Hartford Convention

The Secret Journal of the Hartford Convention, published 1823.

The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings from December 15, 1814–January 5, 1815 in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, in which New England Federalists met to discuss their grievances concerning the ongoing War of 1812 and the political problems arising from the federal government's increasing power. Despite radical outcries among Federalists for New England secession and a separate peace with Great Britain, moderates outnumbered them and extreme proposals were not a major focus of the debate.^[1]

The convention discussed removing the three-fifths compromise which gave slave states more power in Congress and requiring a two-thirds super majority in Congress for the admission of new states, declarations of war, and laws restricting trade. The Federalists also discussed their grievances with the Louisiana Purchase and the Embargo of 1807. However, weeks after the convention's end, news of Major General Andrew Jackson's overwhelming victory in New Orleans swept over the Northeast, discrediting and disgracing the Federalists, resulting in their elimination as a major national political force.

Background

Relations with Great Britain and France

Under the administrations of George Washington and John Adams, a vigorous trade with France was maintained while both administrations engaged in an undeclared war with France. With the resumption of the Napoleonic Wars at the same time that Thomas Jefferson assumed office, relations with both France and Great Britain declined. Jefferson's goal was an expansion of free trade created by Great Britain lifting trade restrictions placed against the United States. However, to force Britain into compliance, he adopted anti-foreign trade policies such as the Embargo Act of 1807 and the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809. These policies were very unpopular among Northeastern merchants and shippers. Jefferson's successor, President James Madison, and what is now called by historians the Democratic-Republican Party, continued his policies.^[2]

The opposing Federalist Party regained strength especially in New England, and in New York where it collaborated with Lieutenant Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York City and supported him for president in 1812.

Opposition to the War of 1812

When Madison was re-elected in 1812 the discontent in New England intensified. In late 1813 Madison signed a more restrictive embargo act than any of those approved by Jefferson, this time prohibiting all trade between American ports (the coastal trade) and fishing outside harbors.^[3] By the summer of 1814, the war had turned against the Americans. After ending their war with Napoleonic France, Great Britain was able to marshal more resources to North America and had effectively blockaded the entire eastern coastline. Territory in the Maine district of Massachusetts was occupied in July, in August the White House and Capitol were burned, and by September the British were advancing further in Maine and the Lake Champlain area of New York. A naval assault on Boston was expected in the near future. Free trade with the rest of the world had virtually ceased, thousands were thrown out of work, and by August banks were suspending specie payment. The federal government was approaching bankruptcy.^[4]

New England governors followed a policy of giving minimal support to the Federal government in waging the war. With the exception of Governor John Taylor Gilman of New Hampshire, most requisitions for state militia were denied. New Englanders were reluctant to have their militia, needed to defend their coasts from British attacks, assigned elsewhere or placed under the command of the regular army. General Winfield Scott, after the war, blamed Madison's policy of ignoring Federalists, who in New England constituted the best educated class, when granting regular army commissions in New England.^[5]

The anti-war sentiment in Massachusetts was so strong that even Samuel Dexter, the Republican candidate for governor, opposed the national party's commerce policies. Federalists still dominated the 1814 elections, returning Caleb Strong as governor and electing 360 Federalists against only 156 Republicans to the lower house of the Massachusetts Legislature. In September Governor Strong refused a request to provide and support 5,000 troops to retake territory in Maine.^[6]

Because Massachusetts and Connecticut had refused to subject their militia to the orders of the War Department, Madison declined to pay their expenses. Consequently, critics said that Madison had abandoned New England to the common enemy. The Massachusetts Legislature appropriated $1 million to support a state army of 10,000 men. Harrison Gray Otis, who inspired these measures, suggested that the Eastern States meet at a convention in Hartford, Connecticut. As early as 1804 some New England Federalists had discussed secession from the Union if the national government became too oppressive.^[7]

In September 1814 Madison asked Congress for a conscription bill. Even though this had not been one of the original grievances that led to the call for the convention, Federalists presented this as further proof that the Republicans intended to bring military despotism into the nation. Thomas Grosvenor of New York saw this as the result of the administration leading the country "defenseless and naked, into that lake of blood she is yet swimming".^[8]

Three-fifths compromise

The three-fifths compromise had been brokered at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. It established the "federal ratio" which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of both representation in Congress and the direct taxation of states. Some New Englanders had always opposed the compromise, but most had accepted it as necessary to secure adoption of the Constitution. The election of Jefferson in 1800 and the subsequent Louisiana Purchase led to mounting concern among northern Federalists about the United States' southwesterly expansion and the implication that this would increase the number of slave states.^[9]

In 1804 the legislatures of both Massachusetts and Connecticut called for the repeal of the federal ratio, but Jefferson still carried every New England state except for Connecticut in the 1804 election. It wasn't until the War of 1812 that the issue was again raised. Arguing that Jefferson and Madison had been elected because of de facto slave representation in the Electoral College, Federalists further claimed that Republican trade policies broke the original understanding that a balance was necessary between agrarian and commercial interests.^[10]

Historian Sean Wilentz noted that in recent times it has become popular to link the Federalists' antiwar platform to a humanitarian opposition to slavery. Wilentz, however, looks at the issue as strictly a matter of securing political power for New England. He writes:

Although public attacks on the planters for their immorality and hypocrisy added to the Yankee Federalists' treasury of moral virtue, those attacks often expressed little concern about the slaves, or about slavery as an institution. The Federalists did not hate the Jeffersonians out of antislavery conviction; rather, they sometimes took antislavery positions because they hated the "Jacobin" Jeffersonians.^[11]

Secession

Secession was again mentioned in 1814–1815; all but one leading Federalist newspaper in New England supported a plan to expel the western states from the Union. Otis, the key leader of the Convention, blocked radical proposals such as a seizure of the Federal customs house, impounding federal funds, or declaring neutrality. Otis thought the Madison administration was near collapse and that unless conservatives like himself and the other delegates took charge, the radical secessionists might take power. Indeed, Otis was unaware that Massachusetts Governor Strong had already sent a secret mission to discuss terms with the British for a separate peace.^[12]

There are a number of reasons why historians doubt that the New England Federalists were seriously considering secession. All the states, especially Connecticut with its claims to western lands, stood to lose more than they would gain. Efforts were made in the delegation selection process to exclude firebrands like John Lowell, Jr., Timothy Pickering, and Josiah Quincy who might have pushed for secession, and the final report of the convention did not propose secession.^[13]

Despite this, the Madison administration had reasons to be concerned about the consequences of the Hartford Convention. Federalists were already blocking administration efforts to finance the war and bring it to a successful conclusion with an invasion of Canada. There were fears that New England would negotiate a separate peace with Great Britain, an action in many ways just as harmful to the nation as actual secession. In preparing for a worst-case scenario, Madison moved troops from the New York–Canadian border to Albany where they could quickly be sent to Massachusetts or Connecticut if needed to preserve federal authority. Several New England regiments that had participated in the Niagara campaign were returned home where it was hoped that they could serve as a focal point for New Englanders opposed to disunion.^[14]

Call for the Convention

In response to the war crisis, Governor Strong called the newly elected General Court to a special session on October 5, 1814. Strong's message to the legislature was referred to a joint committee headed by Harrison Gray Otis. Otis was considered a moderate. His report delivered three days later called for resistance of any British invasion, criticized the leadership that had brought the nation close to disaster, and called for a convention of New England states to deal with both their common grievances and common defense. Otis' report was passed by the state senate on October 12 by a 22 to 12 vote and the house on October 16 by 260 to 20.^[15]

A letter of invitation was sent to the other New England governors to send delegates to a convention in Hartford, Connecticut. The stated purpose of the convention was to propose constitutional amendments to protect their section's interests and to make arrangements with the Federal government for their own military defense.^[16]

Twelve delegates were appointed by the Massachusetts legislature, of which George Cabot and Harrison G. Otis were chief (see list below). In Connecticut, the legislature denounced Madison's "odious and disastrous war", voiced concern about plans to implement a national draft, and selected seven delegates led by Chauncey Goodrich and James Hillhouse. Rhode Island's legislature selected four delegates to discuss "the best means of cooperating for our mutual defense against the common enemy, and upon the measures which it may be in the power of said states, consistently with their obligations to adopt, to restore and secure to the people thereof, their rights and privileges under the Constitution of the United States". New Hampshire's legislature was not in session and its Federalist governor, John Gilman, refused to call it back into session. Vermont's legislature voted unanimously not to send delegates. Two New Hampshire counties and one Vermont county each sent a delegate, bringing the total to 26.^[17] On December 15, 1814 the delegates met at the Old State House in Hartford.

The following lists the states that attended and the names of the twenty-six attendees.^[18]

Secret meetings

In all, twenty-six delegates attended the secret meetings. No records of the proceedings were kept, and meetings continued through January 5, 1815. After choosing George Cabot as president, and Theodore Dwight as secretary, the present convention remained in closed session for three continuous weeks. Surviving letters of contemporaries show that representative Federalists labored with these delegates to procure the secession of New England. Assembling amid rumors of treason and the execration of all the country west of the Hudson, its members were watched by an army officer who had been conveniently stationed in the vicinity. Cabot's journal of its proceedings, when it was eventually opened, was a meager sketch of formal proceedings; he made no record of yeas and nays, stated none of the amendments offered to the various reports, and neglected to attach the name of authors to propositions. It is impossible to ascertain the speeches or votes of individual delegates.

Convention report

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Report and Resolutions of the Hartford Convention

The convention ended with a report and resolutions, signed by the delegates present, and adopted on the day before final adjournment. The report said that New England had a "duty" to assert its authority over unconstitutional infringements on its sovereignty—a doctrine that echoed the policy of Jefferson and Madison in 1798 (in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions), and which would later reappear in a different context as "nullification".

The Hartford Convention's final report proposed several amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These attempted to combat the policies of the ruling Republicans by:

1. Prohibiting any trade embargo lasting over 60 days;
2. Requiring a two-thirds Congressional majority for declaration of offensive war, admission of a new state, or interdiction of foreign commerce;
3. Removing the three-fifths representation advantage of the South;
4. Limiting future Presidents to one term;
5. Requiring each President to be from a different state than his predecessor. (This provision was aimed directly at the dominance of Virginia in the presidency since 1800.)

Negative reception

The Hartford Convention or LEAP NO LEAP, by William Charles.

The Democratic-Republican Congress would never have recommended any of New England's proposals for ratification. Hartford delegates intended for them to embarrass the President and the Republicans in Congress—and also to serve as a basis for negotiations between New England and the rest of the country.

Some delegates may have been in favor of New England's secession from the United States, and forming an independent republic, though no such resolution was adopted at the convention. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison rejected the notion that Hartford was an attempt to take New England out of the Union and give treasonous aid and comfort to Britain. Morison wrote, "Democratic politicians, seeking a foil to their own mismanagement of the war and to discredit the still formidable Federalist party, caressed and fed this infant myth until it became so tough and lusty as to defy both solemn denials and documentary proof." ^[19]

After the convention Massachusetts sent three commissioners to Washington, D.C. to negotiate for the terms that had been agreed. By the time they arrived in February 1815, news of Andrew Jackson's overwhelming victory at the Battle of New Orleans, and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, preceded them and, consequently, their presence in the capital seemed both ludicrous and subversive. They quickly returned. Thereafter, both Hartford Convention and Federalist Party became synonymous with disunion, secession, and treason, especially in the South. The party was ruined, and ceased to be a significant force in national politics, although in a few places (notably Massachusetts, where Federalists were elected governor annually until 1823) it retained some power.

Footnotes

References

• Lyman, Theodore, A short account of the Hartford Convention: taken from official documents, and addressed to the fair minded and the well disposed; To which is added an attested copy of the secret journal of that body. Boston: O. Everett, 1823. Google Books accessed 1-29-2012 at
• Adams, James Truslow. New England in the Republic, 1776-1850 (1926)
• Banner, James M., Jr. "A Shadow Of Secession? The Hartford Convention, 1814." History Today 1988 38(Sep): 24-30. ISSN 0018-2753 Fulltext online at Ebsco; short summary
• Banner, James M. Jr. To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789-1815 (1970).
• Buel, Richard Jr. America on the Brink: How the Political Struggle over the War of 1812 Almost Destroyed the Young Republic. (2005) ISBN 1-4039-6238-3.
• Buckley, William Edward. The Hartford Convention. Yale University Press (1934)
• Hickey, Donald R. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict. (1995) ISBN 978-0-252-06059-8 .
• Lalor, John J. (ed.) Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best American and European Writers (1899)
• Mason, Matthew. "'Nothing is Better Calculated to Excite Divisions': Federalist Agitation against Slave Representation during the War of 1812," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Dec., 2002), pp. 531-561
• Meider, Stacey. The Convention of the Semi-Gods, Los Angeles: California. 2005.
• Morison, Samuel Eliot.Harrison Gray Otis, 1765-1848: The Urbane Federalist (1913); revised edition (1969)
• Morison, Samuel Eliot. "Our Most Unpopular War," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 1968 80: 38-54. ISSN 0076-4981. Morison calls the War of 1812 undoubtedly the most unpopular the nation has ever waged. Opposition to the war came from other sections besides New England, although the hostility of the New England Federalists was more apparent since they controlled the State governments. He contends that the chief sponsors of the Hartford Convention intended to avoid State secession at all costs, and he scorns the myth that New England secession was thwarted by the Treaty of Ghent and Jackson's victory at New Orleans.
• Morison, Samuel Eliot, Frederick Merk, and Frank Freidel, Dissent in Three American Wars (1970), ch. 1
• Schouler, James, History of the United States vol 1 (1891), provides the text for portions of this article
• The Report and Resolutions of the Hartford Convention (Wikisource)
• Wilentz, Sean. The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. (2005) ISBN 0-393-05820-4.
• Williams, Edwin. The Book of the Constitution. (1918) Google Books accessed 1-29-2012 at

External links

•  "Hartford Convention". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.