From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (21 page)

Americans from Jefferson down failed to comprehend the extent to which the European war dominated British policy, attributing the harsh
maritime measures to sheer vengeance or greed. The residue of Anglophobia left from the Revolution deepened as the crisis intensified. Outraged by British insults to their honor, Americans insisted on demands London could not possibly meet, placing the two nations on a collision course.

An incident off the coast of Virginia in June 1807 brought the two nations to the brink of war. The frigate USS
Chesapeake
had taken on board a number of British deserters, some of whom had flaunted their new status before their former officers on the streets of Norfolk. Infuriated, the British naval commander in America, Adm. Sir George Berkeley, ordered tough measures. When the
Chesapeake
passed into international waters en route to its station in the Mediterranean, HMS
Leopard
opened fire. The outmanned, unprepared, and totally unsuspecting American ship struck colors virtually without a fight. The British took four men, one a deserter, the others impressed Americans who had fled British service.
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American anger exceeded that provoked by the XYZ Affair. Mass meetings in seaboard cities denounced the outrage and demanded satisfaction. Mobs attacked British sailors. In Philadelphia, angry citizens nearly destroyed a British ship. "This country has never been in such a state of excitement since the battle of Lexington," Jefferson declared.
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Unlike Adams a decade earlier, the president did not fan the martial spirit. He closed American ports to Royal Navy ships and demanded not merely reparation but British abandonment of impressment. But he would go no further. Recognizing that the nation was unprepared to fight, fearing for the large number of U.S. ships at sea, and still hoping for a diplomatic solution, he contented himself with quiet preparations for a war that seemed likely if not inevitable. Jefferson's hesitant and even contradictory response prolonged the crisis without providing any means to resolve it. In the absence of presidential direction, the war fever quickly dissipated, making it difficult to ready the nation's defenses. The tough line with Britain precluded a diplomatic solution. Jefferson's quiet public response and the apparent acquiescence of the nation reinforced British certainty of American weakness.

Alone in Europe at this point, and faring poorly in the war, London was in no mood to compromise. The navy demonstrated its disdain for neutrality by bombarding Copenhagen and seizing the entire Danish fleet. The government recalled Berkeley but refused even to consider the
larger issue of impressment. Foreign Minister George Canning provocatively blamed the
Chesapeake-Leopard
incident on the United States. A new order in council of November 1807 required ships bound for Europe to pass first through Britain and secure a license. The French responded by announcing that ships abiding by British regulations would be seized. Any ships now attempting to trade across the Atlantic were liable to seizure by one power or the other.
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Unwilling to compromise and unable to fight, Jefferson fell back on an embargo of American commerce. Publicly, he justified the step in terms of immediate, practical needs. It would keep ships and sailors "out of harm's way" and insulate the United States from belligerents who had reverted to the "vandalism of the fifth century." His private motives were more complex. Unless he could disabuse Europeans of the notion that the United States was wedded to "Quaker principles," he reasoned, it would be subject to the "plunder of all nations."
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He and Madison had long agreed that European dependence on American necessities gave the United States the means to force them to respect its "rights." For Americans to do without the "superfluities and poisons" provided by Europe, on the other hand, would encourage domestic manufactures, thus promoting the independent and virtuous republic of which he and Madison dreamed. Jefferson hoped that his experiment in "peaceable coercion" might even offer an alternative to war to peace-loving peoples across the world and force the European powers to alter their methods of warfare. He seems to have perceived the pitfalls of a long-term embargo, but he depended on Europe's vulnerability and his own people's tolerance for sacrifice to ensure the success of his policy.
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Jefferson miscalculated on both counts. The embargo had no effect in France and indeed played into Napoleon's hands by depriving Britain of trade with the United States and increasing Anglo-American antagonism. Openly mocking America, Napoleon appointed himself an enforcer, ordering seizure of U.S. ships entering European ports. During its first year, the embargo caused a slight rise in prices and some unemployment in England, but little more. The timing was unfortunate. The unusually large trade of 1806 left British warehouses bulging with American goods. Revolution in Spain's Latin American colonies opened new markets to offset the loss of American buyers. The short-term pain was not sufficient
to compel a shaky British ministry, engaged in a war for survival, to capitulate to the United States. By the time England had begun to feel the pinch, support for "peaceable coercion" had dissipated in the United States.

Jefferson's greatest miscalculation was of his own people's willingness to endure economic hardship for the sake of principle. Accustomed to fat profits and intolerant of government interference, fiercely individualistic Americans evaded the law at will and resisted the stern measures used to enforce it. At the outset, loopholes made evasion easy. The coastal trade was essential for the seaboard cities. Ships licensed to trade among American ports transferred cargoes to British vessels waiting at sea or, claiming to be blown off course, slipped away to the West Indies or Canada's maritime provinces. Posting bond made no difference since profits obtained from illicit trade far exceeded the amount required. When the administration tightened the loopholes, merchants resorted to outright smuggling, a practice Americans had long since perfected. Hundreds of ships escaped the detection of overworked port officials. Large quantities of American foodstuffs, potash, and lumber went into Canada overland, by boat, or even by sled in winter. On occasion, wares were placed on hillsides and rolled north across the border! The British encouraged evasion by offering top prices and protecting smugglers from law enforcers. From the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, distinct borderland societies had emerged where people on each side were linked through business, friendship, and family ties. These communities were closer to each other than to their governments. Defiance verged on insurrection. Smuggled goods seized as evidence mysteriously disappeared. Federal agents were bribed or intimidated, or themselves joined in the plunder. Juries refused to convict smugglers.
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Jefferson sought to "legalize all
means
which may be necessary to attain its
end
," using the military to enforce the law, declaring the borderlands in a state of rebellion, and ordering out the militia.
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The passage in January 1809 of additional enforcement measures sharply circumscribing individual liberties did not stop smuggling and provoked near-rebellion in New England. Angry crowds revived songs of protest from the revolution. Speakers compared Jefferson—unfavorably—to George III. The Massachusetts and Connecticut legislatures declared the embargo not legally binding. There was open talk of secession. Outside New England, the opposition was scattered and muted, but the obvious failure of the embargo
abroad and the hardships it imposed at home brought growing demands for repeal.
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Jefferson's failures of leadership contributed to the inglorious end of his experiment. He never adequately explained the purposes of the embargo, leaving the field to critics who accused him of oppressing and impoverishing his own people for the benefit of Napoleon. He could not fathom the nature or the depth of the opposition, dismissing his critics as die-hard Federalists, Anglophiles, or plain "rascals." Throughout 1808, friends begged him to reassess his policy. Stung by the bitter personal attacks, at times seemingly paralyzed by indecision, he clung stubbornly to the embargo and resorted to even more rigorous enforcement. After Madison was elected to succeed him, he virtually abdicated to a confused, divided, and sometimes panicky Congress. Jefferson and Madison had hoped to sustain the embargo until summer and then, if it had still not succeeded, couple repeal with steps toward war. Frightened by the specter of rebellion in New England, Congress moved repeal to March and rejected any moves toward war. To save face, the legislators approved a lame substitute, the Non-Intercourse Act, which resumed trade with all nations but Britain and France and offered to restore it with either of the belligerents who lifted its obnoxious decrees. Fittingly, the embargo expired the day Jefferson left office, having produced tragically ironic results. Designed as a substitute for the war that would undermine republican ideals, it produced a form of warfare at home. A president profoundly committed to individual freedom became trapped into imposing repressive measures that starkly violated his most basic convictions about civil liberties.
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Between 1809 and 1812, two nations with every reason to avoid conflict drifted inexorably into a war that could have been disastrous for either, providing a textbook example of how not to conduct diplomacy.

The United States clung stubbornly to the futile course set by Jefferson. Madison inherited a policy in shambles, a divided party, and an increasingly unruly Congress—Senate "malcontents" even blocked his appointment of the able Gallatin as secretary of state.
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A small and retiring individual, lacking Jefferson's commanding presence and enormous prestige, Madison tended to defer in situations that demanded firm leadership. Faithful to principle to the point of folly, he refused concessions on
neutral "rights." Equally fearful of the threat war posed to republican institutions, he hesitated to accept it even as a last resort. He retained faith in "peaceable coercion" long after its limits had become palpable. Thus Non-Intercourse was followed in May 1810 by Macon's Bill No. 2, which opened trade with Britain and France but indicated that if either dropped its restrictions the United States would impose an embargo on the other. Eager for peace to the point of gullibility, Madison leaped at French and British proposals when he ought to have been cautious. He accepted at face value the wily Napoleon's announcement, hedged with conditions, that he had repealed the Berlin and Milan decrees and reimposed non-intercourse on England. This ill-considered move soured relations with Britain while Napoleon used escape clauses to harass American shipping. Even when Madison finally concluded that war was inevitable, he moved in such a slow and circuitous fashion that friends and foes on both sides of the Atlantic were uncertain where he was heading.
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British diplomacy was also flawed. The European war reached its climactic stages during these years. Absorbed with the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal and Napoleon's invasion of Russia, British officials gave little attention to America. Certain that the United States would not go to war, they also refused concessions. Although clearly in the wrong on the
Chesapeake
affair, they showed "contemptuous indifference" by taking four years to apologize.
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Ironically, just when Madison and Congress were moving toward war, British manufacturing interests were lobbying to revoke the restrictive orders in council. But the London government accepted compromise as hesitantly as Madison accepted war. The direction of its policy was no more clear.
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In crises, diplomats can make a difference, but here the diplomats made things worse. Viewing the United States as a secondary theater, Britain made a series of unfortunate appointments to the Washington post. The youthful, inexperienced, and overeager David Erskine submitted to the Americans an agreement his government rejected, infuriating both capitals. Erskine was replaced by the arrogant, obnoxious, and blustering Francis James Jackson, already notorious—and given the sobriquet "Copenhagen"—for his prominent role in the destruction inflicted on neutral Denmark. Jackson confidently informed London that the United States would not fight: "Dogs that bark don't bite."
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He made no effort to
disguise his contempt for America and Americans, describing Madison as a "plain and rather mean-looking man" and his wife, the gracious and charming Dolley, as "fat and forty, but not fair." His demeanor provoked so much hostility in such a short time that Madison demanded his recall. London complied but delayed replacing him for months, leaving a vacuum at a critical time. Even after his recall, Jackson hung around longer, provoking more ire from outraged Americans. "Base and Insolent in the Extreme," furious citizens called him, "a miscreant so vile." Even the mild-mannered Madison described him as "mean" and "insolent." His replacement, the playboy Augustus John Foster, was less openly obnoxious if no less arrogant. But he listened to Federalist friends rather than trying to sense the changing mood in Washington, underscoring London's belief that America would not fight and reinforcing its complacency.
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During the last critical months, the United States had no ministers in key European capitals. John Armstrong left Paris and William Pinkney left London in 1811, Armstrong apparently to avoid being tainted with Madison's weak policies and to promote his own presidential ambitions, Pinkney out of sheer frustration with the impossibility of his assignment. "The Prime of my Life is passing away in barren Toil and Anxiety," the financially strapped diplomat lamented.
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The U.S. chargé in London, the hapless Jonathan Russell, did not sense and thus could not inform Washington of subtle shifts in British policy.

The threat of Indian warfare on the frontier, which Americans also conveniently blamed on Britain, added to an already long list of grievances. In fact, the problem was self-inflicted. Disease, alcohol, commerce, and the relentless pressure of U.S. expansion placed the traditional culture of northwestern Indians under full assault. Some acquiesced, accepting American annuities and supplies and missionary efforts to turn them into farmers. Some found escape in whiskey. Others resisted. They found a leader in a Shawnee and former drunkard who, after claiming in 1805 to have a vision, took the name Tenskwatawa and initiated a revivalist movement to save Native American culture. Fusing traditional ways with Western ideas, including some borrowed from Christianity, the man also called "the Prophet" urged Indians to put aside the evil habits of the "Long Knives" and return to their ancient traditions. As Jefferson and Madison negotiated more treaties taking more Indian lands, Tenskwatawa's message fell on increasingly receptive ears, especially
among the young. He attracted as many as three thousand followers and in 1808 established a village called Prophetstown in Indiana. Building on Tenskwatawa's revivalist movement, his half-brother, the redoubtable Tecumseh, set out to unite southern and northwestern tribes to resist further land cessions. Following in the footsteps of Mohawk visionary Joseph Brant, he traveled from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi territory in the daunting and ultimately futile task of bringing together disparate tribes into a pan-Indian confederation. "They have driven us from the sea to the lakes," Tecumseh warned in 1809. "We can go no farther."
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