University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER II

THE VIRGINIA DYNASTY, 1801-1825

Thomas Jefferson became President March 4, 1801, served
eight years, and was succeeded by his secretary of state,
James Madison, who also served eight years. He was succeeded
by his secretary of state, James Monroe, who also
served eight years. This period of twenty-four years may
almost be considered as one administration. It was called
the "Reign of the Virginia Dynasty." The change from the
domination of New England to the domination of Virginia
was in the nature of a revolution, for had a set of New England,
or even Northern presidents, succeeded John Adams the
two nations would have loomed up in dreadful menace, and
the Union would have been broken. As it was, it took all the
tact of Monroe in 1820 to avoid such a result on the question
of admitting Missouri into the Union.

How was it that the South, numerically inferior to the
North, was able to capture and retain the presidency for so
long a period? The answer has already been given in the
preceding pages. The Virginia Presidents were not only
men of pre-eminent talent that forced recognition, but they
represented ideals that appealed to the masses of the people
everywhere. Thus through these ideals they were able to
attach to their support such powerful northern states as New
York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and in the end even to
cripple the opposition of New England. The North—New
England especially—has been singularly deficient in any
of the great principles, outside of commerce, which have
controlled society in America.

A statement of what the Virginia Dynasty stood for,

accompanied with a brief account under each head, will perhaps
be more useful than a mere chronicle of events. Principles
only are permanently lasting.

1. First of all, the Virginia Dynasty stood for Democracy,
meaning the equality of the citizen in political and religious
rights. In opposing the alien and sedition laws, the Virginians
defended against the New Englanders freedom of speech
and the freedom of the press. They also opposed the class
ideas favored by the Federalists and the people in that section.
To the call of Southern democracy the Middle States
first fully responded, and the victory that ensued in 1800
was won with their aid. The redemption of New England
was yet to come, but it was not long delayed.

At his second election in 1804 Jefferson won the most
astounding victory ever heard of. A few words of explanation
are necessary. For years New England had echoed with
imprecations against Jefferson proceeding from hundreds of
preachers, editors of newspapers and Federalist politicians.
No words of abuse were too severe, no language too foul, to be
used in their references to him. Danton, Marat, and Robespierre
were angels compared with this man from slaveholding
Virginia. The chief justice of Massachusetts in a charge to
the grand jury denounced "the French system mongers, from
the quintumvirate at Paris to the Vice President (Jefferson)
and minority of Congress, as apostles of atheism and anarchy,
bloodshed and plunder."[29] But these anathemas all came from
the autocrats who ruled the town districts, where in the elections
only one in twenty of those qualified to vote exercised
the ballot. The silence of the masses in New England was
pitiful.[30] With them conditions had not greatly changed from
the seventeenth century, when Rev. Samuel Stone pronounced
Massachusetts "a speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent
democracy."

In preparing the way for their uplift by Jefferson, two

ministers from Virginia—one a Methodist and the other a
Baptist—were as two Johns crying in the wilderness. The
authority of the autocrats was built upon those parts of the
Calvinistic creed which deal in terror and fatalism, and it
was against this rock of prejudice and bigotry that Jesse Lee,
the Methodist evangelist from Virginia, directed his assault.
He spent eight years in New England, and visited all parts of
the country. He was often denied the use of the meeting
houses and often had to preach in the streets. Then the
Congregational pulpit opened its mouth and soundly belabored
what its ministers called "the damnable principles of Methodism."
In Provincetown, where the Pilgrim Fathers first
put foot to land, the town meeting refused to allow the small
band of Methodists to build a church, and when the Methodists
nevertheless collected materials to proceed with the work, a
company of men assembled in the night and burnt the lumber.
Mr. Lee visited the melancholy scene in the morning and said
sadly: "I feel astonished at the conduct of the people, considering
we live in a free country, and no such conduct can
be justified."[31]

Mr. Lee returned to the South in 1797. But he had accomplished
a great work. Not only had he set the Methodist
Church on a firm footing in New England, but the doctrines
which he taught of perfect freedom went to leaven society
among the masses, politically as well as religiously.

One might say that the springs of action set in motion by
Lee were kept going by another man, who though born in
Massachusetts had imbibed the free views of Virginia by
having spent his early and active manhood there. This was
John Leland, a Baptist minister, who had taken a leading part
in disestablishing the Episcopal Church in Virginia. From
a different standpoint he, like Lee, contended for religious

freedom, and found on the national stage of politics a representative
in the statesman Jefferson.

Thus the seed had been sown, and it was Jefferson's part
to develop it into flower and fruit. This he did, and by hurling
defiance to the autocrats, whom he in turn roundly abused,
and by appealing to the masses of New England, whom he
aroused by his clarion calls, he carried all the New England
States except Connecticut at the election of 1804.

After this time never again had the Congregational Church
in New England the power it once had. Laws were to be
passed disestablishing the church, and the power of the autocrats
declined. Predestination, however preached, became an
obsolete force. But for sometime longer the old spirit, though
decadent, held on. It made an understanding with England,
and sought by every method, open and secret to defeat the
embargo and non-intercourse laws, and the War of 1812. It
inspired the Hartford Convention, but it emerged from the
war to wither under the contempt and hatred of the people of
the United States. In 1816 there was no longer any Federalist
party, and the office of secretary of state under President
Monroe was held by a native of New England who was proud
to term himself a Republican. Mr. Monroe's presidency was
called the "Era of Good Feeling," so completely had the Federalists
disappeared. Jefferson had accomplished the inconceivable,
done what has never been accomplished since, which
was to destroy a great political party. Beyond any man he
deserved the name of master builder and master spirit of
the Union.

2. The next measure for which this Virginia Dynasty
stood was Expatriation, which means the right of going out
of one's country, giving up under certain limitations the
rights of a citizen derived from its laws and constitution, and
seeking happiness wherever it may be attained on this globe.
This principle was embodied in the first article of the Declaration
of Rights of Virginia, which guaranteed the enjoyment
of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the gift of

nature. It received, for the first time, legislative recognition
in a Naturalization act passed in 1786 by the Legislature of
Virginia, the work, as we have seen, of Thomas Jefferson.

When the first Congress met, the disposition of the Southern
members who championed the interest of the West was to
accord naturalization on easy terms. In 1794, on Mr.
Madison's motion, the obligatory period of residence before
naturalization was fixed at five years and no one was to be
naturalized who was not of good character. A clause also
added by Mr. Madison that the applicant must renounce any
title of nobility he might have had as a foreigner elicited a
debate in which Fisher Ames and Dexter appeared as the
champions of titles and threw great ridicule on the Roman
Catholic Church, for which they were severely rebuked by
Madison. In 1797 the Federalist majority raised the term of
probation to fourteen years, and passed the Alien Law, vesting
the President with arbitrary power of arresting and sending
any alien out of the Union. Now one of the first things
that Jefferson did on his assuming the presidency was to
restore the term of probation of five years. By this measure
he encouraged immigration, and contributed greatly to the
development of the North and West; for the immigrants
coming by thousands filled the waste places in these regions.
Very few of these foreigners came South because of their
dislike of working in contact with the negro. No part of the
country profited by them more than New England, where the
old Puritan families exploited in their factories the cheap
labor thus afforded, like the Southern planters exploited their
slaves. From these immigrants and their children came
largely the armies that finally defeated the South in 1865.

It is certainly true that the coming of the immigrant to
America has not been of unalloyed benefit. In the early days
a good many convicts and other evil disposed people were sent
from England to America, but most of those who came to
Virginia fell victims to the deadly mosquito that caused the
dreadful fevers of which they died—the mortality among the

immigrants to Virginia being estimated by Edward Eggleston
and Alexander Brown at 80 per cent during the first year of
their arrival. But in a single year, 1905, more foreigners were
introduced into the country than the entire number of colonists
that came to America during the 169 years which elapsed
between the first landing at Jamestown and the Declaration
of Independence.

After 1800 thousands of paupers and criminals were introduced
into the Northern States, and very few brought to the
South, as but a very small part of the foreign immigration
came southward. To what comparative extent New England
and Virginia experienced the evils and benefits of this situation
is shown by the census of 1890. Of their population
Massachusetts had 56.24 per cent of persons having one or
both parents of foreign birth, Connecticut 50.32, Rhode Island
58.02, and Virginia 2.63. In the South in 1860 there was one
criminal to every 1,130 of the inhabitants, while in the North
there was one criminal to every 208 inhabitants. In 1860
there were in the North 156,230 paupers of foreign birth. Two
Presidents of the United States fell victims to the red hand of
this "undesirable" class of immigrants.[32] Since 1836 many
provisions have been made by law to guard against the
entrance of "improper persons," but it cannot be doubted
that, as the overwhelming majority of the immigrants have
been self-respecting people, the Northern States have greatly
benefited by the continuance of the policy of the Virginia
Dynasty.

And yet the right of expatriation was denied by Chief
Justice Ellsworth and the Federalist party generally. The
British doctrine of inalienability of citizenship was maintained,
and often applied, in the case of impressment, contrary
to the interests of the United States. At last Congress,
on July 27, 1868, in one of its sane moments, declared expatriation
"a natural and inherent right of all people and indispensable

to the enjoyment of rights of life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness."

3. Next the Virginia Dynasty held that the Common Law
was no part of the law of the United States. The opposite
contention was maintained by the Federalist party to legalize
the Alien and Sedition laws. People were haled up before
the Federal Courts and punished without any statutory
authority whatever. Had this contention been allowed, the
common law would have swallowed up the constitution, and
made the state courts superfluous; for the common law jurisdiction
embraced almost every possible subject of litigation,
both civil and criminal. This doctrine, favored by Judge
Marshall,[33] was refuted by Madison in his able report in 1799
and characterized as "novel and extravagant." It was later
denounced by the Supreme Court of the United States itself
in 1812 when it declared, in case of any crime, that Congress
must first make it so, affix a punishment to it, and define the
court that shall have jurisdiction of the offence.[34]

When, nevertheless, the old contention was revived by
Judge Story in his Commentaries, the Supreme Court
repeated its decision in 1834 in Wheaton and Donaldson vs.
Peters and Grigg, Justice McLean delivering the opinion of
the Court, that "as the powers of government were strictly
defined by the Constitution, there could be no Common Law of
the United States."

4. Then the Virginia Dynasty stood for the Protection of
the Flag to every man and everything on board ship. Their
stand was against impressment, and they declared for the doctrine
accepted today that "Free ships make free goods."
Where were the Federalists on these matters? Had Marshall
and his fellow Federal Judges been permitted to make the
law, the English view of international law both as to allegiance

and search would have prevailed—"Once a citizen,
always a citizen." The doctrine of the "indelible allegiance"
under the Common Law of Great Britain afforded the British
an excuse to search American ships for native born Englishmen,
and the doctrine that enemy's goods found on board a
neutral ship may be lawfully seized as prize of war, which
was the English view, was not only admitted in Jay's treaty
and supported by the Federalists in Congress, but by the
Federal Supreme Court. It was never admitted by the
Virginia Dynasty. It was never admitted by the State Judges
—with St. George Tucker, John Tyler, William H. Cabell, and
Spencer Roane of the number. As to impressment, when
even as great a favorite as James Monroe came back from
England in 1806 with a treaty with Great Britain omitting
the two fundamental points of impressment of our seamen
and indemnity for losses which Americans had incurred in the
seizure of goods and vessels, President Jefferson promptly
disavowed the negotiator, and declined to approve the treaty.
Later James Madison made war on this account, and at the
peace in 1814 Great Britain tacitly abandoned her claim to
impress American seamen though she made no formal
renunciation.

5. The next great principle for which the Virginia
Dynasty stood was Annexation of territory,—the development
of the territory of the Union into continental proportions.
As we have seen Virginia conquered with her unaided
arms the Northwest Territory and deeded it to the Union in
1784. Jefferson was intimately associated with both the
conquest and the cession, and was the author of the first ordinance
settling its organization and prohibiting slavery, but he
was to link his name with a much greater mass of territory
during his presidency. After the peace with Great Britain in
1783 the question of westward expansion came up in connection
with John Jay's negotiations with Spain for a treaty of
commerce, and we have seen how the influence of the Northern
States was given to yielding to Spain the free navigation of

the Mississippi for 25 years. The subject trailed along till
Jefferson was Secretary of State, when he pressed the matter
with vigor. The expansion then had in view was the development
of Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi, and he begged
Spain to make the wise choice now of a permanently friendly
neighbor, and the guarantee of the peaceful possession of all
the territory west of the Mississippi by voluntarily ceding to
the United States the territories to the east of the River (New
Orleans and Florida). The Spanish government did not
adopt this amicable proposition of Jefferson and negotiations
dragged on until he ceased to be secretary of state. It was
not until 1795 that the treaty concluded by Thomas Pinckney
secured us even a temporary right of deposit and reshipment
at New Orleans.[35]

Spain in the year 1801 retroceded to France from which
she had obtained it the province of Louisiana and, thinking
that the retrocession offered a fitting opportunity, Morales,
the Spanish Intendant, proclaimed the right of deposit of the
United States at an end. This created great excitement along
the Mississippi but Jefferson by his prudent conduct prevented
war with France, and sent James Monroe in 1803 to
France, where he already had Robert R. Livingston negotiating
for New Orleans and Florida. The result was beyond
anything expected by Jefferson or either of his envoys. The
offer came directly from Napoleon himself to cede not merely
New Orleans but the whole of Louisiana to the United States,
not on account of anything the envoys had said but because
of Napoleon's declaration of war against England. Thirteen
years before Jefferson had said that "it was not our interest
to cross the Mississippi for ages," and in his instructions to
Livingston and Monroe he did not press the acquisition of the
western land beyond the Mississippi. But the spirit of
acquisition was always actively with him, and the envoys in
accepting Napoleon's overture merely interpreted his secret
and silent feeling. When the news arrived in America,

Jefferson promptly endorsed the action of his agents, though
he was unnecessarily straitlaced on the constitutional question.
John Randolph, who had been the Republican leader in
the House of Representatives was one of those who considered
that the constitution gave the executive ample power to annex
foreign territory, and this view was generally held by the
Republicans everywhere. By this treaty acquisition the
navigation of the Mississippi became free to all American
citizens.

But here again the two nations manifested themselves.
New England bitterly opposed the annexation of Louisiana
because of its fear of increasing the Southern predominance,
and its senators voted against the ratification of the treaty,
taking in their speeches extreme states rights and sectional
grounds. This irregular conduct came with poor grace from
a part of the country which had just the other day strongly
opposed the Virginia resolutions of 1798-99 and had assumed
to possess all the love of order and obedience to law in the
Union. It had been the constant complaint of the New Englanders
against Jefferson that he was an "anarchist," and
no fear of anarchy deterred many of them from the most
revolutionary and dishonorable proceedings.

The utility of ascertaining the character of the interior of
Louisiana at this time induced Jefferson to send his private
secretary, Meriwether Lewis, and William Clark, brother of
Gen. George Rogers Clark, on an expedition to trace the
Missouri to its source, cross the mountains, and follow the
best water communication which offered itself from thence to
the Pacific. They started from St. Louis, May 14, 1804, and
returned to the same place in September, 1806. This exploration
gave some idea of the immense extent and great wealth
of Louisiana as then described. In 1811 John Jacob Astor
established a fur station at the mouth of the Columbia River
and called it Astoria.

After the annexation of Louisiana the American claimed
west Florida as far as the Perdido River as part of the

acquisition, and this claim, not admitted by Spain, formed an
important part of the negotiations for many years. There
was much trouble over this dispute, and at last Spain ceded
the whole of Florida to the United States in 1819. The negotiations
were conducted through John Quincy Adams, the
secretary of state, who largely reconciled the New Englanders
to the acquisition. But their opposition was aroused
before the final ratification by the request of Missouri for
admission as a state with slavery. The sectional issue
was again revived, till according to Mr. Adams the division
of the Union was freely discussed, and Mr. Clay predicted
that it would not last five years. The opposition of New
England was mainly directed to any strengthening of the
South, and their fears even extended to Oregon. The report
made by John Floyd of Virginia at this time to take possession
of the country was characterized by John Quincy Adams as
"a tissue of errors in facts and abortive reasoning."[36] Indeed,
had the New England influence prevailed as to annexation the
Union would have been confined to a narrow strip along the
Atlantic shore.

6. Next the Virginia Dynasty stood for Economy and
Peace. Hamilton had announced the shocking doctrine that
"a Public Debt was a Public Blessing," and in assuming the
state debts he had not waited for an accounting but according
to Albert Gallatin had assumed $10,883,628.58 more than was
necessary. To this Jefferson had opposed the doctrine that
a Public Debt was a Public Evil, and his policy was to pay off
the public debt and not to maintain it. So he made extensive
reductions, accomplished in large part by discontinuing
numerous offices instituted by the Federalists. He withheld
all commissions of judges and justices which Adams had not
had time to deliver. The inspectors of the internal revenue,
who had been brought into office by the mere authority of the
Executive he discontinued in a mass. Calling in the aid of
Congress he next had the late judiciary act and the internal

revenue laws repealed, and in doing so closed up three-fourths
of all the offices, containing an army of stipendiaries. Of the
remaining one-fourth left in office Jefferson removed under
one hundred in eight years, and promoted Republicans to the
vacancies. Under James Madison there were only five
removals during eight years and under James Monroe only
thirteen. The Spoils System of the Federalists was repudiated
and avoided.[37]

In the same spirit of peace and economy Jefferson
reduced the army and navy. For this he has been very greatly
ridiculed, but there is no evidence whatever that had every
dollar that Gallatin applied to the reduction of the public debt
been applied to the army and navy, it would have made any
difference with England. Many writers, like Theodore
Roosevelt, have assumed that building up the army and navy
would have prevented war. All the money at Jefferson's
disposal could not have built a navy equal to England's, and
England in 1807, after the attack of the Leopard on the
Chesapeake, was a more dangerous enemy than England in
1812, when war actually took place. Mr. Muzzey says that it
was a blessing for us that hostilities were delayed, for the fury
of the war with France was then near spent, and we suffered
only its declining force.[38] Really this matter illustrated, as
other things did, the dual nature of the Union. Jefferson, as
a Southern man, thought agriculture far more important than
commerce, and from the Southern standpoint no navy was
needed, as British shipping did all the carrying for the South,
and no questions of search and impressment could arise.

In place of war Jefferson and Madison resorted to non-intercourse
and embargo against the British orders in Council
and French decrees. Similar measures had been relied on
before, and, supported by the people, were found effective.
They had been employed by the colonists against British
taxation in 1774. They had been employed against the French

by the Federalists in 1794. It was really the opposition of
New England that prevented them from being effective now.
And yet, great as New England complained of these measures,
it could not be alleged that they took one dollar more of money
from that section than the South. The truth is the laws bore
heavily upon the exports of the South, and the South suffered
more than New England. How different from the assumption
of the State Debts and the protective tariffs!

When finally Madison could no longer bear the insults of
Great Britain, he went to war in behalf of New England rights,
which strange to say was not appreciated, and he was liberally
abused. Six thousand of our citizens, mostly New Englanders,
had been captured and imprisoned by the
English, and the war was correctly termed a second war
of independence.

In conducting the war Mr. Madison had all kinds of
difficulties to contend with. The great weakness in his position
was New England. That great section of the country
was honey-combed with conspiracy, and secession would have
been preferable to the part played by those states. An open
enemy is always less to be feared than a concealed one. The
attitude of New England demoralized the soldiers in the
ranks, and no general brought more disgrace on the American
name than General Hull of Connecticut. Placed inside the
fort at Detroit, where the safety of the entire Northwest
depended upon the maintenance of his post, he ran up the
cowardly white flag without firing a shot. The surrender was
a source of extreme demoralization. Writing to Wilson Cary
Nicholas, Mr. Madison said: "You are not mistaken in viewing
the conduct of the Eastern States as the source of our
greatest difficulties in carrying on the war; as it certainly is
the greatest, if not the sole inducement to the enemy to
persevere in it."

But peaceful as the policy of the Virginia Dynasty was,
it was warlike enough to accomplish what the Federalist rule
had not accomplished. What it had of a navy it made effective.

Dolly Madison

The Federalists paid servile tribute to the Barbary
pirates, but Jefferson instead of sending tribute and letters of
flattery sent ships of war. In this way "Dale, Bainbridge and
Decatur made the Mediterranean sea the training ground for
the young American Navy, exercised it in actual battle,
strengthened it on the strong wine of victory, and thus made
it ready for the War of 1812." Among the naval heroes who
gave a favorable complexion to the War of 1812 was Lewis
Warrington, of Hampton, Virginia, commanding the Peacock.
He engaged the British sloop of war Epervier, convoying a
fleet of merchantmen. In the battle which ensued the Epervier
was badly injured and her crew surrendered. On board of her
was found 118,000 dols. in specie. So it would seem that
Jefferson's policy of fighting the Barbary Powers instead of
paying them was the reason we had a navy in 1812 which
could fight and win victory.[39]

7. Then there was the Draft Bill proposed by Madison's
Administration. It was bitterly denounced as contrary to
the constitution, state sovereignty and individual rights by the
New England speakers and writers, including Webster, who
made a disunion speech against it. It is now admitted that
raising troops in this way is the most reasonable and fairest
method, and it was by a more drastic bill in these latter days
that the United States mustered its strength and decided the
issues of the World War. This measure in 1814 failed of
passage in the Senate, and representative New Englanders
declared its enforcement in New England would be met with
arms. The Hartford Convention adopted resolutions in favor
of States Rights more pronounced than the Virginia Resolutions
of 1798-99. And while New England during war was
thus tying the hands of the government, the soldiers of the
South under General Andrew Jackson gave to the army of
Sir Edward Packenham that crushing defeat at New Orleans
from which it is to be dated the time when she first began to
treat the government of the United States with respect.

8. Next the Virginia Dynasty stood for what is known as
the Monroe Doctrine. Jefferson as early as the year 1787 had
written against "entangling alliances," and in October, 1823,
he wrote to Monroe that "the fundamental maxim of this
government should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils
of Europe," and "never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with
Cis-Atlantic affairs." John Quincy Adams, as secretary of
state of a Virginia administration, gave expression to similar
sentiments in July, 1823, but it is probable that he had already
discussed the question with President Monroe.

Now during the War of 1812 the Federalists made open
alliance with England, and England was allied with the
effete monarchies of Europe against Napoleon. These
monarchies, on the downfall of Napoleon in 1814, entered into
a Holy Alliance to "repress" all reforms, and "representative
governments." When they started to extend their interference
to this continent by aiding Spain against her South American
colonies it was too much for England and she opposed the
interference and asked the co-operation of the United States.
The United States declined to act in conjunction with Great
Britain, but took its own separate action. This was embodied
in the celebrated message of James Monroe of December 2,
1823, (1) That "the American Continents, by the free and
independent condition which they have assumed and maintain,
are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future
colonization by any European powers" and (2) That any
attempt on the part of European powers to extend their
political system to this continent would be deemed "dangerous
to our peace and safety."

The discussion of the immediate authorship of these
declarations, is of little importance. Mr. Calhoun, who as a
member of Monroe's Cabinet, was in a position to know,
attributed[40] the sentiments of the message entirely to Mr.
Monroe, but whether his or not, it was his official sanction
which gave authority to the phrases by whomsoever written.

They were, as known to the world, the utterances of a Virginia
President, and by adoption, if such was the case, was
as much his own as if they had been originated and written by
him. In any other mouth, they would have had little practical
importance.

9. Lastly the Virginia Dynasty stood for the doctrine
that the Union was a Partnership of which the States were
members. This was in opposition to the doctrine preached
by John Marshall and the Federalists in general that the
Union was a consolidated autocracy. Theoretically the policy
recommended by the Dynasty was one of confining the government
as much as possible to foreign relations and avoiding interference
with the States. In support of this they recommended
a strict construction of the Constitution, seeking
thereby to avoid sectional jealousies. But they were sometimes
compelled to compromise and like Marshall gave power
to the Federal government. Thus Jefferson annexed Louisiana,
and though there was no really constitutional objection
on the subject, pronounced it unconstitutional. Monroe favored
the idea that the government was vested with the power
of unlimited appropriation, which was denounced by many
states rights men.

But power in the Federal government is something entirely
different from sovereignty, and as a matter of fact the
decisions of John Marshall had little influence on the ultimate
question of State and National sovereignty. Thus they
certainly had no effect in the South where submission to
Marshall's decision did not interfere with the ever increasing
maintenance of the doctrine of State sovereignty. There
was in fact no true antagonism between the most powerful
Federal government and the extreme assertion of States Rights
—Secession. Sovereign states may favor a constitution giving
the most ample power to a Federal government, and yet reserve
the right of withdrawal. The real explanation of events
up to 1861 must be primarily sought, not in the decisions of
Marshall, which affected only questions of power, but in the

John Marshall

diverse interests of the two nations which caused one, the
weaker, to resort to States Rights and State sovereignty as a
defensive measure, and caused the other, the stronger nation,
to resort to nationality and forced construction to excuse its
own eagerness for power. The question was fundamental.

Marshall in his decisions strove to unify the power of the
United States government, and had there been one people it is
difficult to see why Marshall's decisions should not have been
accepted at once. But every accession of power to the Federal
government was dreaded by the South as a means granted the
North of sectional tyranny. Congress, dominated by the
North, did not hesitate to pass the most sectional laws, and it
was fortunate for the existence of the Union that the spirit
of compromise born of States Rights prevailed in 1820, 1833
and 1850. Had unbending Nationalism, which meant the
rule of the North, prevailed at either of these times, the
Union would have been undoubtedly broken. As it was, in
1861, despite the increased relative power of the North, the
confession was wrung from Lincoln that, without the 200,000
negro troops enlisted by him from the South's own population,
he would have "had to abandon the war in three
weeks."

Undoubtedly, then, if peace between antagonistic sections
was desirable, the policy of Spencer Roane, in preserving the
dignity of the Supreme Court of his state, was a more efficient
one than that of Marshall, who, in strengthening the Federal
Government, gave the all powerful North the opportunity of
greater tyranny over the South and encouraged it to violence.

Marshall had an intensity of idealism which, even more
than in the case of Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, blinded
him as to the future, but he felt as a Southern man, and condemned
both the alien and sedition laws and the tariff. His
career as a judge can not stand wholly unimpeached in the
eyes of those who praise him most for his decisions on the
constitution, for his views on the common law, as a part of the
law of the United States, and his interpretation of the international

law as the British construed it, stand repudiated by the
present strongly centralized government.

Such were the principles for which the Virginia Dynasty
stood, and it may be said of all but the last that they furnish
the chief and important pillars of the American Union of
today. No one can find where New England contributed a
single, important feature to the structure of the Government.

In treating the three administrations as one, it is not to be
supposed, however, that the sailing of the Ship of State was
not without serious disturbances at times. The leader in the
Senate during Jefferson's administration was William B.
Giles, of Amelia County, Virginia; and John Randolph, of
Roanoke, led the Republican forces in the House of Representatives.
They were both strong men, but too self opinionated
to maintain a steady support of any administration. John
Randolph deserted Jefferson in 1806 on the question of the
Yazoo claims, opposed the embargo and the War of 1812, and
allied himself with the New England Federalists, who pretended
to assume the garb of States Rights on these questions.
In the presidential campaign of 1808 he advocated the
nomination of James Monroe, in preference to that of Madison,
whom he deemed too nationalistic.

On the other hand, Giles, after supporting nearly all the
measures of Jefferson and Madison, finally broke with
Madison in the War of 1812, and afterwards bitterly condemned
James Monroe for his deviation from States
Rights on the question of appropriating money for internal
improvements.

As to the two presidents, Madison and Monroe, the good
feeling between them was temporarily disturbed through their
rival pretensions in 1808 to the Presidency, but it was restored
when in 1811 Monroe, who was then governor of Virginia, was
invited by President Madison to accept the office of secretary
of state. Other leaders in Congress from Virginia were John
Taylor, of Caroline, and John W. Eppes, a cousin of Mrs.
Jefferson.

Virginia did her full part in the War of 1812. Governor
Wilson Cary Nicholas, in a message to the Legislature,
December 23, 1814, said: "During the last campaign there
were in the field not fewer than 25,000 citizens of this State at
one time, and for a considerable period at least fifteen
thousand." The quota originally requested by Congress was
12,000 men. The list of officers born in Virginia was especially
brilliant and distinguished. Among these of highest rank
were William Henry Harrison, Winfield Scott and Edmund
Pendleton Gaines, of the Army and Commodore Lewis
Warrington of the Navy. Of lower rank were George Mercer
Brooke and Andrew Hunter Holmes, of the Army, and
Captain Robert Henley of the Navy, who distinguished himself
at the battle of Lake Champlain and received a gold medal
from Congress.

As a counterstroke to the American plan of invading
Canada, an order in Council, December 26, 1812, declared the
ports and harbors in Chesapeake and Delaware Bays in a state
of rigorous blockade. A powerful squadron under Admiral
Cockburn, whose flagship was The Marlborough, entered
Chesapeake Bay for the purpose of enforcing the same on
February 4, 1813. They bore a land force of eighteen hundred
men, under Sir Sidney Beckwith, and were well supplied with
surf boats for landing. Their appearance alarmed all lower
Virginia, and the militia in the regions about Norfolk were
soon in motion.

Cockburn made Lynhaven Bay his chief position, and from
thence he sent out marauding expeditions along the shores of
the Chesapeake Bay, who plundered and burned farm houses
in Maryland and Virginia. He attacked Frenchtown in Delaware
and Havre de Grace in Maryland, doing them much
injury, and went up the Sassafras River and attacked Fredericktown
and Georgetown, villages containing from forty to
fifty houses each.

On June 8, 1813, Cockburn was reinforced by a squadron
under Admiral Warren. The British force now collected

within the Capes of Virginia consisted of eight ships of the
Line, twelve frigates, and a considerable number of smaller
vessels, and it was evident that an attack was contemplated
on some point of more importance than defenceless villages.
The citizens of Baltimore, Annapolis and Norfolk were
equally menaced, but when at the middle of June three British
frigates entered Hampton Roads, and sent their boats up
York River to destroy some small American vessels there and
plunder the inhabitants, no doubt remained that Norfolk
would be the object of British attack. The various fortifications
near Norfolk were put in a state of defence—Forts
Norfolk and Nelson, one on each side of the Elizabeth River,
and Craney Island at its mouth. The old Frigate Constellation,
which under Admiral Truxton, had captured the French
Frigate L'Insurgent in 1800, was in Elizabeth River and ready
to fight.

But the Americans did not wait to be attacked. Commodore
Cassin organized an expedition for the capture of the
British frigate that lay at anchor at the nearest distance from
Norfolk. Towards midnight, on the 19th of June, 1813, a
squadron of fifteen gun boats, under Lieutenant Tarbell, descended
the Elizabeth River, and under the protection of a
heavy fog, approached within range of a British vessel without
being discovered, at about half past three o'clock in the
morning. The vessel was taken by surprise and replied only
weakly to the fire of the Americans. The capture of the vessel,
however, was snatched from Tarbell by a breeze springing
up, which enabled two of the other vessels to come up, open
fire and drive the Americans off.

This daring attack by the Americans brought matters to a
crisis. The British determined to capture Norfolk and its
fortifications, and with the very next tide fourteen of the
enemy's vessels entered Hampton Roads, ascended to the
mouth of James River, and took position between the point
called Newport News and Pig Point, at the mouth of
Nansemond River.

James Barbour was the governor of Virginia. He was
patriotic and active, and by untiring energy had assembled
several thousand militia. Brigadier General Robert Barraud
Taylor, a graduate of William and Mary College, had the
command, and his attention was especially directed to the
defence of Craney Island. This island formed the most distant
outpost of Norfolk and was the key to the harbor. It
consisted of about twenty-four acres, and was separated from
the mainland by a strait that was fordable at low tide. On
the southeastern side of it, and commanding the ship channel
were entrenchments, on which two 24, one 18 and four six
pound cannon were planted. On the evening of the 21st of
June the whole force on the island numbered seven hundred
and thirty-seven men and were commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel
Beatty. The battery was commanded by Major James
Faulkner, father of Charles James Faulkner, who was a member
of Congress and minister to France at the beginning of
the war in 1861. The British landed about 2,500 men, infantry
and marines, at a creek on Hampton Roads called Hoffleur's
Creek, and tried to take the island by attacking it in the rear.
Major Faulkner at once ordered the cannon to be transferred
to the other end of the island, nearest to the approach of the
British, and when they reached Wise's Creek opened fire upon
them with great precision and soon put them to flight.

Almost simultaneously with this advance of the British
land forces, fifty large barges, filled with fifteen hundred
sailors and marines, were seen approaching from the enemy
ships. The battery was turned upon them, and the remarkable
exactness of the fire soon threw the barges into great confusion,
till an order for retreat was given. Admiral Warren's
barge, The Centipede, and four other barges were sunk in
shoal water and the remainder returned quickly to the ships.
Lieut. B. J. Neal was directed to send some of his bold seamen
to seize the admiral's barge and all in it, and haul it on shore,
and this was gallantly performed by Lieuts. Josiah Tattnall

James Barbour

and Geissinger, and Midshipmen Bladen Dulany and Master
George F. de la Roche.

Thus ended the battle. It constituted the most utter discomfiture
which the British suffered in the war, if we except
perhaps the battle of New Orleans. Four thousand men were
repulsed by 737, chiefly Virginia militia, and commanded by a
Virginia militia general. So certain was Sir Sidney Beckwith
of success that he promised the troops the opportunity of
breakfasting on Craney Island that morning.

Exasperated by their ignominious repulse at Craney
Island, the British proceeded to attack the town of Hampton,
on the west side of Hampton Creek, two and a half miles from
Point Comfort. It was the capital of Elizabeth City county,
and was a mile from the confluence of the Creek with the
waters of Hampton Roads. It was defended at the time by
about four hundred and fifty Virginia militia, under Major
Stephen Crutchfield.

While Admiral Cockburn threatened the town in front with
a flotilla of armed barges and boats, Sir Sidney Beckwith with
a large land force, including some French prisoners who had
volunteered to fight with the British, proceeded to take the
town in the rear, by landing on the shore of Hampton Roads.
Crutchfield's camp was at Little England, southwest of
Hampton, and his heavy battery opened with effect on
Cockburn, whom he soon forced to retire behind Blackbeard
Point. Cockburn took shelter behind the Point, and Crutchfield,
convinced that this action was a feint, gave his attention
to the forces landed under Sir Sidney Beckwith. He first
sent forward Captain Servant with his company of riflemen to
ambush the British on the road leading from Ceeley's, Wilson
Nicholas Cary's plantation, to Hampton. Then he sent forward
Sergeant Parker and a few picked men, with a field
piece, to assist Servant. When the British crossed the head
of the west branch of Hampton Creek, at the Ceeley road, the
Virginians poured a deadly fire into their ranks, which, taking
them by surprise, caused much confusion. Among the killed

was the brave commander of the marines, Lieutenant-Colonel
Williams of the British Army, who was buried at Hampton.

But the British soon recovered from their confusion and
pressed forward, compelling the riflemen to fall back.
Crutchfield, hearing the firing, hurried with all his troops to
the rescue, but he could not withstand the storm of grape and
canister which the British poured upon him, and some of his
troops broke and fled in confusion across the Yorktown road
and the Pembroke estate. The remainder he drew off in good
order. In this affair in which, according to all accounts, the
British greatly outnumbered the Virginians, the British lost
about fifty men, in killed, wounded and missing, and the
Virginians about thirty.

The British now entered Hampton by the Yorktown road,
and the atrocities committed upon the few defenseless inhabitants
who remained in the town have consigned the name of
Sir George Cockburn to merited infamy. The British authorities
put the blame on the French soldiers, but this was really
no excuse as the British generals were responsible for the
conduct of any troops under their command.

The British remained in Hampton till the 27th, when they
reembarked, and a few days later left Hampton Roads to
spread their work of destruction first up the Chesapeake Bay
and then southward along the coasts of the Carolinas and
Georgia. While Cockburn was in Virginia a great many
negroes flocked to his standard but they were harshly treated
and sold into worse slavery in the West Indies.

The question of admitting Missouri as a state came before
the House of Representatives in 1818 for the first time. If
in 1861 South Carolina took the lead in resisting the Northern
majority, that position in 1820 was taken by Virginia. The
election of Lincoln, at the former time, according to constitutional
forms, did not make a case in which Virginia cared to
take action, and she did not act until coercion of South Carolina
was attempted. But the restriction prohibiting slavery
in Missouri seemed to all the statesmen of Virginia a direct

and flagrant infringement not only of the Constitution, but
of the treaty by which Louisiana, from which Missouri was
taken, was obtained.

The bill to admit Missouri was amended, on the motion of
Mr. Talmadge, of New York, by a clause prohibiting slavery,
which prevailed in the House, but was struck out in the Senate,
and so the bill was lost at this session. But at the next session
the question was agitated again, and on motion of Mr. Scott,
the territorial delegate, referred to a committee, who reported
on December 9, 1819, a bill in the usual form, authorizing Missouri
to form a State constitution, with a view to its admission.
To this bill a restriction against the continuance of slavery was
moved by Mr. Taylor of New York.

Soon after this the question was taken up in the Senate.
A bill providing for the admission of Maine, which had passed
the House on the third of January, 1820, was amended in the
Senate by a provision tacking on to it the admission of Missouri.
Jonathan Roberts, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend
the amendment by adding a restriction against slavery just as
Mr. Taylor had done in the House. On February 1st his
amendment was voted down in the Senate by a vote of 27 to 16.

This appeared a large majority against restriction, but it
was one looking only to a compromise. On the question of
linking Missouri with Maine, there was only a majority of one,
and how far that vote could be relied on in all the contingencies
that might occur was not known. It was at this juncture
that President Monroe wrote (February 3) to James Barbour,
a Senator from Virginia, advising the separation of
Maine and Missouri, and the admission of Maine without delay.
In his opinion it would promote the unqualified admission
of Missouri to let the question rest on its own merits.
"To give effect to the suggestion you ought to have immediately
a meeting of the Southern Senators." The same
day Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois, one of the Northern Senators
in sympathy with the South and voting against Mr. Roberts'
amendment, moved an amendment to the Maine Bill, having

the Missouri proposition tacked to it, which amendment allowed
Missouri's admission without restriction, but prohibited
slavery north of 36½ degrees north latitude, in all the territory
outside of Missouri ceded by France and known by the
name of Louisiana. The President and his cabinet—Adams,
Crawford, Calhoun and Wirt—thought favorably of the
measure and the President appears to have communicated his
disposition in an interview with Senator Barbour.

In the meantime the Legislature of Virginia met in Richmond
on Monday, December 6, 1819. Linn Banks was
re-elected Speaker of the House of Delegates, and a letter was
read from John W. Eppes, resigning his seat in the Senate on
account of ill health. The members were very much opposed
to any restriction on Missouri, and in January, 1820, the
House of Delegates adopted, with only one or two dissenting
voices, a preamble and resolutions denouncing in severe terms
"the alarming attempt of Congress to manacle the sovereign
will of the people in Missouri" and pledging the State of
Virginia "to interpose in their defense," but the Senate was
more politic and these resolutions did not go out as the official
utterances of the state.

The sentiment against any restriction was very strong,
however, and when Senator Barbour wrote to Charles Yancey,
a prominent member of the Legislature, that the President
and his cabinet had consented to the compromise proposed by
Mr. Thomas, the indignation and resentment at Richmond was
beyond all bounds. Henry St. George Tucker wrote Mr. Barbour
on February 11, that "he was unable to describe the
sensation in Richmond at the intelligence conveyed by your
letter." "A compromise which gives up the fairest and
largest part of the western territory and leaves us a narrow
slip intersected with mountains in one direction, destroyed
by earthquakes in another and in a third with swamps and
bayous, and infested with mosquitoes and bilious diseases,
can never be grateful to us." Two days before this letter
was written a caucus of the members of the General Assembly

was held to nominate presidential electors. Mr. Yancey broke
the news of the Barbour letter regarding the President's
views to the caucus. Immediately an intense excitement prevailed,
the proposed compromise was bitterly denounced, and
so indignant were all with President Monroe that an adjournment
of the caucus took place without the appointment at
this time of any electors.[41]

Mr. Barbour shared in the general suspicion, and some
severe comments were made on what was supposed to be his
concurrence with the President.

Reassuring letters from Barbour contributed to calm
the ferment in Richmond, which settled finally into a resolve
to endorse Monroe for the presidency, but to continue opposition
to any compromise. The Senate of Virginia would not
accept the resolutions of the House of Delegates and substituted
for them a paper free from denunciation, but containing
a strong argument against any restriction whatever on
Missouri. Then on the 17th the caucus met again and nominated
the electors, 24 in all, favorable to Mr. Monroe, and on
the same day a vote was taken in the United States Senate
on Mr. Thomas' compromise amendment and it was adopted,
but among the negatives were the names of James Barbour
and James Pleasants of Virginia.

Afterwards when the vote was taken in the House of Representatives
on the same restriction, out of twenty-two representatives
from Virginia, seventeen voted against the compromise.
There were only twenty-five other negatives, and
of these five were from the North and twenty were scattered
among the other southern states.

South Carolina led the majority of the southern delegates
in voting for the compromise, and thus the issue of arms was
again postponed. Ex-President Madison joined[42] with Monroe
in approving the compromise, but thought that it would have

been equitable if the line of division had been run "so as to
make the partition correspond with the estimated proportion
in which the common property was paid for by the two descriptions
of owners."

On the other hand the venerable Jefferson saw the result
with clearer vision. He wrote to William Short on April 13,
1820: "The old schism of Federal and Republican threatened
nothing because it existed in every state and united them
together by the fraternities of party. But the coincidence
of a marked principle, moral and political, with a geographical
line, once conceived, I feared would never more be obliterated
from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion
and renewing irritations, until it would kindle such mutual
and mortal hatred as to render separation preferable to eternal
discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing
that our Union would be of long duration; I now doubt it
much, and see the event (separation) at no great distance and
the direct consequence of this question." Thus it seems the
greatest of all idealists was disillusioned. Things turned out
just as he said. The Kansas-Nebraska bill in 1854, repealing
the Missouri law, was made the immediate cause of an agitation
that piled up mountains of hatred, and separation was
adopted by the South as the only reasonable alternative to a
Union involving "eternal discord."