How New England Responded When the British Invaded Washington
In August 1814, British troops invaded Washington and burned the White House. Inhabitants of Maine, under occupation, swore loyalty to Britain. Massachusetts pulled its troops out of service to the United States.
Distraught, Carey tore up a manuscript for the Olive Branch he had started on September 8. Following American victories at Lake Champlain, Plattsburg and Baltimore, Carey was encouraged to begin the manuscript again. Discouraged at another juncture, he thought about stopping the project a second time.[1]
As he was writing the Olive Branch the Federalists organized a convention in Hartford, Connecticut on October 5, 1814. The purpose of the convention was to change the United States Constitution. Timothy Pickering and John Lowell led the radical Federalists. They threatened to revise the Constitution to protect New England’s interests. They hoped to pressure other states into agreement. If those states declined, the radicals were ready to negotiate peace with Great Britain. New England would be an independent confederacy that had seceded from the United States. The moderates, led by Harrison Gray Otis, wanted to use the convention simply to gain concessions for New England from the Federal government.
What is the American Colonization Society and Why is it Important in the Discussion of Nullification?
The American Colonization Society was formed to send freed slaves back to Africa.
The idea came from Paul Cuffee, a Quaker sea captain, the son of a Wampanoag Indian mother and a West African father. He attracted white supporters, and hoped to gain support for his plan in Congress. The American Colonization Society was founded in 1816, by Cuffee’s supporters from Virginia and New Jersey. Charles Fenton Mercer, a Federalist from Virginia, attracted Republicans John Randolph of Roanoke and John Taylor of Caroline. He suggested that returning freed slaves to Africa would help prevent uprisings. Reverend Robert Finley from New Jersey hoped that Cuffee’s plan would help masters gradually emancipate their slaves.[2]
Henry Clay, a slave owner from Kentucky, was an enthusiastic leader of the Society. Clay was a moderate, who sought the middle ground between the New England abolitionists, and Southerners’ reaction to abolition, the pro-slavery movement. He thought that freed slaves would never achieve true equality in America, and returning to Africa would allow them to realize it.
The Society was both a public and private effort. With private donations and funds from the government, the Society bought land on the western coast of Africa to found Liberia. By 1843, more than four thousand freed slaves had returned to the colony. Ten thousand more freed slaves would arrive before the outbreak of the Civil War. Liberia declared independence in 1847.
The American Colonization Society, the moderates’ approach to helping freed slaves achieve equality, is important in the discussion of nullification. While Henry Clay and Mathew Carey were promoting the American System, Robert Turnbull published a pamphlet called The Crisis in South Carolina. Turnbull linked protective tariffs and internal improvements to the emancipation of slaves. He suggested the American Colonization Society, which Henry Clay and Mathew Carey supported, was the first step in forcing the South to emancipate all slaves. His pamphlet influenced John Calhoun and other radicals. They reasoned if nullification worked to eliminate a tariff it would work if the federal government forced the South to emancipate its slaves.
Next: Why Writing the Olive Branch was a Personal Act of Courage for Mathew Carey
How the Nullification Crisis was Resolved
Look for it Monday, March 4
[1]Edward C. Carter II, “Mathew Carey and ‘The Olive Branch,’ 1814-1818,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 89, No. 4 (October, 1965) 405.
[2] Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007) 260-262, 264.
