Jefferson’s acquisition of the Louisiana territory disrupted the balance of power between New England and the South. The Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson’s economically crippling embargo, and his religious views caused rumblings of discontent in New England.
New England was the bastion of the Federalist Party. Most Federalists were merchants, ship owners, Congregationalist clergy, judges, and lawyers. Wealthy and powerful, New England’s merchants and ship owners had taken the risks and reaped the rewards of maritime trade in the Caribbean and Europe.
Following the French Revolution, Britain declared war on France. America, caught in the middle, struggled to uphold neutrality. Britain and France waged economic warfare with trade restrictions. Britannia ruled the waves, preying on the French merchant marine. French privateers fought back, plundering British merchant ships. Insurers were reluctant to write policies on British vessels. New England’s merchant marine became the carrier of choice for trans-Atlantic and Caribbean shipping. It was perilous but profitable. The rewards far outweighed the risks.
American ships and sailors were in constant jeopardy. The British Navy’s demand for sailors was double the supply of available Englishmen. American merchants also needed an increasing number of sailors to man their ships. Unlike the British Navy, they paid handsome wages and offered better working conditions. Sailors aboard an American merchant ship received fifteen to eighteen dollars a month compared with the seven dollars a month allotted to a British naval sailor. That created a powerful incentive for British sailors to desert.[1]
Desperate but dominant, the British Navy brazenly ignored the rights of men on land and at sea. British naval thugs called “press gangs” boarded ships and hunted down victims on the streets, wharves, and taverns of seaports. Armed with clubs, and ready to use their fists, they impressed men against their will to serve in the British Navy.
The last Federalist president had been Adams, a Massachusetts man. Virginia’s Democratic-Republicans, Jefferson and Madison, devised the Embargo of 1807. It devastated New England’s lucrative trade at sea. In 1808, the merchant marine in Massachusetts lost fifteen million dollars in revenue, an amount equivalent to the Federal government’s income in 1806.[2]
[1] Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012) 103-4.
[2] Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 655.
What do you think? Are anyone’s economic interests being ignored today? Is there a disruption in the balance of power?
Next: Why religion played a role in threats to secede.
Look for it Monday, December 3
