CHAPTER were perfectly well known, were conducted in the same XXV. spirit. The Democratic attorney general, who had 1812. openly expressed his regret that every person concerned in the defense of the house had not been killed, refused to exercise his right of changing the venue; and a Baltimore jury, without any hesitation, acquitted the prisoners. The only wonder was that Hanson, who was also put on trial for defending his own house, had not been found guilty of murder. The view of this case taken by the Baltimore common council was sustained, silently if not openly, by the great body of the Democratic newspapers and of the advocates of war throughout the Union. They doubtless hoped that this atrocious piece of outrage and murder might serve to frighten the Federalists (whom they were much disposed to regard and to treat like the Tories of the Revolution) into the abandonment of their political rights. The example thus set was presently imitated by military mobs of volunteers at Norfolk and Buffalo; but the reign of terror and the suppression of the liberty of the press could not be enforced beyond the limits of Baltimore. In spite of threats from the Washington navy yard, the Federal Republican continued to be published at Georgetown. Numerous public meetings, as well within as without the state, expressed their indignation at the atrocities of the Baltimore mob, which have left a black stigma on that city, not yet, if ever, to be effaced; and that outrage no doubt contributed not a little to the Oct. 5. political revolution which, within three months, gave the Federalists a very large majority in the Maryland Assembly; large enough, notwithstanding a Senate unanimously Democratic, chosen the previous year, to secure them a majority on joint ballot, and the choice of a Federal governor, council, and United States Senator. MADISON RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAR. 333 XXV. The governor was Levin Winder. Hanson himself was CHAPTER chosen at the same time a member of Congress. The Baltimore rioters, and their instigators and back- 1812. ers, must not, however, be taken as the sole or chief exponents of the war party. The leaders of that party represented, as they largely shared, a feeling proper and necessary in every community, of which the young, the ardent, the uneducated and unthinking masses are the natural depositories-the feeling of resentment at aggressions, of resistance to wrong, at all hazards. Dead, indeed, would that nation be in which this feeling did not find its ardent, unhesitating, headlong advocates. To temper and direct it, to control and keep it within the bounds of reason and safety, was the office and the duty of the cooler and more reflecting members of the Republican party, who alone, at this moment, had any influence over its depositories; especially was it the duty of the president, to whom, for the very purpose of resisting outbreaks of sudden impulse, and to give time for sober second thought, the Constitution has intrusted the great power and serious responsibility of the veto. But resort to the veto would not, in this case, have been necessary. Had not threats to oppose his re-election driven Madison to take the lead, no declaration of war could have been carried in either house of Congress. Here was an occasion on which Madison might well have called to mind the great example of Washington in the case of Jay's treaty. But his timorous temper dwelt rather on the fate of John Adams, whose opposition to hostilities with France, however beneficial to his country, had left him to retire from office amid the execrations of the more violent of his own party, and without help or even sympathy from the other. Yet, in the eye of history, how much more honorable such a fall, than any CHAPTER re-election to be purchased like Madison's, by the sacri XXV. fice, at such risk to his country, of his own better judg 1812. ment and personal convictions! That domination over public opinion which the war party so long maintained, and which, indeed, has hardly yet ceased, joined to a readiness on the part of those to whom the president thus ignobly yielded to throw a man tle over political nakedness almost as discreditable to them as disgraceful to him, have hitherto conspired to shield Madison from the obloquy which must ever rest upon this part of his conduct-that of having been driv. en by intimidation, and seduced by personal interest and ambition, into a course of public conduct, in his own judgment improvident, if not highly dangerous. These same convictions were fully shared by Gallatin, and probably also by Monroe, the president's two principal cabinet officers and most confidential advisers. But Gallatin, who clung with tenacity to office, did not choose to risk his place by openly opposing what he labored in vain, by indirect means, to prevent, while Monroe, as a candidate for the successorship, was under temptations quite as strong as those of Madison to dissemble his opinions and to yield to the current. So uncontrollable, indeed, are the impulses of ambition, so overwhelming the temptations of that splendid office, that much must be pardoned in candidates for the presidency; nor ought the incumbent to be exposed to the seducing prospect of a re-election. It was not Madison and his cabinet only that the im petuous war current swept along. Jefferson's hatred of England was so hearty, that he naturally consented to a step by others which he would never have dared to ven. ture upon himself. John Adams, who still preserved, on the verge of eighty, all his youthful impetuosity and nat XXV. ural pugnacity, snuffed the battle like an old war-horse, CHAPTER carrying him back, as it did, to the days of his own daring and glory, and identified by him, as by the whole 1812. war party, with that original resistance to British aggressions in which he had taken so active and conspicuous a part. Canada, of which the conquest was now to be attempted, consisted, at this time, of two provinces. The old French settlements on the St. Lawrence, with a population of some 300,000, constituted Lower Canada. Upper Canada embraced the more recent settlements above Montreal, principally on the north shore of Lake Ontario, including also some scattered hamlets at the foot and head of Lake Erie, with a population, in the whole, of about 100,000, mostly American Loyalists and their descendants. Each province had its own governor and Legislature; but the governor of Lower Canada, in the character of governor general, held a certain superintending authority over both. The regular force in both provinces did not exceed 2000 men, scattered over a space of 1200 miles, from Quebec to the foot of Lake Superior. Under the late administration of Sir James Craig that political struggle on the part of the Legislature of Lower Canada, afterward carried to such extremities, and productive of changes hardly short of a revolution, had already commenced. But the recent arrival of Sir George Prevost, and the prospect of an American war, had checked this incipient quarrel; and the Lower Canada Legislature had signalized its loyalty by placing at the governor's disposal 2000 unmarried men, to be recruited by annual drafts from the militia, and to be regularly embodied, drilled, and trained; and in case of invasion, or imminent danger of it, to be called into active service as auxiliaries to the regular troops; to be second CHAPTER ed, if the case required it, by the whole body of the mili XXV. tia. But the main strength of Canada now, as formerly, 1812. consisted in the difficult approach to it; the water bar rier by which it was guarded; the wild American frontier opposite, during the summer heats infested by fever, destitute of roads, large portions of it without inhabitants, and incapable of furnishing supplies, all of which, even provisions, must be transported, mostly on packhorses, a vast distance, and at great expense-obstacles the same which had repelled so many attempts at conquest while Canada was yet a French province. Another great military advantage which Canada possessed was the concentration of her people along or near the frontier, and the convenient water communication of that whole frontier with Montreal and Quebec, and through those cities with the mother country. It was against those cities, one the chief seat of Canadian commerce, the other its military key, that all attacks upon Canada had hitherto been aimed. That method was now to be reversed, the first blow being struck at the extremity of Canada farthest from the sea, and least within reach of British succor a point, however, with which Quebec, and even England, had, at that time, a far easier communication than either Washington or New York. Hull, governor of the Michigan Territory, having spent the winter in Massachusetts, of which he was a native, had accepted the rank of brigadier general, principally, as he afterward alleged, with a view to the succor of that Territory, greatly harassed, since the affair of Tippecanoe, by Indian alarms. Not without military experience, for he had served with credit as a regimental officer in the army of the Revolution, Hull had insisted that the naval control of Lake Erie, then possessed by two or three small British cruisers, ought first to be ob |