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fallacious calculations, has disappointed this reasonable calculation," he had to report to Congress seven months later. "Under such circumstances, a nation proud of its rights and conscious of its strength has no choice but an exertion of the one in support of the other."

But the leaven was working. Internal England was weary after twenty years of war. Finally dependable word came through that peace negotiations would be agreeable. On January 6, 1814, the President thus formally notified Congress. John Quincy Adams, James Bayard, Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin and Jonathan Russell repaired to the little Belgian town of Ghent. There they joined issue with the British mission. It was an hour of far-flung portent.

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There has been as much division of opinion as to who won the peace as there has been as to who won the war. But the measurements are of little moment-because the influence of the Treaty of Ghent has lain vastly more in its collateral results than in the letter of its text. Yet even an agreement on its inconclusive text was not reached without desperate hazard of dead-lock. On the one hand, Britain-though thus submitting to negotiations, while still pressing her anti-American ravages obviously was in small degree impressed with the dignity, the importance or the power of her adversary, and her agents at Ghent reflected these contempts. On the other hand, the Amer1 Ibid., p. 519. 2 Ibid., p. 526.

ican Commissioners, far from home and official instructions, took much latitude with them to Belgium: and the very extent of this liberty gave rise to profound disagreements between men of such positive and differing temperaments.' Between this gauntlet, the issue ran its course, with fluctuations of hope and fear in America, and with gradually progressive sanities in England.

The American envoys, of course, were bent upon validating the purposes which had drawn them reluctantly into this war: namely, a general acknowledgment of their maritime rights, permanent proscription of impressment, and an adequate definition of the term "blockade"-since this latter conundrum was one of the major sources of friction. That they were told if possible to get Canada, is likely to elicit modern smiles. The

Charles Francis Adams, the son of one of the American Commissioners, has testified that an inspection of materials in his possession demonstrated that Gallatin was entitled to major credit for preventing a ruction among the American Commissioners. In his New York speech of 1870, heretofore referred to, he said: "These differences sometimes developed warmth in just proportion to the estimated importance of the interest affected. It is just here that the intervention of Mr. Gallatin appears to have been of the highest value. Calm in discussion, quick in mastering the points at issue, ready in resource, and adroit in giving shape to acceptable propositions, his influence upon the thread of the negotiation is apparent, not less in the intercourse with the other side than in reconciling the jarring interests of his own."

British envoys, on the other hand, dealing as with a defeated enemy, demanded the creation of an Indian barrier State between the United States and Canada, and the abandonment of territory at the source of the Mississippi and in Maine. Here were the antipodes. Small wonder modern historians have disagreed as to where actual martial victory lay, when these embassies themselves both acted as though dictating a conqueror's peace. Small wonder, too, that the negotiations lagged-while the embassies entrenched in their second positions, the British demanding territorial adjustment on the basis that each belligerent retain his winnings, the Americans demanding a restoration of territorial divisions as existent when hostilities commenced. President Madison substantially facilitated a breach in this stale-mate by submitting to Congress all the communications from Ghent "showing the conditions on which alone the British Government is willing to put an end to war." The publication of this correspondence, revealing the King's imperialistic aims and his obvious unwillingness to deal in terms permitting a suspension of hostilities, induced the pressure on both sides of the sea-necessary to results. Americans re-solidified for battle; Britons, tired of futile strife, pressed for conciliation. One by one the British envoys surrendered their demands. One by one the American envoys met them in a spirit of reciprocal comity. Indeed, the ultimate Treaty suggests more yielding-in mat

ters of legitimate consideration-by the latter than the former. We did not procure a suspension of impressment, nor a blockade of definition, nor the abrogation of the "Rule of 1756," nor any of the guarantees for neutral commerce-the objectives for which we suffered nearly a decade of humiliations, and for which, in extremity, we took up arms. Even such moot points as North Atlantic fishing privileges and the navigation of the Mississippi were omitted in the interest of unreserved agreement. As viewed then, there could have been good reason for American protest that we failed at the peace table quite as thoroughly as we had failed in our prior exanimate efforts to escape trouble by running away from it— to keep out lightning by putting up our shutters.' But as viewed now-thanks to humane influences down the years-this Treaty of Ghent, signed on Christmas Eve, 1814, was and is the greatest of all milestones along the calendars of Anglo-American friendships. More: no matter what specific credits may be allocated to our "winning" of this War of 1812, one spiritual advantage stands clear as day. This War nationalized America. While it was undoing, dubiously, the damage done

"There never was a more absurd treaty than that of Ghent. Its only significance was that Great Britain and the United States, having been at war, agreed to be at peace. Not one of the distinctive issues to decide which the war had been undertaken, was settled or even mentioned."-Ridpath's History of the U. S., Vol. I, p. 415.

by prior supine statecraft to that phase of "Nationalism" which has to do with our right to remain at peace while other nations war, it also was sweeping away our internal parochialisms and cementing together that other phase of "Nationalism" which observes the United States as a unit and defends it as such not only against domestic faction, but also against imported ethnic partialities such as had all but wrecked the great American experiment.

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President Madison reported the Treaty of Ghent to Congress on February 18, 1815. "I congratulate you and our constituents," said he, "upon an event which is highly honorable to the nation, and terminates with peculiar felicity a campaign signalized by the most brilliant successes. The late war, although reluctantly declared by Congress, had become a necessary resort to assert the rights and independence of the nation. It has been waged with a success which is the natural result of the wisdom of the legislative councils, of the patriotism of the people, of the public spirit of the militia, and of the valor of the military and naval forces of the country. Peace, at all times a blessing, is peculiarly welcome, therefore, at a period when the causes for the war have ceased to operate, when the Government has demonstrated the efficiency of its powers of defense, and when the nation can review its conduct without regret and without reproach." On

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1 Messages of the Presidents, Vol. II, p. 537.