1812. USE OF THE ARMY IN TIME OF PEACE. 437 dreaded to spend the public money, Clay moved an amendment. He would have the officers of eight regiments commissioned at once. When three fourths of the privates of these eight had been enlisted, he would have the officers of the five other regiments commissioned, and not before. In the end he carried the day, and the House, having changed the eight to six, and made a few other amendments, passed the bill and sent it to the Senate.* Within eight-and-forty hours it came back with four important amendments stricken out almost unanimously. And now the less extreme Republicans began to waver, but the Federalists once more came to the help of Clay. The House receded from all its amendments save one, and on January eleventh Madison signed the bill. While the document was on its way to the President, Randolph once more returned to the attack. The great army about to be raised might, he said, never be used to wage war. In that event, as the President could not disband them, their time, so far as he could see, would be spent in shouldering their muskets on the south side of some range of buildings. Idleness of this sort led to depravity and dissoluteness of manners. He believed that regular and wholesome labor would preserve the health of the troops, and make the burden such an existence forced them to bear less heavy. If they were employed in digging the President's house or the war office from under ground, their appetites would be better both for their existence and their dinners. He moved, therefore, that, when not fighting, the army should be kept busy building roads, digging canals, laboring on works of public utility. Against this proposition every Republican cried out. Randolph was accused of seeking to degrade the army to the level of the criminals who in Maryland dug canals and in Virginia made shoes, nails, and clothing; of seeking to hinder enlist * January 6, 1812. Yeas, 94. Nays, 34. For receding from the amendment providing that the officers of but six regiments should be commissioned the yeas were 67, nays 60. For receding from the second, providing that the officers should remain in commission so long as the President thought fit, the yeas were 67; nays, 60. The third amendment, providing that officers should not be paid unless in service, was adhered to; yeas, 49; nays, 76. The fourth amendment, giving the President power to appoint officers during the recess of the Senate, was lost. Yeas, 61; nays, 40. ment; of wishing to embarrass public measures; and his motion, by a vote of one hundred and two to fifteen, was rejected. This flurry over, the House went into committee, took up a bill to raise a volunteer corps, and soon plunged into a curious constitutional debate. The bill authorized the President to accept the services of fifty thousand volunteers, to be officered by the State authorities, and called into service by the President. Under the Constitution he could call them in service for either of three purposes-to execute the laws, to put down insurrection, to repel invasion. But these volunteers were to be used for no such purposes. They were to go with the regulars and invade Canada. The question then arose, May the militia be used without the limits of the United States? Almost everybody thought it could not. An amendment was therefore offered requiring each volunteer to sign an agreement to serve without the jurisdiction of the United States. Every variety of opinion was expressed. Some thought militia could be used to chase an invading enemy over the border. Some thought it could be marched into Canada if the States to which it belonged consented. Some thought that, as the Constitution provided for two kinds of troops, the regulars and the State militia, the regulars must be used for offensive war and the State militia for defensive. Others thought the amendment useless, for, said they, if the Constitution does not give the President power to use militia without the United States, how can Congress authorize him to do so? The question was not settled, and the bill when it reached Madison said not a word on the use of the volunteers beyond our borders. * The war Republicans had now met with their first check. Seemingly it was slight. In reality it was disastrous. It deprived the President of the use of the volunteers in Canada. It left a handful of regulars to fight the battles across the frontier. It went far toward causing that series of shameful defeats which cost us Canada. It was, and this for the time being was more important than all else, the first manifestation of a state of feeling that parted the leaders of the war Re 1812. THE NAVY BILL. 439 publicans, damped the ardor of their followers, and threw the proceedings of the House into dire confusion. The immediate cause of this quarrel was a bill, brought in by the Naval Committee, to repair and fit out all vessels of war, build ten new frigates averaging thirty-eight guns each, buy a stock of timber, and construct a dry dock at some convenient place. The question involved was not merely, Shall or shall not ten frigates be built, shall there be a navy large enough to guard our commerce abroad or small enough to defend our ports at home? but, Shall the affairs of this people be ruled henceforth by the Republicans of the old school or by the Republicans of the new? To hate a navy had always been a Republican principle since the day when John Adams brought together the little fleet of ships and frigates which more than once humbled the flag of France. Now, on a sudden, Republicans were asked to build a navy. Every Republican who yielded to that request, who raised his voice or cast his vote for the ships, bade farewell to the party of Jefferson, of Clinton, of Duane, and took his place in the ranks that followed the leadership of Henry Clay. No one knew this better than Langdon Cheves. As chairman of the Naval Committee he opened the debate and fairly stated the issue. "I know," said he, "how many and how strong are the prejudices, how numerous and how deeply laid are the errors which I have to encounter in the discussion of this question. I have been told that a naval establishment is unpopular. It has been hinted that those who become the zealous advocates of the bill will not advance the estimation in which they are held by their associates. But no such considerations can stop me. I wish to lead no man. I am determined not to be blindly led by any man. In acting with a party, I do so because I believe its principles to be the best. But I do not feel myself bound, therefore, to renounce my individual opinions; to take no independent part in the labors of the party to which I belong." Having thus declared himself independent of the traditions of the past, he fell to work earnestly in defence of a new navy. But he went too far. His followers deserted him by dozens. Clay and Lowndes and Calhoun and Porter came bravely to his support. But Johnson and Grundy, men as eager as he for war, attacked him fiercely. All the old familiar arguments, all the old predictions of evil, all the old terrors used by the Republican press in 1798 to excite the people against a navy, were again resorted to. History, ancient and modern, was ransacked for instances of nations enslaved, of peoples impoverished by their navies. The experience of Tyre and Sidon, Crete and Rhodes, Athens and Carthage, was cited to prove that the moment a people ceased to confine their navy to defence at home, they rushed into piracy, plunder, and war; that the moment a people put forth their strength upon the sea they grew weak upon the land; that their rights were neglected, their burdens made heavy, their happiness and their liberty destroyed. I deny, cried out one speaker, that the United States can maintain a navy without oppressing the mass of the people with the tax-gatherer. Even if a great navy could be maintained it would be dangerous to the peace and tranquillity of the nation. A navy, said another, will increase the executive patronage, for it must be kept in time of peace as well as in time of war. We fought England once without a navy, said a third, and we can do so again. Stirred up by such appeals, the old Republican spirit rose high and the committee refused to build another frigate* or spend one dollar for a dock yard. Shorn of these provisions, the bill passed both House and Senate. For the time being the war leaders had lost control. Their majority was gone. They could accomplish nothing; and measures deemed of the gravest importance were defeated. A bill to provide for a uniform militia throughout the United States was lost by three votes. On a bill to arm the militia, they with difficulty commanded a majority of sixteen. A resolution calling for a committee to frame a bill authorizing a provisional army of twenty thousand men was voted down by * On the motion to strike out the section the yeas were 62; nays, 59. + Motion to strike out, yeas, 56; nays, 52. The militia were to be divided into three classes: minor, junior, and senior. In the minor were to be youths from eighteen to twenty-one, liable for three months' duty in their own State. The juniors were to be men from twenty-one to thirtyone, liable to a year's duty anywhere. The seniors were to be men from thirtyone to forty-five, liable to six months' duty in their own or an adjoining State. Lost: Nays, 58; yeas, 55, 1812. DEFEAT OF THE WAR LEADERS. 441 a majority of nine. The refusal to provide these troops was a defeat as crushing as the refusal to build ten frigates. Porter, who moved the resolution, reminded the House that its own acts had placed the country on the verge of war, and that Eng、 land was well aware of these acts. She knew that Congress was making ready in a good-natured, desultory, easy-going way to capture Canada. Knowing this, she would act, for it was not her habit to strike the second blow. It behooved Congress, therefore, if it really meant to take Canada, to push forward its preparations with vigor and decision. Had it done so as yet? A law had been passed to raise twenty-five thousand regular troops, but no reasonable man could say that they would be raised in time to render any service for a year to come. Their officers were not even appointed. They were to be enlisted in every part of the country from Maine to Tennessee. It would take months to collect them after they had enlisted, and begin the march to the frontier. The regulars, then, were not to be counted on. Neither were the fifty thousand volunteers; for it was an open question whether they could be sent into Canada. As the law stood, if they went at all it must be of their own volition. The President could not send them. What force, then, had been given the President with which to make war? Practically not one man. Yet the Committee on Foreign Relations were every day blamed for not reporting a declaration of war. Let the President be given a provisional army, an army into which the young men who composed the militia would gladly enlist and go wherever their services might be needed. But he appealed in vain. Even Cheves and Lowndes, Grundy and Troup, deserted him. When the leaders thus fell apart, when the man who had begged for an efficient navy voted against an efficient army, the situation was serious. Very wisely they stopped, abandoned all hopes of securing further means of defence, and turned their attention to raising money to pay the cost of the few troops and ships that had been given them. The duty of suggesting the manner of defraying the charges of war belonged, of course, to the Committee of Ways and Means and was diligently performed. Toward the middle of February the chairman presented a report covering the three years |