to me the writer of the plan by which the separation was to be effected, with three alterations of boundary: 1. If possible, the Potomac. 2. The Susquehanna. 3. The Hudson. That is, the Northern Confederacy was to extend, if it should be found practicable, so as to include Maryland. This was the maximum. The Hudson, that is, New England and a part of New York, was the minimum." Mr. Adams, in a pamphlet, gives incidents of a visit to Rufus King in 1804, and says: "I found there sitting Timothy Pickering, who, shortly after I went in, took leave and withdrew. Mr. King said to me, Colonel Pickering has been talking to me about a project they have for the separation of the States, and a Northern Confederacy."

Governor Plummer, who was a Senator at the time of the acquisition of Louisiana, addressed a letter to Mr. Adams, in which he declared that he, Plummer, "was a disunionist at that period-in favor of forming a separate government in New England—that he was consulted on such a plan by Federal members of Congress from New England."

Governor Plummer's son published a life of his father, in which he gives various extracts from his contemporaneous journals and correspondence, exhibiting the definite particulars of a plan of disunion, and of interviews in reference to it, with its projectors and favorers.

In 1806 the Governor mentions in his journal that in 1804 Timothy Pickering, James Hillhouse, and himself, dined with Aaron Burr; that Hillhouse "unequivocally stated, that it was his opinion that the United States would soon form two distinct and separate governments."

"When

In his journal of 1809, Governor Plummer says: the late Samuel Hunt intimated to me the necessity of seceding from the Union, he observed, that the work must commence in the State Legislatures; so that those who acted, should be supported by State laws. This, he said, was the opinion of Senator Uriah Tracy, and of many others."

Governor Plummer made the following entry in his journal on seeing Hillhouse's denial of Mr. Adams's statement: "There is no circumstance in these publications that surprises me so much as

the letter of James Hillhouse. I recollect, and am certain, that on returning early one evening from dining with Aaron Burr, this same Mr. Hillhouse, after saying to me that New England had no influence in the Government, added in an animated tone, 'The Eastern States must and will dissolve the Union, and form a separate Government of their own, and the sooner they do this the better.' .... But there was no man with whom I conversed so often, so fully, and so freely, as with Roger Griswold. He was, without doubt or hesitation, decidedly in favor of dividing the Union, and establishing a Northern Confederacy.”

Governor Plummer, in his journal, speaks of walking hours with Pickering, who eventually said, "That he thought the United States too large and their interests too diversified for the Union to continue, and that New England, New York, and perhaps Pennsylvania, might and ought to form a separate government. He then paused, and, looking me fully in the face, awaited my reply. I simply asked him if the division of the States was not the object which General Washington most pathetically warned the people to oppose. He said, 'Yes, the fear of it was a ghost, that for a long time haunted the imagination of that old gentleman.'"

In 1840 Plummer says, that "Tracy told him in the winter of 1804 that he was in favor of the Northern States withdrawing from the Union." These charges, so far as Pickering was concerned, were never denied. The feeling which thus manifested itself, soon began to grow, and expanded over a much larger surface. When Mr. Jefferson's restrictive measures became effective, the old disunion feeling sprang up afresh, and assumed a more open and threatening aspect. It ceased to be confined to halfconfidential communications among friends, but was openly discussed by individuals, put forth in partisan newspapers, and brought to the consideration of legislative bodies. It was fast growing into a political issue, and forming a plank in the Federal platform. Whatever name might be given to this feeling, at the bottom it meant disunion. The intensely Federal States of New England wished to be separated in interest, as they were in principle and feeling, from the strongly Democratic States, whose votes had

brought Jefferson and Madison into power, and sustained them in their measures.

Mr. John Quincy Adams gave ample assurance that a strong disunion feeling existed, and had assumed forms and distinct designs in 1808 and 1809. Mr. Jefferson fully believed in the existence of these designs. There was ample evidence to establish such a belief, and frequent additions were made to this evidence. In 1811 a bill was reported in Congress to enable the people of Orleans Territory to form a constitution and State government. In a speech opposing this bill, Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, said, "its passage would justify a revolution in this country." In another part of his speech, already quoted, he said, "if the bill should pass, the Union would, by that act, be dissolved."

It has been said that there are no Sundays in revolutionary times, which may account for the Federalists holding a caucus in Boston the Sunday night before the State election in 1811, at which resolutions were passed denouncing the non-intercourse law, and in favor of "electing such men to the various offices of the State government as would oppose by peaceable, but firm measures, the execution of laws which, if persisted in, must and would be resisted.” Gerry, who was then elected Governor, expressed his opinion of these partisans, by calling them in his message "seditious, inceptive traitors, and domestic partisans of foreign power." The Governor removed from office very many of these partisans, filling their places with Democrats. Mr. Jefferson afterward wrote him on the subject, in which, among other things, he said: "What, then, does this English faction with you mean? Their newspapers say rebellion, and that they will not remain united with us, unless we will permit them to govern the majority. If this be their purpose, their anti-republican spirit, it ought to be met at once... But I trust that such perverseness will not be that of the honest and well-meaning mass of the Federalists of Massachusetts, and that when the questions of separation and rebellion shall be nakedly proposed to them, the Gores and Pickerings will find their levees crowded with silk-stocking gentry, but no yeomanry; an army of officers without soldiers. I hope, then, all will still be well, the Anglo-men will consent to make peace with their bread and but

ter, and you and I shall sink to rest, without having been actors or spectators of another civil war.... We have not timed these things well together, or we might have begun a realliance between Massachusetts and the Old Dominion, faithful companions in the War of Independence, peculiarly tallied in interests, by each wanting exactly what the other has to spare; and estranged to each other, in later times, only by the practices of a third nation, the common enemy of both."

The Rev. Mr. Osgood, of Massachusetts, said, in a published sermon: "If, at the present moment, no symptoms of civil war appear, they certainly will soon, unless the courage of the war party should fail them. A civil war becomes as certain as the events that happen according to the known laws and established course of Nature."

Much more of this evidence might be collected; but these extracts are sufficient to show the drift of the anti-Democracy in favor of disunion. But the attempt to embody the intentions of the party and secure action in conformity with the designs of its leaders, remains to be given under another head.

46.-THE HARTFORD CONVENTION OF 1814.

This ever-memorable assemblage, though after its utter failure, assuming not to be disloyal to the Constitution, and almost claiming to be patriotic, was preceded by announcements by its friends which leave little doubt of its disunion intentions, and was broad ly sustained by many of the Federal party. We extract liberally from what preceded its meeting.

The Boston Gazette: "Is there 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 face against us for years, and spirited up the brutal part of the populace to destroy us? Not one."

Another Boston journal said: "To the cry of disunion the plain answer is, that the States are already separated; the band of union is broken by President Madison. As we are going on, we certainly shall be brought to irretrievable ruin. The convention cannot do a more popular act, not only in New England but

throughout the Atlantic States, than to make a peace for the good of the whole. The convention must report to their constituents on the subject of peace or war. If they find it is to continue, it is to be hoped they will recommend, and that the States will adopt the recommendation, that no men or money shall be permitted to go out of New England until the militia expenses, already incurred, are reimbursed, nor until the most ample provision is made for the defence of the New-England States during the war."

The Baltimore Federal Republican (November 17, 1814) said: "On or before the 4th of July, if James Madison is not out of office, a new form of government will be in operation in the Eastern section of the Union. Instantly after, the contest in many States will be, whether to adhere to the old or join the new Government."

The New-York Commercial Advertiser said: "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."

E. Parish, a clergyman at Byfield, published a sermon in which he said: "The Israelites became very weary of yielding the fruit of their labors to pamper their splendid tyrants. They left their political woes. They separated. Where is our Moses? Where is the rod of his miracles? Where is our Aaron? Alas! no voice from the burning bush has directed them here. . . . Such is the temper of the American republicans, so called. A new language must be invented before we attempt to express the baseness of their conduct or describe the rottenness of their hearts. . . . New England, if invaded, would have to defend herself. Do you not owe it to your children, and owe it to your God, to make peace for yourselves? . . . The full phials of despotism are poured in on your heads, and yet you may challenge the plodding Israelite, the stupid African, the feeble Chinese, the drowsy Turk, or the frozen exile of Siberia, to equal you in tame submission to the powers that be. Here we must trample on the mandates of despotism, or here we must remain slaves forever. . . . How