JACKSON AND SCOTT. 657 XXXL cer who should speak disrespectfully or contemptuously CHAPTER of Congress was liable to be deprived of his commission. Jackson seemed, indeed, to hold the articles of war, the War Department itself, in fact, all authority except his own will and pleasure, in very sovereign contempt. Two years before, dissatisfied at orders sent directly from the War Department to certain officers under his command, without passing through him, he had issued a general order (April 27, 1817), severely censuring this proceeding, and forbidding any officer under his command to obey such orders. The War Department, at that moment without a head, tamely submitted to this insult; but the affair naturally enough became a subject of discussion among military men, and General Scott, at a dinner-table, expressed the opinion, certainly not ill founded, that Jackson's general order was mutinous in its character, amounting to a reprimand of the president and commander-in-chief, from whom all the orders of the War Department theoretically came. Some anonymous busybody having communicated to Jackson this dinner-table opinion of Scott's, he wrote to Scott to inquire if the story were true. Scott replied in very courteous but manly terms, avowing the opinion, and giving his reasons for it; to which Jackson sent an insolent and insulting reply, apparently intended to provoke a challenge. Scott answered in terms as gentlemanly as Jackson's had been rude, that, as a duel did not seem necessary to settle the question of the courage of either of them, he must decline being drawn into a personal quarrel. Notwithstanding a regulation of the War Department forbidding publications relative to transactions between officers of a private and personal nature, manuscript copies of this correspondence, except Scott's last letter, were circulated 1819. XXXI. CHAPTER by Jackson's friends during his northern tour, as proof that Scott was cowed. There might be some doubt 1819. whether the letter of the regulation extended to manuscript publication; and, as the department did not venture to call Jackson to account, Scott was driven, in self-defense, to a circulation, also in manuscript, of the whole correspondence, which, however, soon found its way to the newspapers. So far, in the eyes of all civilized persons, Scott had altogether the best of it. But, unfortunately, in his last letter, he had dropped a suspicion that the anonymous information to Jackson came from De Witt Clinton. It was conjectured that Clinton would be very willing to foment a quarrel between Jackson and the War Department, in hopes of securing Jackson's support for himself at the next presidential election. Indeed, during Jackson's visit to New York, some compliments passed between them not a little alarming to the Tammany men, and other supporters of the Virginia dynasty. As soon as Scott's letter appeared, Clinton indignantly denied the imputation, and Scott made the best retreat possible under the circumstances by a prompt and manly retraction. Jackson's vigorous proceedings in Florida would seem not to have been without effect. Pending the discussion in Congress on his conduct, the Spanish minister, Feb. 22. under new instructions from home, signed a treaty for the cession of Florida, in extinction of the various American claims, for the satisfaction of which the United States agreed to pay to the claimants five millions of dollars. The Louisiana boundary, as fixed by this treaty, was a compromise between the respective offers heretofore made, though leaning a good deal to the American side: the Sabine to the 32d degree of north latitude; thence a north NEW CONVENTION WITH GREAT BRITAIN. 659 XXXI. meridian line to the Red River; the course of that river CHAPTER to the 100th degree of longitude east from Greenwich; thence north by that meridian to the Arkansas; up that 1819. river to its head and to the 42d degree of north latitude; and along that degree to the Pacific. This treaty was immediately ratified by the Senate; and, in expectation of a like ratification by Spain, an act was passed to authorize the president to take possession of the ceded territory. It was supposed that the British government might make some stir about the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. The subject was, indeed, mooted in Parliament; but the ministers took the ground that British subjects mixing themselves up in the quarrels of other nations, must abide the consequences, without expecting any interference of the British government on their behalf. The commission, under the treaty of Ghent, on the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, had agreed to confirm the possession of them as it had existed prior to the war. The running of the line through the St. Lawrence and the lakes had been nearly completed; but the commission on the northeast boundary had not yet been able to arrive at any conclusion. By a new convention (Oct. 20, 1818), ratified at the present session, the 49th degree of north latitude was to be the boundary between the United States and British America, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. The territory west of those mountains (Oregon) was to remain for ten years in the joint occupation of both parties; in other words, the British Fur Company, which alone had yet any establishments in that remote region, was not to be disturbed for that period. The commercial convention of 1815 was to continue in force for the same period. Some concession was also obtained on the subject of fishing rights, CHAPTER the curtailment of which, under the British construction XXXI. of the effect of the late war on the treaty of 1783, had 1819. occasioned loud complaints in New England. Those rights were now restored, so far as related to the north and east coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the coast of Labrador, and the Magdalen Islands; but off the coasts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in the Bay of Fundy, and on the western and southern coasts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, American vessels were not to fish within three miles of the shore. As the two governments could not agree upon the true interpretation of the article in the late treaty concerning slaves carried away, under which a large amount was claimed in the way of indemnity, it was arranged to refer it to a third power; and Russia was presently selected as the arbiter. The immediate interest in the question of internal improvements was somewhat abated by the reduced state of the treasury. The excessive importations, which, in the four years since the conclusion of the war, had given a delusive appearance of commercial prosperity, had already been greatly curtailed, and the income for the cur rent year seemed likely to fall short of the expenditures. A list of public improvements on foot, as ordered at the last session, was laid on the table of the House; but no appropriation was made, except of half a million of dollars for the completion, from Cumberland to Wheeling, of the National Road, as it now began to be called. This, however, like the other appropriations for that road, was specially chargeable on the two per cent. fund for roads to the new states. New York and New Jersey, shocked at the new domestic slave trade, had passed laws forbidding the export of slaves from those states; and they now applied to Congress to aid in their enforcement. There had also SLAVE TRADE-MISSOURI QUESTION. 661 XXXI. occurred some seizures of slaves from Africa, smuggled CHAPTER into Georgia and Louisiana, and sales of them by auction, under the state regulations, authorized by the orig- 1819. inal slave trade abolition act. These sales had held up, in a palpable shape, the inconsistency of a public trading in slaves as a means of suppressing the slave trade; nor could the public sentiment be any longer satisfied with the original nice distinction that this trading was not the act of the United States, but that of the particular states whose regulations authorized it. Partly, no doubt, by the influence of the new Colonization Society, now making its arrangements for a colony on the coast of Africa, and which presently agreed to receive and to convey thither a number of illegally-imported Africans newly seized in Georgia, a new act was passed, allowing $50 premium to the informer for every illegally-imported African seized within the United States, and half as much for those taken at sea; with authority to the president to cause them to be removed beyond the limits of the United States, and to appoint agents on the coast of Africa for their reception. An attempt was also made to punish slave trading with death, as had been contended for at the time of the original abolition act. Such a provision passed the House, but was struck out in the Senate. The recently-created Territory of Alabama, into which a flood of immigration was rushing, was authorized, without objection or restriction, to frame a state Constitution. A similar bill in relation to the Territory of Missouri raised the slavery question in a new form. Tallmadge moved to insert a clause prohibiting any further intro- Feb. 13 duction of slaves, and granting freedom to the children. of those already there on their attaining the age of twenty-five; and after a three days' vehement debate, this mo |