_Attitude of the Federalists, Real and Imputed--The Convention at Hartford--Its Popular Reputation--What General Scott did not say at Chippewa._
|When a destructive war had been carried on for two years, when recruiting was slow, and the Government heavily in debt, and yet no way appeared but to fight it out, it might have been expected that harsh criticism of the policy of the Administration, coming from the party that had steadily opposed the war, would subject that party to the charge of being unpatriotic and untrue to the Union. It might also have been expected that an opposition which had become chronic could not but become in some respects unjust. So when the Federalists in 1814 were flooding the Legislatures of New England with memorials on the conduct of the war, they could hardly restrain themselves from overdrawing the picture of its failures, or from representing the condition of things before the war as rather more paradisiacal than anybody had suspected. And on the other hand, they were accused not only of { 327}rejoicing in defeats of the national arms, but of plotting a separation of New England from the other States, with a view of ultimately making her again a part of the British Empire. That there were some Federalists who contemplated a dissolution of the Union as a possible remedy for certain difficulties, is quite probable, for such views were at that time not confined to either party. The contingency of disunion was frequently discussed by men of both parties. But that anybody seriously contemplated a reunion with England, there has never been any evidence worth considering. The story was gotten up by the Administration party, in order to cast odium upon the Federalists; and the occurrence most freely used to give color to it was the Hartford Convention, which unfortunately sat with closed doors, and thus was easily misrepresented as a treasonable gathering.
In the third year of the war the hand of the enemy had fallen heavily upon the coast of New England, and at the same time an unpleasant feeling had arisen from the refusal of the United States Government to pay the militia that had been in service under State officers. In this crisis, the Legislature of Massachusetts, on the 16th of October, by a vote of 260 to 90, passed a series of resolutions, the fifth of which authorized the calling of a con{ 328}vention to confer "upon the subject of their [the New England States] public grievances and concerns; and 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 all the people, by placing all upon the basis of fair representation." The letter addressed to the governors of other States set forth the general objects of the proposed conference to be, "to deliberate upon the dangers to which the eastern section of the Union is exposed by the course of the war, and to devise, if practicable, means of security and defence which may be consistent with the preservation of their resources from total ruin, and adapted to their local situation, mutual relations, and habits, and not repugnant to their obligations as members of the Union."