Within the next eight-and-forty hours eighty-five ships left port. Some got off without hindrance, but twenty were detained by bad weather and head-winds in the outer bay till news of the passage of the law reached the Collector. Signals were instantly hoisted on Fort Hill; but the weather was thick, the warnings could not be seen, and, before the captains were aware of the danger, a revenue cutter was upon them demanding their sea-papers. Some slipped their cables and went out despite the fog. More than half were detained.

setts.

For a moment the gravity of the situation was lost sight of. The news had come in the closing hours of the most exciting campaign that had ever yet taken place in MassachuA year of complete Republican control had almost produced a social revolution. By one law the inferior courts were reorganized; by another, the right to divert parish taxes from the Congregational minister to any other was secured to the tax-payer; by another, the franchise was extended, and the property qualification, which had existed since 1692, was ruthlessly swept away. Any man could now vote for town officers who was twenty-one years old and had lived one year in the town. In all other town affairs he could have a vote if he had paid a poll-tax. But the two laws which set the State aflame were the Districting Act and the act which made the pay of the representative a charge on the State Treasury.

Provision was made by the Constitution of Massachusetts for forty senators to be chosen by the people of such districts as the General Court should mark out. In using this power the General Court was to make not less than thirteen districts,

nor give more than six senators to any one. Just how many any district should have was to depend on the proportion of public taxes that district paid. Until the General Court ordered otherwise, the Constitution further provided that each one of the thirteen counties of the State should be a senatorial district. As other counties were formed this principle of making each county a district was not departed from, and what was a temporary provision became an established usage with all the force of law. This usage the Republicans now laid hands on and destroyed. At last, after years of persistent effort, they controlled the Senate. That control must be kept, and to

1812.

MASSACHUSETTS REDISTRICTED.

453

keep it they rearranged the senatorial districts without regard to county lines, overcame Federalist strongholds with Republican strongholds, cut Worcester County in two, joined Bristol and Norfolk, attached some of the towns of Suffolk to those of Essex, and in the next Senate had twenty-nine senators out of forty. The thing was not new in our politics, for it had some years before been tried in Virginia.*

Having pulled down one time-honored custom in order to secure the Senate, the Republicans pulled down another to secure the House. In that branch of the Legislature each incorporated town of one hundred and fifty ratable polls or less sent one representative, and for every two hundred and twenty-five ratable polls above one hundred and fifty, one representative more. Expenses incurred in going to and coming from the General Court were paid out of the State Treasury, but the daily pay of the member was borne by the town that sent him. Should a town fail to elect its delegates because of the cost, the House could fine it. In consequence of these things, it became customary for the poorer and smaller towns to elect representatives, send them to the General Court, have them remain till government was organized, and then come home. As many of these little places were Republican, their votes were lost, while the wealthy commercial towns, strongholds of Federalism, kept up a full delegation. To counteract this a law was passed by which the rich Federalist cities were taxed in order to pay the salaries of delegates from the poor Republican towns. In other words, the pay of members of the General Court was made a charge on the State Treasury, and the money needed was raised by increased taxation. In 1812 the sum required was over ninety-three thousand five hundred dollars, and, as apportioned among the towns, produced some curious contrasts. Thus in the town of Hull there were thirtytwo ratable polls. Under the old system the member would probably have attended for a few days and no more. Under the new system he was present during the whole session, and received as salary three times as much as the town of Hull paid in State taxes. Salem was entitled to twelve members,

* Life of Patrick Henry, by M. C. Tyler, pp. 313-315.

yet it was compelled to pay a sum equal to the compensation of twenty-three members. The share of Roxbury was seven hundred and thirty-two dollars, yet the cost of its member the year previous was but two hundred and eighty-four dollars.

Innovations such as the Districting Law and the Salary Law would of themselves have been sufficient to make the campaign intensely exciting. But the two candidates for Governor, Elbridge Gerry and Caleb Strong, had hardly been nominated when every mail from Washington and every ship from abroad brought intelligence more and more exasperating. The new loan of eleven millions; the proposed new land-taxes, excises, and stamp duties; the story of the orders from the French admiralty to burn, sink, and destroy American vessels; the deposition of Captain Chew that the burning had begun; the Henry letters; and, on the very eve of the election, the embargo, roused the people and brought out almost every voter in the State. Never had there been such an election. One hundred and four thousand votes were cast. When they were counted, Strong was found to have sixteen hundred more than Gerry. Massachusetts was lost to Republicanism.

The exultation over the result of the elections had not subsided when the Federalists found new cause for rejoicing in the failure to place the eleven-million loan. Subscriptions were opened on the first and second of May in all the chief seaport cities from Portsmouth to Charleston. The advertisement of the Secretary of the Treasury and the comments by the newspapers had made the time and places of subscription well known to everybody. The terms were thought liberal. For every hundred dollars taken, twelve dollars and a half were to be paid down, and a like sum on the fifteenth of each month from June to December, both inclusive. Six per cent. was to be the rate of interest, and twelve years the term of the loan. Republican journals vied with each other in urging the people to subscribe, to be liberal, and to take the bonds with the same eagerness with which they had so often competed for the stock of banks, turnpike companies, manufacturing companies, and companies to build bridges. When, however, the books were closed on May second, not quite two

1812.

THE LOAN NOT TAKEN.

455

millions had been subscribed by the people,* and but a little over four millions by the banks.†

Small as was the amount purchased by individuals, it was, when judged by past experience, quite large. In 1796 one half of a five-million six-per-cent. loan was offered to the people without one dollar's worth being taken for several weeks. Nor did the people ever buy more than eighty thousand of the two and a half millions of stock offered them. Again, in 1798, a six-per-cent. loan was advertised. It ought to have been popular. Federalism was triumphant. All over the land Federalists were mounting the black cockade, associating, enlisting, voting addresses to Adams, and singing their national songs. Millions for defence, not a cent for tribute, was the cry, and this money was to be spent on the navy. Yet the total amount of stock subscribed for and issued was but a trifle over seven hundred thousand dollars. Now, in a day of great financial distress, the people had subscribed almost two millions. Nevertheless, the result was most discouraging, and carried with it a meaning not to be misunderstood. In New England the cry had been: "No commerce-no loan," "Let those who want war pay for the war," and in all New England, from Eastport to the New York border, not a million was obtained. The South had little to give; yet from that vast region between the Potomac and Florida but seven hundred thousand was collected. Failure to subscribe in New England was undoubtedly largely due to the bitter animosity. felt toward the administration and its ways. But the small amount of the stock taken elsewhere was to be ascribed to the low rate of interest, to the great number of banks the people had formed and were about to form, and to the large profits they expected these institutions to make for them.

As the month began, so it went on, with one discouragement after another, to the close. In Massachusetts the Federalists carried the House of Representatives. In New York they secured the Assembly. Regions supposed to be warmly Republican broke out in open opposition to the embargo and besieged Congress with petitions for its repeal. The death of

* $1,928,900.

+ $4,190,000.

the Vice-President late in April, the caucus nomination of Madison and Gerry in May, and the excitement in the wheatgrowing counties of New York over the embargo, encouraged the discontented Republicans to defy the administration and nominate De Witt Clinton for the presidency. Every mail from the South brought news of warfare on the Spanish border. The Hornet came back from France without evidence that the French decrees had been repealed, and the English Minister communicated to Monroe renewed assurances that England would not recall her orders.

Congress meantime seemed dazed. The warlike spirit which marked the opening weeks of the session had gone down. Indeed, it was with the utmost difficulty that the war party could prevent the House from agreeing with the Senate to take a recess from the twenty-ninth of April to the eighth of June. As it was, many of the members went home on leave with the understanding that no measures of a war nature should be taken during the month of May. As the month drew to a close, a rumor was current that on Monday, the first of June, the House would be asked to declare war. The rumor was well founded, and about noon on that day Madison's private secretary delivered at the table of the Speaker, and at the table of the President pro tempore of the Senate, a packet the contents of which, he said, were confidential. When opened and read, it proved to be the long-expected war

message.

Going back to the year 1803, Madison charged Great Britain with a course of conduct insulting to the independence and neutrality of the United States, and arranged her hostile acts in four classes. Her cruisers had violated the sanctity of the American flag on the great highway of nations by seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it. Her cruisers had violated our maritime rights by hovering on our coasts, harassing our incoming and outgoing ships, and wantonly shedding the blood of our citizens. She had, under pretended blockades, without the presence of ships-of-war to make them

* On May 13th the House passed a resolution requesting the absentees to return prior to June 1st.