1809. THE FORCE ACT RESISTED. 327 obituary notices on liberty, on the Constitution, on the Union. Handbills were circulated far and wide. One, called "The Constitution Gone," has been preserved for us, and well expresses the feelings of the hour. Had such an act as that to enforce the embargo reached New England in 1776, the whole people, the writer declared, would have risen up in rebellion. But so effectually had the Tory doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance been preached of late, that the people, like well-tamed cattle, bent their necks to the yoke. This law, said he, deprives you of the inalienable rights of acquiring property, of enjoying it as you wish, and disposing of it at your pleasure, of trial by jury, and of the right of resort to the State judiciary. This law subjects you to domiciliary visits, to the seizure of property without legal process, quarters soldiers on you in time of peace, and gives strangers the right to open and read your secret and confidential papers. Your coasting trade is gone; the military is above. the civil power, and you have nothing left but civil war or slavery. Such appeals were hardly needed, for organized opposition began weeks before. While the bill was still before the House the people of Bath, in Maine, assembled in townmeeting and took the first steps toward civil war. They called on the General Court to relieve them at once, and named a Committee of Correspondence to ask for like action in neighboring towns, and a Committee of Safety to warn the men of Bath of any attempt to enforce the embargo.* So much in earnest were they that a ship was armed, loaded with produce, and the captain ordered by the people to sail. The Collector, knowing what was coming, hired a vessel, put some six-pounders on the deck, gathered a volunteer crew, and dropped down the river to await her in Quaheag Bay. Undismayed, the sloop came on, exchanged shots, and went to sea.t The fishermen of Gloucester were next to act, and by them like resolutions and addresses were voted and like committees * The meeting was held December 27, 1808. New England Palladium, January 3, 1809. Boston Gazette, January 5, 1809. Boston Gazette, January 9, 1809. chosen.* The citizens of Hampshire County declared that events were constantly happening which tended to break up the Union, and demanded that such things stop. The men of Newburyport voted that they would not aid or assist in executing the Force Act; that all who did were violators of the Constitution, and that the whole system was unequal, oppressive, unconstitutional, and unjust. In towns where in September the Federalists could not find ten men to demand. that the select-men should warn a town-meeting, they had no trouble in January in finding a hundred. From Augusta, from Belfast, from Castine, from Alfred, from Bath, from Portland, from Wells, from Hallowell, from Beverly and Salem, Newburyport and Gloucester, from Boston and Cambridge, Hadley, Brewster, Sanford, Northampton, North Yarmouth, Amesbury, Oxford, New Bedford, Provincetown, Plymouth, from Marblehead, Duxbury, Somerset, Taunton, Lynn, Bolton, and Sterling, from a hundred towns, resolutions came pouring in upon the General Court. The spirit of them all was British. Each complained of the hostile attitude of the administration toward Great Britain and of the "cringing sycophancy" of its conduct toward France. Each declared the purpose of Jefferson to be the provocation of an English war. Each deprecated a dissolution of the Union, but none expressed horror at the idea; not a trace of national feeling exists in one of them. Gloucester thought that a dissolution of the Union ought not to be resorted to till all honorable means for redress had been tried.# The men of Alfred told the Republicans that nothing but " a fearful looking for of despotism could induce" them to wish for a severance of the Union, but that despotism had broken the bonds that once bound the colonies to Great Britain, and that what a like course of conduct might do in the United States God only knew. Hadley expressed the belief that a perseverance in *Meeting held January 12, 1809. New England Palladium, January 17, 1809. + New England Palladium, January 20, 1809. Boston Gazette, January 26, 1809. # New England Palladium, February 24, 1809. New England Palladium, February 17, 1809. 1809. NEW ENGLAND TOWN-RESOLUTIONS. 329 that deadly hostility to commerce which arose from jealousy of New England would soon break up the Union-nay, that self-preservation would soon force a separation of the States.* The language used by Hallowell sounded strangely like that which, ten years before, had been used by Jefferson and Madison in their rebellion against the Alien and Sedition Laws. The object of men in forming a body-politic, said the resolution, is the safety and security of persons and property; but, in giving up some natural rights men do so in order to protect those retained and guaranteed by the social compact. Whenever, therefore, those delegated to make laws transgress. this rule and exceed the powers given them by a fair construction of the instrument whence they derive their delegated powers, such laws are null; the Embargo and Force Act are unwarranted by the spirit and letter of the Constitution, are null, and the State is in duty bound to interfere and arrest the career of usurpation. So hateful was the law that, rather than execute it, the Collector and the Deputy Collector of the port of Boston resigned. An order was thereupon issued that not a vessel of any sort should be allowed to pass Fort Independence.† In the midst of this outburst of popular fury the General Court met at Boston. The memorials sent up by the towns were at once referred to a joint committee, and a long report, a set of resolutions, and a bill were promptly presented. The bill began with the assertion that the fourteenth article of the Declaration of Rights in the Constitution of Massachusetts, and the fourth article of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, guaranteed that citizens should be secure in their persons, in their houses, in their papers and effects, against unreasonable search; that no warrant should issue unsupported by oath; and that every place to be searched and every article to be seized should be particularly described in the warrant. Any person, therefore, who, acting under the Force Act, entered by day or by night the house of a citizen of Massachusetts against that citizen's will and, without a war * Baltimore Evening Post, January 9, 1809. rant duly supported by oath, searched for specie or for articles of domestic growth, produce, or manufacture, was guilty of a high misdemeanor, and, on conviction, might be punished with fine or imprisonment.* The bill passed, but the Governor promptly vetoed it. The resolutions were four in number. One declared the Force Act to be unjust, unconstitutional, oppressive, and not legally binding on the citizens of the Commonwealth, but urged all persons aggrieved to abstain from forcible resistance. Another recommended a memorial to Congress. The third announced that Massachusetts was ready"to co-operate with any of the other States in all legal and constitutional measures for procuring such amendments to the Constitution of the United States as shall be judged necessary." By the fourth the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House were instructed to send copies of the resolutions to the sister States. Thus was a call for a convention of New England States put forth formally; thus was the earnest and long-desired wish of Pickering attained. Indeed, that the invitation went forth when it did is to be ascribed, and ascribed solely, to the work of Pickering and his friend. No memorial had asked for such a convention, no town-meeting for a moment thought of seeking help beyond the General Court; but the scheme for a New England confederacy, which the defeat of Burr and the death of Hamilton compelled the plotters to lay aside in 1804, was revived with new energy in 1808. Late in the winter of that year, on the eve of the General Court elections, Pickering, it will be remembered, addressed a long letter to the Governor of the State. It was intended to be laid before the Legislature, but Sullivan refused to transmit it, and a copy was thereupon given to the press. In that letter, the plan discussed in 1804 in private was for the first time made public and the people warned that "those States whose farms are on the ocean and whose harvests are gathered in every sea should immediately and seriously consider how to preserve them," and assured "that noth *The Patriotic Proceedings of the Legislature of Massachusetts during the Session from January 26 to March 4, 1809. Also Gazette of the United States, February 7, 1809. The Patriotic Proceedings of the Legislature of Massachusetts. 1808. RESISTANCE IN NEW ENGLAND. 331 ing but the sense of the commercial States, clearly and emphatically expressed," could save them. To this doctrine the embargo made many converts, and, as the day for the meeting of the General Court drew near, men who could never before be persuaded to listen to the scheme began to urge its speedy execution and to ask for information as to the best way to carry it out. Harrison Gray Otis was then President of the Massachusetts Senate, yet he was not ashamed to write for instructions to Washington, to suggest a meeting of the commercial States at Hartford, and to urge Josiah Quincy to find out if Connecticut and New York would attend and what should be the purpose of the meeting.+ Christopher Gore wrote in like strain to Pickering. The answer Pickering sent back laid down precisely what should be done.# A convention of New England States should be called, delegates appointed, and an address made to the people. Before the General Court rose the plan was carried out almost to the letter. No delegates, indeed, were chosen, but the address was made to the people and the invitation voted by the Senate. What Connecticut would do was soon manifest. Dearborn, acting under orders from the President, addressed a circular letter to the governors of the States asking them to name in or near each port of entry some officer of the militia having "known respect for the laws" on whom the collectors could call for help. Many of the governors complied readily. But the Governor of Connecticut was Jonathan Trumbull, who flatly refused to obey. He knew, he wrote in reply, of no authority for making such appointments, and he promptly assembled the Legislature, and addressed it in the language of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798. When, said he, the National * A Letter from the Hon. Timothy Pickering, a Senator of the United States from the State of Massachusetts, exhibiting to his Constituents a View of the Imminent Danger of an Unnecessary and Ruinous War, addressed to His Excellency, James Sullivan, Governor of the said State. Boston, 1808, pp. 11, 12. Harrison Gray Otis to Josiah Quincy, December 15, 1808. Life of Quincy, by Quincy, p. 164. Christopher Gore to Timothy Pickering, December 20, 1808. Adams's New England Federalism, p. 375. # Timothy Pickering to Christopher Gore, January 8, 1809. Adams's New England Federalism, p. 376. |