The Middle Period, 1817-1858. John William Burgess
| Jackson's letter to President Monroe. |
When Jackson received these orders he was in Tennessee. He wrote immediately to the President: "Let it be signified to me through any channel (say Mr. J. Rhea) that the possession of the Floridas would be desirable to the United States and in sixty days it will be accomplished." General Jackson naturally supposed that this letter was duly received and read by President Monroe, and that a subsequent order, giving him discretionary powers in the prosecution of the campaign, contained the answer to it. As we shall see, however, the President claimed later that he did not read Jackson's letter until a year after it was written and sent to him. It was certainly the President's fault if he did not. General Jackson certainly could not be held accountable for the President's strange negligence in examining official correspondence, and he had good reason to think, from the tone of the order issued to him after his letter had had due time to be received and read, that the Administration desired him to occupy Florida.
Upon taking command Jackson called his Tennessee veterans to him, and reached with them the Florida frontier in March of 1818.
| Jackson's operations in Florida. |
When he advanced into Florida he found that the Spanish officials in Florida were in collusion with the Indians, and that the instigators of the hostilities were an Englishman, named Ambrister, and a Scotchman, named Arbuthnot, together with two Indian chiefs named Hillis Hajo and Himallemico.
An order from the War Department, of January 16th, 1818, instructed the commander of the United States forces in Florida that the honor of the nation required a speedy termination of the War with the Seminoles, "with exemplary punishment for hostilities so unprovoked." Jackson naturally considered himself empowered to do speedy and thorough work. He felt it necessary to seize St. Mark's and Pensacola, in order to destroy the base of operations and the places of refuge of the enemy, and he caused the four ringleaders of the enemy to be executed. By the end of May (1818) the campaign was ended, and Florida was in the military possession of the United States. The President assumed the responsibility for Jackson's deeds, but offered to restore St. Mark's and Pensacola, and therewith the nominal possession of Florida, to Spain, so soon as Spain would garrison these points with forces able to maintain peace with the United States and disposed to do so. Spain accepted the offer, fulfilled in a way the conditions, and the places were restored to her jurisdiction.
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| The first Treaty for the cession of Florida to the United States. |
It was now manifest to Spain, however, that she could not control Florida, and that her possession of the province was, and could be, only nominal. She now, therefore, agreed to cede it to the United States. The treaty bears date of February 22nd, 1819. Its important provisions are contained in the second and third articles. By these articles Spain ceded the Floridas, with the adjacent islands dependent thereon, to the United States; and agreed with the United States that the boundary between the two powers in North America should be the west bank of the Sabine River from its mouth to the thirty-second parallel of north latitude, thence the line of longitude to the Red River, thence up the course of the Red River to the one-hundredth parallel of longitude from London, or the twenty-third from Washington, thence the line of longitude to the Arkansas River, thence the south bank of the Arkansas to its source, thence the line of longitude to the forty-second parallel of north latitude, and thence this line of latitude to the South Sea.
This settlement of boundary included that of all other claims, of whatever character, of the Government, citizens, or subjects of either power against the Government, citizens, or subjects of the other. All such were mutually renounced.
| Jackson's popularity in consequence of the Seminole War. |
The results of the Seminole War raised General Jackson to a still higher plane of popularity than he possessed as the hero of the War of 1812. It was evident that here was a character who would have to be reckoned with in future presidential contests. It is possible that Jackson's chief mentor, William B. Lewis, had conceived, at this date, the idea of Jackson's candidacy for the highest place in the gift of the nation. And it is highly probable that the fears of all the existing aspirants for the presidency were excited by the appearance of this new and popular rival for public favor. It is difficult to explain upon any other theory the attempt made in Congress, during the session of 1818–19, to suppress Jackson by a vote of censure.
| The attempt in Congress to censure Jackson. |
This procedure certainly had no connection whatsoever with the question of slavery extension through the acquisition of Florida. When we find Tallmadge, of New York, the self-same person who introduced, at the same session, the proposition for restricting slavery in Missouri, defending Jackson's course in every particular, while Cobb, of Georgia, attacked it, and when we consider that John Quincy Adams, the life-long opponent of slavery, sustained Jackson in the cabinet, while Calhoun moved to bring him to account for disobedience to orders, we are bound to conclude that we have here nothing whatsoever to do with the question of slavery.
| The same attempt in the Cabinet. |
Crawford, of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury, was the prime aspirant for presidential honors, after Monroe should have completed his two terms, and Cobb was Crawford's right-hand man. Clay was also working up his plans. These two men felt it necessary to discredit Jackson in every possible way. Clay made a great bugbear out of Jackson's military heroship, and so threatening did he make it appear to the principle of civil government and republican institutions that he really seemed frightened at it himself. Crawford set up the same strain, through Cobb, in a feebler key. Calhoun seems to have been animated rather by wrath at what he conceived to be the violation of his orders, or, at least, the exceeding of his orders, than by jealousy of a presidential rival. His presidential fever had not, at that moment, reached a high degree. But what shall we say of Adams, who undoubtedly then considered himself a candidate for the successorship to Monroe, and who stood against the whole Cabinet in Jackson's defence, and carried the day against both Crawford and Calhoun combined. Of course it may be said that Adams thought his own turn would come before that of Jackson, and that he would gain Jackson's support by his attitude. But against such a supposition must stand the fact that the Cabinet pledged itself to secrecy in regard to all that was proposed on the subject, and that for ten years Jackson supposed that Calhoun was the friend in the Cabinet who had successfully defended him against the other members under the lead of Crawford. The attitude of Adams in the question was noble and disinterested, as well as patriotic, and had Jackson known of it in 1824, it is altogether probable that he would never have charged an unfair bargain with Clay upon Adams for his own defeat.
| The failure of the attempt to censure Jackson in Congress. |
Clay and Cobb represented that every movement made by Jackson, from the moment of his appointment to the command of the expedition to the end of hostilities, was illegal and in defiance of the orders of the War Department. They said he had no right to call upon his old soldiers instead of asking the Governor of Tennessee for the militia. They claimed that he waged an offensive war upon his own responsibility against Spain, when the War Department had expressly forbidden him to attack the Spanish forts, and they accused him of murdering two prisoners of war. The House of Representatives showed what it thought of these accusations by voting down the resolutions which contained