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CHAPTER XII

GREAT SECRETARIES AND MINOR PRESIDENTS

HE death of William Henry Harrison before his term had well begun threw the internal politics

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of the country into a confusion worse confounded. The Vice President, John Tyler, was a Whig only in his opposition to Andrew Jackson. In all else he was a Democrat, and the country was treated to the example of a chief executive in bitter conflict with the party that elected him. But foreign relations avoided the vicissitudes which might have been anticipated. When the cabinet resigned en masse Webster alone continued at his post, and contributed to the State Department the influence of his vast prestige.

The course of Webster was dictated as much by patriotism as by ambition. The problems left over from the previous régime were threatening war. Two of the most pressing centered about ships, the Amistad, and the Caroline.

DIPLOMACY AND THE COURTS

The Amistad affair occurred in 1839, but two years later it presented further complications. The Caroline was of even earlier date, though its real menace was reserved for Webster. The Amistad was a Spanish ship bound from Havana to another port in Cuba. It carried negro slaves, and two white passengers, their owners. The negroes mutinied, slew the captain and most of the crew, and compelled their owners to steer the ship toward Africa. After a long and zigzag voyage, Montes and Ruiz, the pilots of this strange cruise, brought their vessel near Long Island, where near the middle of August she was overhauled by a United States warship, and taken to New London.

The negroes were held for trial at Hartford, in Sep

tember, charged with piracy. The Amistad was sued for salvage by the officers of the warship that overtook her when headed full for Montauk Light. And the Spanish minister added his demand that the Amistad with all her belongings be restored intact to her owners. He denied the jurisdiction of the United States over Spanish subjects and offenses perpetrated on Spanish vessels near Spanish coasts. Other parties to the controversy were the United States marshal, a Long Island captain with a claim for salvage, Ruiz and Montes, and the heirs of the slain captain of the Amistad.

The Circuit Judge at Hartford held that the Spanish minister was right, that if the crimes took place as represented, our court possessed no jurisdiction. The Circuit Court adjourned and the matter came before the District Court. Here the case was twice adjourned to enable the Court to ascertain its rights of jurisdiction. The Spanish minister, anticipating a second vindication of our government's contention that the United States had no jurisdiction, even applied to Secretary Forsyth for a vessel to return the Africans at once to Cuba. Both President and Secretary were disposed to accede to his request.

The Court thought otherwise. It decided that the Court had jurisdiction, that the American naval officer was entitled to his salvage on the vessel, but not on the slaves. These the Court maintained were free by the laws alike of state and nation. Nor could they be returned to Cuba, for their importation was in defiance of the law of Spain. It remained, accordingly, by our own law of 1819 to ship them back to Africa.

The government appealed the case and it reached the Supreme Court in January, 1841. At this point Great Britain intervened. The British minister, speaking for Lord Palmerston-a bitter foe of slavery-rehearsed for the benefit of our State Department the details of the original importation in 1839. He pointed out its violation of the Spanish treaty of 1817. He reminded Forsyth of the joint efforts of Great Britain and the United States in accordance with the Treaty of Ghent to suppress the slave trade. He

appealed to the President to guarantee the freedom of the slaves in question.

The minister was acting on the supposition, not founded on the jurisprudence of his own country or that of the United States, that the American executive in the interest of a foreign policy could sway the Court's decision. Forsyth assured him that as the slaves would probably be awarded to Spain for delivery to Cuba, to Spain he should direct his importunities as the place "where a full opportunity will be presented to the Government of her Majesty, the Queen of Great Britain, to appeal to treaty stipulations." 1

Again the administration reckoned without its host. The negroes were represented by John Quincy Adams, and that embattled statesman won his case. The opinion of the lower court was reversed in one point only. The negroes need not be returned to Africa. The Amistad proved interesting to Southern slave-owners and Northern abolitionists. The lawyers found in it some useful precedents, but as an episode in the foreign relations of the United States it was less embarrassing than the ghosts which rose from the Caroline, wrecked and burned long since.

At the burning of the Caroline, Amos Durfee, an American, was killed. Who shot him is unknown, for the man who in a fit of drunken braggadocio years later boasted of the deed was acquitted on an alibi. But his ravings nearly brought on war between Great Britain and the United States, and as such the tippling ebullitions of an alcoholic enter into the history of American diplomacy.

In the autumn of 1840 Alexander McLeod crossed from Canada, and made his boast. He was jailed at once, and his trial set for February, 1841. It created a tremendous furor on both sides of the border. Americans sought vengeance; Canadians demanded his release. Fox, the British minister, declared that it was well known that McLeod was not present at the time, but that even had he been so, the Caroline attack was directly ordered by the British govern

1 Cf. McMaster, John Bach, A History of the People of the United States, vol. VI, 604-610.

ment which must assume responsibility for its agent's acts. He demanded McLeod's immediate release.

In this belligerent attitude, Fox was mouthpiece for the chauvinistic Lord Palmerston, who, in order to justify a threat of war, was obliged to interpret the destruction of the Caroline as a national and not an individual act. An admission of this sort provided the United States with serious reasons for complaint against Great Britain.2 The State Department met the issue with dignity and judgment, though Forsyth was hampered by a grave defect of the American system. The Constitution, in its solicitude for the independence of the States, has preserved for them a freedom of action which jeopardizes foreign relations for the nation as a whole. The Secretary took the position that the offense occurred within the limits of New York, and correspondingly that its punishment fell within her jurisdiction too. Indeed the interposition of the Federal Government would be sheer presumption. That Great Britain was responsible for the Caroline affair had not previously been stated. The Court itself must pass upon the validity of such a statement.

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Fox further called the Caroline "a hostile vessel engaged in piratical warfare against her Majesty's people." Forsyth rejoined that the American Government had submitted evidence of the case with a demand for redress, and declined to enter into discussion of its circumstances. This was on December 30, 1840. A few days afterward the affair was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations, from which there later appeared a most scathing indictment of the act itself, an equally vigorous denunciation of Fox's want of diplomatic courtesy, and a general tirade against Great Britain.

This latter feature of the report seemed to the Whigs to have no other purpose than to goad the nations into war. The Democrats denied any purpose of the sort, but justified severity of tone as needed to convince the frontier that its

2 See Walpole, Spencer, Foreign Relations (London, 1882), pp. 74 and 75.

8 McMaster, John Bach, Op. Cit. VI, 611.

interests were remembered. The more temperate leaders in the House, including Adams, demanded that the report be returned to the Committee, with instructions to eliminate its more offensive passages. But the House voted otherwise, and when Harrison took office, the outlook was belligerent.

The trial was set for March, 1841. The Government must act promptly if at all. Fox at this juncture addressed to Webster, the new Secretary, a highly provocative note. He repeated his designation of the Americans with Mackenzie on Navy Island as "pirates," and even ventured to address Webster-of all men!-a lecture on the American Constitution. If the Government could not dictate its foreign policies, but must defer in all things to the wishes of the States, Fox declared that there would be nothing left for European nations but to accredit their representatives to the state governments rather than the federal. The Union might as well dissolve.

In this emergency Webster kept his temper. The trial was only ten days off. The Attorney-General of the United States hastened to make certain that McLeod was served by eminent counsel, and Webster sent a broad hint to Seward, then Governor of New York, that the President would be grateful for a dismissal of the case, a nolle prosequi. To which the Governor replied that he did not expect to withdraw the suit, but that if McLeod were found guilty, he should pardon him.

Having provided for this abatement of the crisis, Webster was disappointed to learn that on a trifling technicality the case was postponed. Reports from Europe were alarming. It was generally believed both in England and in France that we were on the brink of war. Our minister to England went so far as to urge that American warships leave the Mediterranean to avoid seizure.

Meanwhile Webster took advantage of delay in court proceedings to reply in form to Fox. He reminded him that it was no more possible in America than it was in England for the executive to release a prisoner under judicial process. He learned with regret that Great Britain treated

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