CHAPTER TWO:
Early Tensions Between North and South
The New England States Threaten to Secede
Most modern Americans will automatically associate the subject of secession with the South in the mid-Nineteenth Century, but what is not widely known is that the threat of secession was first given a voice by angry Federalists when the ratification of the Constitution apparently stalled in Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island. The ink on the parchment of the Constitution was scarcely dry before the radicals in the New England States again sought to rid themselves of their union with the South. For example, the Hartford Courant published the following statement in 1796:
We have reached a critical period in our political existence. The question must soon be decided, whether we shall continue a nation, at the expense even of our union, or sink with the present mass of difficulty into confusion and slavery.
Many advantages were supposed to be secured, and many evils avoided, by an union of the states. I shall not deny that the supposition was well founded. But at that time those advantages and those evils were magnified to a far greater size, than either would be if the question was at this moment to be settled.
The northern states can subsist as a nation, a republic, without any connection with the southern. It cannot be contested, that if the southern states were possessed of the same political ideas, an union would be still more desirable than a separation. But when it becomes a serious question, whether we shall give up our government, or part with the states south of the Potomac, no man north of that river, whose heart is not thoroughly democratic, can hesitate what decision to make.
I shall in the future papers consider some of the great events which will lead to a separation of the United States; show the importance of retaining their present constitution [as sovereign States], even at the expense of a separation; endeavour to prove the impossibility of an union for any long period in future, both from the moral and political habits of the citizens of the southern states; and finally examine carefully to see whether we have not already approached to the era when they must be divided.(1)
In December of 1803, Colonel Timothy Pickering, who had served as Postmaster-General, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State in the cabinet of George Washington, and as a Senator from the State of Massachusetts, was very vocal in his denunciation of the Louisiana Purchase because of the disruption of the balance of power between the two sections of the countries which he and many of his fellow New Englanders imagined would result. Pickering suggested as the remedy the establishment of "a new confederacy, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppression of the aristocratic democrats of the South" [emphasis in original],(2) and it was his prediction that this separation between North and South would occur within the next generation. A month later, he further elaborated on his proposal with these words:
The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy — a separation. That this can be accomplished, and without spilling one drop of blood, I have little doubt....
I do not believe in the practicability of a long-continued Union. A Northern Confederacy would unite congenial characters and present a fairer prospect of public happiness; while the Southern States, having a similarity of habits, might be left to "manage their own affairs in their own way." If a separation were to take place, our mutual wants would render a friendly and commercial intercourse inevitable. The Southern States would require the naval protection of the Northern Union, and the products of the former would be important to the navigation and commerce of the latter....
It must begin in Massachusetts. The proposition would be welcomed in Connecticut; and could we doubt of New Hampshire? But New York must be associated; and how is her concurrence to be obtained? She must be made the center of the Confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey would follow of course, and Rhode Island of necessity [emphasis in original].(3)
In the years 1808 and 1809, the hue and cry of separation from the South was again raised in Massachusetts. In response to the embargo against England during the Jefferson Administration, the editors of the Boston Gazette declared, "It is better to suffer the amputation of a Limb, than to lose the whole body. We must prepare for the operation. Wherefore then is New England asleep? wherefore does she submit to the oppression of enemies in the South?" [emphasis in original](4) Likewise, the Boston Centinel advised its readers with the following words: "This perpetual embargo being unconstitutional, every man will perceive that he is not bound to regard it, but may send his produce or merchandise to a foreign market in the same manner as if the government had never undertaken to prohibit it!... The government of Massachusetts has also a duty to perform. The state is still sovereign and independent" [emphasis in original].(5) These public statements appeared in print under the heading of "Patriotic Proceedings."(6) When the Enforcement Act was passed to strengthen the embargo in 1809, the New England secessionists issued a proclamation which described the Constitution as "a Treaty of Alliance and Confederation" between the States, declaring that "whenever its provisions are violated, or its original principles departed from by a majority of the states or their people, it is no longer an effective instrument... [and] any state is at liberty by the spirit of that contract to withdraw itself from the Union."(7)
The bill for the admission of the State of Louisiana into the Union generated still more noise from Massachusetts in 1811. Complaining that the creation of additional States from the Territory of Orleans would upset the sectional balance, Josiah Quincy boldly declared in the House of Representatives on the fourteenth of January, "If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation — amicably if they can, violently if they must."(8) When George Poindexter from Mississippi objected that "it was radically wrong for any member [of the House] to use arguments going to dissolve the Government, and tumble this body itself to dust and ashes," Quincy responded:
When I spoke of a separation of the States as resulting from the violation of the Constitution, contemplated in this bill, I spoke of it as of a necessity, deeply to be deprecated; but as resulting from causes so certain and obvious, as to be absolutely inevitable when the effect of the principle is practically experienced....
Touching the general nature of the instrument called the Constitution of the United States, there is no obscurity.... There can be no doubt about its nature. It is a political compact....
This is not so much a question concerning the exercise of sovereignty, as it is who shall be sovereign. Whether the proprietors of the good old United States shall manage their own affairs in their own way; or whether they, and their Constitution, and their political rights, shall be trampled under foot by foreigners introduced through a breach of the Constitution. The proportion of the political weight of each sovereign State, constituting this Union, depends upon the number of the States which have a voice under the compact. This number the Constitution permits us to multiply at pleasure, within the limits of the original United States; observing only the expressed limitations in the Constitution. But when in order to increase your power of augmenting this number you pass the old limits, you are guilty of a violation of the Constitution in a fundamental point; and in one, also, which is totally inconsistent with the intent of the contract, and the safety of the States which established the association....
I will add only a few words in relation to the moral and political consequence of usurping this power. I have said, that it would be a virtual dissolution of the Union; and gentlemen express great sensibility at the expression. But the true source of terror is not the declaration I have made, but the deed you propose. Is there a moral principle of public law better settled, or more conformable to the plainest suggestions of reason, than that the violation of a contract by one of the parties may be considered as exempting the other from its obligations? Suppose, in private life, thirteen form a partnership, and ten of them undertake to admit a new partner without the concurrence of the other three, would it not be at their option to abandon the partnership, after so palpable an infringement of their rights? How much more in the political partnership, where the admission of new associates, without previous authority, is so pregnant with obvious dangers and evils?(9)
New England Protests Against War With England
The clamoring of the North for revolution and dissolution of the Union reached a feverish pitch during the second war with England from 1812-1814. Dissatisfied with the war because it interfered with commercial intercourse with Great Britain, the New England States, with Massachusetts at the head, repeatedly threatened to separate from the South by violent revolution. On 2 June 1812, a resolution of the Massachusetts House of Representatives was presented to Congress which referred to the war as "in the highest degree impolitic, unnecessary, and ruinous" to the "trade and navigation, which are indispensable to the prosperity and comfort of the people of this Commonwealth."(10) On 14 February 1814, a committee of the Massachusetts legislature issued a report denouncing the war as "so fertile in calamities and so threatening in consequences, and carried on in the worst possible manner: forming a union of wickedness and weakness which defies, for a parallel, the annals of the world." It was feared that it was being conducted for the end "of destroying even the forms of liberty," and for the purpose of installing a President for life. The report continued:
We tremble for the liberties of our country. We think it the duty of the present generation to stand between the next and despotism. The power to regulate commerce is abused when employed to destroy it, and a voluntary abuse of power sanctions the right of resistance as much as a direct and palpable usurpation. The sovereignty of the States was reserved to protect the citizens from acts of violence by the United States, as well as for purposes of domestic regulation. We spurn the idea that the free, sovereign, and independent State of Massachusetts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, without power to protect its people or to defend them from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this State oppressed by cruel and unauthorised enactments, this Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and to wrest from the oppressor his victim. This is the spirit of our Union, and thus has it been explained by the very man who now sets at defiance all the principles of his early political life. The question, then, is not a question of power or right, but of time and expediency.(11)
This same committee then called for a convention of the New England States to discuss the formation of the Northern Confederacy dreamed of by Timothy Pickering. The result was the Hartford Convention, which met on 15 December 1814 to make plans for the secession of the New England States upon the stated principle that "in cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of a State and the liberties of the people, it is not only the right, but the duty also, of each State to interpose its authority for protection in the manner best calculated to secure that end." In determining whether such infractions of the Constitution had occurred, "States which have no common umpire must be their own judges, and execute their own decisions." It was further declared:
If the Union be destined to dissolution by reason of the multiplied abuses of bad administration, it should, if possible, be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent. Some new form of confederacy should be substituted among those States which shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other. Events may prove that the causes of our calamities are deep and permanent. They may be found to proceed, not merely from the blindness of prejudice, pride of opinion, violence of party spirit, or the confusion of the times; but they may be traced to implacable combinations of individuals or of States to monopolize power and office, and to trample without remorse upon the rights and interests of commercial sections of the Union. Whenever it shall appear that the causes are radical and permanent, a separation by equitable arrangement will be preferable to an alliance by constraint among nominal friends, but real enemies.(12)
A constitution for this proposed New England confederacy was actually drawn up and was "to go into operation as soon as two or three States shall have adopted it."(13)
These proceedings were not conducted in secret, but were openly reported, and their affirmation of the doctrines of State sovereignty and the right of secession was applauded by the New England press. For example, on 13 January 1813, the editor of the Boston Centinel wrote:
The sentiment is hourly extending, and, in these northern states, will soon be universal, that we are in no better condition with respect to the south, than that of a conquered people....
Either the southern states must drag us further into the war — or we must drag them out of it — or the chain will break....
We must be no longer deafened by senseless clamours about a separation of the states....
Should the present administration, with their adherents in the southern states, still persist in the prosecution of this wicked and ruinous war — in unconstitutionally creating new states in the mud of Louisiana (the inhabitants of which country are as ignorant of republicanism as the alligators of their swamps) and in opposition to the commercial rights and privileges of New England, much as we deprecate a separation of the union, we deem it an evil much less to be dreaded than a co-operation with them in these nefarious projects [emphasis in original].(14)
On 10 September 1814, the same organ declared:
What shall we do to be saved? One thing only. The people must rise in their majesty — protect themselves — and compel their unworthy servants to obey their will....
The union is already dissolved practically....
You ask my opinion on a subject which is much talked of — a Dissolution of the Union. On this subject I differ from my fellow-citizens generally, and therefore I ought to speak and write with diffidence. I have, for many years, considered the union of the northern and southern states as not essential to the safety, and very much opposed to the interest, of both sections. The extent of territory is too large to be harmoniously governed by the same representative body.... The commercial and non-commercial states have views and interests so different, that I conceive it to be impossible that they ever can be satisfied with the same laws and the same system of measures. I firmly believe, that each section would be better satisfied to govern itself: and each is large and populous enough for its own protection, especially as we have no powerful nations in our neighbourhood.... And I believe the public welfare would be better consulted, and more promoted, in a separate than in a federal condition. The mountains form a natural line of division: and moral and commercial habits would unite the western people. In like manner, the moral and commercial habits of the northern and middle states would link them together; as would the like habits of the slave-holding states. Indeed, the attempt to unite this vast territory under one head has long appeared to me absurd. I believe a peaceable separation would be for the happiness of all sections [emphasis in original].(15)
Again, on the seventeenth of December:
It is said, that to make a treaty or commerce with the enemy is to violate the Constitution, and to sever the union. Are they not both already virtually destroyed? Or in what stage of existence would they be, should we declare a neutrality, or even withhold taxes or men?...
By a commercial treaty with England, which shall provide for the admission [into the proposed New England confederacy] of such states as may wish to come into it, and which shall prohibit England from making a treaty with the south and west, which does not grant us at least equal privileges with herself, our commerce will be secured to us; our standing in the nation raised to its proper level; and New England's feelings will no longer be sported with or her interests violated....
If we submit quietly, our destruction is certain. If we oppose them with a high-minded and steady conduct, who will say that we shall not beat them back? No one can suppose that a conflict with a tyranny at home, would be as easy as with an enemy from abroad. But firmness will anticipate and prevent it. Cowardice dreads it — and will surely bring it on at last. Why then delay? Why leave that to chance which firmness should command? Will our wavering frighten government into compliance? [emphasis in original].(16)
In light of New England's reaction to what was perceived as the usurpations of the general Government in the early years of the Nineteenth Century, what wretched hypocrisy it was for these same States to send their troops to invade and devastate the South only a generation later for acting upon the very same principles of State sovereignty and rights which they so tenaciously claimed for themselves. When they felt themselves to be oppressed by the South, the New England States, with Massachusetts in the lead, were eager to assert the right to depart from the Union "amicably if they can, violently if they must." However, when the South would later complain of Northern oppression, and attempt to depart from the Union in peace, the North's repeated assertions of State sovereignty were inexplicably and conveniently forgotten.
The Treasonous Activity of the North
It also should be noted that, while Southerners were spilling their blood in defense of their country during the war of 1812, many New Englanders continued to carry on commercial intercourse with English merchant ships which hovered off the Atlantic coast and around the Boston harbor in particular.(17) This behavior was nothing new; New England farmers had done the very same thing during the Revolution by carrying on such a "brisk, lucrative and systematic traffic... with the British lines" that George Washington feared the very cause of American independence would be put in jeopardy.(18) John Lowell described the shameless activities of his fellow Bostonians with these words: "Encouraged and protected from infamy by the just odium against the war, they engage in lawless speculations; sneer at the restraints of conscience; laugh at perjury; mock at legal restraints; and acquire an ill-gotten wealth at the expense of public morals, and of the more sober, conscientious part of the community."(19)
It was openly declared by leading political figures in the Northeastern States that they intended to "withhold [their] money and make a separate peace with England."(20) This proposed treaty would have involved a military union of Old and New England against the Southern States to "humble the pride and ambition of Virginia... and chastise the insolence of those madmen of Kentucky and Tennessee, who aspire to the government of these states, and threaten to involve the country in all the horrors of war."(21) In an open letter to President James Madison entitled "Northern Grievances," the Northern Federalist faction declared that, should negotiations with Great Britain be defeated by those in the seats of Government in Washington, "the injured States [of New England] will be compelled, by every motive of duty, interest and honour... to dash into atoms the bonds of tyranny" [emphasis in original] by waging war against the South. Arrogant and self-righteous in their hatred of the South, these men went on to write the following:
While posterity will admire the independent spirit of the Eastern section of our country, and with sentiments of gratitude, enjoy the fruits of their firmness and wisdom, the descendants of the South and the West will have reason to curse the folly of your councils....
Bold and resolute, when they step forth in the sacred cause of freedom and independence, the northern people will secure their object. No obstacle can impede them. No force can withstand their powerful arm. The most numerous armies will melt before their manly strength. Does not the page of history instruct you, that the feeble debility of the South never could face the vigorous activity of the North?...
The aggregate strength of the South and West, if brought against the North, would be driven into the ocean, or back to their own sultry wilds; and they might think themselves fortunate if they escaped other punishment than a defeat, which their temerity would merit....
You have carried your oppressions to the utmost stretch. We will no longer submit. Restore the Constitution to its purity. Give us security for the future, indemnity for the past. Abolish every tyrannical law. Make an immediate and honourable peace. Revive our commerce. Increase our navy. Protect our seamen. Unless you comply with these just demands, without delay, we will withdraw from the Union, scatter to the winds the bonds of tyranny, and transmit to posterity that Liberty purchased by the Revolution [emphasis in original].(22)
A few months later, the following implied death threat against Madison appeared in the Boston Gazette: "If James Madison is to command the force destined to subjugate the eastern states, we would suggest to his excellency a most salutary caution — it is, that he should provide himself with a horse swifter footed by far, than that which carried him so gallantly from the invaders of Washington. He must be able to escape at a greater rate than forty miles a day, or the swift vengeance of New England will overtake the wretched miscreant in his flight!"(23) Similar threats appeared in the Federal Republican, which called for Madison to be "hissed out of office, if not pelted with stones" [emphasis in original],(24) and Senator James Lloyd of Boston urged his constituents to "coerce Mr. Madison and his immediate dependants to retire from office, and to elect Mr. King or Judge Marshall in his stead" [emphasis in original].(25)
As Matthew Carey observed in The Olive Branch, "Massachusetts was energetic, firm, bold, daring, and decisive in the contest with the general government. She would not abate an inch. She dared it to conflict. She seized it by the throat, determined to strangle it! She was untameable as a lion, or a tiger, or a panther, or a leopard. But she was long-suffering, and mild, and patient, and harmless, and inoffensive, and gentle, and meek, as a lamb or a turtle-dove, when she came in contact with the enemy."(26) What better illustration of actual treason — "levying war against the United States and giving aid and comfort to their enemies"(27) — could have been supplied than by the actions of the leading politicians and journalists of the North from 1813 to 1815? In a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson pointed out, "During that war four of the Eastern States were only attached to the Union, like so many inanimate bodies to living men."(28) A new national flag, consisting of only five stripes, was even designed for the Hartford Convention,(29) and yet, this threatened, and practically accomplished, secession from the Union was answered neither by the Southern people with epithets of "rebel" and "traitor," nor by the Southern-dominated general Government with preparations for military coercion.
Evidence of a British-New England Conspiracy
Coinciding with the aforementioned events, evidence of a conspiracy between agents of the British Government in Canada and certain individuals holding positions of authority in the State government of Massachusetts had been brought to the attention of James Madison in 1810. In his address to Congress on the matter, Madison said:
I lay before Congress copies of certain documents, which remain in the department of State. They prove that, at a recent period, on the part of the British Government, through its public minister here, a secret agent of that government was employed, in certain States, more especially at the seat of government in Massachusetts, in fomenting disaffection to the constituted authorities of the country; and intrigued with the disaffected, for the purpose of bringing about resistance to the laws, and eventually, in concert with a British force, of destroying the Union, and forming the eastern part thereof into a political connexion with Great Britain.(30)
Among the documents laid before Congress was the intercepted letter of Sir James H. Craig, Governor-General of the British provinces in Canada to an English spy named John Henry. In this letter, the Governor instructed Henry to travel to Boston "with your earliest convenience" and there "to obtain the most accurate information of the true state of affairs in that part of the union, which, from its wealth, the number of its inhabitants, and the known intelligence and ability of several of its leading men, must naturally possess a very considerable influence over, and will indeed probably lead, the other eastern states of America in the part they may take at this important crisis." The remainder of Craig's instructions reveal that the "considerable influence" that Boston would have over the other States of New England was toward their withdrawal from the Union:
The federalists, as I understand, have at all times discovered a leaning to this disposition; and their being under its particular influence at this moment, is the more to be expected, from their having no ill-founded ground for their hopes of being nearer the attainment of their object than they have been for some years past....
It has been supposed that if the federalists of the eastern states should be successful in obtaining that decided influence, which may enable them to direct the public opinion, it is not improbable, that rather than submit to a continuance of the difficulties and distress to which they are now subject, they will exert that influence to bring about a separation from the general union. The earliest information on this subject may be of great consequence to our government; as it may also be, that it should be informed how far, in such an event, they would look to England for assistance, or be disposed to enter into a connection with us.
Although it would be highly inexpedient that you should in any manner appear as an avowed agent; yet if you could contrive to obtain an intimacy with any of the leading party, it may not be improper that you should insinuate, though with great caution, that if they should wish to enter into any communication with our government through me, you are authorized to receive any such, and will safely transmit it to me....(31)
In one of Henry's dispatches to Craig, he wrote, "The truth is, the common people [of New England] have so long regarded the Constitution of the United States with complacency, that they are now only disposed in this quarter to treat it like a truant mistress, whom they would for a time put away on a separate maintenance, but, without farther and greater provocation, would not necessarily repudiate."(32) In another dispatch, he suggested that the best way to "bring about a separation of the states, under distinct and independent governments" was through "a series of acts and long continued policy, tending to irritate the southern, and conciliate the northern people...." He went on:
This, I am aware, is an object of much interest in Great Britain; as it would forever secure the integrity of his majesty's possessions on the continent, and make the two governments, or whatever number the present confederacy might form into, as useful and as much subject to the influence of Great Britain, as her colonies can be rendered. But it is an object only to be attained by slow and circumspect progression; and requires for its consummation more attention to the affairs which agitate and excite parties in this country, than Great Britain has yet bestowed upon it. An unpopular war; that is, a war produced by the hatred and prejudices of one party, but against the consent of the other party, can alone produce a sudden separation of any section of this country from the common head.(33)
Again, he wrote, "It should, therefore, be the peculiar care of Great Britain to foster divisions between the north and south; and by succeeding in this, she may carry into effect her own projects in Europe, with a total disregard of the resentment of the democrats of this country."(34) Finally, two years later, in a letter addressed to the Earl of Liverpool, Henry described his mission as follows:
Soon after the affair of the Chesapeake frigate, when his majesty's governor general of British America had reason to believe that the two countries would be involved in a war, and had submitted to his majesty's ministers the arrangements of the English party in the United States for an efficient resistance to the general government, which would probably terminate in a separation of the northern states from the general confederacy, he applied to the undersigned, to undertake a mission to Boston, where the whole concerns of the opposition were managed. The object of the mission was to promote and encourage the federal party to resist the measures of the general government; to offer assurances of aid and support from his majesty's government of Canada; and to open communication between the leading men engaged in that opposition and the governor general, upon such a footing as circumstances might suggest; and finally to render the plans then in contemplation subservient to the views of his majesty's government.(35)
It should be noted that six weeks after General Cornwallis had surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, King George III stated in an address to the Parliament that "he should not answer the trust committed to the sovereign of a free people, if he consented to sacrifice either to his own desire of peace, or to their temporary ease and relief, those essential rights and permanent interests, upon the maintenance and preservation of which the future strength and security of the country must forever depend."(36) In other words, the King was not about to acquiesce to the Americans' demand for independence. Oddly enough, only two weeks later, it was resolved in the House of Commons that "all further attempts to reduce the Americans to obedience by force would be ineffectual, and injurious to the true interests of Great Britain.... [H]is Majesty's ministers ought immediately to take every possible measure for concluding peace with our American colonies" [emphasis added].(37) Were these statements contradictory, as they seem to be on the surface, or did they reveal a mere change of policy on the part of Great Britain — an abandonment of flagrant war in favor of non-flagrant war against the Americans? Were the Tories, who later took the name of Federalists, and finally resurfaced in 1854 as the Republican party, the instruments through which the English Crown sought to destroy the independence of the American States, dissolve their political union, and force them back into subservience to British rule? The historical data certainly seems to indicate such to be a plausible hypothesis. The reader should carefully review the above Henry letter of 13 March 1809, in which the American States are referred to as "his majesty's possessions" and the "colonies" of Great Britain twenty-six years after George III signed the Treaty of Paris, acknowledging the sovereignty and independence of these self-same States.
In his book, Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South, George Edmonds wrote:
The Northeastern States early sought to create prejudice and disunion sentiment, not on account of any existing fact, but to array section against section, to stimulate hate and discord for the purpose of accelerating their darling object, the dissolution of the Union and the formation of a Northeastern Confederacy. Press, politicians and preachers were continually harping on causes which made disunion desireable. The motives which actuated New England disunionists was the desire to have what Hamilton called a strong government, understood to mean an autocracy similar to that of England, a large standing army, a heavy public debt, owned by the favored few, to whom the common masses should pay tribute, under the guise of interest. The main public offices were to be held by the rich and noble for long periods, or for life. It was argued that a national debt would be a national blessing, and a prohibitive tariff, under the guise of protection, would be a blessing. These were the motives which led the early Federalists to want disunion.(38)
The events and actions of the leading politicians of the Northeast from the ratification of the Constitution on through the second war with England should be carefully studied, for they reveal the true cause of the later war between the States which has, for one hundred and forty years, been obscured under layers of "politically correct" propaganda. As we will see, anti-slavery was merely the issue seized upon by a Northern faction already bent upon the dissolution of the Union and war against the South — a party which favored not only a monarchical form of government patterned after the Government of Great Britain, but even a re-establishment of political ties with the mother country.
Endnotes
1. Hartford (Connecticut) Courant, quoted by Matthew Carey, The Olive Branch (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: M. Carey and Son, 1818), pages 255-256.
2. Timothy Pickering, letter to Higginson, 24 December 1803; quoted by Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881), Volume I, page 71.
3. Pickering, letter to Cabot, 29 January 1804; quoted by Davis, ibid., page 72.
4. Boston Gazette, quoted by Carey, Olive Branch, page 143.
5. Boston Centinel, 10 September 1808; quoted by Carey, ibid.
6. Carey, ibid., page 141.
7. New England resolutions, quoted by James Banner, To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1970), page 301.
8. Josiah Quincy, speech delivered in the House of Representatives, 14 January 1811; in Thomas Hart Benton (editor), Abridgement of the Debates of Congress 1789 to 1856 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1860), Volume IV, page 327.
9. Quincy, in Benton, ibid., pages 327, 328, 331, 332. Quincy's arguments were soundly rebutted the following day by Robert Wright of Maryland, when he pointed out that Vermont, which had not been within the limits of the original States, was admitted without complaint to the Union in 1791 and that the framers of the Constitution even looked forward to a day when the provinces of Canada might be admitted (Benton, ibid., pages 334-335).
10. Resolution of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 2 June 1812; in Benton, ibid., page 415.
11. Report of the committee of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 14 February 1814; quoted by McHenry, Cotton Trade, pages xxxv-xxxvi.
12. Hartford Convention resolutions, in Henry Adams (editor), Documents Relating to New-England Federalism (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1877), page 297; McHenry, Cotton Trade, page xxxvi.
13. The Federal Republican (1814), quoted by Carey, Olive Branch, page 425.
14. Boston Centinel, 13 January 1813; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 423.
15. Boston Centinel, 10 September 1814; quoted by Carey, ibid., pages 423-424.
16. Boston Centinel, 15 December 1814; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 422.
17. Edmonds, Facts and Falsehoods, page 112.
18. Scott, Lost Principle, page 58.
19. John Lowell, quoted by Carey, Olive Branch, page 293.
20. Boston Advertiser (1814); quoted by Carey, ibid., page 424.
21. New York Commercial Advertiser (1814); quoted by Carey, ibid., page 42.
22. "Northern Grievances" (an open letter to President James Madison, May 1814), pages 12, 13, 15; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 42.
23. Boston Gazette, 5 January 1815; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 428.
24. Federal Republican, quoted by Carey, ibid., page 429.
25. James Lloyd, quoted by Carey, ibid.
26. Carey, ibid., pages 302-303.
27. U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section 3, Clause 1.
28. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Lafayette, quoted by James Spence, The American Union (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1862), page 208.
29. Spence, ibid., page 209.
30. Madison, quoted by R.G. Horton, A Youth's History of the Great Civil War of the United States From 1861 to 1865 (New York: Van Evrie, Horton and Company, 1868), page 37.
31. Sir James H. Craig, letter to John Henry, 6 February 1809; quoted by Carey, Olive Branch, page 145.
32. Henry, letter to Craig, 7 March 1809; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 149.
33. Henry, letter to Craig, 13 March 1809; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 150.
34. Henry, letter to Craig, 20 March 1809; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 151.
35. Henry, memorial to the Earl of Liverpool, 13 June 1811; quoted by Carey, ibid., page 155.
36. George III, address to Parliament on 27 November 1781; quoted by David Ramsay, The History of the American Revolution (Trenton, New Jersey: James J. Wilson, 1811), Volume II, page 617.
37. Resolution in the House of Commons of 12 December 1781; quoted by Ramsay, ibid., page 619.
38. Edmonds, Facts and Falsehoods, page 99.
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