already and it is now too late to regain it. Unanimity and the safety of the country are now the great objects to be considered."45 Severe as this indictment appears, it is nevertheless the judgment of a friend. The real virus of mercantile opinion found vent in personal flings at Jefferson,46 while extreme Federalists in Baltimore went even so far as to rejoice at threatening secession in New England. The following "communication" to a Baltimore newspaper indicates at least an attempt to feel out the position of Maryland Federalists with reference to such a contingency. "The political intelligence from the great Atlantic States, if it do not warrant an entire confidence that the golden principles of FEDERALISM have revived in full vigor and health, at least instructs us that the fatal Embargo law threatens fearful ruin to the tottering cause of democracy. The good and powerful portion of the people are prepared constitutionally to rise up in their strength against the destructive policy of our rulers. Let democracy, and her treacherous hand-maid, French Influence stand aghast, brooding over their own iniquities. The guilty may escape retributive vengeance for a while, but Justice will overtake them yet. Though majestic in her mien, and bold in her approach, she will steal anon upon her trembling victim, and point with peculiar emphasis at the faithless friends of their country."47 But the most formidable expression of revolt was the declaration of the Baltimore Federal Republican concerning "Mr. Giles's Bill," in which the doctrines of the Virginia resolution were invoked to show that by exercising powers never delegated by the states, the federal government had dissolved the civil compact. The Giles Bill was a force bill, according to the Republican, and the government would do well to remember that "a law which is to be enforced at the 45 W. C. Nicholas Papers, Library of Congress. Wm. Patterson to W. C. Nicholas, Dec. 1, 1808. The North American and Mercantile Daily Advertiser. Baltimore, June 6, 1808. Quoting Jackson's Marine Register for June 3rd in a comment upon the failure of a single ship that day to enter or leave New York, Philadelphia or Baltimore. "We shall be consoled, however, for all this temporal privation, by lectures on the "Revolt of Nations From the Empire of Morality" by a PHILOSOPHER, who has not violated more than one-half of the Decalogue." Ibid., May 16, 1808. point of the bayonet will bring on a struggle which may terminate in the overthrow of the government. Our rulers are answerable for the issue."48 Maryland representatives in Congress were more sensitive to the commercial disadvantages of the embargo than to its manufacturing advantages. This was the more natural among men who, living outside of their state, could not witness in person the awakening in cotton, woolen, and other manufactures; while commercially they were well aware that Maryland was in a situation to bear the full brunt of the embargo. For unrestricted commerce her location was advantageous. But when the embargo sealed her front door, she had no back door for escape. Northern New England and New York had a Canadian outlet. Transalleghany and the Far South touched the Mississippi and Florida, with their lucrative possibilities for smuggling. It was quite otherwise with Maryland. And her isolation moved her to self pity.49 Perhaps, though, a hundred per cent administration would have left no loop-hole for the 100,000 barrels of flour, which John Randolph declared with gusto were smuggled out of Baltimore.50 The argument for uniformity would have gained in dignity if clothed in an appeal for uniform self-sacrifice and patriotism. But Key reduced it to an absurdity by basing his opposition to the embargo on the inability of his constituents to evade it.51 Like Josiah Quincy, Key was an advocate of laissez-faire. He would allow the merchants to manage their own business, trusting them to impose a voluntary embargo whenever risks outran profits. And if the merchants themselves were not clever enough to determine this, the insurance companies would do it for them. "I would, therefore, confide to them. the commerce of our country in the exportation of our pro 48 The Connecticut Courant. Jan. 18, 1809. Quoting from the Baltimore Federal Republican. 49 Annals of Congress, xviii: p. 1706. Philip B. Key: "Our laws should be uniform; at present large portions of our country have an outlet for commerce and the embargo law operates as a bounty to that part of the community at the expense of the remainder." 50 Ibid., xviii, p. 2239. 51 lbid., xviii, p. 2119. duce, unshackled by an embargo law."52 He anticipated events by a year when, in despair of justice from either France or England, he recommended commerce only with the rest of the world.53 But with a curious inconsistency, though he declared war to be preferable to embargo, he refused his vote to the act enabling Jefferson during the summer recess of Congress to suspend the operation of the embargo, subject to certain contingencies. "I cannot consent," said Key, "that the destinies of my country, that its laws shall be suspended on the will of any individual, however preeminent in virtue, dignified in station, or covered with the mantle of public opinion. The more his merit, the greater the danger."54 When Congress reconvened, Maryland spoke with more than one voice. S. Smith took the cheerful view that Liverpool would soon be clamoring for saner counsels in Britain. On our side, he declared that border smuggling was less extensive than it was rumored to be. Altogether, he bade the Senate be of good heart.55 Key, however, continued in the voice of lamentation. Picturing the entire Union in a competition of suffering, he demanded the prize for Maryland. In this he represented commercial sentiment, for in Maryland, unlike Pennsylvania, commerce cast the deciding vote as against manufactures, which, however promising, were still immature. And that vote, whether expressed in the correspondence of William Patterson or the furious diatribes of the Federalist press, became increasingly hostile to the embargo. In reaching this point of view, Maryland was in harmony with her sisters. With distinct individual differences as to the incidence of the embargo, the states of the Middle Group shared in varying degree the stimulus to manufactures and the demoralization of commerce imposed by the times. But collectively the burden of their experience impelled them to vote out the embargo, and to vote in its emasculated substitute of non-intercourse with Great Britain and France. In vain did friends of the embargo point to its deadly effect upon 52 Ibid., xviii, p. 2122. 53 Ibid., xviii, p. 2123. 55 Ibid., xix, pp. 147, 150, 159. Great Britain.56 In vain were smugglers and traitors held up to the execration of their fellow citizens.57 Public opinion, which had sustained the embargo in its initial stages, and upheld it with tolerable firmness through nine months of increasing pressure, even to the enforcing act of January, 1809, finally succumbed. As the embargo grew more intolerable and its success appeared less certain, the pendulum swung from rigid government control to extreme individual freedom. And the readiest means was sought for restoring our commerce without too blatant a confession of defeat. This drift in opinion the Middle States shared with their neighbors, and in the vote of February 27, 1809, which finally overthrew the embargo and replaced it by a non-intercourse act, the Middle States cast the following ballot: New York, 13 to 3 and 1 not voting; New Jersey, 5 to 0; Delaware, 0 to 1; Pennsylvania, 10 to 6 with 2 not voting; Maryland, 7 to 1. Ohio cast her single vote in the negative.58 The Middle States thus spoke decisively. Theirs was the balance of power. And without their suffrance, the embargo could not endure. One may regret, but not condemn their decision. The embargo was a sublime experiment carried out under impossible conditions. A stronger nationalism was needed if the country were to give the unanimous support essential to success. In Congress itself, a different type of statesmanship was required than what passed current in 1809. The practical politician governed then as now and made sad work of it. Yet in so far as the nation did uphold it, the embargo pointed toward a brighter world where wars should be no more. Viewed as a commercial device for rescuing shipping and humbling a foe, the embargo was sordid enough. Viewed as a substitute for war, it assumes the dignity of one of the most enlightened plans and consistent efforts ever directed toward world peace. But amid the losses and discomforts of the time, it was not easy to see or to keep the vision, and if the Middle States, like their sisters, failed at last to do so, they deserve more credit for what they did than censure for what they failed to do. The Palladium. Frankfort, Ky., Oct. 27, 1808. 7 Ibid., Aug. 18, 1808. Quoting The National Intelligencer. 58 Annals of Congress, xix, p. 1541. Pro-Slavery Propaganda in American Fiction of the Fifties JEANNETTE REED TANDY Columbia University. PART II.* There remain for discussion two novels which give particular attention to the attitude of the Negro toward his condition of servitude. It is an amazing thing to find any writer of this period bold enough to address a southern audience upon this theme. Any discussion of the psychology of the Negro was taboo. Only two or three had dared to treat him as a person. Kennedy's chapter in Swallow Barn on the deserted mother, while sympathetic, was sufficiently romantic in tone to avoid inferences. So staunch a pro-slavery advocate as Simms had given serious offense by writing of the loves of the driver. The very fact that anyone dared to represent the Negro as more than a savage or a buffoon is surprising. The courtly old butlers, the philosophers, the Uncle Remuses belong to a later period of our literature. A thinking Negro is unusual, a Negro expressing himself on slavery is unaccountable, in these ante-bellum tracts. * * * Aunt Phillis' Cabin10 takes its name from the domicile of a woman of superior intelligence. Phillis is the white folks' friend. She refuses to be lured away by an Abolitionist. "I'll never take my freedom. I am not going to begin stealing and I fifty years." She is the dea ex machina of the whole plantation, the woman of poise and genius, whose power is not affected by her social position. The author moralizes on the fact that slavery does not degrade the Negroes. Phillis' constant trial is her husband Bacchus, the coachman, who says: "Niggers ain't like white folks, nohow, they can't 'sist temptation." In Bacchus Mrs. Eastman succeeds in giving a simpler and more natural picture of the Negro than any other ante-bellum writer. Bacchus in a vast ruffled shirt, so proud * See SOUTH ATLANTIC QUARTERLY for Jan., 1922. 10 Eastman, Mrs. M. H.: Aunt Phillis' Cabin; or, Southern Life As It Is. 1852. |