You may perhaps suppose that there is but one opinion in the country as to the character of that assembly; but let me observe that there are two opinions upon the subject, and if one is unfavorable, the other is diametrically opposite. In New England, the memories of those who constituted the Convention are held in reverence and esteem, by the great body of their fellow-citizens, including a large majority of those whose opinions are of weight and value, and this has been so from the beginning.

I have said that they are now all gathered to their fathers. As they have gone down, one by one, to their last resting-place, public opinion has pronounced sentence upon their lives and characters. I ask your attention to the historical fact, that in every instance, this has been a eulogy—not for talent only, but the higher virtues of humanity. Of the twenty-six members who constituted the Convention, every one has passed to an honored grave. The members of the Hartford Convention were, in effect, chosen by the people, at a time of great trouble and alarm, for the purpose of devising the ways and means to avert threateningimpending evils. All felt the necessity of selecting persons of the highest wisdom, prudence, and virtue, and never was a choice more happily made. Most of these men were indeed of that altitude of talent, piety, dignity, and patriotism, which partisan pigmies naturally hate, by the inherent antipathy of littleness to greatness, and of vice to virtue; but in New England,

the enlightened generation among whom they lived, estimated them according to their true merits. These never believed them to be conspirators; they knew, indeed, the fact to be otherwise. Even the blinding influence of party spirit has never made the better class of democrats in New England believe that the Convention meditated treason. As to the mass of the people, they held and still hold that the Hartford Convention was one of the ablest and wisest assernblies ever convened in the country.

I am aware, however, that the prevailing opinion in the United States at large has been, and perhaps still is, the reverse of this. Out of New England, democracy is the dominant party. The war was a democratic measure, and the Convention was the work of the federalists, who opposed the war. It is, doubtless, too much to expect that party spirit will exercise candor toward those who brave and baffle it-at least during the conflict. There were many reasons why the Convention was an unpardonable sin in the eyes of democracy: it was opposition to the war, and that itself was treason: the war was attended with defeat, disaster, disgrace, and to turn retribution from the heads of the war-makers, it was considered politic to charge every miscarriage to the war opposers. In short, it was deemed the best way for self-preservation, by the democratic leaders, to sink the federalists in undying infamy. Hence they per sisted in denouncing the Convention as an assembly

of conspirators. It is admitted that there was no overt act of treason, but it is maintained that there was treason in their hearts, the development of which was only prevented by the return of peace, and the indignant rebuke of public sentiment.

The foundation of this tenacious calumny is doubtless to be traced to John Quincy Adams, who, having lost the confidence of his political associates-the federalists of Massachusetts-and not being elected to a second term as Senator of the United States, speedily changed his politics, and made a disclosure, real or pretended, to Jefferson, in 1808,* to the effect that the federalists of the North-taking advantage of the uneasiness of the people on account of the distresses imposed upon them by the embargo-were meditating a separation from the Union, and an alliance with Great Britain-of all things the most likely to obtain democratic belief, and to excite democratic horror.

Here was the germ of that clinging scandal against New England, which has been perpetuated for forty years. It certainly had a respectable voucher at the beginning, but its utter want of foundation has long since been proved. For about twenty years, however, the libel was permitted-in secret and of course without contradiction-to ferment and expand and work itself over the minds of Jefferson and his associates.

* See note on page 274, vol. i. of this work. Also Hildreth, second series, vol. iii. pp. 79, 117.

It had created such an impression, that Madison— when President—had only to be told by an unaccredited foreigner, that he had the secret of a federal plot for disunion in Massachusetts, and he at once bought it, and paid fifty thousand dollars for it out of the public treasury.* No doubt he really expected to find that he had a rope round the necks of half the federalists in New England. He soon discovered, however, that the biter was bit. John Henry duped the President, who seized the hook, because it was baited with suspicions, the seeds of which John Q. Adams had furnished some years before.

It was not till the year 1828, when that person was a candidate for the presidency a second time, that the whole facts in regard to this calumny were developed. He was then called seriously to account,† and such

* In March, 1812, Madison sent to Congress certain documents, pretending to disclose a secret plot, for the dismemberment of the Union, and the formation of the Eastern States into a political connection with Great Britain. It seems that in the winter of 1809, Sir J. H. Craig, Governor-general of Canada, employed John Henry to undertake a secret mission to the United States for this object. Henry proceeded through Vermont and New Hampshire to Boston. He, however, never found a person to whom he could broach the subject! As he stated, the British government refused the promised compensation, and therefore he turned traitor, and sold his secret to our government. The subject was fully discussed in Parliament, and it appeared that Henry's scheme was not known to or authorized by the British government. The whole substance of the matter was, that our government was duped by a miserable adventurer. The conduct of Madison, in this evident greediness to inculpate the federalists, was a lasting ground of dislike and hostility to him. See Young's Amer. Statesman, p. 248.

I was living in Boston at the time (October, 1828) when the public first became fully aware of the fact, that, twenty years before, Mr. Adams had planted the seeds of this accusation against the northern fed

was the effect, that from that time he was silent. In vain did he attempt to furnish evidence of a plausible foundation for his story. He referred to various witnesses, but it was pointedly remarked that all, save one,* were dead. Yet these even seemed to rise up

eralists in the eager soil of Mr. Jefferson's mind, where it had flourished in secret, and whence it had been widely disseminated. There was a general-indeed, an almost universal-feeling of indignation and astonishment. The presidential election was at hand, and Mr. Adams was the candidate of the whig party for a second term. Those very persons, whom he had thus maligned-themselves or their descendants-were now his supporters. The election was permitted to pass, and Massachusetts gave her vote for Mr. Adams; he was, however, defeated, and Jackson became his successor.

And now came the retribution. Mr. Adams was addressed by H. G. Otis, T. H. Perkins, William Prescott, Charles Jackson, and others— men of the highest standing, and representing the old federal party, charged with treason by him-demanding the proofs of the accusation for which he stood responsible. I have not space to give here the discussion which followed. Those who wish can find the case clearly stated in Young's American Statesman, page 442, &c., &c. The result certainly was, that Mr. Adams showed no grounds, even for suspicion, of what he charged; and that, even if there had been some foundation for his opinion, it referred to an earlier date, and to other individuals, and could not, by any show of fact, reason, or logic, be connected with the Hartford Convention. Indeed, no person can now read the controversy referred to, without coming to this obvious conclusion. It will be remembered, in confirmation of this, that John Henry, the British agent, sent for the purpose of seducing the Boston federalists, by the British governor, Craig, never found an individual to whom he dared even to open his business!

At all events, such was the shock of public feelings, caused by the disclosure of Mr. Adams's charge made to Jefferson, that for a long time, when he walked the streets of Boston, which he occasionally visited, he was generally passed without being spoken to, even by his former acquaintances. The resentment at last subsided, but he never recovered the full confidence of the people of Massachusetts: they were content, however, in view of his great merits, to let the matter pass into oblivion. It is only in obedience to the call of history that I write these facts.

*This individual was William Plumer, a Senator from New Hampshire, who stated that in 1808 and 1804, he was himself in favor of