JEFFERSON n AGAINST MADISON’s WAR, j fe, • . -'V i ' I I dl, ,'f i i ' fcv. ; BEING AN EXHIBITION OF THE LATE PRESIDENT JEFFERSON S I y ■ OPINIONS OF THE IMPOLICY, AND FOLLY OF ALL WARS, ESPECIALLY FOR THE UNITED STATES, TOGETHER "WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE PRESENT V" < WAR, AND THE PROPRIETY OF CHOOS¬ ING ELECTORS WHO WILL VOTE FOR A PEACE PRESIDENT. I ■ : : ___ BY A TRUE REPUBLICAN TO THE OLD REPUBLICANS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND THE FORMER SUPPORTERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. MY BRETHREN, No man despises more heartily than I do, a turncoat, an unsteady, changing, unprincipled man. I respect men the more for their steady adherence to their party, and their political opinions, provided they have been formed after due deliberation, and are given up as soon as they are convinced that they are errone¬ ous.—But though this principle of a constant and reso¬ lute adherence to one’s political opinions be certainly honourable and generally safe, yet we ought to be es¬ pecially on our guard lest we confound this useful rule with an adherence to particular men , who may and often do deceive us. “ Measures and not men”—“a government of laws and not of men”—are two of the oldest, and though the most familiar, not the least im¬ portant of our republican maxims. Men may change, principles cannot. Power may make men forget right , as Mr. Jefferson used to say ; but right itself, and wrong, never vary. Of all the men whose principles have attached the re¬ publicans to them,Mr. Jefferson certainly stood the high¬ est, and Mr. Madison owes all his reputation with us, to the belief that the mantle of the former, like that of the prophet Elijah, had descended upon him. If, therefore, my fellow-republicans, I can shew you, that Mr. Madison has departed from all the old and excellent and prudent maxims which endeared Mr. Jefferson to the republican party ; that he has gone di¬ rectly counter to all the measures which Jefferson pur¬ sued, and the principles which he and you have ever maintained; why I trust, that you will with me prefer to stand by your ptinciplesj rather than the man who violates them, and you will see, if you cannot select p 4 some other other republican who will go back to the old republican ground from which Mr. Madison has strayed. I shall now proceed to shew a great number of prin¬ ciples, which were considered by Mr. Jefferson and us, as the very foundation, as the solid underpinning of re¬ publicanism, and from which the present policy of ad¬ ministration has swerved. I shall begin with the corner-stone of the whole edifice, the necessity of peace to this republic—the fatal effects of all t cars to the United States. I need not say to you , because it must be fresh in your minds, that it was President Adams’s departure from this sound and cor¬ rect principle, which lost him his office, and the confi¬ dence of the people, and it was Mr. Jefferson’s love of peace which first brought him into the chair. The truth is, wars are fatal to a young, growing, ag¬ ricultural, and commercial nation—thev are still more fatal to a republican one. I shall not, however, go in¬ to the argument in proof of it in this place, because I shall now give you the admirable opinions of Thomas Jefferson on that subject-arguments and opinions which you see he applies, not alone to the time in which he wrote , during President Adams’s administration, but to ail future as well as past times—Not to one country only, but to all countries-not to the French war into which John Adams with fury and rage was then plunging us, but to all future wars. The truth of his doctrines, like all truth, is immutable. It must be as correct now as it was then. And if Mr. Madison has been so misguided or misdirected as to forget this sa¬ cred truth, so dear to the hearts of republicans, I hope they will not be so inconstant to their principles, as to follow him wilfully into so fatal an error. If they do, they will lose their standing, and federalism will again triumph over prostrate republicanism. The opinions of Mr. Jefferson, of which I speak, will be found in the 4th volume of the Philosophical Trans¬ actions of the Society of which Mr. Jefferson is now President, in a letter from him to Sir John Sinclair, dated Philadelphia, March 23d 1798, and which i shall print at large for your edification, and conviction of the folly and impolicy of the present rear . Mr. Jefferson''s Letter to Sir John Sinclair. 44 I am fixed in awe at the mighty conflict to which “ two great nations are advancing, and recoil with hor* 44 ror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never 44 devise a more rational umpire of difference than “force? Are there no means of coercing injustice 44 more gratifying to our nature than the waste of the 44 blood of thousands, and the labour of millions of our 44 fellow men ? We see numerous societies of men, 44 (the aborigines of this country) (our red brethren) 44 living together without laws or magistracy. Yet 44 they live in peace among themselves, and acts of vi¬ olence and injury are as rare as in nations which 44 keep the sword of law in perpetual activity. 44 Public reproach and refusal of common offices, 44 interdiction of commerce and comforts of society, 44 are found as effectual as the coarser means of force.—- 44 Nations, like individuals, stand towards each other “ only in the relations of natural right. Might they 44 not like them be peaceably punished for violence and 44 wrong ? Wonderful has been the progress of hu- • 4 man improvement in other times. Let us hope then “ that the law of nature which makes virtuous conduct 44 produce benefit; vice, loss to the agent in the long 44 run; which has sanctioned the common maxim, “ that honesty is the best policy, will in time influence 44 the proceedings of nations, as well as of individuals ; 44 that w r e shall at length be sensible, that war is an in - 44 strument entirely inefficient towards redressing 44 wrongs^ and that it multiplies instead of indemnifying 44 losses . Had the money spent in the present war 44 (between Great Britain and France) been employed 44 in making roads and cutting canals, not a hovel in 44 the remotest corner of the highlands of Scotland, 44 or mountains of Auvergne would have been with- 44 out a boat at its door, or a rill of water in its field, 6 “ and a road to the market town. Had the money we c< (Americans) have lost by the depredations of all na- 44 tions been employed in the same way, what commu- 46 ideations would have been opened to us of roads and 44 waters. 44 Yet, xvere zve to go to war for redress, instead of 44 redress, we should plunge deeper into loss , anddisa- 44 bie ourselves for half a century more from attaining 44 the same e?id. 44 A war would cost ns more than 44 would cut through the Isthmus of Darien. These 44 truths are palpable , and must in the progress of time 44 influence the minds of men, and the conduct of na- 44 tions.” Signed, THOS. JEFFERSON. End of Jefferson’s letter. Yes! these truths are palpable, and they ought to influence our conduct now. This great man did not confine his ideas to Adams’s war in 1798, but he look¬ ed forward and hoped the day would arrive, when they would have their operation in our country. He did not speak for that case, for he knew Mr. Adams’s war spirit could not be restrained, but he gave his ad¬ vice to republicans whenever they should come into power. We are nowin power; we are likely so to continue shall we not apply Mr. Jefferson’s sound and excellent advice ? Shall we prefer a man, who, like Mr. Madison, chooses war with its 44 half a centu¬ ry of evils,” a war which will multiply, instead of di¬ minishing our losses, 44 to another republican, who is opposed to war, and who believes with Mr. Jefferson that war is 44 an instrument entirely inefficient towards redressing wrongs”? The second fundamental doctrine of republicans, was, that the militia are the natural bulwark of a free country, and that standing armies are an expensive, anti-republican, dangerous engine. When President Adams raised an army of only ten thousand men, he dis¬ gusted and disaffected all the republican party. We then thought them a tax upon the industrious part of the community—a refuge and reward for those who were too idle to work, and too proud to labour. M. Madison, as if he despised that voice, that warn¬ ing' voice, which made itself so audibly heard in the sudden disgrace and downfall of Mr. Adams, has not only agreed to fill up the old standing army amounting to ten thousand men, but has agreed to add a new permanent standing force of twenty-five thousand more. Thus this free repubiick, so remote from the collisions and contests of the old world, finds itself saddled with a greater military force than Great Britain maintained in the reign of Queen Anne, only one century ago. This measure is in direct opposition to the principles upon which Mr. Madison was original¬ ly supported, and to the laudable practice of Mr. Jef¬ ferson, who, during his eight years presidency, actu¬ ally reduced, instead of increasing the standing troops. I shall quit this branch of the subject by simply stat¬ ing the annual expence of the force now ordered to be raised. If we could maintain our troops as cheap as they do in France, the annual expence would be- about 7 millions of dollars, and that of the volunteers, whom the President is ordered to accept, would be 10 millions more. But as the pay, provisions, and other munitions of w~ar are nearly double in this coun¬ try what they are in France, Mr. Gallatin, our Secre¬ tary of the Treasury, has very moderately calculated the annual expenses of the war at thirty millions of dol¬ lars. The proportion which will fall upon the State of Massachusetts, according to the federal constitution, will be three millions of dollars. In order that my re¬ publican brethren may judge of the enormous weight of this debt I will only add, that our annual State tax amounts to 150,000 dollars. Thus one year’s war taxes upon this State must amount to just twenty years taxes, assessed 1 y our own immediate government. Now we may with great propriety in this place no¬ tice the force and justice of Mr. Jefferson’s remark, that “ if we go to war to redress our wrongs by the depredations of belligerents we shall plunge deeper in to loss.” « 8 Apply his prudent and excellent principle to the pres¬ ent case. The avowed cause of war for the redress of which we were plunged into our present calamities, was the interdiction of our trade to France, by Great Brit¬ ain ; we shall pass over to another place the considera¬ tion that Great Britain has since removed this restric¬ tion, and that our trade to France would be now free ; we shall simply compare in this place, the amount of the evils we sustained by the British orders, with the expence and injury of the mode of redress. The whole exports of Massachusetts to all the coun¬ tries from which the British orders excluded us, never amounted to three millions of dollars, and the greater part of what we did export thither were of articles which were the growth of the West Indies. France never took any of the productions of Massachusetts except a small portion of our fish. By the war, we lose not only all our lumber, beef and pork trade, and all our commerce in potashes, but also the employment of more than one thousand ships which were engaged in the trade with Great Britain and her colonies. So that the annual expence of the war to this State alone, not only exceeds all its exports to France, for the benefit of which the war is undertaken, but we lose all the trade to Great Britain, all the freights made by our ships in that trade, and all the profit earned by the thou¬ sands of men who were before employed in fitting out those ships, in navigating them, and in raising and fur¬ nishing their cargoes. It would not be too much to say, that our losses every year are more than four times the value of the object for which the contest was undertaken. But this is not all—nay, it is not one hundredth part of our losses. What does Mr. Jefferson mean, in his letter to Sir John Sinclair, when he says, that “ by a war we should disable ourselves half a century from attaining the same end’’ ? I will tell you what he means. The direct loss in exports, freights, labour and prof¬ its, is but a trifle compared to the other losses occa* 9 sioned by war. The very intelligent and comprehen¬ sive mind of Mr. Jefferson took in distant consequences, as well as immediate effects. He included in this half a century of injuries , the ac¬ tual and dreadful loss of capital by captures—the diver¬ sion of the accustomed trade of other countries, which we had been habituated to supply, into other channels, and which we may never again regain—the loss in that part of our capital invested in stores and wharves, and in dwelling-houses for our merchants, who will be obliged to quit our towns—the change of the habits of our young men, who will be forced from employments profitable to the state, to the useless, expensive, danger¬ ous and unprofitable occupation of arms—the suspen¬ sion of the labour and accustomed occupations of one half million of men, employed in collecting lumber, tak¬ ing and curing fish, making potashes, raising, killing and preparing beef and pork, and the thousand arts connected with ship building and navigation. Hence it was, that our republican father, Washington, and our republican friend, Jefferson, thought that wars in our infant and feeble state would be so permanently inj urious \ ■ to this young, but enterprising and growing country. The third maxim of republicans, which induced us to change Mr. Adams’s administration for Mr. Jefferson’s, was, that in a young and free country, the taxes should be as light as possible, and all those expensive and odi¬ ous modes of taxation should be avoided, which have a tendency to multiply the number of officers, and to har- rass and vex the people in their ordinary concerns. The stamp act laid by Great-Britain convulsed our country to its centre. The excises raised a rebellion among the republicans of Pennsylvania, and the land tax was deservedly odious throughout the United States. Accordingly Mr. Jefferson, in compliance with the wishes of the republicans, recommended the repeal of all these odious taxes, and they were repealed. But 'this dreadful and unnecessary war has driven Mr. Madison to such straits, that he has been compel- 10 led to resort to every one of the offensive taxes of the Federalists. Congress have adopted the plan, and the execution of it is suspended only to the next ses¬ sion* The next Spring will bring us an army of land tax assessors and collectors, of excise officers, of stamp duty agents. Not a cottage will be free from visitation ! not a comfort or necessary of life from imposition !-— While foreign goods are immensely enhanced in price by the war and double duties,even some of the few domestic manufactures, which contribute to our com¬ fort, are to be saddled with heavy burdens. If a man had risen from the dead in the beginning of Mr. Jefferson’s administration, and had assured us, while that patriot was providing the means of protecting us from those exactions which “took from the mouth of labour its reward,” that in twelve short years that pittance would be wrested from the poor by a repub¬ lican successor, we should have called the prophet a madman. Yet such things have Mr. Madison’s friends in Congress actually proposed and passed by resolu¬ tions. The fourth maxim of republicans, and one to which they were exceedingly attached, was, the necessity of rotation, frequent rotation in office. This excellent principle was founded upon these considerations : that men long continued in power are apt to forget the feel¬ ings and interests of their constituents—that the re¬ ceipt of large salaries and the permanent exercise of vast powers have a tendency to harden the mind of the ruler, and to make him forget the sufferings, and real condition of the people. How indeed cgn a President, surrounded with luxuries, enjoying a salary of twenty- five thousand dollars a year, realize the sufferings of the poor sailor, deprived of his bread ; of the laborious lumber cutter or lumber merchant, thrown out of em¬ ploy ; of the industrious manufacturers of salt, reduc¬ ed to beggary, by the refusal of government to protect them ; of the enterprizing whaleman and fisherman, starving for want of employment? To a President like Mr. Madison, who never makes the circuit amidst the scenes of distress which the war occasions ; who knows 11 no other effects of it but his increased patronage from the number of officers created by the vast standing army, and by the losses occasioned in that army by death and capture ; to such a President, who is sure to receive his twenty-five thousand dollars, if there is as much left in the treasury, or if so much can be bor- rowed or forced from the poor citizen by taxes, a war is a mighty pretty sort of thing. It increases his pow¬ er. It is a sort of game, at which he can play with as much coolness as he would at a game cffchecquers or chess. But he knows nothing of the sufferings of the citizens. Their complaints hardly ever reach his palace, and if they are wafted thither from a distance, they are' overpowered by the adulations and clamours of those who surround him, seeking for offices and salaries and epaulets, for all which the suffering people are to pay. It was on this account that the republicans always thought, that it was important, that the President should, at stated times, return to private life, and be succeed¬ ed by a new man, who, going from the midst of the people , should carry with him a knowledge of and a feeling for their sufferings. The provision of the con¬ stitution is a dead-letter, if a man can be continued for life. But there is another species of rotation not provid¬ ed for by the constitution, but which is of infinite im¬ portance. I mean a rotation of political power between the several States. The United States are composed of many distinct sovereignties, which although in some points they have a common interest, yet a man must be blind who does not perceive, that they have also dis¬ tinct and separate interests. Virginia raises tobacco and flour ; she owns but little shipping comparatively. A state of things may exist which may be ruinous to New-York and Massachusetts, and yet highly benefi¬ cial to Virginia. Such a state of things now exists. Virginia is growing rich by the war. Her flour is all exported at immense and unheard of prices. But the Northern States can export little or nothing ; and what with the failure of their crops, and the enhanced price 12 of Virginia flour, and foreign produce, they are crush¬ ed under the effects of the war. Far be it from me ; far be it from any honest re¬ publican to cultivate a jealousy between the several states. Our political opponents have carried this point to improper lengths, and I fear that some of them have even gone so far as almost to wish a separation. I ab¬ hor this idea. But while we would discountenance undue jealousies between the several States, we ought not to be so mean, so abject, so lost to our own inter¬ ests, as not to wish to have the voice of the Northern States heard once in a century . I say once in a cen¬ tury, at Washington. This is but a moderate wish. Now let us see how stands the fact ? Out of the twenty-four years that the federal constitution has ex¬ isted, Virginia has had a President twenty years! ! It is impossible for the best man not to have some prejudice in favour of his own State ; even if he had no prejudices, he knows the interest of his own State best, and he must be comparatively ignorant of the state of other parts of the country. For example, Madison knew the war would not injure Virginia, be¬ cause Britain wanted her flour, and she would easily get it, because the Virginians, with all their pretended patriotism, would sell it to her. But Mr. Madison did not know the number of the persons dependent on the whale-fishery; he did not know the extent of the salt-works at Cape-Cod; he did not know how many men would starve if the lum¬ ber trade and ship-building of Maine should be annihi¬ lated ; or if he did know these facts he went rashlv in- to the war. Hence the war appeared to him a light matter, while it was death to us. It is then proper and expedient that once in twenty or thirty years we should have a President who has a fellow feeling for us. Such a man is Mr. Clinton ; a firm republican, but who being a citizen of a northern and commercial state, and a Mayor of a great trading city, knows well the interests, must carry into office 13 with him a sympathy, and must feel a disposition to relieve the distresses of the Commercial States. Is this doctrine unfair ? Does this look like jealousy ? Does this tend to disunion ? What do we humbly ask for ? Why, that once in twenty years, the great State of New-York, whose interests are the same with New- Engiand, a state possessing one million of souls (and together with New-England, holding more than two millions) should have the privilege of a ruler who knows and feels for its interest. i These are true republican doctrines. They are the means of preserving, not of destroying the union; the way to destroy the union is to suffer these jealous¬ ies to grow until they become too formidable for re¬ sistance, which may be the case if Virginian interests 7 and politicks are suffered forever to prevail. Having stated the several republican principles which ? have been of late strangely perverted or overlooked, I shall now proceed to make some remarks on the pre- _ sent war, for which, having been suddenly and unex¬ pectedly recommended by Mr. Madison, he must be considered as responsible ; and if, from a view of the whole matter, my republican friends shall agree with me, that it was prematurely commenced, and is un¬ skilfully and improperly prosecuted, they will have no hesitation in preferring another republican , who will either put an end to it, or who will prosecute it with more ability and honour. I do not mean to say that we had not ample cause of war against Great Britain. God forbid, that I should extenuate my country’s wrongs. But I do say, First, that I agree with Mr. Jefferson, that war is a very inefficient mode of redressing our wrongs. 2 ndly, That these wrongs could have been much better redressed by negotiation. 3dly, That the war was commenced without due preparation. 14 4thly, That it has been unsuccessfully, and I think very unskilfully managed. Lastly, That the great and principal cause of it has • been since removed, and yet Mr. Madison does not make peace. I shall say but a few words on each, because a few words are sufficient on points so clear. I have stated no points which I cannot prove. 1st, Then I say war is an 44 inefficient mode of re¬ dressing our wrongs.” This I borrow from Mr. Jef¬ ferson. I support it thus: The honour of nations is not exactly like that of individuals; an individual, may, though not always with prudence, attempt to revenge his wrongs when success is very uncertain. It would, however, in anjindividual be esteemed ridiculous, if he should go to China to chastise a Mandarin who had insulted his son, or in fact attempt any other impracti¬ cable thing. But the wisest and the proudest nations often overlook, or forego, or suspend their revenge, un¬ til they can see a reasonable prospect of success. Especially in case of mere pecuniary injuries, such as were inflicted by the British orders in council, which were not designed, nor were they in effect, any stain upon our honour , but a mere pecuniary loss . Nations ought, and the greatest and most powerful na¬ tions do, frequently count the cost before they go to war. Now I have already shewn, that the cost of this war for one year only will exceed all the injury we ever sustained by the orders in council. Again, war is an 44 inefficient mode of obtaining redress,” because we have no navy which can cope with Great Britain. She is only assailable by us in Canada, and through her trade. As to the latter she can destroy ours completely ; we can only injure and impair hers ; we cannot destroy it. Now in all com¬ bats, the question is not whether both can do each oth¬ er some injury, but it is, as Mr. Jefferson said, which can 44 do the other the most harm If a weak man is contending with a strong one, it is very little satisfaction to him that he can give his ad- 15 versary a blow on the eye, if, at the return blow, his adversary can knock his brains out. So as to Canada, suppose we get it at the expence of ten thousand men ; and we have already lost three thousand five hundred without gaining an inch of ground, and with the further loss of twenty millions of dollars; how stands the account ? Why Britain has lost what she did not want, we shall have gained what we cannot keep , and what we do not desire, and what Britain would have sold us for half the money. Now at the end of the campaign, or of the several campaigns, when we shall have waded through our own blood, and over our own bags of gold to Canada, which will be most weakened, we or Great Britain ? Will this conquer the freedom of the seas ? Will > this compel her to yield her maritime superiority ? As » well might you expect a brave man to yield to his ad¬ versary, because he had knocked off his hat. But secondly, Our wrongs could have been better v adjusted by negotiation. I have but two words to say on this point. I have shown under the last head, that they could not have been zvorse adjusted than by war . I have^ only to add two things. First, that they must finally be settled by negotiation. All wars, how¬ ever violent, end in that; of course negotiation without suffering would have been better than negotiation after such immense losses, unless we expect to be success¬ ful in humbling Great Britain, which I have shown we shall probably not be. 2ndly, That even without negotiation Great Britain has yielded the great point, and no doubt negotiation would soon have settled the rest. 3diy, We say that the war was commenced with¬ out due preparation. This is chargeable to Mr. Madison, and to him only ; Congress are not respon¬ sible for that ; it was a pure executive duty. Need 1 prove this assertion, that we were unprepared ? Where* were the 35000 men who were to carry Canada at a stroke ? Not 5000 of them yet raised. Where were the 50,000 volunteers ? Not 7000 vet in service. ' * 16 Why was Governor Strong ordered to turn out the militia ? Because, said Mr. Madison, we have no men for the forts. Why was Hull sent in with an army which in thirty days after the war, the British commander was able to take ? W T hy has General Dearborn suffered the whole cam¬ paign to pass inactive, and to permit Great Britain to send troops from England, the West Indies, and Hali¬ fax, so that four times the force is now necessary to take Canada, as at the declaration of war ? Why were 3 of our frigates totally unfit for service ? These and a thousand, nay ten thousand other proofs may be adduced of the total want of preparation. If suspicion could be harboured in the generous hearts of republicans, we should almost be disposed to say, that all this looks like connivance with the ene¬ my, and that every other thing was intended, rather than a serious attack upon her. Certainly if she had direct¬ ed, or influenced our councils, she could not have made them more favourable to herself. 4thly, The war has been unsuccessfully, and un¬ skilfully managed. The publick shame and disgrace of our arms I will not, I should blush to repeat. The whole revolution¬ ary war of eight years cannot shew such a succession of disasters. The loss of one army of 2500 men, and the sacrifice of 1600 more under Col. Rensalear, speak a language too distressing, too humiliating not to be heard and la¬ mented. But is Mr. Madison accountable for these disasters ? Surely he is. Was Hull incapable ? Was he cowardly ? Was he treacherous ? Why Madison was responsible for appointing him. But if, as is most probable, the force under Hull was incompetent, and was ill suppli¬ ed, Madison, and he alone, is answerable. I was struck with the remark of an old revolutionary general, the highest in rank now alive of the officers of the last war—upon being asked whether he thought Mr. Madison the proper man to be supported at this criti¬ cal time, he replied— 17 “ If your wife and your child were dangerously sick, and your family physician appeared to be unable or in¬ competent to cure them, would you call in another physician, or would you let them die ?” This gentleman is a staunch republican, and at the head of one of the electoral tickets. Every man can see the application, and every prudent man will apply the remedy. Lastly, the great and principal cause of the war has been removed. Since the war was declared, the orders in Council have been rescinded, so that our trade, if peace was made, would now be free to every part of the globe. We shopld again have the profits of an unrivalled neutrality J—our wilderness would blossom as the rose ;—the hum of industry would be heard in our streets, and the din of arms, the horrors of carnage, and the distress of war would cease. But Mr* Madison has refused even an armistice —- Unprepared as we are for hostile attack, he is unwilling even to suspend the horrors of a disgraceful war. How we are to interpret this conduct, so nconsistent with our best interests, so much at variance with the excellent and humane principles of Mr. Jefferson, I am unable to determine. Having shewn the evils of war generally, its total in¬ efficiency to attain its objects (which are a redress of our wrongs) I shall conclude by stating its peculiar ef¬ fects on Massachusetts; on the District of Maine ; and on the old colony. In a great and extended country, it is impossible that the interests should be the same throughout the whole.