30 “domestic enemies”: JCC, 2: 153 (July 6, 1775).
30 Grotius had done nothing: Martine Julia van Ittersum, Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies (Boston: Brill, 2006).
30 slavery had been justified: Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Law, trans. Anne M. Cohler, Basia Carolyn Miller, & Harold Samuel Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 247.
30 “right of making slaves”: William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1768; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 1: 411.
31 from execution to enslavement: David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966), 425.
31 “He has waged cruel war” . . . “execrable commerce”: PTJ, 1: 426.
31 These lines were soon cut: Pauline Maier, American Scripture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997), 146.
31 “to give them freedom”: PTJ, 13: 363–64 (emphasis mine).
32 “The known rule of warfare”: TJ to William Phillips, July 22, 1779, ibid., 3: 46.
32 “to force them to respect”: Vattel, Law of Nations, bk 2, §141, 348.
32 “coolly and deliberately”: Ibid., bk 2, §151, 355.
32 “themselves the scourges and horror”: Ibid., bk 1, §56, 156–57.
32 The “end proposed”: TJ to George Rogers Clark, January 1, 1779 [1780 new style], PTJ, 3: 259.
33 a cultured aristocrat: John D. Barnhart, Henry Hamilton and George Rogers Clark in the American Revolution with the Unpublished Journal of Lieut. Gov. Henry Hamilton (Crawfordsville, IN: R. E. Banta, 1951), 11.
33 “well shaped”: Ibid., 12.
33 Portrait sketches: Henry Hamilton Drawings of North American Scenes and Native Americans (MS Eng 509.2), Houghton Library, Harvard University. Amazingly, one can now pull up the sketches online from the Houghton Library at Harvard. See http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou00125.
33 from as early as 1774: Barnhart, Henry Hamilton and George Rogers Clark, 24.
33 “take up the hatchet”: Ibid., 25–29.
33 an “uncommon humanity”: Ibid., 30.
33 “an alarm upon the frontiers”: Ibid., 29.
33 “The Hair-Buyer”: Bernard W. Sheehan, “The Famous Hair Buyer General: Henry Hamilton, George Rogers Clark, and the American Indian,” Indiana Magazine of History 79 (1983): 1–28.
34 “expected shortly to see”: Barnhart, Henry Hamilton and George Rogers Clark, 189.
34 “made a vow”: Milo M. Quaife, The Capture of Old Vincennes (New York: Columbia University Press, 1927), 200.
34 a daring and brilliantly executed: James Alton James, The Life of George Rogers Clark (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928), 137–38.
34 “I told him”: James Alton James, ed., “George Rogers Clark Papers, 1771–1781,” Illinois Historical Library Collections 8 (1912): 144.
34 “to perpetrate” . . . “rewards for scalps”: PTJ, 2: 293–94.
34–35 “conduct of British officers” . . . “publick jail”: Ibid.
35 “fit subjects to begin”: Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, 180.
35 badly exaggerated: See, e.g., the view of the editors of The Papers of George Washington, PGW, Rev. War Series, 4: 390 n. 4, whose view is shared by virtually every historian since Barnhart published Hamilton’s journals in 1952.
35 killed a dozen Cherokee: TJ to GW, June 19, 1779, PTJ, 3: 6.
35 “ravages and enormities” . . . next breath: TJ to John Jay, June 19, 1779, ibid., 3: 5.
35 “ripping up her Belly”: Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 388.
36 “A young chief”: Ibid., 377.
36 encouraged the use of Indian warriors: Colin G. Calloway, The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 46.
36 “strike no small terror”: James H. O’Donnell III, Southern Indians in the American Revolution (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973), 71.
36 “to any overture of peace” . . . “inspire them”: GW to Maj. Gen. John Sullivan, May 31, 1779, PGW, Rev. War Series, 20: 718.
36 scalp-buying: James Axtell & William C. Sturtevant, “The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping,” William & Mary Quarterly (3d series) 37, no. 3 (1980): 451, 470.
36 Pennsylvania . . . South Carolina . . . Indian graves: Calloway, American Revolution in Indian Country, 49.
36 “lend my hand to”: Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), 40.
36 “hallowed ark”: Robert W. Tucker & David C. Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 7.
36 “Interested men”: William Phillips to TJ, July 5, 1779, PTJ, 3: 25.
37 British prison guards retaliated: TJ to GW, October 2, 1779, ibid., 3: 99.
37 “to pervert this”: TJ to George Matthews, October 8, 1779, ibid., 3: 102; see also 3: 44–46, 86–87, 245–46.
37 “hard necessity”: TJ to GW, October 8, 1779, ibid., 3: 104.
37 “On more mature consideration”: GW to TJ, August 6, 1779, ibid., 3: 61.
37 “competition in cruelty”: GW to TJ, November 23, 1779, ibid., 3: 198.
37 removed Hamilton’s iron fetters: TJ to GW, October 1, 1779, ibid., 3: 96; TJ to William Phillips, October 2, 1779, 3: 97–98.
37 upstairs room . . . near Richmond: Qaife, Capture of Old Vincennes, 214–15.
37 paroled to British lines: PTJ, 3: 24, 46–47.
37 was exchanged . . . passage back: Qaife, Capture of Old Vincennes, 219.
37 “The bleeding Continent”: Cyrus Griffin to TJ, July 13, 1779, PTJ, 3: 34.
38 “with as much relentless Fury”: John S. Pancake, This Destructive War: The British Campaign in the Carolinas, 1780–1782 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985), 73.
38 rumored to deny quarter: Russell F. Weigley, The Partisan War: The South Carolina Campaign of 1780–1782 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970), 7.
38 Benedict Arnold: Pancake, This Destructive War, 146–48.
38 just missed capturing Jefferson: John Richard Alden, The South in the Revolution, 1763–1789 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1957), 294.
38 smallpox-infected slaves: Schama, Rough Crossings, 117.
38 Isaac Hayne: Bowman, Captive Americans, 101–03.
38 “upwards of one thousand houses”: O’Donnell, Southern Indians, 107.
38 executed and scalped: John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 161.
38 mission town of Gnadenhutten: Peter Silver, Our Savage Neighbors: How Indian War Transformed Early America (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008), 265–74; Grenier, First Way of War, 161 & 161 n. 50.
38 “uncommon degree of restraint”: Charles Royster, Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), 19.
39 to give no quarter . . . burning the soles: Ibid., 36–37.
39 “extraordinary acts of brutality”: Don Higginbotham, The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789 (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 362.
39 “hunted them down”: Ibid., 362.
39 “the milk of human kindness”: Metzger, Prisoner in the American Revolution, 185; see also pp. 161–62, 184.
39 Simsbury copper mines: Ibid., 185.
39 widespread retaliation: JCC, 21: 1017–18.
40 “barbarity with which” . . . “humanity could suffer”: Irving Brant, James Madison the Nationalist, 1780–1787 (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1948), 159.
40 “defenceless towns”: JCC, 21: 977.
40 “strictly charge” . . . “to ashes”: Ibid., 21: 977–78.
40 �
��to that God who searches” . . . “consigned to the flames”: Ibid., 21: 1017–18.
40–41 “objects of our vengeance” . . . “put to instant death”: Ibid., 21: 1029–30.
41 “the cause of heaven against hell”: Nathan O. Hatch, The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), 61.
41 “the hand of God”: Benjamin Trumbull, Sermon, December 14, 1775, Benjamin Trumbull Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.
41 “If this war be just”: Reginald Stuart, War and American Thought: From the Revolution to the Monroe Doctrine (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1982), 23.
41 “obedience to God” . . . “a cause of greater worth”: Merrill D. Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 98 (quoting Franklin and Jefferson’s 1782 motto for the republic and Thomas Paine, respectively).
42 revolutionary millennialism broke out: Ruth Bloch, Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756–1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 60.
42 The violence of 1745: Bruce Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689–1746 (London: Eyre Methuen, 1980), 231–59.
42 most midlevel British officers: Stephen Conway, “British Army Officers and the Conduct of the Revolutionary War,” William & Mary Quarterly (3rd series) 43 (1986): 400–07.
43 “Oh God!”: Higginbotham, War of American Independence, 383.
43 “according to the custom and usage of war”: 22 Geo 3, c. 10, p. 155 (March 25, 1782).
43 “there hardly ever existed”: Gerald Stourzh, Benjamin Franklin and American Foreign Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 186.
43–44 “very badly constructed” . . . “ashamed of a virtuous Action”: BF to Joseph Priestley, June 7, 1782, PBF, 37: 444.
44 passed the book around: Francis Wharton, ed., The Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1889), 2: 64.
44 “for the interest of humanity”: Franklin’s Thoughts on Privateering and the Sugar Islands: Two Essays, PBF, 37: 618.
44 “Motives of general humanity”: BF to David Hartley, May 4, 1779, PBF, 29: 425.
44 “since the foolish part of mankind”: Stourzh, Benjamin Franklin and American Foreign Policy, 186.
44 the “plan of treaties”: Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution (New York: American Historical Association, 1935), 45.
44 “the Ben Franklin program”: Best, Humanity in Warfare, 98.
44 model treaty: JCC, 5: 768–79.
45 Peace of Utrecht: Bemis, Diplomacy of the American Revolution, 46.
45 adopted almost word for word: Ibid., 61.
45 “common benefit of mankind”: BF to Robert Morris, June 3, 1780, PBF, 32: 466–67.
45 “farmers, fishermen & merchants”: BF to D. Wendorp & Thomas Hope Heylinger, June 8, 1781, ibid., 35: 134–35.
45 “It is hardly necessary”: BF to Benjamin Vaughan, July 10, 1782, ibid., 37: 608, 610.
46 “a few rich ships” . . . “even the undertakers”: Franklin’s Thoughts on Privateering and the Sugar Islands, ibid., 37: 619.
46 most respected Enlightenment sovereign . . . “age of Frederick”: Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap University Press, 2006), 252–53.
46 a connection with Frederick: Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation, 306.
46 “all women and children”: Malloy, 2: 1477, 1484.
46 apparently inspired by Jefferson: PTJ, 7: 476–78; see Burrus M. Carnahan, “Reason, Retaliation, and Rhetoric: Jefferson and the Quest for Humanity in War,” Military Law Review 139 (1993): 83, 123–26.
46 “a good Lesson to Mankind”: PTJ, 7: 465.
47 The Netherlands and Sweden: Malloy, 2: 1233, 1725.
47 Morocco: Ibid., 1: 1206.
47 Great Britain: Ibid., 1: 590, 605 (privilege of merchants).
47 Spain: Ibid., 2: 1640.
47 Prussia: Ibid., 2: 1486.
47 France: Ibid., 1: 496.
47 Algiers: Ibid., 1: 6.
47 Central and South America: Ibid., 1: 1117 (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with Mexico 1848, art. 22). For treaties influenced by the Franklin program in Central and South America, see ibid., 1: 164–68 (Central America 1825); 1: 174–78 (Chile 1832); 1: 1379–83 (Peru–Bolivia 1836); 2: 1836–39 (Venezuela 1836); 1: 425–29 (Ecuador 1839); 1: 865–68 (Guatemala 1849); 2: 1541–45 (Salvador 1850); 1: 345 (Costa Rica 1851); 2: 1395–98 (Peru 1851); 1: 18 (Argentina 1853); 2: 1402 (Peru 1856); 1: 119–22 (Bolivia 1858); 2: 1368 (Paraguay 1859); 2: 1849–53 (Venezuela 1860); 1: 956 (Honduras 1864); 1: 925–29 (Haiti 1864); 1: 408–11 (Dominican Republic 1867); 2: 1283–84 (Nicaragua 1867).
47 Russia and Italy: Ibid., 2: 1519; 1: 969.
47 China: Ibid., 1: 196.
48 “happy in the confirmation of”: Resignation Address, December 23, 1783, George Washington’s Papers at the Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mgw3&fileName=mgw3a/gwpage007.db&recNum=161.
Chapter 2. The Rules of Civilized Warfare
49 “Our object was the restoration”: Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1969), 3: 257.
49 “It is among the evils of slavery”: Ibid., 1: 232.
49 On the night of August 24, 1814: J. C. A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 414–24; James Pack, The Man Who Burned the White House: Admiral Sir George Cockburn, 1772–1853 (Emsworth, PA: Mason, 1987), 191–92.
49 a battle-tested veteran: Captain James Scott, R.N., Recollections of a Naval Life (London: Richard Bentley, 1834), 3: 298–99.
49 Corps of Colonial Marines: Christopher T. George, “Mirage of Freedom: African Americans in the War of 1812,” Maryland Historical Magazine 91, no. 4 (1996): 427, 434–39.
50 only after General Ross received no response: Pack, The Man Who Burned the White House, 191–92.
50 shot the horse out: Scott, Recollections of a Naval Life, 3: 298.
50 burned entire towns along the Canadian border: Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels & Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 215–17, 244–52; Jon Latimer, 1812: War with America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 223–24.
50 “when necessity or the maxims of war”: Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations, trans. Joseph Chitty (Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., 1867), bk. 3, §168, p. 368.
50 Napoleon had destroyed the Kremlin: See Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., The Writings of John Quincy Adams (New York: Macmillan, 1915), 5: 153–54.
50 “wantonly destroyed”: James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents 1789–1897 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896), 1: 545.
51 “most widely read geographical book”: Ralph H. Brown, “The American Geographies of Jedediah Morse,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 31, no. 3 (1941), 145, 148.
51–52 “remarkable events” . . . “strict neutrality”: Jedediah Morse, The American Universal Geography, or, a View of the Present State of All the Empires, Kingdoms, States, and Republics in the Known World, and of the United States of America in Particular (Boston: Young & Etheridge, 1793), 2: 533, 548.
52 “will regard his own country as a wife”: PAH, 14: 267.
52 neutrality as morally suspicious: Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Stephen C. Neff, War and the Law of Nations: A General History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Nicolas Politis, Neutrality and Peace, trans. Francis Crane Macken (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, 1935), 13–15; G. I. A. D. Draper, “Grotius’s Place in the Development of Legal Ideas about War,” in Hedley Bull et al., eds., Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 177, 196.
52 “the sorrowful state of souls unsure”: The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation, trans. Robert Pinsky (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), 24–27, canto III, lines 30–53.
53 “not to be countenanced”: Vattel, Law of Nations, bk 3, §106, pp. 332–33.
53 “The enemy of my friend”: Cornelius van Bynkershoek, On Questions of Public Law, trans. Tenney Frank (1737; repr., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), 2: 60.
53 corrupt “jurisprudists”: Harry Ammon, The Genet Mission (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1973), 76.
53 Washington asked Chief Justice John Jay: Stewart Jay, Most Humble Servants: The Advisory Role of Early Judges (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 113–48.
53 issued through Jefferson a series of statements: PTJ, 27: 328–73.
54 Congress cemented: An Act in Addition to the Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States, Stat., 1: 381–84. Even before the enactment of the neutrality legislation, the district attorney in Philadelphia indicted U.S. citizen Gideon Henfield for participating in a French privateering expedition aboard the Citoyen Genet in the summer of 1793. Associate Justice James Wilson charged the jury that Henfield’s acts were a violation of “the law of nations” because he “committed an act of hostility against the subjects of a power with whom the United States are at peace.” The jury acquitted Henfield, Wilson’s charge notwithstanding.
54 “the horrors of war in perfection”: Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation (New York: Henry Holt, 1996), 49.
54 “Its destruction”: Ibid., 51.
54 “strangely woven”: Albert J. Beveridge, The Life of John Marshall (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), 4: 1.
54 never mustered out: Smith, John Marshall, 69.
54 a crucial diplomatic mission: William Stinchcombe, The XYZ Affair (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980); Benjamin Munn Ziegler, The International Law of John Marshall: A Study of First Principles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939), 246–47.
Lincoln's Code Page 55