Merrill D. Peterson, R.I.P.

I just saw a post by David Post at Volokh reporting that Merrill D. Peterson died in late September at the age of 88. A little searching turned up additional notices at Reason and the NYT.

I haven't read Prof. Peterson's biography of Thomas Jefferson, but his The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun is a model of political biography that illuminates not just his nominal subjects but the period in which they dominated their country.

R.I.P., Professor.

The War Between the Rich and Poor States?

Although I haven't quite finished Prologue to War, I couldn't resist taking a peek this afternoon at my next book, James L. Huston's Calculating the Value of the Union: Slavery, Property Rights, and the Economic Origins of the Civil War - and I'm already excited.

For starters, Prof. Huston has clearly absorbed his Gavin Wright, and in particular Prof. Wright's invaluable observation that slavery was not merely a method of labor organization; it was also a means of capital accumulation. Second, Chapter 2 is crammed full of valuable tables concerning state-by-state population, acreage, wealth, etc. Some are readily available elsewhere, but it's nice to have them all together in one place. Others are more unusual, and highlight important facts often overlooked.

To pick but one example, Prof. Huston puts together of a list of the states ranked by total wealth as of 1860. The top five are all northern states: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Massachusetts. But he then juxtaposes that list with another ranking the states by wealth per capita, white population only. Now eleven of the top twelve states are slave states, and the seven states that seceded before Lincoln took office appear in the top eight. The sole exception is Connecticut, which comes in at no. 5.

Prof. Huston quite rightly suggests that these tables throw doubt on the usual picture, in which "the North is characterized as the dynamic, growing economy while the South is described as sinking into backwardness and poverty - usually by some comparison of New York to Virginia or Ohio to Kentucky."

In terms of wealth, the mighty economies of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York . . . look like the sick and underdeveloped economies that Republicans called the slave states. One could almost say that the war between the states was not between the slave and free states, but between the rich and poor states.

Happy Halloween (Part 2)!

Frank Zappa played in New York on Halloween for years, and I went every year. It's therefore particularly appropriate that I wish you Happy Halloween with "Goblin Girl."

I Only Urinate in My Own Fireplace

In 1811 [the new British Minister to the United States Augustus John] Foster was thirty-three. He was handsome, self-assured, and so confident of his superior breeding that he felt able to ignore American crudities and insults. Foster's diary and letters are full of contemptuous comments - he was particularly amused when an uncouth congressman urinated in his fireplace and when other legislators, confusing caviar for jam, had to spit out their overly large mouthfuls.

Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: England and the United States 1805-1812.

Abe Says "Cheese!"

Now my day is complete, thanks to Woman's Day magazine:

Taking a stand as “the big cheese” in Washington, DC, this sculpture of the 16th President of the United States was made from a 1,000-pound block of mild Cheddar cheese by sculptor Troy Landwehr. Photo courtesy of Tiffany Bridge.

"For more than two years the United States wallowed in purposeless humiliation"

Bradford Perkins expresses his acid views so artfully that I can't resist giving you another sample. Here is the beginning of a chapter entitled "America's Humiliation", discussing the early years of the James Madison administration:

"The Lord the Mighty Lord must come to our Assistance, or I fear we are undone as a nation." Thus wailed a Republican leader [identified in a footnote as Nathaniel Macon], not merely a carping Federalist, at the end of February, 1809. But Jehovah did not deign to aid his chosen people. Instead, He sent James Madison as his vice-gerent, and the new President was no Moses. Madison never pointed out any route to a promised land of peace and plenty, and for more than two years the United States wallowed in purposeless humiliation.

The 1807 Embargo Says, "Ouch!"

Bradford Perkins' analysis of the policies pursued by the British and Americans in the period leading up to the War of 1812 is a model of subtlety. Reviewing each decision, he carefully looks at the facts and assumptions that underlay it, turning them over to show how a closer examination might make them seem to appear very different, leading to a different decision.

At the same time, subtle analysis can produce rather brutal conclusions. Here are Prof. Perkins' closing thoughts on the Jeffersonian Embargo of 1807-1809:

[Jefferson's] most ambitious venture in foreign policy had failed, save only in perhaps delaying the outbreak of war with England - and that, until a less favorable time. The Embargo imposed many of the disadvantages of war on the nation by destroying trade; it secured none of the prospective advantages, such as the conquest of territory or the capture of enemy ships and commerce at sea. Diplomatically, Jefferson failed either to coerce or seduce the European belligerents. Economically, the Embargo proved ruinous at home. Politically, it encouraged fissiparous tendencies in Republicanism and temporarily reinvigorated the most unpleasant forms of Federalism. If Jefferson had acted strongly at the opening of his last Congress [in December 1807], he might have achieved an acceptable substitute for the Embargo. By his inertia he was negatively responsible for its continuation until February, 1809, and for the disgraceful scenes of humiliation and panic which sullied America's reputation for years.

About the illustration:

In this satirical [1809] cartoon, "Intercourse or Impartial Dealings," President Jefferson is depicted as being held up for money by Napoleon and King George. Critics of Jefferson believed that he had paid too much for Louisiana and was prepared to pay too much for the Floridas. This cartoon also satirizes the failure of Jefferson's use of the embargo and restrictions on trade as a curb on French and British depredations of American shipping.

"Congress must legalize all means . . . necessary to obtain it's ends"

In Prologue to War: England and the United States 1805-1812 author Bradford Perkins is most interested in the development of policies that contributed to tensions between the two countries. As a result, he pays scant attention to the violations of civil liberties that accompanied the Embargo of 1807-1809. Even so, he makes pretty clear that Thomas Jefferson was knee deep in the enforcement policies that created the worst excesses. He references in particular the hair-raising correspondence exchanged between the president and his Secretary of State Albert Gallatin in the summer of 1808:

If the Embargo was considered as a prelude to war, a precaution, or shock treatment of European psyches – Jefferson talked of all these – occasional violations did not much matter. In any event all risk would be borne by the transgressing shipowner [whose vessel might be seized by the British or French]. As the coercive emphasis [i.e., the rationale that the embargo was intended to coerce the British and the French into respecting American rights] increased in the spring of 1808, becoming the only possible excuse for the continuation of a policy that had demonstrably failed in its other aims, airtight enforcement of the Embargo assumed new importance. The President devoted most of the energies of his last year in office to this task.

* * *

In the summer of 1808, after gathering much information during a visit to New York, [Secretary of the Treasury Albert] Gallatin wrote to the President that “if the embargo must be persisted in any longer,” new legislation must be passed to “invest the Executive with the most arbitrary powers & sufficient force” to execute them. He suggested that not a single vessel be permitted to move without presidential approval, that collectors be permitted to seize goods “any where” and to remove rudders and rigging from any suspected vessels, and that “a little army” be collected along the Canadian frontier.

Here is the relevant passage from Gallatin's letter, dated July 29, 1808:

With those difficulties we must struggle as well as we can this summer; but I am perfectly satisfied that if the embargo must be persisted in any longer, two principles must necessarily be adopted in order to make it sufficient: 1st, that not a single vessel shall be permitted to move without the special permission of the Executive; 2d, that the collectors be invested with the general power of seizing property anywhere, and taking the rudders or otherwise effectually preventing the departure of any vessel in harbor, though ostensibly intended to remain there; and that without being liable to personal suits. I am sensible that such arbitrary powers are equally dangerous and odious. But a restrictive measure of the nature of the embargo applied to a nation under such circumstances as the United States cannot be enforced without the assistance of means as strong as the measure itself. To that legal authority to prevent, seize, and detain must be added a sufficient physical force to carry it into effect; and although I believe that in our seaports little difficulty would be encountered, we must have a little army along the Lakes and British lines generally.

Perkins then describes and characterizes Jefferson's response:

These suggestions, perhaps designed as much to shock the President into a reconsideration of his policy as to make the Embargo effective, did not shake the Chief Executive, who replied [in a letter dated August 11, 1808], “I am satisfied with you that if the orders & decrees are not repealed, & a continuance of the embargo is preferred to war (which sentiment is universal here), Congress must legalize all means which may be necessary to obtain it's [sic] end.”

Thomas Jefferson and the Passage of the First Embargo Act

In Prologue to War: England and the United States 1805-1812, Bradford Perkins highlights the unseemly haste with which the Tenth Congress acceded to the recommendation of President Jefferson to enact an embargo law.

On Friday December 18, 1807 the president transmitted the following message to Congress requesting embargo legislation:

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

The communications now made, showing the great and increasing dangers with which our vessels, our seamen, and merchandise, are threatened on the high seas and elsewhere, from the belligerent Powers of Europe, and it being of the greatest importance to keep in safety these essential resources, I deem it my duty to recommend the subject to the consideration of Congress, who will doubtless perceive all the advantages which may be expected from an inhibition of the departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States.

Their wisdom will also see the necessity of making every preparation for whatever events may grow out of the present crisis.

TH. JEFFERSON

“The Senate rushed the Embargo through in one afternoon.” “Four or five hours after Jefferson recommended an embargo, the Senate had done his bidding.”

Things took slightly longer in the House, but not much. The Senate bill arrived on Friday afternoon and was debated Saturday December 19. “[O]ver the Sunday recess the administration brought pressure to bear on Republican legislators.” On the evening of Monday November 21 “the House approved the bill by almost two to one.”

Jefferson signed the Embargo Act – formally entitled An Act laying an Embargo on all ships and vessels in the ports and harbors of the United States – into law the next afternoon, Tuesday November 22, 1807. Perkins comments:

The act was scarcely more than a sketch of a policy. . . . Jefferson had secured his object, had pressured the Congress into passage of the act without revealing his own motives. But if he should fail either to advance to war or to secure British – and French – relaxation of the assault upon American commerce, the President's magnificent feat of legislative dexterity would turn to ashes in his mouth.

Thomas Jefferson: Food for Thought

Perhaps a half-felt sense of inadequacy caused Jefferson to order that no mention of his presidency be chiseled into the stone that marks his grave.

In 1805 Jefferson had passed the age of sixty, a fact of more than ordinary significance since the story of his life is in part the story of a gradual shedding of youthful enthusiasms.

Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: England and the United States 1805-1812.

"Soylent Green is VEGETABLES!"

People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

H/T Instapundit.