THE OLIVE BRANCH, &c. CHAPTER I (JNIVERSAY CALIFORNIA. OF Crisis of the affairs of the United States. Dangers of parties and factions. Similarity of our situation to that of France, Italy and England, previous to their civil wars. To excite insurrection easy. To allay it difficult. Dangerous tendency of inflammatory publications. THE situation of the United States was in the fall of 1814 highly critical. Party and faction, the bane and destruction of all the old republics, were carried to such extravagant lengths, as to endanger the public tranquility-and perhaps lead to civil war, the greatest scourge that ever afflicted mankind. Unceasing efforts were used to excite our citizens An idea has been propagated by superficial writers, and pretty universally believed by superficial readers, that party and faction are peculiar to republics. Never was there a greater error. There is hardly a body of men, how small or insignificant soever, that is not disturbe d more or less by party faction. Within the last ten years, one half, at least, of the Religious Congregations in Philadelphia, have been distracted by discord and faction, which, in more instances than one, have been carried to the extreme length of absolute separation. And to mount higher, who can forget the violent factions at the commencement of the reign of George III. when England was on the very verge of insurrection and let me add the religious crusade of Lord George Gordon, which was the offspring of faction, and terminated in enkindling thirty six fires at once in London of which city the mob had undisturbed possession for several days. All the felons, and other tenants of the prisons had their chains knocked off, and were let loose once more to prey on the public. The enumerations were endless. Let this slight sketch suffice. commo to open resistance of the government.* This principally took place in the eastern states; but there was hardly a portion of the union in which there were not persons constantly employed in inflaming the public mind, and preparing it for tions. Thousands and tens of thousands of citizens, upright, honest, and honorable in private life, were so deluded by the madness of party as to believe that the defeat, the disgrace, and the disasters of our armies-the destruction of the public credit-(as leading to the expulsion from their stations of the highest public functionaries duly chosen by the people)were all " a consummation devoutly to be wished"-and the certain means of procuring a speedy and an honourable peace, which we could not fail to obtain from the magnanimity of Great Britain, provided we removed those public officers, whom, according to them, she had so much reason to execrate. It was in vain that the uniform voice of history proclaimed that the generosity of nations towards each other is a nonentity; that the terms of a treaty are more or less favourable or injurious in proportion to the relative strength, and energy, and means of annoyance or defence, of the parties; that powerful nations have almost always taken advantage of the feeblenesss of their adversaries; and that the certain road to a speedy and an honourable peace has ever been to wage war with the utmost decision and effect. Were history wholly silent on this topic, the inherent propensities of human nature, properly explored, might satisfy every rational mind of the soundness of these political maxims. They are fair deductions of reason and common sense, to which the universal experience of mankind bears testimony. Every nation, in its periods of debility, has been obliged occasionally to submit to injustice. Every nation, possessing the power to do injustice, has more or less availed itself of the opportunity. * These topics will be fully discussed in specific chapters at the close of this work. † To some of my readers this will seem impossible. It certainly appears incredible. But there are many things very incredible, that are neverthe. less true. And it is capable of the most complete judicial proof, that gentlemen, highly estímable in private life, have thanked God most fervently for the disgraceful capture of our armies. Others have prayed to God that every one of our soldiers who entered Canada, might be slaughtered: This is one of the many strange and unaccountable instances in which our history is utterly unlike the histories of the other nations of the earth. It is really a sui generis. I feel pretty confident that no man of character or worth in England or France, ever rejoiced at the disgrace or disasters of his country. But I blush to tell it, the disgrace of our armies have been repeatedly a subject of as much exultation in our coffee houses and our newspapers, as in the city of London. I could name individuals of the utmost worth in all the social relations, except that which they bear to their country, whose satisfaction at the distresses and embarrassments of our government has at least equalled that of lord Castlereagh I was aware, that my fears of civil war were regarded as visionary-as the wild effusions of a disordered brain. I found myself in a small minority. And were the correctness of opinions to be tested by the numbers who entertain them, mine would appear most miserably erroneous. But this is a conclusion not warranted by history. It had been a thousand times asserted, and will be as often repeated, that the people of the United States were too enlightened to fall into such a fatal error, and that they knew too well the value of the blessings they enjoyed, to sacrifice them so absurdly. Such a delusion was pardonable a few years previous to that period. But our then recent, stupendous follies ought to have wholly dispelled it. We displayed, in many cases, as much insanity as the history of the world exhibits in any of its pages. Danger is not diminished by shutting our eyes against its approach, or by denying its existence. This would be a cheap price to pay for security. But it is not to be purchased thus. And those who seriously weigh the causes that led to the civil wars which desolated France, under the house of Valois; England under Charles I.; and Italy for entire centuries, with hardly any intermission; will have reason to believe that our security was by no means so well founded as was generally supposed. In numberless points of view, our situation and our proceedings bore a very strong analogy to those of the three nations to which I have ref referred, immediately previous to their respective civil wars. Whoever reads with due attention Davila's history of France, Machiavel's of Florence, or Clarendon's of the rebellion under Charles I., will be astonished at the near resemblance.* The difference between our situation a few years since, and the late turbid state of the country, was indubitably far greater than from where we then stood to insurrection, and separation, and civil war. While there were so many combustible materials scattered abroad, and such unceasing pains taken to inflame the public mind, very trivial accidents might have enkindled a conflagration. Once unhinge a government-once let loose man kind from the restraints of law and constitution and the human mind cannot readily calculate the terrible result.. • The divisions, and distractions, and factions, that prevailed among, and the butcheries alternately perpetrated on each other, by, the contending parties in the Grecian and Italian republics, are ably and instructively detaded in the Defence of the American Constitutions by the ex-president, John Adams This work has not had the fate it merited. It has been laid aside and almost forgotten. Yet there is no work extant which contains more useful lessons for an American-none in which the horrors of faction are more forcibly displayed-none that our statesmen and politicians ought to study more carefully. A few passages, selected here and there, have been employed for the purpose of decrying it, and with too much success. But there never yet was a human production that might not be condemned to the flames by the same mode of trial It was said, that those who had for years urged the propriety, and necessity, and advantages to the eastern states, of a dissolution of the union, did not intend to proceed thus far; and that they held out these threats in terrorem to awe the administration. There is the strongest possible reason to believe that this was a pernicious, a fatal error and that the leaders of the malcontents were perfectly serious in their views of a separation. How often had the churches echoed with the insurrectional, the treasonable, the fanatical, the rebellious cry, "WHERE IS OUR MOSES? Where is the rod of his miracles? Where is our Aaron? Have we no Mosès to lead us out of the land of Egypt??? Fatiuty itself could not mistake the meaning of this species of declamation. Buteven were the leaders merely threatening, it afforded us no security against the ruinous result. Those who raise the storm of civil commotions, possess not the power at pleasure to allay its violence to say with effect, "thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." This theory was fully exemplified in the civil wars of England between Charles I. and his parliament, and likewise in the French revolution. The latter, of which nearly all the early leaders perished in jails and on scaffolds, is a very strong case. Very few of these distinguished and illustrious men contemplated a recourse to arms. They hoped for a bloodless triumph over tyranny. But they were borne down and destroyed by violent, and wicked, and sanguinary men, or rather monsters, whom their proceedings released from restraint, but whom their utmost efforts could not restrain or control.. Never had brighter prospects shone on a nation than those that shone on the United States. Never had a nation been more highly blest. Never had the security of person and property-of liberty, civil and religious-been attained by such easy sacrifices. Never had the weight of government pressed more lightly. It was not felt. Never had the fondest theories of philosophers and lovers of mankind, been more completely realized. Our case was very analagous to that of a youth who inherits a large estate, and, unacquainted with the difficulty of its acquisition, cannot form an estimate of its value. This can only be done by a due consideration of the condition of those who are destitute of the advantages of fortune. He becomes a prodigal. He lavishes away his treasures. He only then begins to appreciate them, when they are irretrievably squandered. This was precisely our case. We had not sufficiently compared our situation with that of the mass of mankind. We had never taken a full view of the glorious, the inestimable advantages we possessed. We had the most noble inheritance that ever fell to the lot of a nation, and had not duly appreciated our happiness. We had jeopardized |