by Ron Carter
The early morning hours of June 1, 1812, promised a hot, muggy, summer day. Breakfast with Dolley, his wife of eighteen years, had been a bright spot. Seventeen years his junior, widowed in 1793, with one young son, attractive, tending toward plump, dark-haired, blue-eyed, already a legend in the city for her warmth and charm and generosity, she had glowed as they talked at the breakfast table. She had listened to him with her heart, then embraced him, and watched as he paced down the hall to his duties, leather heels clicking a quick, measured cadence. He had stopped at the door into his study to look back and raise a hand to her before stepping inside and closing the door against the world.
Madison sat down in the great chair with the window behind and the filled bookshelves on the two sidewalls. He squared his shoulders and settled back, fingers interlaced across his sparse middle, making a slow survey of the myriad documents on the desk before him. For days he had been gathering them, reviewing them, selecting, discarding, organizing. Some were in neatly stacked files, others in orderly piles with no file. In the center of the desk, near the edge closest to him, were twenty-six pages, filled with his small handwriting, which he had created line upon line from his meticulous research of the circumstances and recent events that would weigh heaviest in what was coming.
This was the day he would reduce it all to one document for secret delivery to the United States Congress, aimed at persuading the members of those houses to two conclusions—conclusions that would likely change the history of the world: first, the United States must declare war on England, and second, he, James Madison, must be reelected to a second term as president of the fledgling nation.
With half-closed eyes he began the labor of organizing his thoughts.
First issue? Power in Congress. We Republicans: seventy-five percent in the House, the Federalists, twenty-five. In the Senate: eighty-two percent Republican, eighteen percent Federalist. How will they vote on the sole issue of war with England? Our Republicans are rampant with hawks who are openly campaigning for war with England, but not all. The trouble is we Republicans are divided—a few of the Clintonian followers will vote against it. The Federalists? Their vote will be nearly unanimous against it. Will there be enough votes in favor? Probably yes. Probably.
He shifted slightly in his chair. The uncertainty of probably was not well received in the meticulous mind of James Madison.
Can we pay for a war? He shook his head in frustration. The debt remaining from the war for independence was staggering, and the purchase by Mister Jefferson of the Louisiana territory—eleven million dollars of borrowed money—pushed the country to the limit. The Federalists and Mister Jefferson and the secretary of the treasury—Mister Albert Gallatin—repealed enough taxes—including the salt tax—to leave us drowning with eighty-two million to repay, and an annual income of ten million to do it! And of the ten million, three-fourths of it must be used to pay the debt, and will be for the next sixteen years, if Mister Gallatin’s plan succeeds. That leaves us with two-and-one-half million annually to pay all other costs of running the United States. Insanity! As of now, in our current state of peace, the cost of maintaining our army and navy, meager as they are, is four million per year, and the diplomatic service alone is costing one million. Five million total—double what’s left after we pay on our annual debt—and not a cent left to pay for everything else. If we go to war with England, costs will soar! We are going to have to raise taxes, and that will cost us votes!
There was no other answer, and Madison grimaced in his discomfort.
What are the current tides of politics? The election is nearing. The temper of the country generally favors war with England, and I think the people are right. If we Republicans can succeed in committing the United States to such a war before the election, our chances of winning the election will be much improved. The question is timing. When do we make the move? Now? July? August? September is too late. Is June too early? If we declare war in June and things go badly before the November election, will we have undone ourselves?
For a moment Madison stared at his desktop in frustration. His loathing of uncertainty was not well suited to the fluid, shifting, vicious world of politics.
And what of France? Thus far the French have been as arrogant as the British toward us. Seized our commercial ships—imprisoned our seamen.
He reached for three documents and for a moment scanned each. Napoleon’s Berlin Decree—and the Milan Decree—both promising French withdrawal of their blockades of all ports where our ships are found—and their Rambouillet Decree that undid all they had promised us.
He tossed the papers on his desk and picked up a fourth document. Our Macon Decree Number Two. Weak as it was, it was all we could do to find a way of opening the high seas for our ships of commerce—offered to begin trading with whichever of the two belligerent powers—France or England—would open trade with us and continue our embargoes against the other.
He tossed it back on his desk and shook his head slowly. All for nothing. Years of maneuvering with both France and England, and finally it comes down to war. And what is to become of France and England in the event we declare war on England? With France just across the English Channel, England must assign the majority of its navy to the task of keeping the French navy in check. So long as that persists, England will have scant little time or ships to consign to its difficulties with the United States. It is apparent that now is a propitious time to move against England.
The little man leaned forward, elbows on the huge desk. How does one organize all this into a document that will persuade Congress that we must declare war on England or forever accept the idea that we are a very small pawn in international affairs? What are the British offenses that our Congress most despises? How far back should this listing of those offenses go?
He picked up his quill, dipped it in the ink bottle, and began writing notes as his thoughts continued.
In the past several years Britain has taken nine thousand American seamen from our ships—away from their native country—wives—children—all they hold dear—pressed them into service in the British navy and forced them to fight against their own! Over six hundred American ships—gone! Barbarous! The Chesapeake affair in 1807—Congress is still infuriated over the arrogance of that heinous affair.
British ships have invaded American waters. Their ships are seen from the mainland, patrolling our waters, looking for any vessel flying our colors. Willing and anxious to intercept them—board them—seize cargoes—seize American sailors—all contrary to centuries of the natural laws of traffic on the high seas. Closing our ports, stopping the very foundations of American industry and commerce. The insult is intolerable!
They have issued endless Orders in Council. How many of them? Twenty? Thirty? All of them with but one intent—suppress American commerce. For thirty years the British have been unable to rise above the concept that we are still their little, belligerent colonies. They cannot conceive of the United States as an independent, sovereign nation, with the natural rights and powers commensurate with that position in the affairs of the world.
Our ports, their ports, neutral ports worldwide—all blockaded against American ships on pain of confiscation of the cargoes and the crews and the ships. By what right? They admit they have no such right, but still they persist!
They have committed piracy against us on the high seas. They refuse to acknowledge it as piracy, but how else can it be described? They take our ships in free international waters, seize the cargoes, imprison the crews, and claim the ships as prizes.
He put the quill down for a moment and reached for two documents. For a time he scanned them, then set them aside as his thoughts continued:
For years they have incited the Indians in the northwest to rise against the United States—supplied the tribes with muskets and powder and shot and taught them to use them efficiently, with but one thought. Arm them, train them, hold them in check until the right moment, and then send the red horde to crush t
he Americans that have settled the great northwest sections of the United States. What could be more clear and convincing evidence of their plan than the Tippecanoe event of last November? The Shawnee promised to counsel with Governor Harrison, then immediately attacked him in the darkness before dawn, carrying British muskets and firing British powder and shot.
He sat back in his chair, meticulously, methodically working in his mind with the basic concepts, selecting some, abandoning others, and then choosing the words best calculated to make his case.
Then he squared a fresh piece of paper on the great desk and picked up his quill, and for a time the only sound in the room was the quiet scratching of the split tip on the paper.
“Washington, June 1, 1812
“To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:
“I communicate to Congress certain documents, being a continuation of those heretofore laid before them on the subject of our affairs with Great Britain.
“Without going back beyond the renewal of 1803 of the war in which Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude, the conduct of her Government presents a series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.
“British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating the American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it, not in the exercises of a belligerent right founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal prerogative over British subjects. . . .
“The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone that, under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American citizens under the safeguard of public law and of their national flag, have been torn from their country and from everything dear to them; have been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation . . . to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own brethren. . . .
“Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt to avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain exhausted remonstrances and expostulations . . . to enter into arrangements such as could not be rejected if the recovery of British subjects were the real and the sole object. The communication passed without effect. . . .
“British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights and the peace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and departing commerce. . . .
“Under pretended blockades . . . our commerce has been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been cut off from legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed at our agricultural and maritime interests. . . .
“To our remonstrances against the complicated and transcendent injustice of this innovation the first reply was that the orders were reluctantly adopted by Great Britain as a necessary retaliation on decrees of her enemy proclaiming a general blockade of the British Isles. . . ; that retaliation, to be just, should fall on the party setting the guilty example, not on an innocent party which was not even chargeable with an acquiescence in it. . . .
“When deprived of this flimsy veil for a prohibition of our trade with her enemy . . . her cabinet, instead of a corresponding repeal or a practical discontinuance of its orders, formally avowed a determination to persist in them against the United States until the markets of her enemy should be laid open to British products. . . .
“Abandoning still more all respect for the neutral rights of the United States and for its own consistency, the British Government now demands as prerequisites to a repeal of its orders as they relate to the United States . . . the repeal of the French decrees nowise necessary to their termination . . . not . . . a special repeal in relation to the United States, but should be extended to whatever other neutral nations unconnected with them may be affected by those decrees. . . .
“It has become, indeed, . . . certain that the commerce of the United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with the belligerent rights of Great Britain . . . but as interfering with the monopoly which she covets for her own commerce and navigation. . . .
“Anxious to make every experiment short of the last resort . . . the United States have withheld from Great Britain, under successive modifications, the benefits of a free . . . market, the loss of which could not but outweigh the profits accruing from her restrictions of our commerce with other nations. . . . To these appeals her Government has been equally inflexible. . . .
“If no other proof existed of a predetermination of the British Government against a repeal of its orders, it might be found in the correspondence of the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at London and the British secretary for foreign affairs in 1810, on the question whether the blockade of May 1806 was considered as in force or as not in force. It had been ascertained that the French Government, which urged this blockade as the ground of its Berlin decree, was willing in the event of its removal to repeal that decree, which . . . might abolish the whole system on both sides. . . . The British Government would, however, neither rescind the blockade nor declare its nonexistence. . . . the United States were compelled so to regard it in their subsequent proceedings. . . .
“There was a period when a favorable change in the policy of the British cabinet was justly considered as established. The minister plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majestic here proposed an adjustment. . . . The proposition was accepted with the promptitude and cordiality . . . of this Government. A foundation appeared to be laid for a sincere and lasting reconciliation. The prospect, however, quickly vanished. The whole proceeding was disavowed by the British Government without any explanation . . . and it has since come into proof that at the very moment when the public minister was holding the language of friendship . . . a secret agent of his Government was employed in intrigues having for their object a subversion of our Government and a dismemberment of our happy union. . . .
“In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain toward the United States our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the savages on one of our extensive frontiers—a warfare which is known to spare neither age nor sex and to be distinguished by features peculiarly shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and combinations . . . developing . . . with British traders and garrisons without recollecting the authenticated examples of such interpositions heretofore furnished by the officers and agents of that Government. . . .
“Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped on our country. . . .
“We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Great Britain. . . .
“Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force in defense of their natural rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events . . . is a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of that Government. In recommending it to their early deliberations I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and patriotic counsels of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation. . . .
“James Madison.”
The president put his quill down and flexed the fingers of his writing hand, stiff after four hours of continuous writing. He heaved a great sigh and stood to stretch and walk from the desk to the window, where he peered out at the green world of Washington in the early summer. Then he walked back to the desk and sat down. For half an hour he read his work slowly, meticulously, nodded his approval, and carefully inserted the several pages into a large white envelope. He slipped the whole of it into a leather pouch and snapped the two buckles before he placed it in the left bottom drawer of his desk.
I will let it rest overnight—final reading tomorrow morning—then send it to the House of Repres
entatives for congressional action.
The morning of June 2, 1812, broke clear and humid, and eight o’clock found the diminutive Madison hunched over his desk with the document spread before him. He inserted it back into its envelope, dropped melted wax in three places on the flap, and pressed the presidential seal into it as it hardened. With a sense of firm resolve he delivered it to his private courier.
“Deliver this to the acting chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in the House of Representatives immediately. John C. Calhoun. For his eyes only. Do you understand?”
The pudgy little courier bobbed his head emphatically, jowls jiggling. “I do, Mister President.”
Madison watched him disappear down the long hallway before he walked back to his desk with the familiar, unsettling feeling washing over him that his work, no matter the merit, was now in the hands of others who would accept it or change it or reject it, and there was nothing he could do about it.
John C. Calhoun read the document four times, then converted part of it to language he felt more persuasive than that of the gentleman James Madison. He finished his work and sat back in his chair to read it.