The First Quarter of the Century: Hartford and Constitution

The opposition to administration measures reached its ultimate in December, 1814, when a convention of delegates from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, with a partial representation from New Hampshire and Vermont, met at Hartford for the purpose of considering the grievances of the people and of deciding how they could be best redressed. This convention assembled in secret session, and much doubt existed as to its purposes and proceedings. It was denounced as treasonable by the friends of the administration, and a strong excitement prevailed concerning it. But at the date of its assembly the enthusiasm of its supporters had become reduced by the strong indications of peace, and this undoubtedly influenced the deliberations of the members. When its proceedings were published they proved to be so mild as to excite general surprise. Instead of advocating a dissolution of the Union, or other violent measure, they confined themselves to a statement of grievances, most of which unquestionably existed, but were necessary results of the war, and proposed several amendments to the Constitution. They demanded that representation in the House should be based on the free population alone, that the President should not be eligible for re-election, that State offices should be held only by native-born citizens, that no embargo should extend more than sixty days, and that a two-thirds vote should be required to prohibit commercial intercourse, admit new States, authorize hostilities, and declare war. They also strongly opposed the mode adopted in recruiting the army. In all this there was nothing to warrant the terms of reproach with which it was long customary to speak of the "Hartford Convention," which was held up to the people by the opposing party as something deserving of the severest reprobation.

Its recommendations fell dead. With the signing of the treaty of peace the causes of complaint disappeared, and in the universal joy that followed all thought that the Constitution was not a perfect instrument disappeared. In August, 1814, the commissioners of the United States and Great Britain met at Ghent, in Flanders, where they signed a treaty of peace on the 24th of the following December. The British commissioners at first insisted that the Indians should be made parties to the treaty, and that definite boundary-lines should be fixed which neither party should pass. This was objected to on the part of the United States, and it was finally agreed that the Indians should be restored to the status of rights and possessions which they held in 1811, if they would agree to desist from hostilities. Both parties were prohibited from keeping a naval force on the lakes. The questions of boundaries and of the fisheries were settled, but on the points which had been the cause of the war - the encroachments upon American commerce, and the right of impressment - no measures were adopted. The treaty, as signed, was silent on these subjects. These causes of the war had disappeared, and the navy of the United States had proved its ability to defend American commerce in any future difficulty, so the sore subject was quietly ignored.

The war had produced certain important changes in the industrial relations of America. The embargo had annihilated commerce for several years before the war, and this had been continued by the subsequent blockade, these influences causing an abnormal scarcity of goods of foreign production. Many such articles were obtained wholly from abroad, and these grew very scarce and dear. Others, such as sugar, woolens, pottery, glassware, hardware, and cutlery, were produced partly at home, and were less severely affected; while the staples of home production - cotton, tobacco, and food-products - fell very low in price. Yet strenuous efforts were made to overcome the scarcity of foreign goods by home manufacture, and the interests of industrial production in America gained an important impetus. Numerous manufacturing establishments were founded, particularly in the Northern States, and that process of rendering the United States industrially independent of Europe, which had made some progress against severe discouragements in the colonies and in the early years of the republic, now progressed with encouraging rapidity.

But the close of the war quickly reversed all these conditions. Foreign goods, mostly of British manufacture, were poured profusely into the country, and the price of such commodities fell to less than half their war value. As a consequence, many of the rival manufactories of America were ruined. They had not attained a condition to enable them to compete with the skilled and cheap labor abroad, and but few of them were able to stand the sudden strain. It was the severer that English manufacturers, jealous of this growing rivalry, took special pains to undersell the products of American workshops.