The Life of John Marshall (Volume 2 of 4). Beveridge Albert Jeremiah
in their immediate purpose, did not modify the public temper toward the Administration. Neutrality, in particular, grew in disfavor among the people. When the congressional elections of 1794 came on, all complaints against the National Government were vivified by that burning question. As if, said the Republicans, there could be such a status as neutrality between "right and wrong," between "liberty" and "tyranny."296
Thus, in the campaign, the Republicans made the French cause their own. Everything that Washington's Administration had accomplished was wrong, said the Republicans, but Neutrality was the work of the Evil One. The same National power which had dared to issue this "edict" against American support of French "liberty" had foisted on the people Assumption, National Courts, and taxes on whiskey. This identical Nationalist crew had, said the Republicans, by Funding and National Banks, fostered, nay, created, stock-jobbing and speculation by which the few "monocrats" were made rich, while the many remained poor. Thus every Republican candidate for Congress became a knight of the flaming sword, warring upon all evil, but especially and for the moment against the dragon of Neutrality that the National Government had uncaged to help the monarchs of Europe destroy free government in France.297 Chiefly on that question the Republicans won the National House of Representatives.
But if Neutrality lit the flames of public wrath, Washington's next act in foreign affairs was powder and oil cast upon fires already fiercely burning. Great Britain, by her war measures against France, did not spare America. She seized hundreds of American vessels trading with her enemy and even with neutrals; in order to starve France298 she lifted cargoes from American bottoms; to man her warships she forcibly took sailors from American ships, "often leaving scarcely hands enough to navigate the vessel into port";299 she conducted herself as if she were not only mistress of the seas, but their sole proprietor. And the British depredations were committed in a manner harsh, brutal, and insulting.
Even Marshall was aroused and wrote to his friend Stuart: "We fear, not without reason, a war. The man does not live who wishes for peace more than I do; but the outrages committed upon us are beyond human bearing. Farewell – pray Heaven we may weather the storm."300 If the self-contained and cautious Marshall felt a just resentment of British outrage, we may, by that measure, accurately judge of the inflamed and dangerous condition of the general sentiment.
Thus it came about that the deeply rooted hatred of the people for their former master301 was heated to the point of reckless defiance. This was the same Monarchy, they truly said, that still kept the military and trading posts on American soil which, more than a decade before, it had, by the Treaty of Peace, solemnly promised to surrender.302 The Government that was committing these savage outrages was the same faithless Power, declared the general voice, that had pledged compensation for the slaves its armies had carried away, but not one shilling of which had been paid.
If ever a country had good cause for war, Great Britain then furnished it to America; and, had we been prepared, it is impossible to believe that we should not have taken up arms to defend our ravaged interests and vindicate our insulted honor. In Congress various methods of justifiable retaliation were urged with intense earnestness, marred by loud and extravagant declamation.303 "The noise of debate was more deafening than a mill… We sleep upon our arms," wrote a member of the National House.304 But these bellicose measures were rejected because any one of them would have meant immediate hostilities.
For we were not prepared. War was the one thing America could not then afford. Our Government was still tottering on the unstable legs of infancy. Orderly society was only beginning and the spirit of unrest and upheaval was strong and active. In case of war, wrote Ames, expressing the conservative fears, "I dread anarchy more than great guns."305 Our resources had been bled white by the Revolution and the desolating years that followed. We had no real army, no adequate arsenals,306 no efficient ships of war; and the French Republic, surrounded by hostile bayonets and guns and battling for very existence, could not send us armies, fleets, munitions, and money as the French Monarchy had done.
Spain was on our south eager for more territory on the Mississippi, the mouth of which she controlled; and ready to attack us in case we came to blows with Great Britain. The latter Power was on our north, the expelled Loyalists in Canada burning with that natural resentment307 which has never cooled; British soldiers held strategic posts within our territory; hordes of Indians, controlled and their leaders paid by Great Britain,308 and hostile to the United States, were upon our borders anxious to avenge themselves for the defeats we had inflicted on them and their kinsmen in the savage wars incited by their British employers.309 Worst of all, British warships covered the oceans and patrolled every mile of our shores just beyond American waters. Our coast defenses, few, poor, and feeble in their best estate, had been utterly neglected for more than ten years and every American port was at the mercy of British guns.310
Evidence was not wanting that Great Britain courted war.311 She had been cold and unresponsive to every approach for a better understanding with us. She had not even sent a Minister to our Government until eight years after the Treaty of Peace had been signed.312 She not only held our posts, but established a new one fifty miles south of Detroit; and her entire conduct indicated, and Washington believed, that she meant to draw a new boundary line which would give her exclusive possession of the Great Lakes.313 She had the monopoly of the fur trade314 and plainly meant to keep it.
Lord Dorchester, supreme representative of the British Crown in Canada, had made an ominous speech to the Indians predicting hostilities against the United States within a year and declaring that a new boundary line would then be drawn "by the warriors."315 Rumors flew and gained volume and color in their flight. Even the poised and steady Marshall was disturbed.
"We have some letters from Philadelphia that wear a very ugly aspect," he writes Archibald Stuart. "It is said that Simcoe, the Governor of Upper Canada, has entered the territory of the United States at the head of about 500 men and has possessed himself of Presque Isle." But Marshall cannot restrain his humor, notwithstanding the gravity of the report: "As this is in Pennsylvania," he observes, "I hope the democratic society of Philadelphia will at once demolish him and if they should fail I still trust that some of our upper brothers [Virginia Republicans] will at one stride place themselves by him and prostrate his post. But seriously," continues Marshall, "if this be true we must bid adieu to all hope of peace and prepare for serious war. My only hope is that it is a mere speculating story."316
Powerless to obtain our rights by force or to prevent their violation by being prepared to assert them with arms, Washington had no recourse but to diplomacy. At all hazards and at any cost, war must be avoided for the time being. It was one of Great Britain's critical mistakes that she consented to treat instead of forcing a conflict with us; for had she taken the latter course it is not improbable that, at the end of the war, the southern boundary of British dominion in America would have been the Ohio River, and it is not impossible that New York and New England would have fallen into her hands. At the very least, there can be little doubt that the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence would have become exclusively British waters.317
Amid a confusion of counsels, Washington determined to try for a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation with Great Britain, a decision, the outcome of which was to bring Marshall even
See, for instance, Thompson's speech,
Marshall, ii, 293.
Marshall to Stuart, March 27, 1794; MS., Va. Hist. Soc.
"The idea that Great Britain was the natural enemy of America had become habitual" long before this time. (Marshall, ii, 154.)
One reason for Great Britain's unlawful retention of these posts was her purpose to maintain her monopoly of the fur trade. (
Marshall, ii, 320-21; and see
Ames to Dwight, Dec. 12, 1794;
Ames to Gore, March 26, 1794;
See Washington to Ball, Aug. 10, 1794;
See Van Tyne, chap. xi.
Marshall, ii, 286, 287.
John Quincy Adams, who was in London and who was intensely irritated by British conduct, concluded that: "A war at present with Great Britain must be total destruction to the commerce of our country; for there is no maritime power on earth that can contend with the existing naval British force." (J. Q. Adams to Sargent, The Hague, Oct. 12, 1795;
"I believe the intention is to draw the United States into it [war] merely to make tools of them… The conduct of the British government is so well adapted to increasing our danger of war, that I cannot but suppose they are secretly inclined to produce it." (J. Q. Adams to his father, The Hague, Sept. 12, 1795;
Marshall, ii, 194.
Marshall, ii, 337.
See this speech in Rives, iii, footnote to 418-19. It is curious that Marshall, in his
Marshall to Stuart, May 28, 1794; MS., Va. Hist. Soc.
It must not be forgotten that we were not so well prepared for war in 1794 as the colonies had been in 1776, or as we were a few years after Jay was sent on his mission. And on the traditional policy of Great Britain when intending to make war on any country, see J. Q. Adams to his father, June 24, 1796;
Also, see same to same, The Hague, June 9, 1796;
"The truth is that the American