A Voice from the South
By
Robert W. Carton
Presentation before the Chicago
Literary Club
January 5, 2009
A Voice from the South
The period in
the United States between the War of
1812 and the Mexican War can be thought of as the black hole of American
History. This era consists of four decades, the eighteen 10’s, 20’s, 30’ and 40’s. For many of us the issues which dominated
debate during these decades seem remote from our concerns today. The
initial part of this period, occupied by the presidency of James Monroe, is
generally labeled ‘the era of good feeling” because of minimal controversy in national affairs. During the succeeding presidencies of John
Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson the tensions which were ultimately to blossom into
the American Civil War began to appear and engage the attention of leading
political figures. We can identify a
series of issues which appeared in the first half of the 19th
Century:
a)
How
to include within the boundaries of the United States lands such as Florida
that seemed naturally to belong to the Republic but which were still claimed by
Spain?
b)
How
to deal with westward expansion?
c)
How
to come to grips with the institution of human slavery?
d)
How
to cope with the tribes of native Americans still living east of the
Mississippi River?
e)
And
above all, how to think about the United States? Was the person living in the United States at
that time to consider himself a
Virginian , a New Yorker or, on the other hand, an American? Which was the
fundamental governmental authority, the Federal Government or the States? This question was finally
settled at Shiloh, Gettysburg and Appomattox.
The
leading figures of the era have become shadowy.
So much has happened since they left the scene. However, we can’t forget Andrew Jackson. His face appears on the $20 dollar bill. Lewis Cass
comes to mind every time we drive through Cass County, Michigan. We think of Henry Clay as we light a Henry
Clay cigar. John Calhoun is immortalized
by the presence of Calhoun Street in Charleston, South Carolina. And finally there is the subject of our
essay tonight, John Forsyth of Georgia.
He is perhaps even less distinct in our minds than Cass or Clay or
Calhoun, but a motor trip through Georgia will bring us through Forsyth County,
past the town of Forsyth, down Forsyth Street in Atlanta on the way to beautiful Forsyth Park and
Fountain in Savannah. John Forsyth of
Georgia was involved on a national scale
with each of the issues mentioned
above, and a study of his life will tell us something of America in its
adolescence.
John Forsyth
was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1780, the second son of Robert Forsyth
and his wife, Fanny Johnston. When
John was a small boy the family moved to Augusta. Georgia. The father had served in the Revolutionary
War as a Captain in Light horse Harry
Lee’s company of mounted dragoons.
Georgia in the late 18th Century was untamed frontier. After the move Robert Forsyth was appointed the first Federal Marshall in the region,
charged with enforcing the laws of the United States in the Wild South. In this capacity on January 11, 1794, when
his son John was thirteen years old,
Robert Forsyth attempted to arrest a former Methodist minister named
Beverly Allen. Allen secreted himself in
a room in Mrs. Dixon’s boarding house in Augusta, Georgia. When
Marshall Forsyth knocked on the door Allen aimed his pistol in the direction of
the knocking and fired. The bullet
struck Marshall Forsyth in the head and killed him instantly. Allen was taken into custody but later
escaped to Texas and was never apprehended again. Congress, shocked by this murder, apportioned
to the widow sufficient funds so that she could send her son John north to the
college at Princeton, New Jersey, from
which he graduated in the Class of 1799.
On returning
to Augusta twenty year old John Forsyth started reading for the law, a pursuit
in which he was immediately successful.
He also began looking for a wife and found one in Clara Meigs, the daughter
of Josiah Meigs, first President of the University of Georgia. Clara’s response to her situation can be
found in a letter to a friend:
“I
must own that I have grown a little proud or so, but my pride is laudable and
becoming, for who is there who would not be proud of a good, handsome, and
genteel husband, such a one as your friend Clara had the good fortune of
catching. I had been in Georgia but a
fortnight, before I saw him, he was introduced, and one might easily perceive
that Cupid had been busy with each of our hearts. I engaged myself to him
conditionally. He left town for eight
months. I refused two or three rich & clever fellows. He returned, and shortly thereafter we were
married, and thus your wild friend Clara Meigs has been converted into that
sober thing called a Wife.”
By all accounts the union with Clara was a happy one. It produced eight children, six girls and two
boys. Initially Clara was not contented
in the backwoods of Georgia. This
problem was resolved when the Forsyth family was able to move to Washington,
and Clara could participate in the social life of the capital.
In 1812 John Forsyth ran for and was elected to the 13th
Congress of the United States. He took his seat in the House of Representatives
on May 24, 1813. He was then thirty-two
years old.
In 1813 the
War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain was in full bloom. It was a messy inconclusive affair, with alternating successes and failures on both
sides. In 1814 the British burned
public buildings in Washington DC.
Providentially Congress was not
in session. During that year the Treaty
of Ghent ended the War on the basis of status quo ante bellum, and the
Americans could go back to their business of developing a raw continent.
In September
1814 Forsyth was appointed Chairman of the House Committee of Foreign
Relations. Think about the situation of the United
States in that year. To the south was a
peninsula called Florida, which was claimed by Spain but over which the
Spaniards were able to exert almost no control.
To the west, in the Louisiana purchase of 1803, the United States had bought
from Napoleon an enormous block of
territory that Napoleon shortly before
had acquired from Spain. The borders of
this purchase remained poorly defined. The
Spaniards claimed the territory west of
Louisiana, all the way to the Pacific
Ocean.
During the presidency of James Monroe the
Spaniards realized that they did not have the power to maintain their American
possessions. In North America,
particularly, they were anxious to make the best bargain they could and sell territory that they could not control. In 1818 the Spanish foreign minister, Luis de
Onis, approached the American Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams and
proposed a sale of Florida and of Spanish claims in North America north of the
42nd parallel for five million dollars. Their
negotiations resulted in the Adams-Onis Treaty, which was to be ratified by the
Spanish Government and the American Senate.
John Forsyth
was involved with the Adams-Onis Treaty in two ways. In the first place, as Chairman of the House
Committee on Foreign Relations he was of course in constant touch with the
Administration as the Treaty developed.
Secondly, on December 12, 1818 he
was offered the position of American Minister to Spain, charged with the
responsibility of obtaining ratification of the Treaty from the Spanish Government.
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of
the Adams-Onis Treaty for the territorial expansion of the United States.
1)
Florida
was transferred to the United States
2)
Spain
ceded its rights to the Gulf coastline all the way to the Sabine River in Texas
3)
The
treaty firmly established the boundary of U.S. territory and claims through the
Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean. It ceded to the United States
Spanish claims of land north of California.
Thus for the first time the
United States was to have defined legal territorial rights of possession across
the continent all the way to the west coast.
This was the second of the four great accessions of territory from which the
modern United States was constructed. The first was the land purchased by Jefferson
as the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, , the third was the annexation of Texas, and
the fourth was the land acquired by the
Mexican war of 1846/7.
Forsyth was charged with the job of obtaining ratification of
the Adams-Onis Treaty by the Spaniards
and of returning the ratified treaty to
America. On March 26, 1819 he and two
companions left Boston Harbor for Spain on the United States sloop of war Hornet.
They arrived in Cadiz April 14 after a stormy and uncomfortable
passage.
In 1819 the
Spanish Government meant the king, Ferdinand VII. He had been restored to the throne in 1814, after
Napoleon’s troops had been chased out of the country. Ferdinand was opposed to any alienation of
Spanish territory. For months Forsyth’s
negotiations went nowhere. The king is
described in the history books as cruel,
stupid, treacherous and unscrupulous, “having the heart of a tiger and the head
of a mule”. Ultimately fortune favored
the Americans. In 1820 mutinies occurred
in the Spanish army leading to a popular uprising. In
the interval before the revolution was suppressed it was possible to conduct
business in a rational manner. The
Cortez ratified the Adams-Onis Treaty, and the king was forced to sign. The treaty was returned to America for
ultimate ratification by the Senate, and Forsyth was free to come home.
The United States now extended south through Florida to the Dry
Tortugas and westward to the Pacific Ocean.
After his
return to America John Forsyth was once more elected to Congress as a
representative from Georgia and once more was named as Chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs. A new
president, John Quincy Adams, with whom Forsyth was not particularly in
sympathy took power in 1825 and dominated national affairs for the next four
years. Partly as a result of his sense
of alienation from the Administration
Forsyth moved his political base from Washington back to Georgia.
He became Governor of Georgia for
a two year period starting in 1827. It was during this two year period that
American politics was revolutionized by the election of Andrew Jackson as
President in 1828. After his service as
Governor of Georgia Forsyth returned to Washington and the United States
Senate.
Prior to
Jackson the presidency had been occupied by a series of east coast gentlemen,
Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. These men had functioned quietly at some
remove from the public at large. Jackson
was different. He was a man of the
western frontier. He was loyal,
pugnacious and honest. He also was
credulous, intolerant and unlearned.
Throughout his administration he received the support of Senator
Forsyth. Backing by influential senators
was essential to Jackson as he confronted a number of important issues. Of these controversies none dealt with more important questions than did the
problem of nullification. It raised the question of the relation of the
Federal government to the states. It arose in this way:
Starting in
1816 and progressing to 1832 Congress
imposed a series of tariffs on imports.
Originally these were promoted by Southern congressmen and designed to
help the South. In fact they aided the
North, where manufacturing was concentrated, and were burdensome to
Southerners, who had to pay higher prices for manufactured goods from abroad. When this reality became obvious Southern congressmen
tried to have the tariffs reversed. When
this tactic failed South Carolina resorted to nullification. This was the notion that the state were
sovereign and that national laws which conflicted with state interests could be disregarded within
the state. In essence it proclaimed the
primacy of the state government (“states rights”) and regarded the national
government and its rules as secondary.
In autumn of 1832 the states rights party of South Carolina swept the
state. The new legislature summoned a
state convention, which on November 24, 1832 declared in the name of the
sovereign people of South Carolina that the national tariff act was “unauthorized by the
Constitution of the United States…. Null and void, and no law, nor binding upon
this State, its officers or citizens.” This so-called nullification ordinance
forbade federal officials from collecting
customs duties within the state after
February 1, 1833 and threatened instant secession from the Union if the Federal Government attempted to blockade
Charleston or otherwise to use force. President
Jackson responded by declaring nullification illegal. In March 1833 he signed a force act,
empowering him to use the army and navy to collect tariff dues if necessary.
Where else have we heard this kind of talk in American
history? Obviously in 1860 and 1861,
when eleven states seceded from the Union protesting Lincoln’s election and recognizing the threat of interference with
the institution of human slavery.
There was difference
between 1833 and 1861. In 1833 the South was not unified. In 1861 it was. There was no more representative Southerner
than John Forsyth of Georgia. He simply
supported President Jackson in both the Senate and in meetings in Georgia. In 1833 a convention to consider
nullification was held at Milledgeville, Georgia. After arguing for the importance of national
unity Forsyth led 52 of the 123 delegates out of the meeting in protest against
pronullification sentiment. The force
bill had passed with the support of two
Southerners, John Forsyth of Georgia and
William C. Rives of Virginia. Many in
Georgia were critical of Forsyth for his stand.
He was hanged in effigy in Macon and Hillsborough. He was presented by the grand juries of
several counties and called on to resign his seat in the Senate. At Centreville, Forsyth was denounced as “an
apple fair to the eye but rotten at the core”.
But, like Jackson, Forsyth maintained his position and triumphed in the
end. Ultimately Congress weakened the
provisions of the tariff bill, and South Carolina withdrew its ordinance of
nullification.
President
Andrew Jackson had almost as much trouble
with Secretaries of State as he had with
foreign affairs. His first Secretary,
Martin Van Buren, was congenial to him but was forced to resign in the mass
departure of cabinet members in the
controversy surrounding the beautiful and witty Peggy Eaton. His second Secretary, Edward Livingston,
viewed this office as a stepping stone to an Ambassadorship to France. His third Secretary, Louis McLane, resigned
in protest against Jackson’s aggressive strategy toward the French.
Finally President Jackson turned to a level-headed and experienced
statesman, John Forsyth of Georgia. The
Senate approved Forsyth for the post with a unanimous vote on June 27,
1834. He took over the office a few days
later and served through the remainder of Jackson’s term and all of the
succeeding Van Buren administration.
At the time of
Forsyth’s assumption of office claims against France for damage to American
commerce during the Napoleonic Wars were a major foreign concern. These claims had been admitted as proper by
the French. The government of Louis
Phillippe had agreed to pay twenty-five million francs but was reluctant to
come up with the money. Finally, after
extensive correspondence between Secretary Forsyth and the French Government
the French said they would pay, but only after a satisfactory explanation of
language used by President Jackson on the matter. A offer of mediation by the British
Government helped resolve this issue, and the twenty-five million francs were
finally paid, years after the issue initially arose.
Agitation
against human slavery in the United
States became increasingly noticeable
throughout John Forsyth’s political career.
Originally it was confined to a few individuals at the margins of public thought, but as time
passed more and more persons, , particularly in the north-east, found the institution of slavery intolerable. The supporters of slavery believed that the Missouri Compromise of 1821 would
settle the issue, but it did not. In
1833 William Lloyd Garrison of Boston and his friends organized the American
Anti-Slavery Society. From then on
pressure to abolish slavery was unremitting and was only terminated by the
Civil War and the thirteenth Amendment of 1865.
John Forsyth,
as a representative southerner, was sympathetic to the institution of
slavery. However this was a domestic
issue anld not of concern to the Department of State until the Amistad affair
was dumped in his lap. Briefly the
affair rose as follows: In late June 1839 two Spaniards, Jose Ruiz and Pedro
Montes, bought 53 Africans in Havana.
The captives had recently been kidnapped in Africa and transported to Cuba. Ruiz and Montes herded these men on board a
coastal schooner, the Amistad, in order to carry them up the coast to a life of
servitude in Puerto Principe. Several
nights into the voyage the Africans, lead by a young man, Cinque, managed to
break out of the hold and take control
of the ship, leaving only three of the crew,
Ruiz, Montes, and a boy Antonio, alive.
Cinque and the other Africans hoped to sail the Amistad back to
Africa. Instead Ruiz and Montes were
able to direct the ship north, finally reaching port in New London,
Connecticut. The authorities in New
London were left with the question, what to do with the Africans. Two views emerged. Abolitionists raised funds to return the
Africans to Africa. The State
Department, citing a treaty with Spain, attempted to return the mutineers to
Cuba. The matter went to a local court
and then to the United States Supreme Court.
John Forsyth spoke for the State Department. The abolitionists recruited the aged and retired John Quincy Adams for the defense. Adams prevailed and the Africans were
returned to Africa.
The Amistad affair
was the last major public controversy in which John Forsyth was engaged. In a way it was emblematic of the world in
which he now found himself. New men, the
abolitionists of the north and the secessionists of the south, were gathering
strength anld becoming increasingly prominent in national affairs. The gentlemanly world of the Monroe
administration had receded further and further into the past. Persons who were willing to go to war over
slavery, states rights, and the government of the new states were seizing
control of events. The kind of person,
such as Forsyth, who might oppose nullification on one hand and prosecute the Amistad
mutineers on the other, became increasingly hard to find. ln November 1840 Martin Van Buren lost his
bid for a second term as President and John Forsyth lost his role as Secretary
of State. A man whose roots lay in th
eighteenth century gave way to the new men of the mid-nineteenth. In October 1841 John Forsyth died in
Washington, as the nation careened ever more rapidly toward disunion and
war.
ROBERT
W. CARTON
3
January 2009
Bibliography
Duckett, Alvin Laroy: John
Forsyth, Political Tactician
1962 Athens, University of Georgia Press
Jones, Howard: Mutiny on
the Amistad
`1987 New York, Oxford
University Press
Morrison, S E & Commager,
H S: The Growth of the American Republic
1942 New York, Oxford University Press
Remini, Robert V.: Andrew
Jackson and the Course of American Freedom 1822 – 1832
1981 New York, Harper & Row
Schapiro, J. Salwyn: Modern
and Contemporary European History (1815 – 1934)
1934 Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company
Wilentz, Sean: Andrew
Jackson
2005 New York,
Henry Holt & Co.
Wikipedia articles on:
Adams-Onis Treaty; Louis McLane; Edward Livingston; John Forsyth
Historical Marker Dedication
to the Honorable Robert Forsyth, Augusta,
Georgia, June 25, 2008