The Hartford Convention Protests Against the War of 1812

A.D. 1814

SIMEON E. BALDWIN JOHN S. BARRY

Although this gathering of New England men long since became mainly a subject of "academic" discussion among historical critics, it was nevertheless an event of much political significance at the time when such a strong protest was uttered against the war policy of President Madison, so disastrous to New England commerce. As shown in the following accounts, the principal question raised for historians by the action of the convention concerns its attitude regarding a possible dissolution of the Union.

The Hartford Convention (so called from the place of its meeting, Hartford, Connecticut) was held December 15, 1814, to January 5, 1815. It was composed of twelve delegates from Massachusetts, seven from Connecticut, four from Rhode Island, two from New Hampshire, and one from Vermont. The conditions that led to the calling of the convention, its proceedings, which were carried on in secret, and the grounds upon which have rested the suspicions of its "treasonable" designs, are clearly and impartially set forth below.

SIMEON E. BALDWIN

THE last days of the Federalists were not their best days. The vigor with which they carried through the adoption of the Constitution, and the dignity with which they at first administered the government, seemed to desert them as they approached what Jefferson and his friends used to call the "Revolution of 1800." Personal rivalries and misunderstandings among their leaders, unworthy intrigues, if not to make C. C. Pinckney President instead of Adams, yet certainly to make Burr President instead of Jefferson; bitterness in opposition, which almost overcame love of country-these make up the miserable chapter which closes the history of a great party.

It is now many years since John Quincy Adams brought forward the charge that some leading Federalists of Massachusetts were and had long been plotting the secession from the Union of the Northern or at least the New England States. The many additions, of late, to American political biography, and the growing frankness and unreserve with which the private letters of a public man are now published, almost before the grave has closed over him, have placed the present generation in a position to judge intelligently of the truth of this accusation. That it was not without some foundation is now plain, but that it was pressed too far seems hardly less so.

The person most active in pushing the scheme for a separation seems to have been Timothy Pickering. Soured by political disappointments and pecuniary embarrassments, when he found himself in 1803 returned by Massachusetts to the Senate of the United States, he could not bear the sight of Jefferson in power.

"Apostasy and original depravity," he writes to George Cabot in January, 1804, "are the qualifications for official honors and emoluments while men of sterling worth are displaced and held up to popular contempt and scorn. And shall we sit still, until this system shall universally triumph; until even in the Eastern States the principles of genuine Federalism shall be overwhelmed? This is a delicate subject.

"The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy-a separation. That this can be accomplished, and without spilling one drop of blood, I have little doubt. One thing I know, that the rapid progress of innovation, of corruption, of oppression, forces the idea upon many a reflecting mind. The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West. The latter are beginning to rule with a rod of iron. Some Connecticut gentlemen-and they are all well informed and discreet-assure me that, if the leading Democrats in that State were to get the upper hand-which would be followed by a radical change in their unwritten constitution-they should not think themselves safe, either in person or property, and would therefore immediately quit the State. I do not believe in the practicability of a long-continued union. A Northern confederacy would unite congenial characters and present a fairer prospect of public happiness; while the Southern States, having a similarity of habits, might be left `to manage their own affairs in their own way.’ If a separation were to take place, our mutual wants would render a friendly and commercial intercourse inevitable.

"I believe, indeed, that if a Northern confederacy were forming, our Southern brethren would be seriously alarmed, and probably abandon their virulent measures; but I greatly doubt whether prudence should suffer the connection to continue much longer. The proposition would be welcomed in Connecticut; and could we doubt of New Hampshire? But New York must be associated; and how is her concurrence to be obtained? She must be made the centre of the confederacy. Vermont and New Jersey would follow of course, and Rhode Island of necessity. Who can be consulted and who will take the lead?"

Many were consulted, but no one was found ready to lead who was able to lead. Cabot sent this letter of Pickering to Fisher Ames, and talked it over with Chief Justice Parsons and Stephen Higginson; but it met with sympathy rather than approval. In Connecticut, apparently, the project was received with greater favor than in Massachusetts. Judge Reeve, the founder of the Litchfield Law School, and a brother-in-law of Aaron Burr, committed himself to it unreservedly.

"I have seen many of our friends," he writes to Senator Tracy in February, 1804, "and all that I have seen, and most that I have heard from, believe that we must separate, and that this is the most favorable moment. The difficulty is, how is this to be accomplished? I have heard of only three gentlemen as yet who appear undecided upon this subject."

Burr was understood to entertain similar sentiments, as also did Governor Griswold of Connecticut and Senator Plumer of New Hampshire. Griswold writes at length to Oliver Wolcott in March, 1804, on the subject of Burr’s views; looking to him as probably the best man around whom to rally the "Northern interest," but complaining that he found his expression of his purposes rather Delphic. "I have no hesitation myself," he adds, "in saying that there can be no safety to the Northern States without a separation from the Confederacy. The balance of power under the present Government is decidedly in favor of the Southern States; nor can that balance be changed or destroyed. The question, then, is, Can it be safe to remain Under a government in whose measures we can have no effective agency?

"With these views I should certainly deem it unfortunate to be compelled to place any man at the head of the Northern interest who would stop short of the object, or would only use his influence and power for the purpose of placing himself at the head of the whole Confederacy as it now stands. If gentlemen in New York should entertain similar opinions, it must be very important to ascertain what the ultimate objects of Colonel Burr are. If we remain inactive, our ruin is certain. Our friends will make no attempts alone. By supporting Mr. Burr we gain some support, although it is of a doubtful nature and of which, God knows, we have cause enough to be jealous. In short I see nothing else left for us. The project which we had formed was to induce, if possible, the legislatures of the three New England States who remain Federal to commence measures which should call for a reunion of the Northern States. The extent of those measures, and the rapidity with which they shall be followed up, must be governed by circumstances."

But the great men of the party looked coldly on the project of breaking up the Union, which they had done so much to form. The Adamses were scarcely approached, and Hamilton, when consulted, gave it no encouragement, although he probably agreed to attend a private meeting of the leaders at Boston, which, but for his own death, would have been held in the winter of 1804. Not a few regarded an ultimate separation as probable and perhaps as not very distant, but believed that it would come only after great suffering had been found to result from the measures inspired by Southern influences.

"If," wrote Cabot to Pickering in reply to the letter of January, 1804, from which we have quoted, "we should be made to feel a very great calamity from the abuse of power by the national Administration, we might do almost anything, but it would be idle to talk to the deaf, to warn the people of distant evils. By this time you will suppose I am willing to do nothing but submit to fate. I would not be so understood. I am convinced we cannot do what is wished; but we can do much if we work with Nature-or the course of things-and not against her. A separation is now impracticable, because we do not feel the necessity or utility of it. The same separation then will be unavoidable when our loyalty to the Union is generally perceived to be the instrument of debasement and impoverishment. If it be prematurely attempted, those few only will promote it who discern what is hidden from the multitude; and to those may be addressed "Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land, All fear, none aid you, and few understand.’"

Fisher Ames writes to him a few weeks later in the same vein: "Nothing is to be done rashly; but mature counsels and united efforts are necessary in the most forlorn case. The fact is our people know little of the political dangers; the best men, at least, ought to be made to know them, and to digest at least the general outlines of a system." Referring, playfully and possibly with an allusion to the personal hazards which might attend the prosecution of Pickering’s plans, to his failing health, he says that it is "not wholly to be despaired of. If Jacobinism makes haste, I may yet live to be hanged."

Similar letters came back to Plumer from New Hampshire; and Hillhouse at least seems not to have pushed the movement further in Connecticut. The plan of a Northern confederacy, when deliberately examined, could have looked feasible only to the knot of politicians in the excitement of Washington life with whom it originated. The sober thought of men at home condemned it as impracticable, if not undesirable. Such a venture might seem attractive to the audacity of Burr or the heated partisanship of some better men, who were fighting a hopeless battle in opposition; but there were few to support it who had much to lose if it were tried and failed. The following of Colonel Pickering must have been mainly of the kind which went down after David to the cave of Adullam; and the whole movement was over and forgotten in a twelvemonth.

The proposition does not seem to have been communicated even to a majority of the Federalists in Congress. Among the Connecticut delegation of that day, Baldwin, Davenport, Goddard, Smith, and Tallmadge afterward publicly denied any knowledge of it whatever: and Senator Hillhouse made a guarded statement, to the effect that he never knew of any combination or plot among Federal members of Congress to dissolve the Union or to form a Northern or Eastern confederacy. Senator Plumer, however, on learning of this statement (in 1829), wrote that he was much surprised at it, for, says he, "I recollect, and am certain that, on returning early one evening from dining with Aaron Burr, this same Mr. Hillhouse, after saying to me that New England had no influence in the Government, added, in an animated tone, `The Eastern States must and will dissolve the Union, and form a separate government of their own; and the sooner they do this, the better."’ As this story is corroborated by an entry in Mr. Plumer’s diary, made twenty years earlier, it is probably correct, but the remark reported may well be imputed to the warmth of an after-dinner conversation among old friends, and has not at all the sound of a conspirator’s declarations or even of an allusion to any formed and definite plan.

From Washington down, indeed, all the founders of the Republic had looked for its permanency more with hope than with assurance. We should do injustice to the tone of the political correspondence and conversation of the times, if we applied to it the standard of loyalty of the present generation. Both parties regarded the Constitution of 1787-like that of 1781, or those which France was still forming and rejecting with such rapidity-as an experiment in government-making. The right of a State to repudiate a law of the Union, which it deemed unconstitutional, whether the courts of the Union upheld it or not, had been emphatically asserted by Virginia and Kentucky, under the lead of Madison and Jefferson, and, this granted, the right of secession seems necessarily to follow.

In writing to Doctor Priestly in 1804, Jefferson alludes to the questions arising from the purchase of Louisiana, and then says: "Whether we remain in one confederacy or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the Western confederacy will be as much our children and descendants as those of the Eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country in future time as with this."

It was not strange that some of the Federalists should learn a lesson from their opponents. Colonel Pickering thought that the embargo of 1807 presented a proper occasion for the application of the principles of the Virginia resolutions at the North. A letter sent from his seat in the Senate to the Governor of Massachusetts, for communication to the Legislature, looked so plainly to concerted resistance in New England to laws deemed unconstitutional, which were ruining its commerce, that the Governor declined to give it the publicity desired.

Adams was at this time Pickering’s colleague in the Senate, and was no stranger to his views on the question of separation. After resigning his seat, Adams, in November, 1808, writes thus from Boston to Ezekiel Bacon, one of the Massachusetts Representatives in Congress: "A war with England would probably soon, if not immediately, be complicated with a civil war and with a desperate effort to break up the Union, the project for which has been several years preparing in this quarter, and which waits only for a possible chance of popular support to explode. That this project has been in serious contemplation of those whom you describe as being called in England `Colonel Pickering’s Party,’ for several years, I know by the most unequivocal evidence, though it be not evidence provable in a court of law. To this project, as matured, a very small part of the Federal party is privy; the great proportion of them do not even believe in its existence."

A few years later, in 1811, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts declared upon the floor of the House of Representatives that should Louisiana be admitted as a State, it would be so flagrant a disregard of the Constitution as virtually to dissolve the Union, "freeing the States composing it from their moral obligation of adhesion to each other, and making it the right of all, as it would become the duty of some, to prepare definitely for separation-amicably if they might, violently if they must." The Speaker ruled the concluding portion of the remarks out of order, but the House reversed his decision by a close vote, in which the majority was chiefly made up of Federalists. Many of Quincy’s political friends, and among them John Adams and Harrison Gray Otis, wrote to him in general commendation of the sentiments of this speech, though without alluding particularly to the threat of secession. It was probably little more than a rhetorical flourish, intended to impress upon the administration party the idea that the North was in earnest when it demanded that the balance of power be left unchanged. In a familiar letter to his wife, a few days afterward, Quincy writes: "You have no idea how these Southern demagogues tremble at the word `separation’ from a Northern man; and yet they are riding the Atlantic States like a nightmare. I shall not fail to make their ears tingle with it whenever they attempt, as in this instance, grossly to violate the Constitution of my country."

The Washington Government was regarded at this time by a large part of New England much as a foreign conqueror is looked upon by the vanquished community. Its policy was unfavorable, almost destructive, to New England interests; and the leaders on both sides had nothing but distrust and dislike for each other. "New England," said a Baltimore newspaper, "is the Vendee of the United States." We shall look in vain, however, for any direct menace of secession in the action of any of her legislatures.

"The people of New England," said the Senate of Massachusetts in 1809, in answer to the inaugural speech of Governor Lincoln, in which he had intimated that rumors of an intended separation were afloat, "perfectly understand the distinction between the Constitution and the Administration. They are as sincerely attached to the Constitution as any portion of the United States. They may be put under the ban of the empire, but they have no intention of abandoning the Union."

The War of 1812 increased the general sense of injustice and wrong, but legislative protests were still kept within bounds. In the address of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts to the people of that State, adopted immediately after the declaration of war, and under the pressure of strong feeling, they explicitly denounce as unworthy of notice "the insinuations and assertions, so lavishly made, of a plot to dismember the Union"; and, while declaring that "the National Government has been induced to believe that your fears and dissensions, combined with your sober habits, and natural aversion from the appearance of opposition to the laws, are sufficient pledges for your tame acquiescence in the abandonment of your local interests, and for your supporting at the expense of your blood and treasure a war, unnecessary, unjustifiable, and impolitic, which, under the pretence of vindicating the independence of our country against a nation which does not threaten it, must too probably consign your liberties to the care of a tyrant who has blotted every vestige of independence from the Continent of Europe"; and that "when a great people find themselves oppressed by the measures of their government, when their just rights are neglected, their interests overlooked, their opinions disregarded, and their respectful petitions received with supercilious contempt, it is impossible for them to submit in silence," they propose and indeed admit of no other remedy, than a general resolution to let all party distinctions vanish, and unite as a "peace party," in order by constitutional methods "to displace those who have abused their power and betrayed their trust."

The General Assembly of Connecticut at the same time adopted a declaration even more unequivocal. After stating their belief that the Constitution will be "found competent to the objects of its institution, in all the various vicissitudes of our affairs," they add, "These sentiments of attachment to the Union and to the Constitution are believed to be common to the American people; and those who express and disseminate distrust of their fidelity to both or either we cannot regard as the most discreet of their friends."

The charge, however, that secession was really meditated by the Federalist leaders in Massachusetts and particularly in Boston, which had received a colorable support from the "Henry letters," which President Madison thought worth paying fifty thousand dollars for from the secret service fund, and making the subject of a special message to Congress in March, 1812, was too valuable as a party cry to be readily abandoned; and it found new credit when the Hartford Convention was called together.

Doctor Webster has shown clearly that the plan of such a convention originated, not in Boston, but in Northampton, and we have his testimony, as one of its original promoters, that "the thought of dissolving the Union never entered into the head of any of the projectors or of the members of the convention." But although the resolutions finally adopted by that body speak only of a temporary alliance for defence on the part of the Northern States, and that by the consent of Congress, the declaration by which they are prefaced makes no scruple of discussing the possibility of disunion.

"Finally," is its language, "if the Union be destined to dissolution by reason of the multiplied abuses of bad administration, it should if possible be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent. Some new form of confederacy should be substituted among those States which shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other; but a severance from the Union by one or more States, against the will of the rest, and especially in a time of war, can be justified only by absolute necessity. These are among the principal objections against precipitate measures tending to dissolve the States, and, when examined in connection with the farewell address of the Father of his Country, they must, it is believed, be deemed conclusive."

The not unnatural implication from such expressions was than absolute necessity-described as likely to proceed from "implacable combinations of individuals or of States, to monopolize power and office and to trample without reserve upon the rights and interests of commercial sections of the Union"-might justify secession, even during the pending war; and the provision for holding another convention at Boston within five months in case the recommendations of the present one should fail of effect upon Congress, "with such powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may require," was quite an intelligible menace of future possibilities.

JOHN S. BARRY

The citizens of Massachusetts, impressed with the dangers which threatened them, and heavily burdened with the expenses of the war of 1812, were urgent that means should be adopted by the Executive toward persuading the General Government to negotiate a peace, or to assist the State in defending its borders, without compelling it to rely entirely upon its own resources. His Excellency concurred in these views; but not choosing, it would seem, to assume the responsibility, he concluded, by the unanimous advice of the Council, to summon a special meeting of the General Court. To this body, when assembled, a message was sent informing them of his proceedings since their adjournment, and of the reasons which had induced him to call them together.

"The situation of the State," he observed in concluding his’ address, "is dangerous and perplexing. We have been led, by the terms of the Constitution, to rely on the General Government to provide the means of defence; and to that government we have resigned the resources of the State. It has declared war against a powerful maritime nation, whose fleet can approach every part of our extended coast; and we are disappointed in the expectation of a national defence. But, though we may believe the war was unnecessary, and has been prosecuted without any useful or practicable object against a province of the enemy, while the seacoast of this State has been left almost wholly defenceless; and though in such a war we may not afford voluntary aid to any of the offensive operations, there can be no doubt of our right to defend our possessions and dwellings against any hostile attacks."

The joint committee to whom this message was referred, and of which Harrison Gray Otis was chairman, reported in favor of the Governor’s recommendations and observed: "The state of the national treasury requires a great augmentation of existing taxes; and if, in addition to these, the people of Massachusetts, deprived of their commerce, and harassed by a formidable enemy, are compelled to provide for self-defence, it will soon be impossible for them to sustain the burden. There remains to them no alternative but submission to the enemy, or the control of her own resources to repel his aggressions. It is impossible to hesitate in making the election. This people are not ready for conquest or submission. But being ready and determined to defend themselves, and having no other prospect of adequate means of defence, they have the greatest need of all those resources derivable from themselves, which the National Government has thought proper to employ elsewhere.

"But, while your committee think that the people of this Commonwealth ought to unite, and that they will unite, under any circumstances, at the hazard of all which is dear, in repelling an invading foe, it is not believed that this solemn obligation imposes silence upon their just complaints against the authors of the national calamities. It is, on the contrary, a sacred duty to hold up to view on all occasions the destructive policy by which a state of unparalleled national felicity has been converted into one of humiliation, of danger, and distress; believing that, unless an almost ruined people will discard the men and change the measures which have induced this state of peril and suffering, the day of their political salvation is passed.

"It is not to be forgotten that this disastrous state of affairs has been brought upon Massachusetts, not only against her consent, but in opposition to her most earnest protestations. Of the many great evils of war, especially in the present state of Europe, the national rulers were often warned by the people of Massachusetts, whose vital interests were thus put in jeopardy. But the General Government, deaf to their voice, and listening to men distinguished in their native State only by their disloyalty to its interests, and the enjoyment of a patronage bestowed upon them as its price, have affected to consider the patriotic citizens of this great State as tainted with disaffection to the Union, and with predilections for Great Britain, and have lavished the public treasure in vain attempts to fasten the odious imputation."

The resolutions which followed this report, and which were adopted by the Legislature, were quite significant. These were: "That, the calamities of war being now brought home to the territory of this Commonwealth-a portion of it being in the occupation of the enemy; our seacoasts and rivers invaded in several places, and in all exposed to immediate danger, the people of Massachusetts are impelled by the duty of self-defence and by all the feelings and attachments which bind good citizens to their country, to unite in the most vigorous means for defending the State and repelling the invader; and that no party feelings or political dissensions can ever interfere with the discharge of this exalted duty;"

"That a number of men be raised, not exceeding ten thousand, for twelve months, to be organized and officered by the Governor, for the defence of the State;"

"That the Governor be authorized to borrow, from time to time, a sum not exceeding one million of dollars, and that the faith of the Legislature be pledged to provide funds for the pay ment of the same."

And finally: "That twelve persons be appointed, as delegates from this Commonwealth, to meet and confer with delegates from the other States of New England upon the subject of their public grievances and concerns; upon the best means of preserving our resources, and of defence against the enemy; and to devise and suggest for adoption, by those respective States, such measures as they may deem expedient; and also to take measures, if they shall think it proper, for procuring a convention of delegates from all the United States in order to revise the Constitution thereof and more effectually to secure the support and attachment of ali the people by placing all upon the basis of fair representation."

The adoption of the last of these resolutions by a vote of twenty-two to twelve in the Senate and of two hundred sixty to ninety in the House shows how largely the popular sentiment was enlisted against the war. Only about a half of the House, it is true, appear to have actively participated in the passage of this resolve, and, perhaps, had the other half voted, the majority in its favor might have been lessened. But of this there is no certain proof; and it might perhaps be affirmed on the other side that, had all voted, the majority would have been increased. As the case stands, however, nearly two to one in the Senate and three to one in the House voted in favor of the resolution; and it can hardly be doubted, when all the circumstances are considered, that the vote of the Legislature reflected quite faithfully the wishes of the people.

Nor did the General Court attempt to conceal their transactions from the scrutiny of the whole nation or to withhold from the other States a cooperation in their measures; for the day after the passage of this resolution the presiding officers of the Senate and House were directed to make their proceedings known as speedily as possible, and letters were written to be sent to the different governments, inviting them to join in such measures as might be "adapted to their local situation and mutual relations and habits, and not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union."

The adoption of the report of the committee of the Legislature, and the calling of the convention, which assembled shortly after in Hartford, Connecticut, was censured severely by the Democratic party, at the head of which stood Levi Lincoln, Jr.; and for many years accusations were "thrown broadcast upon the members of that body, and renewed at every election," charging them with a studied design to subvert the Government and destroy the Union. The delegates from Massachusetts, however, as well as from the other states, were gentlemen of the highest respectability and talent, and, "as far as their professions can be considered as sincere; as far as their votes and proceedings afford evidence of their designs," so far their conduct has been adjudged to be defensible.

As has been well observed, "It is not to be supposed, without proof, that their object was treason or disunion; and their proceedings unite with their declarations and the sentiments entertained by those who appointed them to show that they neither purposed nor meditated any other means of defence than such as were perfectly justifiable, pacific, and constitutional." Indeed, such men as George Cabot, of Boston, the president of the convention, not a politician by profession, yet "a man of so enlightened a mind, of such wisdom, virtue, and piety, that one must travel far, very far, to find his equal;" Nathan Dane, father of the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory, and the author of a digest of the common law, eminent for his services in the State and National Legislatures, and possessing the esteem and respect of all who knew him; William Prescott, of Boston, father of the historian of that name, a Councillor, a Senator, and a Representative from that town, subsequently a member of the Convention for the Revision of the Constitution, and the president of the Common Council of Boston as a city; Harrison Gray Otis, for two years succeeding this convention a member of the Legislature, and afterward a Senator in the Congress of the United States, a gentleman of fine talents, fascinating manners, and great legislative experience; Timothy Bigelow, of Medford, a member and the Speaker of the House, and afterward a Councillor; Joshua Thomas, of Plymouth, an upright, popular, and honored judge of probate to the time of his death; Joseph Lyman, of Northampton, the sheriff of Hampshire County, and a member of the Convention for Revising the Constitution; Daniel Waldo, of Worcester, a member of the Senate, respected by his townsmen, as by all others who knew him; Hodijah Baylies, of Taunton, aide-de-camp to a distinguished officer during the Revolution, and long judge of probate for the County of Bristol; George Bliss, of Springfield, a member of the State Government and of the Convention for Revising the Constitution; Samuel S. Wilde, of Newburyport, also a member of the State Convention, and a judge of the Supreme Judicial Court, beloved and respected by a wide circle of acquaintances, and possessing the confidence and attachment of the people; Stephen Longfellow, Jr., father of the distinguished professor and poet-such men, by the most violent partisan, could hardly be suspected of deliberately "plotting a conspiracy against the National Government, of exciting a civil war, of favoring a dissolution of the Union, of submitting to an allegiance to George III." Their character and standing at the period of their choice and to the day of their death are a sufficient refutation of all such charges, even if made; and if they were unworthy the confidence of the public, upon whom could reliance be more safely placed?

On the appointed day twenty-four delegates took their seats, and the convention was organized by the choice of George Cabot as president and Theodore Dwight as secretary. Each session of this body was opened with prayer; and, after its sessions had continued for three weeks, it was adjourned. The report of the committee, appointed at an early stage, suggested the following topics for the consideration of the convention: "The powers claimed by the Executive of the United States to determine conclusively in respect to calling out the militia of the States into the service of the United States, and the dividing the United States into military districts, with an officer of the army in each thereof, with discretionary authority from the Executive of the United States to call for the militia, to be under the command of such officer; the refusal of the Executive of the United States to supply or pay the militia of certain States, called out for their defence, on the ground of their not having been, by the Executive of the State, put under the command of the commander over the military district; the failure of the Government of the United States to supply and pay the militia of the States, by them admitted to have been in the United States service; the report of the Secretary of war to Congress on filling the ranks of the army, together with a bill or act on that subject; the bill before Congress providing for classing and drafting the militia; the expenditure of the revenue of the nation in offensive operations on the neighboring provinces of the enemy; the failure of the Government of the United States to provide for the common defence, and the consequent obligations, necessity, and burdens devolved on the several States to defend themselves; together with the mode, the ways, and the means in their power for accomplishing the object."

The report thus made was accepted and approved; and at a subsequent date, upon the report of a new committee which had been appointed, several amendments to the Federal Constitution were proposed, to be recommended to the several State legislatures for approval or rejection. These amendments, as in the published report, were: "(1) Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective number of free persons, including those bound to serve for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed and all others. (2) No new State shall be admitted into the Union by Congress, in virtue of the power granted by the Constitution, without the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses. (3) Congress shall not have power to lay any embargo on the ships or vessels of the citizens of the United States in the ports and harbors thereof, for more than sixty days. (4) Congress shall not have power, without the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses, to interdict the commercial intercourse between the United States and any foreign nation or the dependencies thereof. (5) Congress shall not make or declare war or authorize acts of hostility against any foreign nation, without the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses, except such acts of hostility be in defence of the territories of the United States when actually invaded. (6) No person who shall hereafter be naturalized shall be eligible as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, nor capable of holding any civil office under the authority of the United States. (7) The same person shall not be elected President of the United States a second time; nor shall the President be elected from the same State two terms in succession."

Such was the "treason" of the Hartford Convention-a "treason" with which Anti-Federalists had once largely sympathized; for the very amendments proposed by this convention were substantially such as had been agitated at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and deemed necessary by its opponents to prevent the encroachments of the Federal Government. But time often changes the opinions of men, or at least induces forgetfulness of once favorite measures.