 8: 14.
[15] These phrases, which originated in the speeches of Federalist leaders, quickly became fodder
for Republican satire. See, for example, The Hartford Convention in an Uproar!, 36.
[16] Prentiss, New England Freedom, 3, 9.
[17] U.S. Constitution, art. 1, sec. 10, cl. 3.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
28 A. L. LaCroix
[18] Warren, Jacobin and Junto, 270–71.
[19] Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 335.
[20] Ibid., 339.
[21] Jefferson’s Embargo Act had been repealed in 1809, but the embargo was reinstated as soon as
war was declared in June 1812. Congress bolstered the embargo in late-1813 with an act
expressly forbidding all coastal trade and fishing beyond the harbors. See ibid., 43; Edward,
‘“Marats, Dantons, and Robespierres,”’ 12.
[22] The story of Major-General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn’s uninvited
repast appears in Smelser, The Democratic Republic, 1801–1815, 269. As for the ignominious
American retreat, the troops were not helped by the venue, for Bladensburg, Maryland had
already achieved infamy as the capital’s celebrity dueling ground. One of the most famous
naval heroes of the War of 1812, Commodore Stephen Decatur, became one of Bladensburg’s
most celebrated victims when he was killed in a duel there with Commodore James Barron on
22 Mar. 1820.
[23] Madison called New England antiwar sentiment ‘the source of our greatest difficulties in
carrying on the war.’ Quoted in Watts, The Republic Reborn, 281.
[24] Gannon, ‘Escaping “Mr. Jefferson’s Plan of Destruction,”’ 413–15, 419.
[25] Quoted in Warren, Jacobin and Junto, 175–6.
[26] Pickering to Putnam, October 1814, in Henry Cabot Lodge, ed., Life and Letters of GeorgeCabot, 535.
[27] Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 365–6.
[28] Fears that New England was treating with Britain had a long pedigree, dating back to the John
Henry affair of 1808, in which British agents John Henry and John Howe were sent from
Canada to New England to ascertain the region’s willingness to enter into a truce on its own.
The affair came to light when Henry, convinced that his British sponsors had failed to
compensate him adequately for his efforts, sold his papers to the United States government.
Martell, ‘A Side Light on Federalist Strategy During the War of 1812,’ 555. Throughout the
War of 1812, partisan writers bandied Henry’s name about as a metonym for pro-British
treachery.
[29] ‘The Proposals of the American Agent Enclosed with the Foregoing Dispatch,’ in ibid., 562.
[30] Bathurst to Sherbrooke, 13 Dec. 1814, quoted in ibid., 564.
[31] The role of Canada as a nation that both bordered the United States and that remained a
British colony throughout this period adds an important dimension to the question of New
England separatism. J.C.A. Stagg has argued that the U.S. embargoes were intended to squeeze
Britain by cutting off one of its main sources of raw materials (most crucially, timber), and
that Madison’s declaration of war aimed to finish the job by launching an invasion of Canada,
thereby entirely choking Britain’s supply line and forcing it to negotiate with the United States
as an equal. As long as Canada remained in British hands, the supply lines from North
America remained open. As John Bartlet Brebner puts it, ‘The most remarkable early effect of
Napoleon’s wars on Anglo-American relations was the abrupt elevation of the British North
American colonies from obscurity and poverty to prominence and prosperity. Britain discov-
ered that she needed not only all the timber, lumber, and wheat which they could produce,
but all that they could attract to their ports from the United States.’ Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War,
1–48; Brebner, North Atlantic Triangle, 81. At the same time that the United States and Britain
were using Canada as a pawn in the greater imperial conflict, however, neighborliness – with a
dash of expediency – endured: prior to the expansion of the British blockade in autumn 1813,
Sherbrooke issued orders allowing American merchant vessels into and out of several
Maritime ports, resulting in more than a hundred American ships calling at Halifax alone in
1813. Even the expanded blockade became permeable in September 1814, when the British
declared Castine a free port. Martell, ‘A Side Light,’ 556; Graham, Sea Power and British NorthAmerica, 211. As these facts demonstrate, the British were eager to maintain as much access as
they could to U.S. trade, even during the war. This imperative clearly enhanced New England
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 29
Federalists’ ability to negotiate with Britain and to gain recognition as a coherent political
force.
[32] Quoted in Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 321.
[33] Ibid., 316.
[34] Quoted in Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 357.
[35] Quoted in Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 327.
[36] The three legs of the stool were said to represent the three states that sent delegates to the
convention: Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The ‘snuffbox’ reference is most
likely a variant on the epithet ‘snuff bottle convention,’ which was born when a journalist
noted that the Boston Centinel’s graphic of the three ‘pillars’ of a ‘New Federal Edifice’ resem-
bled a row of snuff bottles in a druggist’s window. Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 366–7.
[37] Boston Gazette, 17 Nov. 1814.
[38] Although this phrase became associated with Washington, it actually originated in Jefferson’s
first inaugural address of 1801. See Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation,
128.
[39] Tufts, An Oration, 3–4, 9.
[41] Ibid., 7 Dec. 1814.
[42] Quoted in Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 366.
[43] Bliss, An Oration, 5.
[44] For a discussion of the Washington Benevolent Society and its connections to the Federalist
party, see Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 214–16.
[45] The references can be decoded as follows: (1) ‘Old South’ is Boston’s Old South Meeting
House, famed as the meeting place for the Boston Tea Party participants; (2) ‘TIMOTHY
LOW-BIG’ is Timothy Bigelow, speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and a
powerful Federalist; (3) ‘cushings’ is a pun on the name of William Cushing, a Massachusetts
Federalist and Washington’s first appointee to the Supreme Court; (4) the ‘Bulwark,’ as
explained above, is Great Britain.
[46] The Fourth Book of the ‘Washington Benevolents,’ Otherwise Called The Book of Knaves (Boston,
1814), 8–9. A later verse describes Timothy Bigelow telling his audience of Benevolents ‘that
the goddess of liberty was ravished by the Jacobins … And that a foreign swindler, in the land
of the Gauls, had cheated the people out of much money, and verily that James knoweth not
how to make a bargain.’ Ibid., 11.
[47] Jeffrey L. Pasley associates this florid-yet-cryptic rhetorical style with elite Federalists,
‘chortling over such material on a slow day at the law office, reaffirming their feelings of supe-
riority.’ Pasley, ‘The Tyranny of Printers’, 253. My research suggests, however, that it was
common to both parties’ public writings. Indeed, many Republican pamphlets featured
endnotes keyed to aid the reader in decoding arcane references.
[48] Stearns, An Address, on the Return of Peace, 7–8.
[49] The Fourth Book of the ‘Washington Benevolents,’ 24.
[50] The Hartford Convention in an Uproar, 32–3.
[51] Boston Patriot, 23 Nov. 1814.
[52] Boston Gazette, 31 Mar. 1814.
[53] The same graphic of the ship Massachusetts adorned the Federalist Party’s 1814 Massachu-
setts state election ballot. The ballot is pictured in Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 337.
[54] Boston Patriot, 12 Nov. 1814.
[55] Boston Gazette, 24 Nov. 1814. The Gazette was here reprinting an article from the ColumbianCentinel, its fellow Federalist journal.
[56] See Varg, New England and Foreign Relations, 64–6, for a discussion of Federalists’ association
of mob rule with France and the Jeffersonians.
[57] Boston New-England Palladium, 4 Nov. 1814.
[58] Boston Patriot, 5 Nov. 1814.
[59] Ibid., 17 Dec. 1814.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
30 A. L. LaCroix
[60] Boston Independent Chronicle, 12 Dec. 1814.
[61] Boston Columbian Centinel, 26 Nov. 1814.
[62] Quoted in Morison, Urbane Federalist, 367–8.
[63] Boston Patriot, 11 Jan. 1815.
[64] Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War, 477–81.
[65] Ibid., 480. Flying a captured enemy’s flag beneath one’s own flag was a common practice
among navies of the era.
[66] Morison, Harrison Gray Otis, 375.
[67] Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 335.
[68] Boston Patriot, 7 Jan. 1815.
[69] Baldwin, ‘The Hartford Convention,’ 20. Produced as part of a celebration of the convention’s
centenary, Baldwin’s account conflicts with Banner’s account, which features Quincy asking
George Cabot to predict the outcome of the convention, and Cabot delivering the punchline.
Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 334.
[70] Boston Independent Chronicle, 26 Dec. 1814.
[71] The Proceedings of the Hartford Convention, 1814 (Boston: Old South Association, 1913
[1814]), 8.
[72] Ibid., 20.
[73] Ibid., 1, 4, 10.
[74] Ibid., 20.
[75] Boston Patriot, 25 Jan. 1815.
[76] Massachusetts Spy, or Worcester Gazette, 18 Jan. 1815.
[77] Quoted in Banner, To the Hartford Convention, 347.
[78] In particular, Connecticut Federalists expressed disappointment with the report, which
they viewed as a milquetoast’s response to the ongoing oppression of New England. See
Fischer, Revolution of American Conservatism, 177. Henry Adams took the opposite view,
focusing on the report’s threat of a second convention as evidence of real radicalism, which
he believed reflected popular opinion. Adams, History of the United States of America, 8:
295–6.
[80] Proceedings of the Hartford Convention, 3–4, 22.
[81] The Hartford Convention in an Uproar!, 26.
[82] Scott, Blue-Lights, or The Convention, 44, 115–16. Fischer notes that the blue lights ‘became
the symbol of Federalism’ for many disgusted observers in the rest of the nation. Fischer,
Revolution of American Conservatism, 178. Commodore Stephen Decatur blamed such inter-
ference for the capture of the U.S.S. President off the coast of Long Island in early 1815.
[83] The political scene in Boston in the 1820s was very complex, and Otis’s losses likely stemmed
from changing demographics and political affiliations as well as his association with the
convention. See Cayton, ‘The Fragmentation of a ‘Great Family’, 143–67.
[84] Otis, Otis’ Letters, iv. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines ‘ignis fatuus’ (liter-
ally, ‘foolish fire’) as ‘1: a light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground and is
often attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter; 2: a deceptive
goal or hope.’ Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, s.v. ‘ignis fatuus.’
[85] [Theodore Lyman], A Short Account of the Hartford Convention, Taken From OfficialDocuments, and Addressed to the Fair Minded and the Well Disposed, To Which Is Added anAttested Copy of the Secret Journal of That Body (Boston, 1823), 21.
[86] Dwight, History of the Hartford Convention. The ‘Secret Journal’ consisted largely of sketchy
minutes of the daily meetings of the convention. One clue to Dwight’s motivation for publish-
ing the History, besides the continued need to fend off accusations of treason, came in a
comment advising the reader to ‘compare the conduct of the New-England States during the
war of 1812, with that of another state, at a much later period.’ Dwight went on to discuss the
South Carolina nullification crisis of 1832. Ibid., 434.
[87] Ibid., 408.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
American Nineteenth Century History 31
[88] John Quincy Adams, ‘Reply to the Appeal of the Massachusetts Federalists’ in Henry Adams,
ed., Documents Relating to New-England, 284.
[89] For a discussion of the continued viability of the Federalists after 1815, see Livermore, TheTwilight of Federalism.
[90] See Goodman, The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts, 203.
References
Adams, James Truslow. New England in the Republic, 1776–1850. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company,
1926.
Adams, John Quincy. ‘Reply to the Appeal of the Massachusetts Federalists’ (1828), in DocumentsRelating to New-England Federalism edited by Henry Adams, (Boston: Little, Brown, &
Company, 1877).
John Quincy Adams. The Writings of John Quincy Adams. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1913.
Baldwin, Simeon E. ‘The Hartford Convention,’ Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society 9
(1918).
Banner, James M., Jr. To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics inMassachusetts, 1789–1815. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.
Bliss, Henry. An Oration, Delivered at the Baptist Meeting-House in Colebrook (Con.) on the NationalThanksgiving (n.p., 1815).
Brebner, John Bartlet. North Atlantic Triangle: The Interplay of Canada, the United States and GreatBritain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945.
Brown, Roger H. The Republic in Peril: 1812. New York: Columbia University Press, 1964.
Carey, Mathew. The Olive Branch; or, Faults on Both Sides, Federal and Democratic: A Serious Appealon the Necessity of Mutual Forgiveness and Harmony to Save our Common Country From Ruin.Philadelphia, 1814.
Cayton, Andrew R.L. ‘The Fragmentation of a ‘Great Family’: The Panic of 1819 and the Rise of the
Middling Interest in Boston, 1818–1822,’ Journal of the Early Republic 2 (1982).
Coles, Harry L. The War of 1812. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
Dwight, Theodore. History of the Hartford Convention: With a Review of the Policy of the United StatesGovernment Which Led to the War of 1812. New York, 1833.
Edward, Brother C. ‘“Marats, Dantons, and Robespierres,”’ American History Illustrated 12.4 (1977).
Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.
Gannon, Kevin M. ‘Escaping “Mr. Jefferson’s Plan of Destruction”: New England Federalists and the
Idea of a Northern Confederacy, 1803–1804,’ Journal of the Early Republic 21 (2001): 413–43.
Goodman, Paul. The Democratic-Republicans of Massachusetts: Politics in a Young Republic.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Henry Adams, History of the United States of America During the Second Administration of JamesMadison, vol. 8 of History of the United States. New York: Antiquarian Press Ltd., 1962
[1891–96].
Livermore, Shaw, Jr. The Twilight of Federalism: The Disintegration of the Federalist Party, 1815–1830.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, ed. Life and Letters of George Cabot. New York: Da Capo Press, 1974 [1878].
Martell, J.S. ‘A Side Light on Federalist Strategy During the War of 1812,’ American Historical Review43 (1938).
Morison, Samuel Eliot. ‘Our Most Unpopular War,’ Proceedings of the Massachusetts HistoricalSociety 80 (1968).
Morison, Samuel Eliot. Harrison Gray Otis, 1765–1848: The Urbane Federalist. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1969.
Otis, Harrison Gray. Otis’ Letters in Defence of the Hartford Convention, and the People of Massachusetts(Boston, 1824).
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
32 A. L. LaCroix
Pasley, Jeffrey L. ‘The Tyranny of Printers‘: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic.Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001.
Prentiss, Charles. New England Freedom: A Poem Delivered Before the Washington Benevolent Society,in Brimfield, February 22nd, 1813. Brookfield, Mass., 1813.
Reardon, John J. ‘Religious and Other Factors in the Defeat of the “Standing Order” in Connecticut,
1800–1818,’ Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 30 (1961).
Scott, Jonathan M. Blue-Lights, or The Convention: A Poem in Four Cantos. New York, 1818.
Smelser, Marshall. The Democratic Republic, 1801–1815. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.
Stagg, J.C.A. Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic,1783–1830. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Stearns, Samuel. An Address, on the Return of Peace, Between Great-Britain and America, Delivered atDracut, March 3, 1815. Haverhill, Mass., 1815.
Tufts, Joseph, Jr. An Oration, Pronounced Before the Federal Republicans of Charlestown, Massachusetts,4 July 1814. Charlestown, Mass., 1814.
Varg, Paul A. New England and Foreign Relations, 1789–1850. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of
New England, 1983.
Waldstreicher, David. In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
Warren, Charles. Jacobin and Junto, or Early American Politics as Viewed in the Diary of Dr. NathanielAmes, 1758–1822. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1968.
Watts, Steven. The Republic Reborn: War and the Making of Liberal America, 1790–1820. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
Dow
nloa
ded
by [
Lin
naeu
s U
nive
rsity
] at
15:
22 0
6 O
ctob
er 2
014
