CENTRAL AMERICA—THE MONROE DOCTRINE, AND THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY.
To give an account of every public transaction with which Mr. Buchanan was connected as Secretary of State, would be impracticable within the limits of these volumes. But there remains one subject which must not be overlooked—the affairs of Central America, and the position in which they stood before the negotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.
The policy of Mr. Polk’s administration towards the States of Central America and on the subject of the Monroe Doctrine was shaped by Mr. Buchanan very differently from that adopted by the succeeding administration of General Taylor, whose Secretary of State was Mr. Clayton, the American negotiator of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain. In 1845, when the war between the United States and Mexico was impending, there was reason to believe that England was aiming to obtain a footing in the then Mexican province of California, by an extensive system of colonization. Acting under Mr. Buchanan’s advice, President Polk, in his first annual message of December 2, 1845, not only re-asserted the Monroe Doctrine in general terms, but distinctly declared that no future European colony or dominion shall, with the consent of the United States, be planted or established on any part of the North American continent. This declaration was confined to North America, in order to make it emphatically applicable to California. The effect was that the British plan of colonization in California was given up. Two years afterward, when the Mexican war was drawing to a close, after the capture of the City of Mexico in September, 1847, Mr. Buchanan turned the attention of President Polk to the encroachments of the British government in Central America, under the operation of a protectorate over the king and kingdom of the Mosquito Indians. In his annual message of December 7, 1847, the President, after reiterating the Monroe Doctrine, asked for an appropriation to defray the expense of a chargé d’affaires to Guatemala, the most prosperous and important of the Central American states. The appropriation was made, and in April, 1848, the chargé was appointed. But before his departure a state of things occurred in Yucatan, which made it necessary for the President to make a fresh and solemn declaration of his purpose to maintain the Monroe Doctrine at every hazard against Great Britain and all other European powers. This was the war of extermination waged by the Indians against the white population of Yucatan in 1847–48. If not actually incited by the British authorities, the savages were known to be supplied with British muskets. The whites were reduced to such extremities that the authorities of Yucatan offered to transfer the dominion and sovereignty of the peninsula to the United States, as a consideration for defending it against the Indians, at the same time giving notice that if this offer should be declined, they would make the same proposition to England and Spain. By a special message sent to Congress on the 29th of April, 1848, President Polk recommended to Congress the appeal of Yucatan for aid and protection against the Indians, but he declined to recommend the adoption of any measure with a view to acquire the dominion and sovereignty over the peninsula. But it was necessary for him to announce what would be his policy should Great Britain or Spain accept a similar offer. Anticipating that England might take advantage of such an offer to establish over Yucatan such another protectorate as that which she claimed to exercise over the Mosquito coast, the President, at the close of his message, recommended to Congress “to adopt such measures as, in their judgment, may be expedient to prevent Yucatan from becoming a colony of any European power, which, in no event, could be permitted by the United States, and, at the same time, to rescue the white men from extermination or expulsion from their country.”
It then became necessary for Mr. Buchanan to consider how the removal of the British government from their assumed protectorate over the Indians of the Mosquito Coast could be best accomplished. He was convinced that the best thing to be done would be to re-unite the Central States of America in a federation, so that they could aid each other and be in a condition to receive aid from the United States. Accordingly, with the approbation of the President, on the 3d of June, Mr. Buchanan instructed Mr. Hise, the new chargé to Guatemala, as follows:
“When the federation of the centre of America was formed, the Government and people of the United States entertained the highest hopes and felt the warmest desire for its success and prosperity. Its government was that of a federal republic, composed of the five states of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, St. Salvador, and Costa Rica; and its constitution nearly resembled that of the United States. This constitution unfortunately endured but a brief period, and the different states of Central America are now politically independent of each other. The consequence is that each of them is so feeble as to invite aggressions from foreign powers. Whilst it is our intention to maintain our established policy of non-intervention in the concerns of foreign nations, you are instructed, by your counsel and advice should suitable occasions offer, to promote the reunion of the states which formed the federation of Central America. In a federal union among themselves consists their strength. They will thus avoid domestic dissensions, and render themselves respected by the world. These truths you can impress upon them by the most powerful arguments.
A principal object of your mission is to cultivate the most friendly relations with Guatemala. It is now an independent sovereignty, and is by far the most populous and powerful of the states of the former federation. Whilst representing your Government at Guatemala, however, you will enjoy frequent opportunities of cultivating friendly relations between the United States and the other states of Central America, which you will not fail to embrace.
The enemies of free institutions throughout the world have been greatly encouraged by the constantly recurring revolutions and changes in the Spanish-American republics. They are thus furnished with arguments against the capacity of man for self-government. The President and people of the United States have viewed these incessant changes with the most profound regret. Both our principles and our policy make us desire that these republics should become prosperous and powerful. We feel a deep interest in their welfare; but this we know can only be promoted by free and stable governments. The enjoyment of liberty and the maintenance of private rights cannot be secured without permanent order; and this can only spring from the sacred observance of law. So long as successive military chieftains shall possess the ability and the will to subvert subsisting governments by the sword, the inevitable consequences must be a disregard of personal rights, weakness at home, and want of character abroad. In your intercourse with the authorities of Guatemala and other states of Central America, you will not fail to impress upon them our example, where all political controversies are decided at the ballot-box.
I have no doubt that the dissolution of the confederacy of Central America has encouraged Great Britain in her encroachments upon the territories of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, under the mask of protecting the so-called kingdom of the Mosquitos. We learn that under this pretext she has now obtained possession of the harbor of San Juan de Nicaragua—probably the best harbor along the whole coast. Her object in this acquisition is evident from the policy which she has uniformly pursued throughout her past history—of seizing upon every valuable commercial point throughout the world, whenever circumstances have placed this in her power. Her purpose probably is to obtain the control of the route for a railroad and a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, by the way of Lake Nicaragua. In a document prepared, as it is understood, by Mr. Macgregor, and printed by order of the British Parliament, which has been furnished to me by Mr. Crampton, her Britannic Majesty’s chargé d’affaires to the United States, Great Britain claims the whole of the sea-coast for the king of the Mosquitos, from Cape Honduras to Escuda de Veragua. By this means she would exclude from the Caribbean Sea the whole of Honduras south of Cape Honduras, and the entire states of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, as well as the New Granadian state of Veragua. Under the assumed title of protector of the kingdom of the Mosquitos—a miserable, degraded and insignificant tribe of Indians—she doubtless intends to acquire an absolute dominion over this vast extent of sea-coast. With what little reason she advances this pretension appears from the convention between Great Britain and Spain, signed at London on the 14th day of July, 1786. By its first article, “His Britannic Majesty’s subjects, and the other colonists who have hitherto enjoyed the protection of England, shall evacuate the country of the Mosquitos, as well as the continent in general and the islands adjacent, without exception, situated beyond the line hereafter described as what ought to be the frontier of the extent of territory granted by his Catholic majesty to the English for the uses specified in the third article of the present convention, and in addition to the country already granted to them in virtue of the stipulations agreed upon by the commissioners of the two crowns in 1783.”
The country granted to them under the treaties of 1783 and 1786 was altogether embraced in the present British provinces of Belize, and was remote from what is now claimed to be the Mosquito kingdom. The uses specified in the third article of the convention were merely, in addition to that of “cutting wood for dyeing,” the grant of the liberty of cutting all other wood, without even excepting mahogany, as well as gathering all the fruits or produce of the earth, purely natural and uncultivated, which may, besides being carried away in their natural state, become an object of utility or of commerce, whether for food or for manufactures; but it is expressly agreed that this stipulation is never to be used as a pretext for establishing in that country any plantation of sugar, coffee, cocoa, or other like articles, or any fabric or manufacture, by means of mills or other machines whatsoever. (This restriction, however, does not regard the use of saw-mills for cutting or otherwise preparing the wood.) Since all the lands in question being indisputably acknowledged to belong of right to the crown of Spain, no settlements of that kind, or the population that would follow, could be allowed. “The English shall be permitted to transport and convey all such wood and other produce of the place in its natural and uncultivated state down the rivers to the sea; but without ever going beyond the limits which are prescribed to them by the stipulations above granted, and without thereby taking an opportunity of ascending the said rivers beyond their bounds into the countries belonging to Spain.”
And yet from this simple permission within certain limits to cut and carry away all the different kinds of wood and “the produce of the earth, uncultivated and purely natural,” accompanied by the most solemn acknowledgment on the part of Great Britain that all the lands in question “belong of right to the crown of Spain,” she has by successive encroachments established the British colony of the Belize.
The Government of the United States has not yet determined what course it will pursue in regard to the encroachments of the British government as protector of the king and kingdom of the Mosquitos; but you are instructed to obtain all the information within your power upon the nature and extent of these encroachments, and communicate it with the least possible delay to this department. We are also desirous to learn the number of the Mosquito tribe, the degree of civilization they have attained, and everything else concerning them.
The independence, as well as the interests of the nations on this continent, require that they should maintain an American system of policy, entirely distinct from that which prevails in Europe. To suffer any interference on the part of the European governments with the domestic concerns of the American republics, and to permit them to establish new colonies upon this continent, would be to jeopard their independence and ruin their interests. These truths ought everywhere throughout this continent to be impressed upon the public mind; but what can the United States do to resist such European interference whilst the Spanish American republics continue to weaken themselves by division and civil war, and deprive themselves of the ability of doing anything for their own protection?
Mr. Hise was prevented by illness and other causes from reaching Guatemala until a late period in Mr. Polk’s administration, and before any despatches were received from him Mr. Polk had ceased to be President. The plan wisely conceived by Mr. Buchanan and adopted by President Polk, for uniting the States of Central America in a new federation, which, by the aid of the United States, could compel the surrender of the British protectorate, was not carried out by their successors, although it descended to them in the best possible shape. In the mean time, the British government, taking advantage of the wretched internal condition of those States, had undertaken to extend the dominions of the puppet king of the Mosquitos far beyond their former pretensions, and in February, 1848, had seized upon the port of San Juan de Nicaragua, expelled the State from it, and thus deprived her and the State of Costa Rica of the only good harbor along the coast. To counteract this encroachment and to enable the Central States, by uniting them, to demand the withdrawal of the protectorate asserted by Great Britain, was the purpose for which Mr. Hise was sent to Guatemala. Instead of taking up and carrying out this policy, the succeeding administration of General Taylor, without consulting the States of Central America, entered into the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, concluded April 19, 1850, the ratifications being exchanged July 4, 1850.
It is necessary to make a brief analysis of this treaty, because Mr. Buchanan, when he became minister to England under President Pierce, had to do what he could to unravel the complications to which the ambiguous language of the treaty had given rise. There were two provisions in the first article of the treaty which need separate examination. By the first of them, the contracting parties stipulated that neither of them should ever exercise exclusive control over the ship-canal that was to be constructed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by the way of the river San Juan de Nicaragua, or erect any fortifications commanding it. The treaty then proceeded to declare that neither of the parties shall ever “occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito coast, or any part of Central America.” One general objection to this provision was, that so long as it should remain in operation it would preclude the United States from ever annexing to their dominions any state of Central America, even if such state should desire to come into our Union. But the last clause of the first article of the treaty was the one which led to the subsequent controversy. Instead of a simple provision requiring Great Britain absolutely to recede from the Mosquito protectorate, and to restore to Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica their respective territories, the treaty declared as follows: “Nor will either [of the parties] make use of any protection which either affords or may afford, or any alliance which either has or may have, to or with any state or people, for the purpose of erecting or maintaining any such fortifications, or of occupying, fortifying, or colonizing Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America, or of assuming or exercising any dominion over the same.”
It soon became the British construction of this clause that it recognized the existence of the Mosquito protectorate for all purposes other than those expressly prohibited. Under this construction, Great Britain claimed that she could still direct and influence the Mosquito king in the administration of his government; and down to the time when Mr. Buchanan was sent by President Pierce as minister to England, this claim was still maintained. On the other hand, taking all its provisions together and interpreting them according to the fair meaning of the stipulations as applied to the facts, the treaty was understood in this country to bind the British government not to exercise in any part of Central America any “dominion,” either through the name and authority of the titular king of the Mosquitos, or otherwise; or in other words not to exercise dominion, either directly or indirectly. Manifestly the treaty was destined to be a source of discord between Great Britain and the United States; and when, as will hereafter be seen, it devolved upon the administration of President Pierce to meet the British construction, there was an imperative necessity for Mr. Buchanan’s services as minister to Great Britain, in order that this and other pending questions between the two governments might be adjusted without further hazard of more serious collision.
On page 459 of this volume, it should have been stated that the charge of “treachery” made by Mr. Clay and the Whigs generally against President Tyler, was chiefly based on the assertions that the first Bank bill (passed August 6th, 1841), was framed by Mr. Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury, and approved by the President and his Cabinet; that it was vetoed on the ground of essential alterations; that the second bill was framed to meet his special objections, was privately submitted to him and approved before its passage, but vetoed afterwards. The central point in the Whig charge is that Mr. Tyler vetoed a bill which he had promised to approve, and which was first submitted to him in order that its terms might be altered, or that the whole might be abandoned, if he could not approve it.
It has not been my intention in this work to express any opinion upon the conduct of President Tyler in relation to the Bank bills. In the Life of Mr. Webster, the reader will find, at pages 69 to 80 of the first volume, his explanations of the whole difficulty. But since page 459 of the present volume was written and stereotyped, I have thought it proper to advert, without comment, to the precise character of the Whig charge against Mr. Tyler, lest it might be said that I have omitted to refer to an important part of the history.
1. Under the date of September 13, 1813, Mr. Buchanan’s father writes to him: “Yesterday the fast day was kept here pretty unanimously. Mr. Elliot gave us an excellent sermon, and spoke of the war as a judgment, and the greatest calamity that could befall a people. He showed it to be worse than the famine or the pestilence. In the two latter cases, he said God acted as the immediate agent: in that of war he acted by subordinate agents; therefore the calamity was the greater.” This was the tone of many Federalist sermons.
2. “There is extant, according to the best of my recollection in the National Intelligencer, though not in Everett’s edition of his works, a speech of Mr. Webster in 1814, in the House of Representatives, on the ‘Conduct of the War.’ It is very severe on the military operations, especially in Canada (which no doubt, as a general thing, deserved all that was said of them), but he dwells with pride on our naval exploits. ‘However,’ says he, ‘we may differ as to what has been done or attempted on land, our differences cease at the water’s edge.’” (Note by Mr. Buchanan.)
3. I find a memorandum in Mr. Buchanan’s handwriting of his professional emoluments during his years of active practice.
| 1813 | $938 | 1821–2 | $11,297 |
| 1814 | $1,096 | 1823 | $7,243 |
| 1815 | $2,246 | 1825 | $4,521 |
| 1816 | $3,174 | 1826 | $2,419 |
| 1817 | $5,379 | 1827 | $2,570 |
| 1818 | $7,915 | 1828 | $2,008 |
| 1819 | $7,092 | 1829 | $3,362 |
| 1820 | $5,665 |
4. These and other papers of importance were sent by Mr. Buchanan from Wheatland to a bank in New York during the Civil War, when Pennsylvania was threatened with an invasion by the Confederate troops.
5. Conversing once in London with an intimate friend, very much younger than himself (Mr. S. L. M. Barlow of New York), Mr. Buchanan said: “I never intended to engage in politics, but meant to follow my profession strictly. But my prospects and plans were all changed by a most sad event which happened at Lancaster when I was a young man. As a distraction from my great grief, and because I saw that through a political following I could secure the friends I then needed, I accepted a nomination.”
6. Mr. Thompson, Secretary of the Navy, was appointed to the Bench of the Supreme Court in December, 1823, and Mr. Southard, of New Jersey, took his place.
7. These notes were written by Mr. Buchanan in 1867.
8. Benton’s Thirty Years in the Senate, Vol. I, p. 19.
9. In the debate on Chilton’s Resolutions, in 1825, Mr. Sergeant said:
“At the head of the Committee of Ways and Means in 1816, was one who could not be remembered without feelings of deep regret at the public loss occasioned by his early death. He possessed, in an uncommon degree, the confidence of this House, and he well deserved it. With so much accurate knowledge, and with powers which enabled him to delight and instruct the House, there was united so much gentleness and kindness, and such real, unaffected modesty, that you were prepared to be subdued before he exerted his commanding powers of argument. I mean William Lowndes of South Carolina.”—Benton’s Debates, Vol. IX, 730.
10. Art. I., § 8.—“To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
11. February 21, 1823.
12. Post.
13. Mr. Gorham’s speech has not been preserved.
14. The phrase “Presidential Election” is an awkward and incorrect one. But it has been sanctioned by long usage, and I adopt it because of its convenience.
15. Mr. Crawford was regarded as out of the question, both because he had less than one-half of the electoral votes, and because a recent paralytic affection was supposed to have rendered him incapable of performing the duties of the office.
16. The person here alluded to was the Hon. Molton C. Rogers, Chairman of the State Central Committee at Harrisburg, and Secretary of the State of Pennsylvania. He was afterwards a Judge of the Supreme Court of that State.
17. At a little later period, Mr. Webster was transferred from the House to the Senate, and became there one of the strongest and most conspicuous of the friends of the administration.
18. Joint Resolutions of 13th and 24th March, 1779. See Journals, pages 335, 336, 342. 1 Smith’s Laws, 487. Life of Joseph Reed, President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, Vol. II, p. 65.
19. The peroration of Mr. Everett’s speech was as follows:
“The present year completes the half century since the Declaration of Independence; and most devoutly do I hope, that, when the silver trumpet of our political jubilee sounds, it may be with a note of comfort and joy to the withered heart of the war-worn veteran of the Revolution. Our tardy provision will, indeed, come too late to help him through the hard journey of life; it will not come too late to alleviate the sorrows of age, and smooth the pillow of decline. It is the fiftieth year of our Independence. How much shall we read, how much shall we hear, how much, perhaps, we shall say this year, about the glorious exploits of our fathers, and the debt of gratitude we owe them. I do not wish this to be all talk. I want to do something. I want a substantial tribute to be paid them. Praise is sweet music, both to old and young; but I honestly confess that my mind relucts and revolts, by anticipation, at the thought of the compliments with which we are going to fill the ears of these poor veterans, while we leave their pockets empty, and their backs cold. If we cast out this bill, I do hope that some member of this House, possessing an influence to which I cannot aspire, will introduce another, to make it penal to say a word on the fourth of July, about the debt of gratitude which we owe to the heroes of the Revolution. Let the day and the topic pass in decent silence. I hate all gag-laws; but there is one thing I am willing to gag—the vaporing tongue of a bankrupt, who has grown rich, and talks sentiment, about the obligation he feels to his needy creditor, whom he paid off at 2s. 6d. in the pound.”
20. In the course of his speech on the 14th of April, Mr. Webster said: “The gentleman from Pennsylvania, with whom I have great pleasure in concurring on this part of the case, while I regret that I differ with him on others, has placed this question in a point of view which can not be improved. These officers do indeed already exist. They are public ministers. If they were to negotiate a treaty, and the Senate should ratify it, it would become a law of the land, whether we voted their salaries or not. This shows that the Constitution never contemplated that the House of Representatives should act a part in originating negotiations or concluding treaties.” Mr. Webster made further observations, in confirmation of the views expressed by Mr. Buchanan on the duty of making the appropriation. (Works of Daniel Webster, Vol. III, p. 181.)
21. The subsequent fate of this measure can be related very briefly. Mr. Anderson died at Carthagena, on his way to the isthmus of Panama. The “Congress” adjourned to meet at Tacuboya, a village near the city of Mexico. Mr. Poinsett was appointed in the place of Mr. Anderson, and Mr. Sargeant sailed for Vera Cruz on the 2d of December, 1826. He arrived in Mexico in January, 1827, and found a few fragments of the “Congress” floating about, without action or organization. Bolivar, who was supposed to have originated the project, had changed his mind. Mr. Sargeant remained for six months in Mexico, and in the summer of 1827 returned home.
22. This allusion to Mr. Everett requires some explanation. On the 9th of March, 1826, he made a speech on the proposed Constitutional Amendment, in the course of which he said:
“I am not one of those citizens of the North who think it immoral and irreligious to join in putting down a servile insurrection at the South. I am no soldier, my habits and education are very un-military; but there is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a knapsack to my back, and put a musket on my shoulder, than that. I would cede the whole continent to any one who would take it—to England, to France, to Spain; I would see it sunk in the bottom of the ocean, before I would see any part of this fair America converted into a Continental Hayti, by that awful process of bloodshed and desolation, by which alone such a catastrophe could be brought on. The great relation of servitude, in some form or other, with greater or less departures from the theoretic equality of man, is inseparable from our nature. I know no way by which the form of this servitude shall be fixed, but by political institution. Domestic slavery, though, I confess, not that form of servitude which seems to be most beneficial to the master—certainly not that which is most beneficial to the servant—is not, in my judgment, to be set down as an immoral and irreligious relation. I cannot admit that Religion has but one voice to the slave, and that this voice is, ‘Rise against your master.’ No, Sir, the New Testament says, ‘Slaves obey your masters,’ and though I know full well that, in the benignant operations of Christianity, which gathered master and slave around the same communion table, this unfortunate institution disappeared in Europe, yet I cannot admit that, while it subsists, and where it subsists, its duties are not pre-supposed and sanctioned by religion. I certainly am not called upon to meet the charges brought against this institution, yet truth obliges me to say a word more on the subject. I know the condition of the working classes in other countries, and I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the slaves of this country are better clothed and fed, and less hardly worked, than the peasantry of some of the most prosperous States of the continent of Europe.”
23. Mr. Buchanan’s speech extended through two sessions of the Committee of the Whole. After some amendments by the Senate, the bill was finally passed, and was approved by the President May 19, 1828. The speech may be found in Gales & Seaton’s Register of Debates, Vol. IV, Part 2, page 2089, et seq.
24. Mr. Buchanan’s proposal was not adopted, and on the 2d of March, 1829, the President, Mr. Adams, approved “An act for the continuation of the Cumberland Road.” Mr. Buchanan voted against this bill, saying that he did so reluctantly, but that now the House had voted to keep the Cumberland Road in repair, by erecting toll-gates upon it under the authority of the Federal Government, and so long as this pretension continued to be set up, he would not vote for the construction of any road intended, after its completion, to be thus placed under the jurisdiction of the United States, as he believed it to be entirely unconstitutional.
25. This allusion to the Secretaryship of the Russian Mission was, of course, merely playful. George Buchanan had no thought of seeking this appointment, nor would his brother have asked for it.
26. Colonel Benton, writing to Mr. Randolph on the 26th of May, said: “Your nomination came up this morning, and was acted upon with great promptness. Tyler called it, but before it was called it was understood that the opposition would support it unanimously. This they did with some degree of empressement. Several voices from their side called for the question as soon as Tyler sat down, among them Louisiana Johnston, and Webster, were most audible. There were no yeas and nays, and nothing said by any person but Tyler, and only a few words by him, and those of course complimentary; the opposition evidently wishing to be observed as supporting it. Everybody is asking me whether you will accept. I tell them what surprises many, but not those who know you, that not a word between you and me had ever passed on such a subject.”
27. In this debate, it was charged that the President’s Message was written by Mr. Van Buren, the Secretary of State, and that General Jackson was incapable of writing his official papers. It is very probably true that he did not write some of them. His Proclamation against the Nullifiers is generally assumed to have been written by Edward Livingston. But that General Jackson was capable of writing well, there can be no doubt. I remember, however, that in my youth, during his Presidency, it was generally believed in New England among his political opponents that he was an entirely illiterate man, who could not write an English sentence grammatically, or spell correctly. This belief was too much encouraged by persons who knew better; and it was not until many years afterwards that I learned how unfounded it was. There now lie before me autograph letters of General Jackson, written wholly with his own hand, and written and punctuated with entire correctness, and with no small power of expression. Some of them have been already quoted. These have been, and others will be, printed without the slightest correction. The handwriting is sometimes rather better, for example, than Mr. Webster’s. There is not a single erasure in any one of the letters, and but one very trifling interlineation. The spelling is perfectly correct through-out. General Jackson wrote better English than Washington: and as to King George III, the General was an Addison, in comparison with his majesty.
When General Jackson visited New England as President, in the summer of 1833, the Degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard College. This was much ridiculed at the time, in that neighborhood, on account of his supposed illiteracy.
28. Mr. Livingston became Secretary of State in May, 1831, in the place of Mr. Van Buren, who resigned in order to be made Minister to England, a post to which he was nominated by the President, but he was not confirmed by the Senate.
29. Mr. afterwards Sir William Brown, an eminent banker of extensive American connections.
30. As Vice-President.
31.
My Dear James:— ... A letter from William came to hand on the 11th of June, in which he expressed considerable anxiety to return home, that he might once again see his father and receive his last benediction; but upon receiving the melancholy information of his death, his desire of coming home is subsided. I am highly gratified by the reception from him of a letter of the 18th, in which is exhibited a resignation to and acquiescence in the will of Providence, together with appropriate sentiments on that melancholy occasion, far beyond his years. For this I bless the Giver of every good and perfect gift. Hoping you may be ever the care of an indulgent Providence, and all your conduct regulated by His unerring wisdom, I subscribe myself your affectionate
32. It should be said here that the whole course of this negotiation shows that the details of the treaty were entrusted largely to Mr. Buchanan’s discretion. At that time, indeed, it was impracticable for an American minister in Europe, and especially at St. Petersburg, to be guided from day to day, or even from month to month, by the Secretary of State. The Atlantic had not then been crossed by steam. I have gone through with the minute discussions which took place between Mr. Buchanan and the Russian Foreign Office, but have not deemed it necessary to display them to my readers. They evince on his part a thorough acquaintance with the whole subject, and a remarkable power of carrying his points.
33. See post an account of Mr. Buchanan’s conversation with Pozzo di Borgo in Paris.
34. General Jackson at his second election received 219 electoral votes out of 288.
35. This I believe to have been a mistake, in respect to the nullification ordinance. It was adopted by a State convention, and consequently could only be repealed by another convention. This, I believe, was not done; but the laws based upon this ordinance were probably repealed by the legislature after Mr. Clay’s compromise. See the Life of Webster, by the present writer, Vol. I, p. 156.
36. Louis McLane, of Delaware, became Secretary of State in May, 1833. He was succeeded by John Forsyth, of Georgia, in June, 1834.
37. Mrs. Buchanan died on the 14th of May, 1833, at the house of her daughter, Mrs. Lane, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The letters of Mrs. Buchanan, of which I have seen many more than I have quoted, although rather formal in expression, show a mind of much cultivation, imbued with a fervent religious spirit, and of very decided and just opinions. In one of her letters to her son James, written in 1822, she says: “Harriet and myself, at the request of Mr. S., a clergyman, are engaged in reading Neale’s History of the Puritans, in which I observe a development of Queen Elizabeth’s character and management, not much to her honor; however, it appears evident, in opposition to her own intentions, she was made an instrument in the hands of Providence, of promoting the Reformation, which has certainly rendered an essential service to the world.” If the good lady had read Mr. Hallam’s very impartial account of Elizabeth’s management of the two opposite parties among the English Protestants, she would not have had much reason for changing the opinion which she formed from reading Neale, although it would not have been correct to say that the Queen’s course was in any just sense dishonorable to her. The truth probably is, that Elizabeth, in nearly everything that she did in regard to religion, was governed by motives of policy, and not by convictions or special inclinations. In many respects, she was not a Protestant, according to the Puritan standard, and in many others she was not a Catholic.
38. George IV.
39. This remarkable woman is regularly chronicled in Encyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries as a Russian diplomatist. She certainly fulfilled that character in an extraordinary manner for a period of about forty years. When Mr. Buchanan met her, on his passage down the Baltic, she was on her way to join her husband in London. She was then forty-nine. The children referred to both died in 1835. The princess died at Paris, January 25, 1857, at the age of 73. She is said to have been a Protestant. In her later years she was a very intimate friend of M. Guizot, who was present at her death-bed. See further mention of her, post.
40. Henry Wheaton, the learned author of “Elements of International Law,” long in the diplomatic service of the United States.
41. At that time American chargé d’affaires in Paris.
42. Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo was a native of Corsica, born at Ajaccio, in 1764. His efforts, along with those of Paoli, to accomplish the liberation of Corsica from the French power, and place it under the protection of England, produced in him a decided leaning against France through his whole career. In 1803 he entered the diplomatic service of Russia, in which he continued for the remainder of his long life, under both the emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I. He was Russian ambassador at Paris from 1815 to the time of his death, with temporary absences in London on special missions. He died in 1845. At the period of Mr. Buchanan’s visit to Paris, di Borgo was seventy years old, with as full and varied a diplomatic experience as any man of his time. He was celebrated for the brilliancy of his conversation in the French language. In the private journal of the late Mr. George Ticknor, written at Paris in ——, I find the following passage: “I do not know how a foreigner has acquired the French genius so completely as to shine in that kind of conversation from which foreigners are supposed to be excluded, but certainly I have seen nobody yet who has the genuine French wit, with its peculiar grace and fluency, so completely in his power, as M. Pozzo di Borgo.” In a note to this passage Mr. Ticknor adds: “I have learned since that he is a Corsican, and by a singular concurrence of circumstances, was born in the same town with Bonaparte, and of a family which is in an hereditary opposition to that of the emperor.” It was no doubt with singular zest, that di Borgo, in 1814–15, took part in the great European settlement which dethroned Bonaparte.
43. American friends.
44. See post, in relation to this collision between France and the United States.
45. The wife of Prince Talleyrand’s nephew, the Duc de Dino.
46. Joshua Bates, Esq., long the American partner of the house of Baring Brothers & Co., and for many years its head.
47. General Jackson’s first term extended from March 4th, 1829, to March 4th, 1833. His second term ended March 4th, 1837.
48. Upon this vexed question of instruction there is perhaps no more important distinction than that which was drawn by Mr. Webster in his celebrated speech of March 7, 1850: namely, that where a State has an interest of her own, not adverse to the general interest of the country, a Senator is bound to follow the direction which he receives from the legislature; but if the question be one which affects her interests, and at the same time affects equally the interests of all the other States, the Senator is not bound to obey the will of the State, because he is in the position of an arbitrator or referee. The first proposition seems evident enough, but of course it embraces none but a limited class of questions. It is in the far more numerous cases which fall under the second proposition that the difficulty inherent in the doctrine of instruction arises. Mr. Buchanan, it will be seen hereafter, consistently acted upon the view with which he began his senatorial career.
49. General Jackson himself continued, during his Presidency and after his retirement, in his correspondence to apply to his party the term “Republican.”
50. John Sargent of Pennsylvania was the Whig candidate for the Vice-Presidency along with Mr. Clay, and he received the same electoral vote.
51. The secret history of such collisions between governments not infrequently throws an unexpected light upon their public aspects. When General Jackson was preparing his annual message of December, 1834, some of his friends in Washington were very anxious that it should not be too peremptory on the subject of the French payment. At their request, Mr. Justice Catron, of the Supreme Court, waited upon the President, and advised a moderate tone. The President took from his drawer an autograph letter from King Louis Philippe, and handed it to the judge to read. In this letter the king represented that a war between the United States and France would be especially disastrous to the wine-growing districts, and that the interests of those provinces could be relied upon to oppose it; but that it was necessary that the alternative of war should be distinctly presented as certain to follow a final refusal of the Chambers to make the payment demanded. The king therefore urged General Jackson to adopt a very decided tone in his message, being confident that, if he did so, the opposition would give way and war would be avoided.
Another anecdote concerning this message was communicated to the writer from an entirely authentic source. After the message had been written, some of its expressions were softened by a member of the Cabinet, before the MS. was sent to the printer, without the President’s knowledge. When it was in type, the confidential proof-reader of the Globe office took the proof-sheets to the President; and he afterwards, said that he never before knew what profane swearing was. General Jackson promptly restored his own language to the proof-sheets.
52. Mr. Ticknor, writing from Paris, February, 1836, said: “One thing, however, has done us much honor. General Jackson’s message, as far as France is concerned,—for they know nothing about the rest of it,—has been applauded to the skies. The day it arrived I happened to dine with the Russian minister here, in a party of about thirty persons, and I assure you it seemed to me as if nine-and-twenty of them came up to me with congratulations. I was really made to feel awkward at last; but this has been the tone all over the Continent, where they have been confoundedly afraid we might begin a war which would end no prophecy could tell where.” (Life, &c., of George Ticknor, I. 480.) Count Pozzo di Borgo’s company would not be likely to be composed of persons sympathizing with the French opposition.
53. The writer has had occasion to treat of this occurrence more at length in his Life of Mr. Webster. He has there expressed the opinion that if the friends of the President, when they obtained a majority in the Senate, had contented themselves with adopting a resolution exonerating him from the censure passed in 1834, no one could have complained. Probably they would have done so, if the circumstances attending the adoption of Mr. Clay’s resolution had not provoked them to devise what they regarded as an imposing form of stigmatizing that act. All that is of any consequence now, in relation to this proceeding, turns upon the contradiction between the constitutional requirement to “keep” a legislative journal, and a subsequent obliteration or cancellation of any part of it, by any means whatever. On this subject, see the protest read in the Senate by Mr. Webster, in his Life, by the present writer, vol. I, p. 545, et seq.
54. Dr. Parrish, Wm. Wharton, Joseph Foulke.
55. There is, perhaps, no other of the writings of Hamilton which more strikingly exhibits his marvellous powers, the perspicuity of his style, and his faculty of illustrating an intricate subject, than this report. When he made it he was at the age of thirty-three. It reads as if he had passed a long life in some country where banks had been established for centuries, and in some official connection with them, or in mercantile pursuits that had brought him into daily experience of their operations; yet he had never been out of the United States since he came from the Island of St. Christopher, at the age of fifteen; there had been but three banks in this country when he wrote this report; and every part of his life that had not been passed in the army, in Congress, or in the proceedings to form and establish the Constitution of the United States, had been employed in the practice of the law. This master-piece of exposition may be read with delight by any person of taste, such are the grace, precision, force and completeness with which he handles his subject. We need not wonder that it carried conviction among the members of the body to which it was addressed.
56. Works of Thomas Jefferson.
57. See the history of the various bills for creating a national bank stated more in detail in the Life of Mr. Webster, by the present writer, vol. I.
58. McCullough vs. the State of Maryland, 4 Wheaton’s R. 316.
59. At the time of the election of Mr. Van Buren, the whole number of electoral votes was 294, a majority being 148. There was no choice of a Vice President by the electoral colleges. Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, received 147 votes, and was afterwards elected Vice President by the Senate. General Harrison, the leading Whig candidate for the Presidency, received the electoral votes of Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana, seventy-three in all. The fourteen votes of Massachusetts were given to Mr. Webster. Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, received the votes of Tennessee and of Georgia, twenty-six in all. The votes of South Carolina, eleven, were given to W. P. Mangum, of North Carolina. It is apparent, therefore, that at this time the Whigs, if we comprehend in that term all the opponents of the Democratic party, were in a decided minority in the country at large. This was partly because their leading candidate was far inferior to the important men of the opposition; but it was chiefly because the great States of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia still adhered to the financial and other measures of General Jackson, and because so many of the smaller States were still indisposed to return to the policy of a national bank.
60. The persons here referred to as “Conservatives,” were a class of Democrats or Republicans, who stood aloof for a time from their party.
61. Subsequent generations will need a key to the “log cabin” and the barrel of “hard cider,” the shouts of “Tippecanoe and Tyler too,” the long processions of trades, the enormous multitudes that gathered at the great open-air meetings. Omnia quæ vidi, the writer might say, and he might add with a variation, quorum pars minima fui.
62. The sixty electoral votes obtained by Mr. Van Buren were given by the States of New Hampshire, Virginia, South Carolina, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri and Arkansas.
63. In a letter from one of his friends, which lies before me, written at the time of his re-election, it is said that he was the first person who had been elected a second time to the Senate of the United States by the legislature of Pennsylvania.
64. April 4th, 1841.
65. The members of the Harrison cabinet were Daniel Webster, Secretary of State; Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury; John Bell, Secretary of War; George E. Badger, Secretary of the Navy; John J. Crittenden, Attorney General; Francis Granger, Postmaster General.
66. For the reasons which led Mr. Webster to remain in office, see his Life, by the present writer, vol. II., pp. 69 et seq. See farther, note on page 625 post.
67. Speech delivered in the Senate July 7th, 1841. Compare President Tyler’s veto message.
68. See the speech of Sept. 2, 1841.
69. Speech of December 29, 1841.
70. Compare what Mr. Webster has said on the veto power.
71. Mr. Buchanan cannot discover, after careful examination, that any Catholic Emancipation bill was vetoed by George the Third in 1806, according to the statement of Mr. Grant. That gentleman, most probably, intended to refer to the bill for this purpose which was introduced by the Grenville ministry, in March, 1807, under the impression that they had obtained for it the approbation of His Majesty. Upon its second reading, notice was given of his displeasure. The ministry then agreed to drop the bill altogether; but, notwithstanding this concession, they were changed, because they would not give a written pledge to the king, that they should propose no farther concessions to the Catholics thereafter. This was an exertion of the royal prerogative beyond the veto power. (Note by Mr. Buchanan.)
72. The history of this treaty and of the controversy relating to the maps is given in the author’s Life of Mr. Webster, vol. II, chap. 28.
73. This account of the conversation is taken from a memorandum in the handwriting of Mr. Sloan.
74. General Samuel Houston, an intimate friend of General Jackson, held conversations in the winter of 1824–5 with the members of the Ohio delegation, in which he took it upon him, in his efforts to persuade them to vote for Jackson, to say, that in the event of his election, “your man” (Clay) “can have anything he pleases.” All this, and a great deal more of the same kind, meant only an expectation and belief on the part of some of Jackson’s friends, that a political union between him and Mr. Clay would be for the good of the country, and it was their earnest wish to see it take place. Some of the friends of Mr. Clay supposed that these were advances made to him with General Jackson’s knowledge and consent, and that, as they were not met by Clay, the indifference with which they were treated caused General Jackson’s subsequent charge of “bargain and corruption” between Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams. This and many similar mistakes were the natural fruits of the excitement which prevailed in Washington during the winter of 1824–5.
75. Wife of the Hon. James J. Roosevelt of New York.
76. Mr. Calhoun was Secretary of State under President Tyler.
77. Wife of Mr. Justice Catron of the Supreme Court of the United States.
78. President Tyler’s marriage to Miss Gardiner is the event here alluded to. The letter is without date.
79. Mary married George W. Baker, and died in San Francisco in 1855, while Mr. Buchanan was Minister to England. Eskridge died in 1857; James in 1862. Harriet dropped the name of Rebecca after she had grown up, and was always known as Miss Lane, or Miss Harriet Lane.
80. In these days of millions, such a fortune, accumulated by a man who had been in public life for about forty years, seems moderate indeed. It will appear, as we draw near the end of Mr. Buchanan’s life, that he did not enrich himself out of the public, and that such fortune as he did accumulate must have been, as Mr. Henry says, the slow increase of means honorably acquired and carefully husbanded. Yet he was not a parsimonious, but, on the contrary, he was a generous man.
81. James Buchanan Yates, son of Mr. Buchanan’s sister Maria, who married Dr. Yates, a physician in Meadville, Pennsylvania.
82. Mr. Buchanan became Secretary of State under President Polk in March of this year.
83. Wife of the Hon. Stephen Pleasonton, for very many years Fifth Auditor of the Treasury Department. He possessed the entire confidence of all administrations.
84. James Buchanan Henry: very averse as a boy to a vegetable diet.
85. The Hon. Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, Secretary of the Treasury under President Polk, appointed March 6, 1845.
86. Mrs. Yates.
87. James Buchanan Yates.
88. John Sullivan, Esq., an Irish gentleman of advanced years, long a resident of Washington, famous for his good dinners.
89. Mr. Upshur was killed by the explosion on board the Princeton, in February, 1844. See ante, p. 521.
90. Congressional Globe, Vol. 14, pp. 240, 271, 362. The resolutions may be found at page 332.
91. William R. King of Alabama. He was a Senator in Congress from that State for a period of nearly twenty-five years, from 1819 to 1844. He resigned his seat in the Senate and accepted the mission to France, to which he was appointed in April, 1844, by President Tyler. He was an accomplished statesman of broad and liberal views. A strong friendship had existed between him and Mr. Buchanan, from the time when the latter entered the Senate. Mr. King was at first under the impression that Mr. Buchanan had declined the judgeship, and on the 1st of January he wrote to express his gratification that the matter had taken this turn. But in fact the appointment was never offered.
92. This does not refer to Mr. Justice Grier, who became the successor of Judge Baldwin.
93. This refers to the measure for free trade in corn.
94. Mr. Bancroft informs me that he subsequently advised Mr. Buchanan not to open a negotiation for a reduction of the British taxes on tobacco, knowing that it would be a useless effort to endeavor to persuade England to change that part of her financial system.
95. The niece of Mrs. Madison.
96. Miss Clementina Pleasonton.
97. It should in justice be stated that, after it was known to Mr. Webster in the winter of 1843–44, that a project was on foot for bringing in Texas by treaty, he, not being at that time in any public position, made great efforts to arouse a popular opposition to it in New England, but without any success. It was not until after the executive Government had become committed to the government and people of Texas to promote the annexation by Mr. Calhoun’s plan of legislative action, and after this plan had been submitted to Congress, that there began to be any considerable opposition to it in the North, coming from organized popular meetings. During the Presidential election of 1844, although the Democratic party made the annexation of Texas one of the measures to be expected from it in case of the election of its candidate, the Whig party, in consequence of the attitude of their candidate, Mr. Clay, on this subject, was not in a position to oppose the annexation on account of the slavery existing in that country. (Compare the detailed account of the annexation of Texas in the Life of Mr. Webster, at the passages referred to in the Index, verb. “Texas.”)
98. This was not only the view entertained by President Polk and his political party, but it was the deliberate opinion of Mr. Webster, who may be said to have represented all the grounds of opposition to the measure. He re-entered the Senate on the 5th of March, 1845, four days after the passage of the joint resolutions for the annexation of Texas. On the 11th he wrote a letter to his son, in which he expressed with precision the whole of his objections to this measure, and decidedly maintained that Mexico could now have no just cause for war, if the measure should be accomplished. He exonerated Mr. Polk and his cabinet from any desire to provoke a war with Mexico, and in regard to foreign intervention he said: “Nor do I believe that the principal nations of Europe, or any of them, will instigate Mexico to war. The policy of England is undoubtedly pacific. She cannot want Texas herself; and though her desire would be to see that country independent, yet it is not a point she would seek to carry by disturbing the peace of the world. But she will, doubtless, now take care that Mexico shall not cede California, or any part thereof, to us. You know my opinion to have been, and now is, that the port of San Francisco would be twenty times as valuable to us as all Texas.” (See the entire letter, Life of Mr. Webster, II., 249.)
99. Mr. C. A. Wickliffe, who was sent by Mr. Buchanan to Texas as a confidential agent, and from whose report I have taken the principal facts above related, writing from Galveston on the 6th of May, said: “The subject of the terms of annexation, or the result of the measure when Congress meets, no longer constitutes the topic of conversation among the people. They speak of this as a subject settled. The all-engrossing topic among them is the provisions of their constitution to be adopted. Upon this subject I have been gratified to listen to the views and opinions of many intelligent men. The deep interest they feel in the work of making a constitution which shall secure to Texas and her citizens the blessings of a good government and social order, gives high hopes of their future destiny. I undertake to predict that you will be surprised when you shall see their constitution, emanating from a people of whose disorder so much has been said.”
100. Prussian Minister.
101. Secretary of War.
102. John Slidell of New Orleans, at this time a Representative in Congress from Louisiana, was the same person who became famous all over the world, along with his colleague, Mr. Mason, during our civil war, after they were seized from on board the British steam-packet Trent, on their way as Confederate envoys to England, brought to the United States, imprisoned, and afterwards released. Consult the Index, verb. “Slidell.”
103. Colonel Taylor was promoted to the rank of major-general soon after the first of his victories.
104. James Barbour of Virginia, Secretary of War under President John Quincy Adams.
105. Afterwards governor of South Carolina during the first period of secession.
106. This refers to the charges made by Mr. C. J. Ingersoll against Mr. Webster. See the Life of Webster, Index, verb. “Ingersoll.”
107. Chief Justice Taney.
108. Wife of the Spanish Minister. She was a Scotch lady, née Inglis.