In the year 1814, the situation of the United States was highly critical. Party and faction, the bane and destruction of the ancient republics,⁽¹⁾ were carried to such an extravagant extent as to endanger the public tranquility — and menace us with civil war, the greatest scourge that ever afflicted mankind. Unceasing efforts were used to excite our citizens to open resistance of the government. The principle scenes of these disorders lay in the eastern states; but in almost every portion of the union, persons were constantly employed in inflaming the public mind, and preparing it for commotions. Thousands and tens of thousands of our citizens, upright, honest, and honourable in private life, were so deluded by the madness of party and faction as to believe that the defeat, the disgrace, and the disasters of our armies⁽²⁾ — the destruction of public credit — (as leading to the expulsion from their stations of the highest public functionaries duly chosen by the people) — were all "a consummation devoutly to be wished" — and the certain means of procuring a speedy and honourable peace, which we could not fail to obtain from the magnanimity of Great Britain, provided we removed those public officers, whom, according to them, she had so much reason to execrate.
         The uniform voice of history in vain proclaimed the generosity of nations towards each other to be a nonentity; that the terms of a treaty are more or less favourable or injurious in proportion to the relative strength, and energy, and means of annoyance or defence, of the parties; that powerful nations have almost always taken advantage of the feebleness of their adversaries; and that the certain road to a speedy and honourable peace has throughout all ages been to wage war with the utmost decision and effect.
         Were history wholly silent on this topic, the inherent propensities of human nature, properly explored, would satisfy every rational mind of the soundness of these political maxims. They are fair deductions of reason and common sense, to which the universal experience of mankind bears testimony. Every nation, in its periods of debility, has been obliged occasionally to submit to injustice. Every nation, possessing the power to perpetrate injustice, has more or less availed itself of the opportunity.
         The fears of civil war were regarded as visionary — as the wild effusions of a disordered brain. They were felt by a small minority. And, were the correctness of opinions to be tested by the numbers who entertained them, they must have appeared most miserably erroneous. But this conclusion is unwarranted by history. It has been a thousand times asserted, and will be as often repeated, that the people of the United States were too enlightened to commit such a fatal error, knowing too well the value of the blessings they enjoyed, to sacrifice them so absurdly. Such a delusion was pardonable a few years previous to that period. But our then recent, stupendous follies ought to have wholly dispelled it. We had, in many cases, displayed as much insanity as the history of the world exhibits in any of its pages.
         Danger is not diminished by shutting our eyes against its approach, or by denying its existence. This would be a cheap price to pay for security. But it is not to be purchased thus. And those who seriously weigh the causes that led to the civil wars which desolated France, under the house of Valois; England under Charles I; and Italy for entire centuries, with hardly any intermission; will be convinced that our security was by no means so well founded as was generally supposed. In numberless points of view, our situation and our proceedings bore a very strong analogy to those of the three nations to which I have referred, immediately previous to their respective civil wars. Whoever reads with due attention Davila's history of France, Machiavel's of Florence, or Clarendon's of the rebellion under Charles I, will be astonished at the near resemblance.⁽³⁾
         The difference between the state of the country a few years previous, and at the period under review, was indubitably far greater than from where we then stood to insurrection, and separation, and civil war. While there were so many combustible materials scattered abroad, and such unceasing pains taken to inflame the public mind, very trivial accidents might have enkindled a conflagration. Once unhinge a government — once let loose mankind from the restraints of law and constitution — and the human mind cannot readily calculate the terrible result.
         It was said, that those who had for years urged the propriety and necessity, and advantages to the eastern states, of a dissolution of the union, did not intend to proceed thus far; and that they held out these threats in terrorem to awe the administration. There is the strongest possible reason to believe that this was a pernicious, a fatal error, and that the leaders of the malcontents were perfectly serious in their views of a separation. How often had the churches echoed with the insurrectional, the treasonable, the fanatical, the rebellious cry, "Where is our Moses? Where is the rod of his miracles? Where is our Aaron? Have we no Moses to lead us out of the land of Egypt?"⁽⁴⁾ Fatuity itself could not mistake the meaning of this species of declamation. But even were the leaders merely threatening, it afforded us no security against the ruinous result. Those who raise the storm of civil commotions possess not the power at pleasure to allay its violence — to say with effect, "thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." This theory was fully exemplified in the civil wars of England between Charles I. and his parliament, and likewise in the French revolution. The latter, of which nearly all the early leaders perished in jails and on scaffolds, is a very strong case. Very few of those distinguished and illustrious men contemplated a recourse to arms. They hoped for a bloodless triumph over tyranny. But they were borne down and destroyed by violent and sanguinary men, or rather monsters, whom their proceedings released from restraint, but whom their utmost efforts could not check or control.
         Never had brighter prospects shone on a nation than those that shone on the United States. Never had a nation been more highly blest. Never had the security of person and property — of liberty, civil and religious — been attained by such easy sacrifices. Never had the weight of government pressed more lightly. It was not felt. Never had the fondest theories of philosophers and lovers of mankind been more completely realized.
         Our situation was very analogous to that of a youth who inherits a large estate, and, unacquainted with the difficulty of its acquisition, cannot form an estimate of its value. This can only be done by a due consideration of the condition of those destitute of the advantages of fortune. He becomes a prodigal. He lavishes our case. We had not sufficiently compared our situation with that of the mass of mankind. We had not taken a full view of the glorious, the inestimable advantages we possessed. We had the most noble inheritance that ever fell to the lot of a nation, and had not duly appreciated our happiness. We had jeopardized it most wantonly and fatuitously. We were on the verge of its total loss. A little further progress in folly and madness, and we should have been undone. We had, by rapid strides, approached the banks of the Rubicon. Whether we should plunge in, and ford the stream, or, struck with a due sense of our errors and our danger, make a retrograde movement, and regain the elysium whence we started, was in the womb of time. Heaven directed us to the blessed alternative! Beyond the stream verges a dreary desert, where anarchy and civil war hold their terrific reign, with all their long train of horrors, and where the devious paths lead directly to ruthless despotism.
         It was time therefore to make a solemn pause — to retrace our steps — and, since we refused to profit by the sad experience of other ages and nations, to avail ourselves of our own. By honest endeavours — by abating the odious violence of party spirit — by mutual compromise — by rending asunder the odious, the degrading, the pernicious yoke of the violent men whose influence and prosperity depended on public commotion — we might happily regain the ground we had lost — we might dispel the delusion that was leading us to temporal perdition.
         To vindicate myself from the charge of folly, in those gloomy apprehensions and anticipations, I submit to the reader a few specimens of the unceasing efforts which for years had been made to enkindle the flames of civil war. That we were not involved in it is not justly chargeable to the want of a due degree of labour and industry. Never was more activity displayed — never was a cause more sedulously or ably advocated. And never was there less scruple about the means, provided the end could be accomplished:

On or before the fourth of July, if James Madison is not out of office, a new form of government will be in operation in the eastern states of the union. Instantly after, the contest in many of the states will be, whether to adhere to the old, or join the new government. Like every thing else foretold years ago, and which is verified every day, this warning will be also ridiculed as visionary. Be it so. But Mr. Madison cannot complete his term of service, if the war continues. It is not possible; and if he knew human nature, he would see it.⁽⁵⁾

         Is there a federalist, a patriot in America, who conceives it his duty to shed his blood for Bonaparte, for Madison, for Jefferson, and that host of ruffians in Congress, who have set their faces against us for years, and spirited up the brutal part of the populace to destroy us? Not one. Shall we then any longer be held in slavery, and driven to desperate poverty, by such a graceless faction? Heaven forbid.⁽⁶⁾

         If at the present moment, no symptoms of civil war appear, they certainly will soon, unless the courage of the war party fail them.⁽⁷⁾

         A civil war becomes as certain as the events that happen according to the known laws and established course of nature.⁽⁸⁾

         If we would preserve the liberties, by that struggle [the American revolution] so dearly purchased, the call for resistance against the usurpations of our own government is as urgent as it was formerly against those of our mother country.⁽⁹⁾

         If the impending negociation with Great Britain is defeated by insidious artifice; if the friendly and conciliatory proposals of the enemy should not, from French subserviency, or views of sectional ambition, be met throughout with a spirit of moderation and sincerity, so as to terminate the infamous war which is scattering its horrors around us, and arrest the calamities and distress of a disgraced country, it is necessary to apprise you that such conduct will be no longer borne with. The injured States will be compelled, by every motive of duty, interest and honour; by one manly exertion of their strength to dash into atoms the bonds of tyranny. It will then be too late to retract. The die will be cast — freedom preserved.⁽¹⁰⁾

         A separation of the states will be an inevitable result. Motives numerous and urgent will demand that measure. As they originate in oppression, the oppressors must be responsible for the momentous and contingent events, arising from the dissolution of the present confederacy, and the erection of separate governments. It will be their work. While posterity will admire the independent spirit of the Eastern section of our country, and with sentiments of gratitude, enjoy the fruits of their firmness and wisdom, the descendants of the South and West will have reason to curse the infatuation and folly of your councils.⁽¹¹⁾

         Bold and resolute, when they step forth in the sacred cause of freedom and independence, the northern people will secure their object. No obstacle can impede them. No force can withstand their powerful arm. The most numerous armies will melt before their manly strength. Does not the page of history instruct you that the feeble debility of the South never could face the vigorous activity of the North? Do not the events of past ages remind you of the valuable truth, that a single spark of Northern liberty, especially when enlightened by congenial commerce, will explode a whole atmosphere of sultry Southern despotism? You well know the termination of the expedition of Xerxes, with his hundreds of thousands, against the Greeks! The commercial Athenians taught the debilitated tyrant of Asia, on the plains of Marathon, and at the straits of Salmis, of what exertions freedom is capable when roused by oppression. The hardy Macedonians not only defeated and dispersed countless hordes of Southern effeminacy, but traversed their country at pleasure.⁽¹²⁾

         When such are the effects of oppression upon men resolved not to submit, as displayed in the North and South of Europe, and in all ages of the world, do you flatter yourself with its producing a different operation in this country? Do you think the energies of the Northern freemen are to be tamely smothered? Do you imagine they will allow themselves to be trampled upon with impunity? And by whom? The Southern and Western states! by men whose united efforts are not sufficient to keep in order their own enslaved population, and defend their own frontiers? by warriors whose repeated attempts at invasion of a neighbouring province, have been disgracefully foiled by a handful of disciplined troops! by generals, monuments of arrogance and folly! by councils the essence of corruption, imbecility and madness!
         The aggregate strength of the South and West, if brought against the North, would be driven into the ocean, or back to their own sultry wilds; and they might think themselves fortunate if they escaped other punishment than a defeat, which their temerity would merit. While the one would strive to enslave, the other would fight for freedom. While the councils of the one would be distracted and discordant interests, the decisions of the other would be directed by one soul. Beware! Pause! before you take the fatal plunge.⁽¹³⁾

         You have carried your oppressions to the utmost stretch. We will no longer submit. Restore the Constitution to its purity. Give us security for the future, indemnity for the past. Abolish every tyrannical law. Make an immediate and honourable peace. Revive our commerce. Increase our navy. Protect our seamen. Unless you comply with these just demands, without delay, we will withdraw from the Union, scatter to the winds the bonds of tyranny, and transmit to posterity that Liberty purchased by the Revolution.⁽¹⁴⁾

         Americans! Prepare your arms: you will soon be called to use them. We must use them for the emperor of France, or for ourselves. It is but an individual who now points to this ambiguous alternative. But Mr. Madison and his cabal may rest assured, there is in the hearts of many thousands in this abused and almost ruined country, a sentiment and energy to illustrate the distinction when his madness shall call it into action.⁽¹⁵⁾

         Old Massachusetts is as terrible to the American now as she was to the British cabinet in 1775; for America, too, has her Butes and her Norths. Let then the commercial states breast themselves to the shock, and know that to themselves they must look for safety. All party bickerings must be sacrificed on the altar of patriotism. Then, and not till then, shall they humble the pride and ambition of Virginia, whose strength lies in their weakness; and chastise the insolence of those madmen of Kentucky and Tennessee, who aspire to the government of these states, and threaten to involve the country in all the horrors of war.⁽¹⁶⁾

The language of the writers is plain and unequivocal. It admits of no mistake or misconstruction. That they intended to produce insurrection and dissolution of the union, unless they and their friends were enabled to seize upon the government, regardless of the frightful consequences, it would require consummate impudence to deny; it would be folly, or insanity to disbelieve. What might ultimately be their success, it was impossible to foresee. Every thing depended on the course pursued by those who had an interest in the public welfare. If they were not wanting to themselves and to their country, we were sure to rise triumphant over our difficulties and embarrassments. But if the then prevailing wonderful apathy continued; if we sluggishly remained with our arms folded, while our situation became daily more awful and alarming; ruin was inevitable. We should have afforded one of the most striking instances in history of premature decay and decrepitude. The Lord in his mercy has averted such an awful fate!
         Reliance was placed by those who denied the existence of the danger here described, upon the sober character of the nation. They regarded that character as a guarantee against civil war. I was well aware of this circumstance. I allowed it a due share of influence and importance. But the strong inference drawn from it was unwarranted by history. And let it be observed, once for all, that in government, or politics, the only unerring guide is history, to the neglect of whose lessons may be ascribed more than two thirds of our errors and follies.
         The Athenians were a polished and refined people. No nation, in ancient times, ever excelled them in these respects. Yet they were occasionally seduced into the most frightful cruelties by their demagogues, their Cleons and other enrages. They often massacred their prisoners in cold blood, and long after they were taken. And the proscriptions and butcheries the adverse parties perpetuated on each other, when they gained the ascendency, are frightful subjects of reflection, and to us hold out most invaluable warnings.
         No nation of modern Europe excelled France, few equalled her in courtesy, in mildness, in urbanity. And yet never did mankind exhibit themselves under a more hideous aspect, never did they change nature more completely with wolves, tigers, and hyenas, than the French have done under Marat, Danton, Couthon, and Robespierre. These are awful lessons to which those who were lending their aid to tear down the pillars of government paid no attention.
         Man is the same everywhere, under the same excitements. We have our Cleons, and our Couthons, and our Dantons, and our Marats, and our Robespierres, and our Cromwells, who only required suitable occasions to have given scope to their ferocity. Mild and gentle as is the American character generally, the revolution in this country exhibited, in various places, where the parties were rancorously embittered against each other, many terrifying scenes. Prisoners were often hung up without trial by the partizans on both sides. Men and women were treacherously shot down in their houses.⁽¹⁷⁾ And not infrequently, private malice, to sate its rage, disguised itself under the cloak of public spirit. Let us ponder well on those circumstances. They are fraught with important admonitions.
         To apply a remedy to any evil, moral or physical, it is indispensably necessary to explore its nature — to ascertain its causes, and to trace its consequences. Any other procedure arises from error and folly, and is pregnant with defeat and disappointment.
         With this view, and in the state of affairs just described, I respectfully solicited the public attention. I took a rapid retrospective glance at the folly and guilt which the factious and discordant state of our country had generated. As far as in my power, I divested myself of party bias, and treated the subject as if it belonged to another age or nation. Whatever errors I fell into, arose not from sinister intention: they were chargeable to inadvertence and human imperfection. On my freedom from partiality, I felt the more reliance, from my unalterable conviction that both the hostile parties that divide this country, and who regard each other with so much hatred and jealousy, had largely contributed towards the misfortunes that had befallen us — the melancholy change that had taken place in our situation, and the dangers that threatened us. It was impossible for a candid mind to review the scenes through which we had passed for some years without a thorough conviction that each had been guilty of most egregious errors and follies, and occasionally of worse than error or folly; and that whenever the interests of the nation and the interests of the party came in collision, the former had been too frequently sacrificed, by both federalists and democrats, to the latter.
         This is one of the most lamentable and humiliating facts in our history. No man who has any public spirit can take a review of our history without feeling the deepest regret at the extent of the mischief this miserable system of conduct has produced. It has defeated many of the noblest plans that the wisdom of the country has ever devised, and has prevailed to at least as great an extent here, as in almost any other country, or at any other period of time. When the present generation sits for its picture to the historian, it will form a strong contrast to that which is past and gone. The errors or follies, however, of either party would have produced but little injury comparatively, had not those of the other conspired to give them malignity and effect.
         From this exposition of my views, it was obvious I should steer a course very different from the generality of writers on political topics. With hardly a single exception, their object is, having espoused a party, to justify its supporters, and emblazon their acts, whether right or wrong; and, if need be, "To make the worse appear the better cause." In pursuit of this object, their own partizans are all angels of light whose sublime and magnificent plans of policy are calculated to produce a political millennium; and their opponents, demons incarnate, intent on the destruction of the best interests of the country. One is all beauty, with little resemblance to the pretended original; the other a hideous caricature equally foreign from honour, truth, and justice.
         Among the frightful consequences resulting from this odious practice, a plain and palpable one presents itself. These horrible portraits engendered a satanical spirit of hatred, malice, and abhorrence in the parties towards each other. Citizens of adverse opinions, whose views were perfectly pure and public-spirited, were to each other objects of distrust and jealousy. They attached all possible guilt and wickedness — political at least — to their opponents, and then detested the hobgoblin which they had themselves created.
         Society is not thus constituted. The mass of mankind of all parties, and in all ages, have meant well, except in periods of great depravity and corruption. And little more is necessary to produce harmony between them than to understand each other correctly. But hostility is excited and perpetuated by the intrigues and management of demagogues, whose influence and consequence depend on fomenting discord, and who would sink into insignificance in times of tranquility. Mankind, as I have hinted, abhor each other, not for real existing differences, but for phantoms, the production of heated imaginations. Experience has frequently evinced that the very plans of policy which parties out of power have reprobated and denounced as pernicious, they have pursued themselves as soon as they had vanquished their opponents, and seized on their places. And I believe every man of reflection will acknowledge that if the federalists had retained the administration in their hands, they would have advocated the rights of their country as firmly as their successors have done; and would probably have adopted measures to resist the arrogant and destructive claims of England, similar to those for which they have so strenuously, though not very honourably or consistently, opposed the present administration.
         This is not mere supposition. It is historical fact. The federalists took as high ground on the subject of impressment, and as firmly and patriotically resisted the unjust, the daring, the degrading pretensions of England, as Mr. Jefferson or Mr. Madison have done. Yet the resistance of the two latter presidents to this atrocious violence has been among the strongest accusations alleged against them by their political adversaries. It is impossible to reflect on these topics without sighing over human weakness and folly. Federalism has in these transactions suffered a stain never to be effaced.

1. An idea has been propagated by superficial writers, and generally believed by superficial readers, that party and faction are peculiar to republics. Never was there a greater error. There is hardly a body of men, how small or insignificant soever, that is not disturbed more or less by party and faction. Within the last ten years, one half, at least, of the Religious Congregations in Philadelphia have been distracted by discord and faction, which, in various instances, have been carried to the extreme length of absolute separation. And, to mount higher, who can forget the violent factions at the commencement of the reign of George III, when England was on the very verge of insurrection? And let me add the religious crusade of lord George Gordon, which was the offspring of faction, and terminated in enkindling thirty-six fires at once in London: of which city the mob had undisturbed possession for several days. All the felons, and other tenants of the prisons, had their chains knocked off, and were let loose once more to prey on the public. During the sixteenth century, France was as much harassed and distressed by faction as any republic, ancient or modern, has ever been. The enumeration were endless. Let this slight sketch suffice.

2. To some this will seem impossible. It certainly appears incredible. But many things appear incredible, which are nevertheless true. And it is capable of the most complete judicial proof, that gentlemen, highly estimable in private life, have thanked God most fervently for the disgraceful capture of our armies. Others have prayed to God that our soldiers who entered Canada might be slaughtered. This is one of the many strange and unaccountable instances in which our history is utterly unlike those of the other nations of the earth. It is really a sui generis. I feel pretty confident that no man of character or worth in England or France ever rejoices at the disgrace or disasters of his country. But I blush to tell it, the disgrace of our armies has been repeatedly a subject of as much exultation in our coffee-houses and our newspapers, as in the city of London. I could name individuals of the utmost worth in all the social relations, except that which they bear to their country, whose satisfaction at the distresses and embarrassments of our government, has at least equalled that of lord Castlereagh.

3. The divisions, and distractions, and factions that prevailed among, and the butcheries alternately perpetrated on each other by the contending factions in the Grecian and Italian republics, are ably and instructively detailed in the defence of the American Constitution by the ex-president John Adams. This work has not had the fate it merited. It has been laid aside, and is almost forgotten. Yet there is no work extant which contains more useful lessons for an American — none in which the horrors of faction are more forcibly displayed — none that our statesmen and politicians ought to study more carefully. A few exceptionable passages, selected here and there, have been employed for the purpose of decrying it, and with too much success. But there never yet was a human production that might not be condemned to the flames by the same mode of trial.

4. See the sermons of the reverend Messrs. Osgood, Parish, and Gardiner.

5. Federal Republican, 7 November 1814.

6. Boston Gazette.

7. Sermon by David Osgood, D.D. Pastor of the church of Medford, delivered 26 June 1812, page 9.

8. Ibid., page 15.

9. Discourse delivered by Osgood before the lieutenant governor, the council, and the two houses composing the legislature of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, 31 May 1809, page 25.

10. "Northern grievances, set forth in a letter to James Madison, by a North American," published May, 1814, and circulated with great industry throughout the eastern states and New York, page 4.

11. Ibid., page 9.

12. Ibid., page 12.

13. Ibid., page 13.

14. Ibid., page 15.

15. Boston Repertory.

16. New York Commercial Advertiser.

17. See David Ramsay, History of the Revolution in South Carolina (Trenton, New Jersey: Isaac Collins, 1785). The copyright granted this book by Congress on 20 April 1789, was the first obtained by an American publication.