Part 12 (2/2)

On another frontier conditions existed to which Congress could not remain indifferent. East Florida was still a thorn in the side of Georgia and Alabama. The province had become a rendezvous for pirates, filibusters, renegade Indians, and runaway negroes. Creek warriors who would not submit to the loss of their lands had taken refuge with their kinsmen, the Seminoles, and were inciting malcontents of every stripe against the whites. A band of negroes, estimated at not less than a thousand in number, together with some Creek Indians, had taken possession of an abandoned fort on the Apalachicola and had terrorized the country for miles around. The Spanish commander at Pensacola was summoned to destroy this pirates' nest and to disperse the marauders; but he was either unable or unwilling to do so, and in 1816 a red-hot shot from a United States gunboat blew up the magazine of the negro fort, killing nearly three hundred men, women, and children. Early in 1818, in equally summary fas.h.i.+on troops of the United States expelled a band of freebooters from Amelia Island.

The slight regard which the United States paid to the territorial sovereignty of Spain in Florida sprang from a general conviction that Spain could not and would not observe the provisions of the Treaty of 1795. Spain had then agreed to restrain the Indians living within her borders from attacking the citizens or Indians of the United States.

President Monroe seemed to a.s.sume that Spain had forfeited her rights over Florida. At all events, he authorized General Andrew Jackson to a.s.sume command of the forces at Fort Scott and to call on the governors of adjacent States for militia to terminate the war. This order of December 26, 1817, was stated in dangerously broad terms. Jackson did not doubt for an instant that it authorized him to pursue the Indians into Florida. To his mind the time seemed opportune for the seizure of East Florida as an indemnity for the outrages committed by the Seminoles. He wrote to the President to this effect. ”Let it be signified to me,” said he, ”through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States and in sixty days it will be accomplished.”

To his dying day Jackson maintained that the President signified his approval through Congressman Rhea, of Tennessee. Monroe denied that he had read Jackson's letter until after the exploits which so nearly plunged the country into war with Spain. Whatever may be the truth of the matter, General Jackson acted in accord with what he believed to be the President's desires. With a thousand men he marched across the border and was soon in possession of St. Mark's. Among those who fell into his hands was Alexander Arbuthnot, a Scotch trader who was suspected of inciting the Indians. Continuing his march, Jackson surprised and captured Suwanee, another rendezvous of Indians and runaway negroes. Here he found Robert Ambrister, another British subject, who was also regarded as a suspicious character. Returning to St. Mark's, Jackson handed these two suspects over to a court martial, which found both guilty of giving aid and comfort to the enemy and of inciting or waging war against the United States. Arbuthnot was hanged from the yardarm of his own schooner; Ambrister was shot. The fall of Pensacola finished the campaign. By the end of May, 1818, Florida was in the possession of the troops of the United States and Jackson was on his way to Tennessee, the idol of his men and a national hero in the estimation of the people of the Southwest.

The outcome of these exploits might easily have been war with both Spain and Great Britain. Don Luis de Onis, the Spanish Minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, immediately suspended the negotiations then in progress respecting the Floridas and made a spirited protest ”against these acts of hostility and invasion.” He demanded the immediate rest.i.tution of the places which had been seized, indemnity for all damage to property, and the punishment of General Jackson. As for Great Britain, Lord Castlereagh afterward said that, such was the temper of Parliament and the country, war might have been produced by holding up a finger and an address to the Crown carried by an almost unanimous vote.

The Cabinet of President Monroe was divided over the course to be pursued. Calhoun insisted that Jackson had virtually committed an act of war, which should be promptly disavowed. But Adams held--and the President was inclined to side with him--that in reality Spain had been the aggressor, and that Jackson had not violated the spirit of his orders. In order to terminate the war, Jackson had been obliged to cross the Spanish line. He had not done so with the purpose of waging war upon Spain.

[Map: Treaty with Spain 1819]

Following a memorandum made by the President, Adams replied to Don Onis in this spirit. Later, in a masterly state paper, he set forth the intolerable conditions which obtained on the Florida frontier. The lax conduct of the Spanish authorities was held to justify the aggressive measures of Jackson. The United States was prepared to restore Pensacola and St. Mark's whenever Spain should give guaranties for the observance of treaty obligations. So far from consenting to punish Jackson, the United States demanded the punishment of those Spanish officials who had so flagrantly violated the obligations of the Treaty of 1795. ”Spain must immediately make her election either to place a force in Florida at once adequate for the protection of her territory and to the fulfillment of her engagements, or cede to the United States a province of which she retains nothing but the nominal possession.” This latter alternative, indeed, the Administration never lost from view.

Confronted by the revolt of all her American colonies, Spain could hardly resist this insistent pressure upon a province which she could neither govern nor defend. On February 22, 1819, Don Onis set his hand to a treaty which ceded the Floridas in return for the a.s.sumption by the United States of claims of American citizens against her to an amount not exceeding $5,000,000. The treaty contained also a definition of the boundary between Spanish and American possessions on the North American continent. Beginning at the mouth of the Sabine River, the line ran along that river to the thirty-second parallel; thence due north to the Red River, which it followed to the hundredth meridian; thence north to the Arkansas and along that river to its source; thence to the forty-second parallel, which it followed to the Pacific. As the United States renounced all claims to the west and south of this boundary, so Spain surrendered whatever shadowy t.i.tle she had to the Northwest.

The ratification of the Florida Treaty was delayed by the attempt of the Spanish Crown to grant extensive tracts to certain grandees, and by the vigorous opposition of Henry Clay in the House of Representatives. The treaty seemed to him a bad bargain. ”What do we get?” he cried. ”We get Florida loaded and enc.u.mbered with land grants which leave scarcely a foot of soil for the United States. What do we give? We give Texas free and unenc.u.mbered, and we surrender all our claims on Spain for damages not included in that five millions of dollars.” He challenged the right of the President and Senate to alienate territory without the consent of the House. Behind Clay's opposition lay some personal pique against the President and his Secretary of State; but he voiced, nevertheless, the spirit of the Southwest, which already looked toward Texas as a possible field of expansion and resented its surrender.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The westward movement is described in various chapters of volumes IV and V of McMaster, _History of the People of the United States_. The significance of the movement is best explained in F.

J. Turner, _Rise of the New West, 1819-1829_ (in _The American Nation_, vol. 14, 1906), which contains also excellent chapters on the social and economic life of the different sections of the country. The highways and waterways to the West are described in A. B. Hurlbert, _Historic Highways of America_ (10 vols., 1902-05). A summary account of the development of transportation is given in J. L. Ringwalt, _Development of Transportation Systems in the United States_ (1888). Among the biographies which contribute materially to an understanding of the new West may be mentioned Theodore Roosevelt, _Thomas H. Benton_ (1887), and James Parton, _Life of Andrew Jackson_ (3 vols., 1860). Edward Eggleston, _The Circuit Rider_ (1888), and the _Autobiography of Peter Cartwright_ (1856), touch upon important aspects of frontier life. The importance of the German element in American history is admirably set forth in Faust, _The German Element in the United States_ (2 vols., 1909). The spread of New Englanders in the West is described by L. K. Mathews, _The Expansion of New England_ (1909). The diplomatic negotiations which resulted in the cession of Florida are reviewed by F. E. Chadwick, _The Relations of the United States and Spain_ (1909).

CHAPTER XV

HARD TIMES

The phrase ”era of good feelings” applied to the Administration of President Monroe is a misnomer. It is descriptive neither of politics nor of business and industry, for the historic Democratic party was all but rent by bitter personal animosities, and the country was prostrated by a severe industrial crisis.

The first symptoms of hard times appeared in the early months of the year 1819. Undoubtedly the causes of the crisis were world-wide; but local conditions go far to explain the industrial collapse in the United States. All indications point to the conclusion that the country was experiencing the inevitable reaction from a period of too rapid commercial expansion and of unsound speculation. The high prices of commodities after the war had given a sort of fict.i.tious prosperity to industry and trade, and had encouraged unduly the spirit of commercial enterprise. On credit easily secured from wild-cat banks, the Western pioneer had bought lands beyond the purchasing power of his own meager capital; and the speculator in turn had borrowed money to secure t.i.tle to lands which he would unload upon unsuspecting settlers. State banks had met these demands by liberal issues of notes which were imperfectly covered by their specie reserves. It needed only a sudden demand for liquidation to cause widespread distress.

The unwise management of the National Bank may have contributed to the approaching disaster. The branch banks in the South and West had loaned freely, issuing notes which were payable at any branch of the National Bank. Capital was thus diverted from the East to sections of the country where there was least conservatism in banking. In 1818, the directors of the Bank became alarmed at the excessive expansion of credit, and issued instructions which compelled the redemption of notes at the bank where they were issued. At the same time the branch banks curtailed their loans. This sudden reversal of policy caused a fearful pressure which was transmitted from creditor to debtor all along the line.

Every sufferer by the panic was disposed to blame the National Bank for his misfortunes, particularly as it was common rumor that the directors of the Bank had speculated in its stock and had used their influence to cripple local banks. Congress had been obliged to take cognizance of these charges and to appoint a committee to investigate the condition of the inst.i.tution. On the report of this committee, in January, 1819, the stock of the Bank fell from 140 to 93. The investigation revealed nothing worse than mismanagement; but a vigorous effort was made in Congress to revoke the charter.

The widespread hostility of the West and South toward the National Bank was born at this time. Everywhere it was known as ”the Monster.” State after State pa.s.sed acts to tax the branch banks out of existence. The decision of Chief Justice Marshall, to be sure, in the famous case of _M'Culloch_ v. _Maryland_, declared emphatically that the States had no const.i.tutional power to tax the branches of an inst.i.tution chartered under the laws of the United States; nevertheless, the legislature of Ohio deliberately levied such a tax, and when resistance was offered to its collection, withdrew the protection of the State from the branch banks. Feeling themselves the victims of the money power, the people in many of the Western States resorted to the remedies which were broached during hard times under the Confederation. Kentucky became notorious by reason of its laws in behalf of the debtor cla.s.s. In every Western State there was a disposition to seek shelter from the operation of federal law behind the aegis of State rights. The people of these newer communities were slow to accept the force of precedent in cases decided by the federal courts. Andrew Jackson voiced this feeling when he became President. ”Mere precedent,” said he, ”is a dangerous source of authority, and should not be regarded as deciding questions of const.i.tutional power, except where the acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as well settled.”

That there was much real suffering during this panic admits of no doubt.

Niles estimated that not less than twenty thousand persons were seeking employment in Philadelphia in the summer of 1819, and quite as many wandering in the streets of New York looking for work. In both cities soup-houses were established by private charitable societies to relieve distress in the following winter. In the city of New York, during the year 1816, over nineteen hundred unfortunates were imprisoned for debt; and of these, over seven hundred owed less than twenty-five dollars.

But it was not merely the city dweller who felt the pinch of poverty.

Thousands of Western settlers who had purchased land under the Act of 1800, which permitted deferred payments, found themselves insolvent.

More than $21,000,000, one fifth of the national debt, remained unpaid in the year 1820. To the importunities of these debtors Congress had yielded from time to time, but it was not until 1821 that it pa.s.sed the first general relief act. Those who had not completed their payments within the prescribed five years were then permitted to give up the land which they had not paid for, and to apply the payments already made to the full purchase of the lands which they retained. Arrears of interest were remitted.

In 1820, Congress pa.s.sed an act which wrought a far-reaching change in the disposal of the public domain. The credit system was abolished outright. After July 1, 1820, land was to be sold for cash at a minimum price of a dollar and a quarter an acre, and in eighty-acre tracts. A payment of one hundred dollars, then, would make a settler the owner of eighty acres in his own right. The prospect of actual owners.h.i.+p of a small tract made him far less ready to listen to the voice of the tempter in the form of the speculator, who had heretofore lured him to make larger purchases on credit than he could ever pay for by the labor of his hands.

In the midst of this period of financial depression, the Territory of Missouri applied for admission into the Union. On February 13, 1819, while an enabling act was under consideration in the House of Representatives, James Tallmadge, of New York, moved an amendment which touched Southern interests to the quick. ”_And provided_, That the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; and that all children born within the said State, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years.”

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