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Science Research Writing for Native and Non Native Speakers of English Second Edition Hilary Glasman-Deal
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Książkę tę dedykuję pamięci ukochanej babci Ewy.
I dedicate this book to the memory of my beloved grandmother, Eve.
Preface
Communication is an arena of expression, exchange, and sharing of people’s thoughts, opinions, beliefs, feelings, or attitudes. Two essential, interacting and integral expressive agents in communication are affect (e.g. emotions, attitudes, beliefs, moods) and language (its verbal and non-verbal manifestation). The relationship between affect and language is highly reciprocal. Affect finds an outlet on all levels of non-verbal (e.g. gestures, body posture, facial expression) as well as verbal (e.g. syntax, semantics, pragmatics) language. In turn, language has the capacity to modify people’s affective states, e.g. by means of compliments, insults, or poetry. Research on affect-language interactions in native speakers supports the special role of affective meaning in language comprehension. Affective words and sentences attract more attention (Pratto & John, 1991; Wentura, Rothermund & Bak, 2000), elicit increased neurophysiological activity (Citron, 2012; Kissler, Assadollahi, & Herbert, 2006), and are remembered more vividly (Adelman & Estes, 2013; LaBar & Cabeza, 2006) than non-affective (neutral) language (Chap. 2).
In today’s world, individuals’ communicative interactions are oftentimes constructed in and coloured by a multilingual context (Chap. 4). Indeed, it has been estimated that more than half of the world population speaks more than one language (Grosjean, 1984, 2010). This situation required to revisit the relationship between affect and language in communication, because an authentic representation of communicative interactions will need to take into consideration the first (L1) and second (L2) language(s) of the interlocutors. Research into affect manifestation in bilinguals’ languages has been growing rapidly over the last decade (cf., Dewaele, 2010; Pavlenko, 2005, 2012). Clinical reports showed that bilingual patients experienced affective detachment when discussing anxiety or taboo-related topics in their L2 (Dewaele & Costa, 2013; Marcos, 1976; Schwanberg, 2010). Also, L2 was oftentimes construed as a vehicle for the discussion of otherwise too evocative memories and experiences; L1, by contrast, as an open path to subconsciously repressed, past memories that enabled their re-experience or “reliving” anew (Aragno & Schlachet, 1996). In non-clinical contexts, when bilinguals are asked about their affective experiences in day-to-day interactions, L1 is often construed as
the “language of the heart”, and L2 as being “affectively disembodied” (Pavlenko, 2005, 2006).
In the search for behavioural and neurophysiological correlates of this phenomenon, however, cognitive and neurocognitive paradigms reported essentially no measurable differences in the processing of affective meaning between L1 and L2 (e.g. Opitz & Degner, 2012; Ponari et al., 2015). This might seem surprising if one recalls that one of the most prominent and influential psychologists, William James (1884), thought of affective experiences as arising from perceptions of physiological reactions to a stimulus in the environment. In this view, differences in affective experience in L1 and L2 reported in clinical and introspective studies (e.g. the feeling of affective disembodiment in L2) would be expected to find reflection in differential physiological reaction to affective information in L1 and L2 in cognitive and psychophysiological studies.
This book argues that the inconsistency in the reported findings may arise from the marginalisation of contextual information in cognitive and neurocognitive paradigms. Clinical and introspective studies have relied on evidence collected in realworld and authentic communicative contexts that foster natural affective interactions. Cognitive and neurocognitive studies, by contrast, have exposed bilinguals to reading single, decontextualized affective words in L1 and L2 in an unnatural and controlled laboratory setting. While there is relatively little that can be done about the laboratory context, it is essential that participants read natural contextualised affective language that may stimulate mental imagery and elicit genuine affective experiences in a lab. So far, however, these studies followed a reductionist approach to affective language and put the pragmatic aspect of communication in the shade.
This book questions the reductionist view and fosters a pragmatic approach to the investigation of affect-language interactions in both monolingual and bilingual research. Its theoretical framework is an integration of psychological construction (Barrett & Russell, 2015; Chap. 1) and affective pragmatics’ (Caffi & Janney, 1994; Janney, 1996; Kopytko, 2002; Chap. 3) views on affect and language. Its methodology has its roots in monolingual and bilingual research in cognitive neuroscience (Chwilla, Brown, & Hagoort, 1995; Kutas & Federmeier, 2011; Wu & Thierry, 2012; Chaps. 2–4) and neuropragmatics (Van Berkum, 2008, 2010; Van Berkum, Holleman, Nieuwland, Otten, & Murre, 2009; Chap. 3). Finally, its inspiration comes from stimulating works by Aneta Pavlenko (2005, 2006) and Jean-Marc Dewaele (2010; Chap. 4). By combining conceptual understanding and methodological expertise from many disciplines, the current manuscript aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the dynamic interactions between contextual and affective information in the language domain. Empirically, this is achieved by means of two electrophysiological (EEG) experiments that investigate how the build-up of contextual information might modulate behavioural and electrophysiological (EEG) responses to affective words in the L1 and L2 of proficient Polish-English bilinguals immersed in the L2 culture (Chap. 5). In what follows, I present the scope of the book.
Chapter 1 discusses the theoretical views on affect and emotion, supported by empirical evidence. It presents a historical perspective on the concept of emotion,
demonstrating how its understanding has been shaped over the past century. Here, the mainstream models of emotion are discussed along with their critical evaluation, i.e. the basic emotion model (Ekman, 1994; Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen, 1969), the appraisal model (Arnold, 1960; Clore & Ortony, 2008; Lazarus, 1991), and the psychological construction model (Barrett, 2011; Barrett & Russell, 2015; Russell, 2012). Particular attention is devoted to the premises of the psychological construction model and the concept of core affect that provide the theoretical foundation for the present investigation. Chapter 1 also addresses the heated debate about affect primacy over cognition (Lazarus, 1984; Zajonc, 1984) and presents evidence demonstrating a crucial role of basic affective evaluations in our everyday lives. The final section of Chapter 1 illustrates the brain’s widespread and multimodal activation to affective meaning.
Chapters 2 and 3 present two distinct approaches to the investigation of affectlanguage interactions in monolingual speakers. Chapter 2 illustrates the reductionist perspective, by reviewing recent behavioural and neuroimaging evidence demonstrating profound influence of affective information on single word recognition and naming. The review is followed by a discussion of the main concerns about the reductionist investigation of affective language. Chapter 3 introduces the pragmatic perspective on affect-language interactions. This chapter begins with a theoretical foundation of cognitive and affective pragmatics and follows with an empirical review of neuropragmatic studies that looked into linguistic and socio-personal context effects on affective word processing. The main message that emerges from the two chapters is that a better understanding of the mechanisms governing the manifestation of affective language in communication requires a more pragmatic approach to be implemented in a laboratory context.
Chapter 4 builds on the discussion on affect-language interface from Chaps. 2 and 3, but—importantly—it extends it to a bilingual context. It provides a critical review of a wide array of studies investigating affective repertoires of bilingual speakers in different contexts (e.g. clinical, introspective, cognitive) and using different measures (e.g. interviews, self-reports, reaction times, event-related potentials). As already mentioned, this chapter brings to the fore the discrepancy between findings reported in qualitative (introspective, clinical) and quantitative (cognitive, neurocognitive) research on bilingualism and affect. In a similar vein to Chap. 2, this inconsistency is thought to stem from the implementation of decontextualized and unnatural stimuli in quantitative research.
Chapter 5 fills in this gap by describing two electrophysiological experiments that investigate affective language in minimal (word pairs, experiment 1) and rich (sentences, experiment 2) context conditions in English monolingual and PolishEnglish bilingual individuals. Due to the fact that a full methodological description of experiment 2 may be found elsewhere (Jończyk, Boutonnet, Musiał, Hoemann, & Thierry, 2016), Chap. 5 concentrates on its key assumptions and findings that are important in the context of the present investigation. The experiments constitute the first attempt to directly investigate the impact of a build-up of contextual information on the processing of the same set of affective words in the bilinguals’ respective languages. This “pragmatic twist” enabled to reveal a differential modulation of
x
electrophysiological responses to affective sentences, but not word pairs, in L1 and L2. Specifically, access to negative information in the L2 was found to be suppressed at the very early stages of processing or processed very superficially—as if it was deprived of affective value. This offers the first neurocognitive interpretational framework for findings reported in clinical and introspective studies and demonstrates that the richness of context may boost affective experience.
Finally, Chaps. 6 and 7 discuss the empirical findings, each from a slightly different perspective. Chapter 6 provides the general discussion and explanation of the results and relates them to monolingual and bilingual literature. Particularly, the empirical findings are discussed within the framework of repression mechanism (Jończyk et al., 2016; Wu & Thierry, 2012) affective anticipation (Bar, 2007, 2009; Van Berkum, 2010), and neuropragmatics (Van Berkum, 2010, 2013). Also, this chapter discusses potential implications of the findings for bilingual models of lexical access and decision-making in bilinguals. Chapter 7, on the other hand, constitutes a short discussion that addresses the hypothesis of affective disembodiment in L2 (Pavlenko, 2005, 2012). It contains a review of evidence demonstrating that semantic and affective meaning are grounded in the perceptual, somatosensory, motor, and introspective experiences. This situation, however, seems to differ for bilinguals, for whom these experiences might not be readily available when operating in their L2. This disembodied view of affective language in bilingualism is discussed and related to the available evidence in the field of bilingualism in general, and the current study in particular.
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Acknowledgements
This book would not have come into existence without the support of the many people whom I was fortunate to meet and who inspired me to pursue my career as a researcher. I would like to thank Professor Aneta Pavlenko from Temple University, Philadelphia, whose thought-provoking plenary talk on emotion and bilingualism at the 23th International Conference on Foreign/Second Language Acquisition in Szczyrk, Poland, inspired me to pursue my academic career in this field of research and apply for a Ph.D. programme at the Faculty of English of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. I will never forget how puzzled I was when Prof. Pavlenko approached me after her plenary speech and apologised for not coming to my presentation which—she had heard—was really good (I didn’t know!). She then asked me if I could tell her the presentation on the train back to Poznań where she was going to give a series of lectures, to which I nodded politely thinking “This is not happening...”. Her constructive feedback on my work gave me wings and motivation to pursue my ideas further.
I am deeply grateful to my Ph.D. supervisors, Prof. Roman Kopytko and Dr. Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman, for offering me a lot of freedom in my scientific endeavours and for being always there when I was in need of their expertise and advice. I feel really fortunate to have been their Ph.D. student. The mentoring they have given me deserves far more than a few sentences in a book. Also, I would like to thank the Dean of the Faculty of English, Prof. Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk, as well as Prof. Małgorzata Fabiszak, Prof. Marcin Krygier, and the whole Dean Office for creating and coordinating the interdisciplinary Ph.D. programme: Language, Society, Technology, and Cognition that I was happy to be part of. This programme helped me to develop as a researcher and gave the opportunity to meet other young scholars fascinated by the workings of the mind. Here, I would like to particularly thank Dr. Halszka Bąk, Dr. Maciej Buczowski, Dr. Michał Pikusa, Dr. Marta Gruszecka, Dr. Paula Ogrodowicz, and Dr. Marta Marecka for their friendship, support as well as insightful discussions.
I am also eternally grateful to Guillaume Thierry, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Bangor University, who took me under his wing during my research visit to Bangor, opened his lab for me, and offered guidance and mentoring in the
exciting process of conducting my first electrophysiological experiments that constitute the empirical heart of this book. Thank you to the whole Bangor University Language Electrophysiology Team (BULET) lab, particularly to Dr. Bastien Boutonnet for introducing me to electrophysiological data analysis in Matlab and offering support and great company during my stay in Bangor. Thank you to Kamil Musiał and Katie Hoemann who finished the EEG data collection for experiment 2 on my behalf after my departure and thus made it possible to bring the project successfully to an end. Also, thank you to Vasco Bull, who offered a roof over my head during my first 2 weeks in Bangor and became a good friend over the next 3 months.
Finally, a very warm thank you to Prof. Anna Cieślicka and Prof. Roberto Heredia from Texas A&M International University as well as Morgan Ryan of Springer for giving me this incredible opportunity to publish my Ph.D. dissertation as a book in the Bilingual Mind and Brain Book Series. Last but not least, this adventure would have not been the same had it not been for the love, support, and understanding of those closest to me. Dziękuję mojej rodzinie, w szczególności moim ukochanym Rodzicom, bratu, siostrze, Tusi oraz wujkowi Leszkowi za ich wsparcie i ciepło (Kocham Was!), oraz przyjaciołom i znajomym za ogrom pozytywnych wibracji.
As a final remark, please note that experiment 2 of my dissertation project, whose summary is provided in the empirical chapter of this book, has already been published in Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience (Jończyk, Boutonnet, Musiał, Hoemann, & Thierry, 2016).
4.6
4.4.3
5
5.3
7.1
5.3.1
Chapter 1 Affect: Theory and Research
Abstract Affective experiences add palettes of colour to our life, and to a large extent determine who we really are or will become. This chapter is devoted to a discussion of the profound impact of affect (e.g. emotions, moods, attitudes, evaluations) on our cognition. In the first part of the chapter, I provide a short history of thought about the concept of emotion, along with the ambiguities and tensions surrounding the concept. Here, the contemporary models of emotion are discussed and evaluated, i.e. the basic emotion model, the appraisal model, and the psychological construction model. In the second part of the chapter, I shift to the discussion of more basic affective phenomena that are believed to be the “building blocks” of emotion. This discussion starts with the notion of core affect—a new framework in affective sciences—followed by the review of empirical findings in the area of affective evaluation. Next, I present two competing views on the issue of whether affect dominates over cognition, i.e. the affective primacy hypothesis and the cognitive primacy hypothesis. The chapter ends with a discussion of empirical findings indicating that affect may influence our behaviour outside of our awareness, followed by the evidence from affective neuroscience showing the brain’s widespread activation to affect.
Keywords Emotion • Affect • Basic emotion model • Appraisal model • Psychological construction model • Core affect • Affective primacy • Affective evaluation
1.1 Introduction
The way we act and behave on a daily basis is profoundly influenced and driven by our attitudes, beliefs, opinions, emotions, or the mood we are currently in. When we make decisions, even those that seem trivial, we are often confused as to whether to rely on our intuition, our “gut feeling”, or listen to our reason. In general, some of us find it easier to control and quench their emotional self whenever it tries to dominate, making it dormant again; others surrender and let the erratic emotions erupt and take charge. There are also situations, in which we all cannot but let our
R. Jończyk, Affect-Language Interactions in Native and Non-Native English Speakers, The Bilingual Mind and Brain Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47635-3_1
1 Affect: Theory and Research
emotions take control. Without a doubt, our affective experiences and repertoires are what make our lives so complex, vivid, and unique. Without a doubt, we are as much homo sapiens as we are homo emotionalis.
In this chapter I set out to discuss how affective phenomena impact our perception of the world, and how they interact with our cognitive mind. In the first section I review the past and present approaches to emotion, highlighting the ambiguities and controversies around this concept. This section provides the motivation behind a recent theoretical and empirical refocus on the analysis of more general affective, not emotional, phenomena. The second section is devoted to affective phenomena. I begin with a discussion of core affect, an essential substrate of any affective phenomenon, and a new framework in affective sciences. I follow with a discussion of the everyday manifestation of affect in the domain of evaluation and the hypothesis about the primacy of affect over cognition. Finally, I address the issue of unconscious affect and provide a review of studies on the neural underpinnings of affective phenomena.
Throughout, I will use the term emotion or emotional to refer exclusively to the common sense emotion categories, as delineated by basic emotion theorists (Sect. 1.2) and reflected in subjective experience or language (e.g. he is happy). The term affect or affective will be used as a general umbrella term for anything emotional (e.g. emotion, mood, motivation, preference/liking, attitude, valence, arousal). Core affect, in turn, will be used in its original sense, as delineated by psychology construction theorists (Barrett, 2006a; Russell, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2015; Russell & Barrett, 1999), to refer to the very elemental affective substrate, a basic neurophysiological experience that “feels” good or bad.
1.2 What Is an Emotion?1: Past to Present
More than any other species, we are beneficiaries and victims of a wealth of emotional experience. (Dolan, 2002, p. 1191)
Despite over a century of theory and research, the understanding of what emotion is and how it should be defined remains unclear. This is reinforced by the words of Mulligan and Scherer (2012), according to whom “[t]here is no commonly agreed-upon definition of emotion in any of the disciplines that study this phenomenon” (2012, p. 345). Many scholars argue that this confusion about the definition of emotion has significantly delayed progress in both theoretical and empirical understanding of the phenomenon (Dixon, 2012; Duffy, 1934a, 1934b; Kleinginna & Kleinginna, 1981; LeDoux, 2014, 2015; Russell, 1991, 2012; Russell & Barrett, 1999; Walla & Panksepp, 2013). In what follows, I present the past and present understanding of the concept of emotion, discuss three main currents of thought about the nature of emotion, and outline their potential criticism.
The spark of interest in contemporary emotion research was ignited by Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) publication of “The Expression of the Emotions in Man and
1 The title of this section refers to the seminal work by William James (1884) with the same title.
Animals” (1872), in which Darwin expressed his view that emotions are states of mind that trigger stereotypic patterns of behaviour. Darwin’s contemporary, William James (1842–1910), disagreed with this observation and postulated that emotion is caused by visceral changes in the body. In his seminal essay entitled “What is an emotion?”, James (1884) writes:
Our natural way of thinking about these standard emotions [currently referred to as basic emotions, e.g. fear, anger] is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion (1884, pp. 189–190)
Therefore, to James (1884, 1913) emotional states were generated as a result of physiological reactions in the body, not the other way around. This view was in turn criticised by Walter Cannon (1871–1945), an American physiologist, who, together with his student Philip Bard (1898–1977), formulated an opposing model of emotion referred to as the Cannon-Bard theory (Cannon, 1927). Based on extensive research of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in a cat, Cannon concluded that emotions might be elicited in the absence of autonomic feedback. Furthermore, Cannon claimed that feelings and visceral reactions were separate, independent processes engendered by the brain in the course of processing of emotional stimuli. These views were articulated in Cannon’s seminal work entitled “The James-Lange theory of emotions: A critical examination and an alternative theory” (1927). For a detailed discussion of the two opposing theories by William James and Walter Cannon, refer to Friedman (2010).
The theoretical views on the nature of emotions expressed by Charles Darwin and William James have had an immense impact on emotion inquiry and research, and, among others, have provided the foundation for three main contemporary approaches to emotions. In the Darwinian tradition, emotions have been interpreted as being biologically given natural kinds that are hard-wired into the brain; they are observable in nature and recognised by the mind; they are complex, automatic reflexes elicited by stimuli in the environment (Arnold, 1960; Ekman, 1992, 1993; Ekman et al., 1987; Izard, 1994, 2009; Panksepp, 1998; Panksepp & Watt, 2011; Tomkins, 1962, 1963). In the Jamesian tradition, emotions are considered mental constructs that are elicited by more basic psychological processes; they are not recognised but constructed by the mind (Barrett 2006a, b, 2011, 2013; Barrett & Bliss-Moreau, 2009; Gendron & Barrett, 2009; James, 1884, 1913; Lindquist & Barrett, 2012; Mesquita & Boiger, 2014; Russell, 1994, 2003, 2012; Schachter & Singer, 1962; Wundt, 1902). The followers of Darwin’s arguments have represented what is referred to as the natural kind (or basic emotions) view while the Jamesian tradition is thought to have inspired the appraisal approach to emotion (Arnold, 1960; Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003; Frijda, 1986, 1993, 2007; Lazarus, 1966, 1991; Mulligan & Scherer, 2012; Scherer, 1984, 2009), and laid the foundation for the psychological construction view of emotion (Barrett, 2011, 2013; Barrett & Russell, 2015; Russell, 2009).
These approaches will be discussed in turn in the following subsections. It should be noted, however, that a detailed description of their theoretical and empirical
1 Affect: Theory and Research
bases is beyond the scope of this book. For a comprehensive review of the historical development of emotion research and the presentation of the emotion approaches, refer to Gendron and Barrett (2009) and Strongman (2003).
1.2.1 Emotions as Basic, Natural Kinds
The natural kind or basic emotion paradigm has guided contemporary research on emotion in the last three decades (LeDoux, 2012b). This theory proposes a set of biologically given emotion categories (e.g. fear, anger), each being characterised by distinct neurophysiological correlates; each thought to be the basic, primitive, universal; each thought to be the natural kind (Ekman, 1992, 1993; Ekman et al., 1987; Izard, 1993, 1994, 2009; Panksepp, 1998; Panksepp & Watt, 2011; Tomkins, 1962, 1963). In the natural kind view, emotions could be therefore compared to atoms such that they are thought to constitute the fundamental features of the mind and brain (Barrett, 2011). The research on basic emotions and the idea of universality and essentiality of a number of emotion categories was based on empirical investigation of the perception of facial expressions among literate and preliterate cultures (Ekman et al., 1987; Ekman, Sorenson, & Friesen, 1969; Ekman & Friesen, 1971, 1978; Izard, 1971). The initial accounts of the basic emotion theory were presented in the paper by Ekman, Sorenson, and Friesen (1969) in which the researchers reported cross-cultural agreement in the recognition of photographs of facial expressions depicting happiness, fear, disgust-contempt, anger, surprise, and sadness. These results were further supported by a simultaneous cross-cultural study by Izard (1969). Not long after the studies had been published did the classification of happiness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and sadness as the basic and universal emotional categories entered the psychology course books. The basic emotion model has become the standard view according to which emotional phenomena have been explained and investigated for the next 30 years (LeDoux, 2012b; Russell, 1991, 1994). Many scholars seemed to acknowledge the basic emotion theory as a scientific law; for example, Matsumoto (1990, p. 195) argued that “the universality of facial expression of emotion is no longer debated in psychology”; Izard and Saxton (1988, pp. 651–652) postulated that “[t]he evidence for the innateness and universality of the expressions of the fundamental emotions is sufficiently robust to consider Darwin’s hypothesis as an established axiom of behavioral science”; finally, Brown (1991, p. 26) affirmed that “[t]he conclusion seems inescapable: There are universal emotional expressions”.
1.2.1.1 Critical Evaluation
This “established axiom”, as argued by Izard and Saxton (1988, p. 652), however, did not escape criticism. Indeed, throughout the years the basic emotions theorists have been criticised for not reaching consensus on which emotions should be classified as basic and what the guidelines are for such a classification (LeDoux, 2012b; Ortony &
Turner, 1990). Some of the basic emotion theorists introduced changes to their own sets of basic emotion categories. For example, Ekman (1992) extended his original set of six basic emotions with additional categories of awe, amusement, contempt, embarrassment, excitement, guilt, interest, and shame. In a later paper, Ekman (1999) added some positive basic emotion categories such as amusement, pride in achievement, satisfaction, relief, and contentment. At the same time, however, Ekman’s set of basic emotion categories significantly differed from those proposed by other basic emotion theorists (Frijda, 1986, 2007; Izard, 1994, 2009; Panksepp, 1998, 2005; Panksepp & Watt, 2011; Walla & Panksepp, 2013). This confusion around the classification of basic emotion categories led some researchers to question the validity of the basic emotion model (LeDoux, 2012b; Ortony & Turner, 1990).
Further criticism of the theory has been directed at poor reliability of the forcedchoice paradigm implemented in typical experiments on emotion perception (Clore & Ortony, 2013; Gendron, Lindquist, Barsalou, & Barrett, 2012; LeDoux, 2012b; Ortony & Turner, 1990; Russell, 1991, 1993, 1994; Walla & Panksepp, 2013). In a forced-choice task, participants view posed expressions of emotions and are asked to select from a list of emotion words one that best describes the facial expression. Oftentimes, as was the case in the seminal work by Ekman et al. (1969), the list of choices fully corresponded to the instances of basic emotions expressed by the facial stimuli. In other words, researchers did not implement filler items in the experimental design, which could unintentionally result in response bias. Indeed, recent research shows that the forced-choice paradigm might skew the data to support the formulated hypothesis (Gendron et al., 2012; Lindquist, Barrett, BlissMoreau, & Russell, 2006; Russell, 1993; Widen, Christy, Hewett, & Russell, 2011). For example, a recent study by Widen et al. (2011) found that in a free-labelling task, in which participants spontaneously labelled four facial expressions (contempt, shame, embarrassment, compassion), more than 80 % of attributions were made incorrectly. By contrast, in a forced-choice response format the accuracy ratings significantly improved. This study demonstrates that perception of emotion is to a significant extent contingent upon the accessibility of linguistic cues2 (Gendron et al., 2012; Lindquist et al., 2006) such that when participants are asked to make a perceptual judgment on a facial expression in the absence of linguistic labels, their performance significantly deteriorates. These findings have challenged the reliability of the body of empirical evidence supporting the universality of emotion perception that has provided the foundation for basic emotion theory.
Another methodological concern of the basic emotion theory involves the ecological validity of the facial expressions used in standard emotion perception studies. According to Clore and Ortony (2013, p. 338), facial expressions—considered the “gold standard” for emotion differentiation—display posed emotions that are not typically encountered in social interactions. In a similar vein, Walla and Panksepp (2013) argue that facial expressions may not reliably represent human emotional experience in the first place, to quote:
2 See the language-as-context hypothesis (Lindquist et al., 2006).
[A] facial expression is an emotion of the person the face belongs to. The image of a facial expression is not necessarily in itself a matching affective stimulus such as the scene that elicited affect in the person demonstrating the facial expression … It instantly becomes clear that indirect affective information as communicated via facial expression can be misinterpreted and actually lead to different affective processing and a different emotion in the observer of a facial expression. (p. 99; cf., Sabatinelli et al., 2011)
Finally, recent evidence from the field of human and animal neuroscience has questioned the basic emotion theory premise about the existence of hard-wired basic emotion circuits in the brain (Barrett & Satpute, 2013; Duncan & Barrett, 2007; Kober et al., 2008; LeDoux, 2012b, 2014; Lindquist & Barrett, 2012; Lindquist, Wager, Kober, Bliss-Moreau, & Barrett, 2012; Oosterwijk et al., 2012; Wager et al., 2008). Considered a leading basic emotion neuroscientist, Panksepp (1998, 2005, 2011; Panksepp & Watt, 2011; Walla & Panksepp, 2013) has identified seven basic emotional circuits in the animal brain: SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC, and PLAY. It remains questionable, however, how the classification of basic, universal emotions proposed by Panksepp correlates with that of Ekman’s (1992, 1999; Ekman et al., 1969).
Despite the critical accounts of the basic emotion theory, it remains to be said that this approach has not only provoked a lot of questions but also provided the foundation for the present investigation of emotion. Notably, it has left a lasting legacy in the form of the development of the Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Ekman & Friesen, 1978) that enables a comprehensive analysis of human facial movements. Finally, LeDoux (2012b) argues that one of the key and most intriguing assumptions of the basic emotion theory, stating that there are innate emotion circuits in the human brain, cannot be easily disclaimed by neuroscientists due to the still too limited resolution of the available neuroimaging techniques.
1.2.2 Emotions as Appraisals
The appraisal theory postulates that emotions are immediate and automatic responses to evaluations (or appraisals) and interpretations of the environment (Arnold, 1960; Clore & Ortony, 2008, 2013; Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003; Lazarus, 1991; Leventhal, 1982; Mulligan & Scherer, 2012; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1990; Scherer, 1984; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). The appraisal theory is said to have been pioneered by Magda Arnold (1960) and Richard Lazarus (1966) and the roots of which trace back to the ideas expressed by James (1913) as well as to ancient philosophers’ reflections about emotions (Moors, Ellsworth, Scherer, & Frijda, 2013). The basic assumption of the theory, as originally postulated by Arnold (1960), is that humans constantly and implicitly evaluate the stimuli and events in their environment for personal relevance, and that such meaning analysis triggers an emotion. In a recent reformulation, appraisal theorists conceive of emotions as “adaptive responses which reflect appraisals of features of the environment that are significant for the organism’s well-being” (Moors et al., 2013, p. 119). As such, emotions are
conceptualised not as states but as dynamic processes. Depending on the context— personal, situational, and cultural—the meaning analysis may vary, leading to an emergence of different emotions. Appraisal theories may therefore account for variability in emotion experience in interpersonal and cross-cultural contexts (Moors, 2014; Moors et al., 2013; Roseman, 1991).
Appraisal theories postulate that emotional events result from alterations in the underlying mechanisms or components. These components include appraisal (evaluation and interpretation of the environment), motivation (action tendencies), physiological responses, expressive behaviour, and subjective experience or feelings (Moors, 2014; Moors et al., 2013). The components are meant to be highly interactive such that alterations in a given component impinge on other components. Notably, appraisal—as an ingredient of an emotional event—has also been incorporated in other emotion theories (Ekman, 1994; Russell, 2003). What makes appraisal theories stand out is the fact that here appraisal lies at the core of emotion and constitutes the key component of an emotional event (Clore & Ortony, 2008; Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003; Frijda, 2007; Lazarus, 1991; Mulligan & Scherer, 2012; Roseman, 1991; Scherer, 2009). Indeed, appraisal theorists have proposed a set of appraisal criteria to account for various types of emotional episodes that arise in stimulusenvironment interactions, e.g. stimulus novelty, affective valence, or relevance for an individual’s goals (Brosch, 2013; Moors, 2014).
As in the case of basic emotion theory, appraisal theory is not a homogeneous model. Appraisal theorists differ, among others, with regard to the delineation of the set of the aforementioned appraisal criteria or features, their degree of automaticity, or whether or not the appraisal features are processed in a fixed sequence (Clore & Ortony, 2008, 2013; Moors, 2014; Moors et al., 2013). Some authors (Barrett, 2011; Moors, 2014) thus suggested that contemporary appraisal theories can be divided into two distinct strands (Moors, 2014). The first strand is reminiscent of the basic emotion theory, whereby it focuses on the analysis of a limited set of causal antecedents of distinct mental events that are observable in nature and correspond to a specific set of emotion words such as fear or anger (Arnold, 1960; Lazarus, 1991; Roseman, 1991; Scherer, 1984). In line with this view, appraisals cause emotions (Barrett, 2011); or more specifically, “different patterns of appraisal elicit different emotions” (Roseman, 1991, p. 162). By contrast, the second strand of appraisal theories analyses emotional episodes in terms of the more general, underlying causal mechanisms (components), without the precondition that such processes have to be emotional in nature (Clore & Ortony, 2008, 2013; Ortony et al., 1990; Schachter & Singer, 1962; Scherer, 2009; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). Here, appraisals do not cause but constitute emotions as psychological phenomena that arise from non-emotional ingredients (Barrett, 2011; Clore & Ortony, 2008; Moors, 2014; Moors et al., 2013). Hence, the second strand of appraisal theories is by some scholars viewed as a constructionist approach (e.g. Barrett, 2011), the discussion of which I defer to the following subsection. Some authors, however, remain sceptical about making such categorisations. For example, while Brosch (2013) acknowledges the many commonalities between appraisal and constructionist theories of emotion, he does not subsume appraisal theory under constructionist theories.
1 Affect: Theory and Research
Furthermore, Brosch seems to more explicitly demarcate the line between the nonmodular appraisal and modular basic emotion theories, to quote:
While some theorists have indeed developed appraisal profiles with the aim of specifying the elicitation of basic emotions (Roseman, 1991), most appraisal theorists see emotional episodes as an ongoing emergent process that is characterized by continuous changes in the underlying appraisals, and focus on the dynamic nature of an emotional response (Frijda, 1986; Scherer & Ellsworth, 2009). Thus, most appraisal theorists would agree that there are as many different emotional states as there are different dynamic appraisal outcomes. (Brosch, 2013, p. 370)
1.2.2.1 Critical Evaluation
Criticism of the appraisal theory has been mainly directed at two of its assumptions: (a) the conception that appraisal is a causal mechanism and (b) the (mis)conception that appraisal is a controlled, cognitive process.
The conception of appraisal as a process that triggers emotion has provoked considerable criticism in emotion research (e.g. Barrett, 2012; Barrett, Mesquita, Ochsner, & Gross, 2007; Moors, 2013), also on the part of appraisal theorists (for a discussion, see Moors, 2014). For example, Clore and Ortony (2013), the advocates of the Ortony, Clore, and Collins (OCC) appraisal model (Ortony et al., 1990), suggest that “appraisals [are] characterizations rather than causes of emotions … Emotion may thus be constructed [emphasis added] rather than triggered [emphasis added]” (p. 9), thus comparing appraisal to a “sculptor” of emotional episodes. In a similar vein, Barrett et al. (2007) have objected to such “functionalist assumptions that reduce the experience of emotion to its immediate causal relations” (p. 375).
The second line of criticism concerns the cognitive, supposedly non-automatic nature of the appraisal process and thus questions the possibility of the influence of appraisal on the elicitation of rapid emotional responses (Brosch, 2013; Clore & Ortony, 2008, 2013; Moors et al., 2013). Many appraisal theorists, however, highlight that appraisal may occur at both conscious and unconscious, automatic level (Brosch, 2013; Frijda, 2007; Leventhal & Scherer, 1987; Moors, 2010; Moors et al., 2013; Mulligan & Scherer, 2012; van Reekum & Scherer, 1997). According to Frijda (2007, p. 106), “appraisal processes are, in principle, nonconscious. Their outcomes may be conscious, in how one sees and experiences emotional events”. Frijda’s argument echoes Arnold’s (1960) original formulation of appraisals as “sense judgments” that are “direct, immediate, non-reflective, nonintellectual and automatic [in] nature” (p. 175). Precisely in which circumstances appraisal is an automatic/non-automatic phenomenon remains an empirical question.
1.2.3 Emotions as Psychological Constructs
With roots in the ideas of William James (1884, 1913), the psychological construction model considers emotional experiences as highly variable mental states constructed by basic, global processes (psychological primitives) that are not specific to
emotion (Barrett, 2011, 2012, 2013; Gendron & Barrett, 2009; Lindquist, 2013; Russell, 2003, 2009). While the first articulation of the psychological construction view on emotion is dated back to James’ essay in Mind entitled “What is an emotion?” (1884), the author dedicated more space for the discussion of emotion in “The Principles of Psychology” (1913):
The trouble with the emotions in psychology is that they are regarded too much as absolutely individual things. So long as they are set down as so many eternal and sacred psychic entities, like the old immutable species in natural history, so long all that can be done with them is reverently to catalogue their separate characters, points, and effects. But if we regard them as products of more general causes (as ‘species’ are now regarded as products of heredity and variation), the mere distinguishing and cataloguing becomes of subsidiary importance. Having the goose which lays the golden eggs, the description of each egg already laid is a minor matter. (p. 449)
James was also sceptical about the idea to introduce emotion as a new entity or discipline in light of evidence from other established disciplines that could already explain this phenomenon: “emotion is the resultant of a sum of elements, and each element is caused by a physiological process of a sort already well known” (1913, p. 453). Such views have been typically associated with a constructionist approach, expressed and re-emphasised throughout the years by other researchers (Duffy, 1934a, 1934b; LeDoux, 2012a, 2012b). For this reason I dedicate a separate subsection to specifically address the question of whether the concept of emotion is necessary for further progress in the field (see Sect. 1.3.4).
At present, the psychological construction model of emotion is a family of different accounts (Barrett, 2014; Barrett, Wilson-Mendenhall, & Barsalou, 2015; Boiger & Mesquita, 2015; Cunningham, Dunfield, & Stillman, 2015; Lindquist, 2013; Mesquita & Boiger, 2014; Russell, 1980, 2003, 2009), also referred to as a research programme, all sharing a common constructionist foundation (Russell, 2015). This common underlying principle echoes Jamesian conviction that emotions are constructed, not engendered, out of more basic psychological primitives that are not emotion specific but “domain-general ingredients from which experiences emerge more generally” (Barrett et al., 2015, p. 84). A notable premise of the psychological construction accounts is, further, that emotions are highly heterogeneous phenomena characterised by considerable variation that, following Barrett et al. (2015, p. 85), “is the key to survival”.
By analogy to basic emotion and appraisal theories, there is a certain degree of variation in the formulations of and emphasis on some constructionist assumptions in different constructionist models. As already noted, constructionist accounts unite in the investigation of basic, psychological primitives underlying subjective experience, but differ in their delineation and formulation. For example, Russell’s (2003, 2009, 2012, 2015) psychological construction perspective proposes core affect (see Sect. 1.4.2) as the most basic and fundamental property of a human mind, a psychological primitive that constitutes a vital ingredient of subjective emotion experience. Barrett (2012, 2014; Barrett et al., 2015), in her Conceptual Act Theory, focuses more on how the interplay between basic, core systems (like core affect) gets constructed and conceptualised by the perceiver in what she refers to as situated conceptualisation. In a yet different psychological construction perspective, Mesquita
and Boiger (2014) and Boiger and Mesquita (2015) argue that “emotions emerge from social interactions and relationships, which they in turn constitute, shape, and change … [S]ocial interaction and emotions form one system of which parts cannot be separated” (2014, p. 298). In this model, interpersonal, social, and cultural contexts become the core systems from which emotions are constructed.
1.2.3.1 Critical Evaluation
It seems that the contemporary psychological construction models of emotion have so far managed to evade strong criticism, possibly because psychological construction accounts—in their current form—are relatively recent and some of them are still in the making. One valid objection to psychological constructionists’ denial of the existence of discrete neural circuits of basic emotions, however, was raised by a neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux (2012b). Specifically, LeDoux (2012a, 2012b, 2014, 2015) argues that despite rapid development in human neuroscience, the available neuroimaging techniques do not allow for detailed enough a picture of the neural correlates of basic emotions in humans; hence, due to such technological limitations, one cannot disprove the hypothesis proclaiming distinct, innate neural circuits of fear, anger, and other basic emotions located in the human brain, as argued by psychological constructionists (Barrett, 2006a; Barrett & Satpute, 2013; Lindquist, Wager, Kober, Bliss-Moreau, & Barrett, 2012).
1.2.4
Does the Concept of Emotion Serve Any Useful Purpose in Scientific Psychology?3
In her article entitled “Emotion: an example of the need for reorientation in psychology”, Duffy (1934a) argued that “lack of success in recognizing emotion could be due to faulty experimental techniques and to inadequate guides for introspection, but it could also very well be due to the fact that the object of our search is, in the form in which we seek it, non-existent” (p. 186). It has been 82 years separating Duffy’s publication from present investigations of emotion, a period marked by remarkable progress in research technique and methodology. The improvement of behavioural and development of neuroimaging techniques have made it possible to indirectly measure neural correlates of processes involved in emotional experience. Despite such advances, however, the scientific understanding of emotion remains to be poorly understood and its definition constantly debated (LeDoux, 2012b); this could also be inferred from the aforementioned discussion of different approaches to emotion. Hence, echoing the ideas of James (1884, 1913) and Duffy (1934a, 1934b), most recent approaches to emotion have focused on the investigation of more global
3 A quotation from Duffy (1934a, p. 184).
non-emotional processes that underlie subjective experiences of emotion (Barrett, 2014; Barrett et al., 2015; Clore & Ortony, 2008; LeDoux, 2012a, 2012b, 2015; Moors et al., 2013; Panksepp & Watt, 2011; Russell, 2003, 2009, 2015; Schachter & Singer, 1962; Scherer, 2009; Walla & Panksepp, 2013), abandoning the common sense term emotion as an object of scientific investigation. In line with LeDoux (2012b)
[t]he challenge for emotion researchers is to understand the relation of the phenomena to the field of emotion without redefining them as fundamentally emotional phenomena, and thus infusing the phenomena with confusing implications … Stepping back from the overarching concept of emotion and focusing instead on key phenomena that make emotion an interesting topic may be the best way out of the conceptual stalemate that results from endless debates about what emotion is. (pp. 653–654)
This does not mean that the term emotion should be discarded altogether or “swept under the carpet”. Emotion is a fundamental ingredient of human interactions when used as a folk term to conceptualise and communicate the myriad of otherwise elusive bodily sensations. In the context of scientific investigation, however, it seems that the psychological construction analysis of component parts of emotional experience may constitute a more reliable and transparent scientific paradigm that might in the long run provide a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. Focus on a more general process (e.g. affective valence, arousal, body feedback) might therefore allow for more testable hypotheses, as well as more accurate and generalisable interpretations of findings in future research on such processes that contribute to the construal of subjective emotion experiences.
1.3 Theoretical Framework
1.3.1 Psychological Construction: A Framework for the Present Investigation
The psychological construction analysis of emotional phenomena constitutes a theoretical framework that most accurately accounts for the way in which emotional processes will be investigated in this book. Consequently, the present investigation will not focus on the analysis of the common sense, folk terms of emotions, but rather on more general affective processes, and their realisation and manifestation in language. One such process—affective valence—will be given particular importance, especially in the analysis of the affect-language interface. Valence is a term coined by a German-American psychologist, Kurt Lewin (1935), and refers to the intrinsic pleasant (positive/attractive) or unpleasant (negative/unattractive) quality of a stimulus, event, or situation that arises in an interaction between an individual and their environment. From the perspective of a psychological construction model, valence, along with arousal (the level of intensity of physiological response to a stimulus, event, or situation), constitutes a fundamental ingredient of human emotion experience and the most basic affective substrate—core affect (Russell, 1980, 2003, 2009, 2012, 2015; Russell & Barrett, 1999).
In what follows, I will provide a theoretical account of the concept of core affect, which has emerged relatively recently, but nevertheless constitutes a reliable and transparent theoretical framework for the analysis of the whole array of human emotional experiences. Following the discussion of core affect, I will proceed to the overview of the ubiquitous process accompanying human life—evaluation—where more general affective processes play a key role. I will then review what is referred to as the affective primacy hypothesis, according to which affect dominates social interaction and thus is given priority in the course of processing. The final part of this section will present the evidence for the subliminal impact of affect on our cognition, as well as provide a review of the neural correlates of affective processes from the perspective of psychological construction model.
1.3.2 Core Affect
The primary motivation behind the attempt to formulate a new concept that might account for the wealth and variety of human emotional experiences was quite straightforward: first, the prototypical emotional episodes or so-called full-blown emotions (e.g. anger, fear, sadness; cf., Russell & Barrett, 1999) turned out to be too specific categories to do so effectively; second, they are constrained to the English language that in itself turned out to be very limiting when attempting to analyse cross-cultural emotion experiences (Russell, 1991, 1994). Thus, consistent with the psychological construction model there was a need for the re-analysis of the concept of emotion by focusing on more basic, primitive ingredients of emotional phenomena that might provide a more reliable and comprehensive understanding of human emotion experiences.
The concept of core affect was born out of the analyses of people’s subjective reports about their feelings and moods in a given point in time (Russell, 1979, 2015; Russell, Weiss, & Mendelsohn, 1989). Such analyses demonstrated that how individuals felt might be reliably represented as a mixture of two general, independent, bipolar dimensions: valence (pleasant/unpleasant) and arousal (active/drowsy). According to Russell and Barrett (1999) a representation of an individual’s state of core affect requires that the two dimensions of valence and arousal be taken into account; experience-wise, however, core affect is a single feeling (Russell, 2012). Core affect thus represents “the most elementary consciously accessible affective feelings” (Russell & Barrett, 1999, p. 806). More precisely, it has been construed as “a pre-conceptual primitive process, a neurophysiological state, accessible to consciousness as a simple non-reflective feeling: feeling good or bad [the dimension of valence], feeling lethargic or energized [the dimension of arousal]” (Russell, 2009, p. 1264). The state of core affect individuals find themselves in would be reflected in an answer to a simple question: “How do you feel?” (Russell, 2015, p. 198). Note that core affect can be free-floating, about nothing in particular (e.g. I feel good!), in which it resembles moods (Russell, 2003, 2015; Russell & Barrett, 1999, p. 806). If it does get attributed to an object (e.g. Your presence makes me feel
good!), it then constitutes one of the sub-events that give rise to prototypical emotional episodes. Hence, core affect is thought to be the basic affective substrate that constitutes an essential ingredient of full-blown emotions.
Another characteristic feature of core affect is that it “ebbs and flows” as a function of time (Russell & Barrett, 1999, p. 806). Such fluctuations in core affect vary in degree and may have important implications for other cognitive processes. For instance, a person being in a state of negative core affect may be more likely to perceive and appraise their environment in a more negative light. Other cognitive processes, such as decision making, have also been argued to be contingent upon the current state of core affect (Russell, 2015). In fact, it has been demonstrated that core affect modulates participants’ behaviour even if it is not consciously experienced (Berridge & Winkielman, 2003; Winkielman & Berridge, 2004; Winkielman, Berridge, & Wilbarger, 2005). Hence, according to Barrett (2006b) core affect is a “neurophysiologic barometer of the individual’s relationship to an environment at a given point in time” (p. 50). In other words, it is thought to be the governor of our perceptions and behaviours. It is therefore considered a psychological primitive, a concept that is irreducible at the psychological level (Russell, 2012). This has two possible implications. First, the core characteristic of a psychological primitive is that it is not specific to any particular domain, so is the case with core affect and the domain of emotion. Specifically, it has been shown that core affect may also play a significant role in other non-emotional processes such as vision (Barrett, 2011). Second, it should be brought to the fore that, although irreducible as a psychological phenomenon, core affect can be broken down into more elementary processes on the neural level of analysis. Although the investigation of core affect in the brain is a relatively recent development, it already provides initial evidence that individuals’ self-reports of their core affective states are strongly correlated with the neural activation in specific brain areas, activation that is not common to various instances of prototypical emotional episode (Wilson-Mendenhall, Barrett, & Barsalou, 2013). This issue will be discussed separately in Sect. 1.4.6
1.3.3 Affective Evaluations
The neurophysiological state of core affect might play a significant role in human social interactions (Kopytko, 2002; Zajonc, 1980).4 While the research on the relation of core affect and other psychological domains is still in its infancy, there is introspective and objective evidence to tentatively suggest that individuals are constantly and often unconsciously (Berridge & Winkielman, 2003) influenced by their affective states that guide their actions and behaviours. One important domain guided by core affect is the domain of evaluation, an indispensable part of people’s everyday experience (Barrett, 2006a). Evaluation is thought to arise when the free-
4 However, both Zajonc (1980) and Kopytko (2002) refer to more general affective phenomena rather than core affect, which is a relatively recent concept (Russell & Barrett, 1999).
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kind, unless on the score of expediency To prevent difficulty on that account, the Secretary of the Navy consented to act as head of the Treasury until Gallatin’s return. Gallatin himself inclined to look on his separation from the Treasury as final,30 but made his arrangements in agreement with the President’s views, which looked to his return in the autumn.
Before he could depart he was obliged to complete the necessary financial arrangements for the coming year, on which he was busily engaged at the moment when Daschkoff’s letter arrived. First in importance was the loan of sixteen million dollars. March 12, subscription books were opened in all the principal towns, and the public was invited to take the whole amount at seven per cent interest, to be reduced to six per cent at the end of thirteen years. About four million dollars were offered on these terms. Proposals in writing were then invited by a Treasury circular, dated March 18, and after an active negotiation between Gallatin and three or four capitalists of New York and Philadelphia,—John Jacob Astor, Stephen Girard, David Parish,—the remainder of the loan was provided. In all about eighteen millions were offered. Fifteen and a half millions were taken, in the form of six per cent stock, issued at eighty-eight dollars for every hundred-dollar certificate, redeemable after the year 1825. About half a million was taken at par, with an annuity of 1½ per cent for thirteen years, in addition to the six per cent interest.
Calculated as a perpetual annuity, as English borrowers would have viewed it, the rate of this loan was less than seven per cent; but if the nominal capital must or should be repaid after twelve years, the rate was about 7.50 per cent. In the end, the government paid 7.487 per cent, for the use of these sixteen millions for thirteen years. The terms were not excessive when it was considered that New England in effect refused to subscribe. Perhaps the loan could not have been taken at all, had not credit and currency been already expanded to the danger-point, as the allotment showed; for while New England, where most of the specie was held, subscribed less than half a million, and Boston took but seventy-five thousand, Pennsylvania, where banking had become a frenzy, took seven million dollars. New
York and Baltimore together contributed only half a million more than was given by Philadelphia alone. Ten million dollars were taken by Astor, Girard, and Parish,—three foreign-born Americans, without whose aid the money could not have been obtained on these terms, if at all. Doubtless they were bold operators; but Americans were supposed to be not wanting in the taste for speculation, and the question could not but rise how these men knew the secret of distributing the load which no native American dared carry.
The bargain was completed April 7. At that moment the Treasury was empty, and could not meet the drafts of the other departments; but with sixteen millions in hand, five millions of Treasury notes, and an estimated revenue of something more than nine millions, Gallatin collected about thirty million dollars, and April 17 wrote to the Secretaries of War and Navy,31 allotting to the one thirteen millions and a quarter, to the other four and a half millions, which could not be exceeded without the consent of Congress. This done, and every question having been settled that could be foreseen,—the tax-bills ready to be laid before Congress, and even the draft for a new bankcharter prepared,—Gallatin bade farewell to the Treasury, and May 9 sailed from the Delaware River, with Bayard, for the Baltic.
Twelve years had passed since Gallatin took charge of the finances, and his retirement was an event hardly less serious than a change of President; for it implied that the political system he had done so much to create and support stood so near the brink of disaster as to call him from the chosen field of his duties into a new career, where, if anywhere, he could save it. As Monroe felt called to the army, so Gallatin turned naturally to diplomacy. He knew that after another year of war the finances must be thrown into disorder like that of the Revolutionary War, beyond the reach of financial skill; and he believed that if any one could smooth the path of negotiation, that person was likely to serve best the needs of the Treasury. Yet he took grave responsibility, of which he was fully aware, in quitting his peculiar post at a moment so serious. Success alone could save him from universal censure; and perhaps nothing in his career better proved the high character he bore, and the extraordinary abilities he
possessed, than the ease with which he supported responsibility for this almost desperate venture.
The task he had set for himself was hopeless, not so much because of the concessions he was to require, as on account of the change in European affairs which made England indifferent for the moment to any injury the United States could inflict. Monroe’s instructions to the new commission, though long, consisted largely in arguments against the legality of impressment as a part of the jus gentium; although the legality of European war-measures had long ceased to be worth discussing. As the solution of the dispute, Monroe could offer only the new Foreign Seamen Act, which England had refused from the first to consider, and which was certainly open to objections,—on the American side because it offered too much; on the British side because it offered more than could in practice be performed. To make the utmost possible concession, Monroe proposed that no native-born British subject, thenceforward naturalized in America, should be allowed to serve either in the national or the private vessels of the United States,—a provision which carried one step further the offer to naturalize no British seamen except on condition of leaving the sea, and which went to the verge of conceding the right of impressment. Notwithstanding these concessions, the instructions were still positive on the main point. Without a clear and distinct stipulation against impressments, no treaty was to be signed; negotiations must cease, and the negotiators must return home.
32
CHAPTER III.
D the winter the Republican legislature of New York chose Rufus King, the chief Federalist in the country, to succeed John Smith as United States senator. Some Republicans charged that this election was the price paid by De Witt Clinton for Federalist votes in the Presidential contest; but Clinton’s friends declared it to be the price paid by the Administration Republicans for Federalist aid in granting a corrupt bank charter. That the choice was due to a bargain of some kind no one denied, and possibly both stories were true. Rufus King himself stood above suspicion, and had been considered an opponent of the Federalist alliance with Clinton; but he was a powerful recruit to the opposition in the Senate, which numbered thenceforward nine votes, or precisely one fourth of the body The annoyance to the Administration was the greater because King’s Republican colleague, Obadiah German, belonged to the Clintonian opposition, and voted with the Federalists. At the same time Charles Cutts of New Hampshire was succeeded by Jeremiah Mason, a very able and extreme Federalist. Three more senators— Giles, Samuel Smith, and Michael Leib—could be counted as personally hostile to the President. Jesse Franklin of North Carolina was succeeded by David Stone, an independent, opposed to the war. Already the opposition threatened to outweigh the votes on which the President could depend. As though legislation had become a matter of inferior importance, William H. Crawford of Georgia, the only vigorous Republican leader in the Senate, resigned his seat, and followed Gallatin to Europe. He was sent to take the place of Joel Barlow at Paris, and hurried to his post. In this condition of party weakness, the election of Rufus King and Jeremiah Mason to the Senate was a disaster to the Administration; and all the more anxiously the President feared lest the popular election in May
should convert New York altogether into a Federalist State, and give Massachusetts the necessary strength to stop the war.
This election, on which the fate of the war was believed to turn, took place as usual, May 1, and began by a Federalist success in the city of New York, followed by another in Kings, Queens, and Westchester counties. These counties before the century ended had a voting population of near half a million, but in 1813 they cast in State elections about eight thousand votes, and gave a majority of eight hundred for the Federalist candidate Stephen Van Rensselaer, the unfortunate general of the Niagara campaign. Throughout the eastern and central counties the election was disputed; three of the four districts into which the State was divided left the result so close —within about three hundred votes—that only the western counties of Cayuga, Seneca, and Genesee turned the scale. Governor Tompkins was re-elected by the moderate majority of three thousand in a total vote of eighty-three thousand; but the Federalists obtained a majority of ten in the Assembly, and gained confidence with their strength. In this election, for the first time, the issue was distinct between those who supported and those who opposed the war. The chief towns, New York, Hudson, and Albany, were strong in opposition; the country districts tended to support.
In Massachusetts the Federalist governor Caleb Strong, who had made himself peculiarly obnoxious by refusing to call out the State’s quota of militia, received nearly fifty-seven thousand votes, while Senator Varnum, the Republican candidate, received fortythree thousand. Considering that the population of Massachusetts was about one fourth smaller than that of New York, the vote of one hundred thousand persons in the smaller State, and only eightythree thousand in the larger, seemed a proof of popular indifference; but in truth the vote of New York was larger than usual, and only one thousand less than at the next election of governor, in 1816. The difference was due to the unequal suffrage, which in New York State elections was restricted to one hundred pound free-holds, while in Massachusetts all citizens worth sixty pounds were entitled to vote.
At the same time John Randolph met with defeat, for the only time in his life. John W. Eppes, one of Jefferson’s sons-in-law, took
residence within Randolph’s district for the purpose of contesting it; and after a struggle succeeded in winning the seat, on the war-issue, by a vote of eleven hundred and twelve to nine hundred and fortythree.33 This change of membership tended, like the New York election, to show that the people were yielding to the necessity of supporting the war. Yet the process was alarmingly slow. In the second year of hostilities, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey were Federal in all branches of their State governments; New York, Delaware, and Maryland were partly Republican and partly Federalist; of the eighteen States only ten were wholly Republican, and seven of these were Southern. In the United States Senate the Administration could count upon twenty-two votes, with reasonable certainty; the other fourteen senators were more or less lukewarm or hostile. In the House, one hundred and fourteen members supported the Administration, and sixty-eight opposed it. As far as concerned numbers, the Administration was strong enough in Congress; but the universal want of faith in its capacity to conduct a war of such consequence gave the Federalists an advantage beyond proportion to their numerical strength. The task of opposition was easy, and its force irresistible when the ablest and oldest Republican in office—the Secretary of the Treasury—felt himself helpless in face of the Government’s inaptitude for war, and wrote to his closest intimates that no one could “expect much improvement in the manner of making it more efficient. I think that there exists real incapacity in that respect,—an incapacity which must necessarily exhaust our resources within a very short time.”34
Fortunately for the Government the same slowness of movement which counteracted its undertakings, affected equally its internal enemies in their hostility. The New England extremists wished and expected to act energetically against the war. Chief-Justice Parsons quieted Pickering in the autumn of 1812 by assuring him that the Massachusetts House of Representatives would act at its winter session;35 yet the legislature met and adjourned without action. The party waited for the spring election of 1813, which was to give them
control of New York. Their disappointment at the re-election of Governor Tompkins was extreme, and the temptation to wait until the national government should become bankrupt and disgraced became irresistible. Another campaign was likely to answer their purpose. While England grew stronger every day, America grew weaker; the struggle became more and more unequal, the result more and more certain; and the hope of peaceably restoring the Federalist party to power diminished the temptation to adopt measures of force.
Thus when the Thirteenth Congress met for its extra session, May 24, the Government felt stronger than on March 5, when the old Congress expired. The elections were safely passed; the peace negotiations might be considered as begun; taxation was no longer a matter of taste. The majority liked taxation as little in 1813 as they had liked it in 1812 or in 1801; but they could no longer dispute or even discuss it. Gallatin had gone, leaving the bills for them to pass; and Congress, which at any other time would have rebelled, had no choice but to pass them.
Once more Henry Clay was chosen Speaker, and setting Cheves aside he placed John W. Eppes at the head of the Ways and Means Committee. The House missed John Randolph, but gained John Forsyth of Georgia, and Daniel Webster,—a new member from New Hampshire, of the same age as Calhoun and Lowndes, but five years younger than Clay. Otherwise the members varied little from the usual type, and showed more than their usual faculty for discussing topics no longer worth discussion.
President Madison’s Message of May 25 challenged no angry comment. Its allusion to the Russian mediation and the terms of peace had an accent of self-excuse, as though he were anxious to convince England of her true interests; its allusion to France contained the usual complaint of delays “so unreasonably spun out;” and its reference to the war and the finances was rather cheerful than cheering. Daring as Madison’s policy had been, he commonly spoke in tones hardly to be called bold; and this Message had the disadvantage, which under the circumstances could not be called a fault, of addressing itself rather to Europe and to enemies, than to a
spirited and united nation. It had also the merit of directing Congress strictly to necessary business; and Congress acted on the direction.
Nothing less than necessity could at that moment of early summer have induced the members of Congress to remain in session at all. Stout as the majority might be in support of the war, the stoutest were depressed and despondent. They saw themselves disappointed in every hope and calculation on which they had counted a year before. Even their unexpected naval glory was lost for the moment by the victory of Broke’s frigate the “Shannon” over the “Chesapeake,” June 1, as Congress began its work. Disaster after disaster, disgrace upon disgrace, had come and were every moment multiplying. Suffocated with heat, members were forced to sit day by day in the half-finished Capitol, with a Southern village about them, their nearest neighbor a British fleet. “Defeated and disgraced everywhere,” said one of the stanchest war members describing the scene, “Congress was to impose the burden of taxes on a divided people, who had been taught by leaders of the war party to look upon a tax-gatherer as a thief, if not to shoot him as a burglar.”36 According to the same authority, “the country was at the lowest point of depression, where fear is too apt to introduce despair.” In this condition of spirits, Gallatin’s tax-bills were reported to the House June 10,—measures such as the Republican party had, till very lately, not conceived as within the range of its possible legislation. They included a direct tax of three million dollars; taxes on salt, licenses, spirits, carriages, auctions, sugar refineries; a stamp tax, and a complete machinery for the assessment and collection of these odious and oppressive imposts.
At the same moment, Daniel Webster began his career in Congress by moving Resolutions which caused a long and unprofitable debate on the conduct of France and the character of the French repealing Decree of April 28, 1811,—a debate that could have no other result or object than to mortify and annoy the President, who had been, like so many other rulers, the victim of Napoleon’s audacity. Pending this debate, June 13, the President took to his bed with a remittent fever, and for five weeks his recovery was doubtful. Madison was still confined to his bed, when, July 15,
messengers from the lower Potomac brought news that the British fleet, consisting of eight or ten ships-of-the-line and frigates, was in the river, sixty miles below, making its way up the difficult channel to Washington. A reasonable and well-grounded fear took possession of the city. July 21, Serurier wrote to his Government:37 —
“Every one is making ready to move. I know that they are secretly packing up at the Departments. I have as yet sent nothing away, in order not to show distrust of the Government’s power; but I have got ready my most valuable papers, and from the moment the President shall quit his residence, I shall follow where he goes, with my principal portfolios in one of my carriages.”
The British ships were approaching the city; the sound of their guns was believed to be heard; and the Government had little means of stopping them. Every man prepared for volunteer duty; other work was suspended. About three thousand militia and volunteers, among whom were all the Cabinet and many members of Congress, were mustered, and marched to Fort Washington, which was occupied by some six hundred regular troops, with the Secretary of War at their head; while the Secretary of the Navy took his post on the 28-gun frigate “Adams” in the river beneath, and the Secretary of State rode down the river shore with a cavalry scouting party to reconnoitre the British ships.38 July 15 and 16 the House of Representatives ordered a Fast, and went into secret session to consider modes of defence.
Unfortunately the motion for inquiry was made by a Federalist. The majority, determined to make no admissions, referred the subject to the Military Committee, which reported the next day through its chairman, Troup of Georgia, that the preparation was “in every respect adequate to the emergence.” When a majority could benefit only its enemies by telling the truth, history showed that honorable men often preferred to tell what was untrue. In this case the British ships made their soundings, and obtained whatever
knowledge they sought; then left the river to visit other parts of the Bay, but never were so far distant that they might not, with energy and a fair wind, within four-and-twenty hours, have raided the defenceless village. They had but to choose their own time and path. Not a defensible fort or a picket-fence stood within ten miles of Washington, nor could a sufficient garrison be summoned in time for defence. Armstrong, Jones, and Monroe doubtless assured Congress that their means of defence were “in every respect adequate,” but Congress took the responsibility on its own shoulders when it accepted their assurance.
Perhaps of all the incompetence shown in the war this example most exasperated patriotic citizens, because it was shared by every branch of the government. For six months the Administration and its friends had denounced Hull, Van Rensselaer, and Smyth for betraying the government, while the Clintonians and peace Democrats had denounced the President for imbecility; but in regard to the city of Washington the generals were not in question, for no generals were there, while the President was dangerously ill in bed. The Legislature and Cabinet were chiefly responsible for whatever should happen,—the more because their warning was ample, even if under such circumstances warning was needed. If Jefferson assumed as a matter of course that William Hull was to be shot and Stephen Van Rensselaer broken for their mistakes, Republicans might properly ask what punishment should be reserved for Armstrong, Jones, and Monroe of the Cabinet, Troup of Georgia, Sevier of Tennessee, Wright of Maryland, and other members of the Military Committees of the House and Senate for their neglect of the national capital.
The debate on Webster’s Resolutions, and the report made in consequence by Monroe, July 12, tended to throw additional discredit on the Government. In no respect did Madison’s Administration make an appearance less creditable than in its attitude toward Napoleon’s Decrees, again and again solemnly asserted by it to have been repealed, in the face of proof that the assertion was unfounded. No Federalist rhetoric was necessary to make this mortification felt. Madison seldom expressed himself with
more bitterness of temper than in regard to the Emperor’s conduct, and with Monroe the subject drew forth recurrent outbursts of anger and disgust. His report tacitly admitted everything that the Federalists charged, except that the Administration had a secret engagement with France: it had deceived itself, but it had not wilfully deceived the public.
While the House was busied with these unpleasant subjects, the Senate took up the President’s recent nominations. May 29, four names were sent to it for diplomatic appointments,—those of Albert Gallatin, J. Q. Adams, and James A. Bayard, to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain, and a treaty of commerce with Russia; that of Jonathan Russell to be Minister Plenipotentiary to Sweden. Rufus King immediately began opposition by moving three Resolutions of inquiry in regard to the nature of the Russian appointments and the authority under which the Treasury was to be administered in the Secretary’s absence. The President replied, June 3, that the duties of the Secretary of the Treasury were discharged by the Secretary of the Navy under the provisions of the Act of 1792. The Senate, by a vote of twenty to fourteen, referred the matter to a committee consisting of Anderson of Tennessee, Rufus King, Brown of Louisiana, and Bledsoe of Kentucky. Anderson, the chairman, wrote to the President and went to see him on behalf of the committee, but received only the answer that the President declined to discuss the matter with them in their official character. The Senate then adopted a Resolution that the functions of Secretary of the Treasury and Envoy Extraordinary were incompatible. The Federalists obtained on this vote the support of Giles, Leib, and Samuel Smith, German of New York, and Gilman of New Hampshire, all of whom were disaffected Republicans; but even with this aid they would have failed without the votes of Anderson, Bledsoe, and the two Louisiana senators, who joined the malcontents.
Madison was then slowly recovering strength, and greatly harassed by anxieties. He would not sacrifice Gallatin to the Senate; he hoped that firmness would carry the point,39 and at worst he could throw upon senators the charge of factious opposition. This he
succeeded in doing. July 16 the Senate committee, naturally expecting Madison to suggest some arrangement, once more sought and obtained a conference,—“when the President was pleased to observe,” said their report,40 “that he was sorry that the Senate had not taken the same view of the subject which he had done; and that he regretted that the measure had been taken under circumstances which deprived him of the aid or advice of the Senate. After the committee had remained a reasonable time for the President to make any other observations if he thought proper to do so, and observing no disposition manifested by him to enter into further remarks, the committee retired without making any observations on the matter of the Resolutions, or in reply to those made by the President.”
Finding itself thus defied, the Senate, without more discussion, rejected Gallatin’s nomination by eighteen votes to seventeen, Anderson and the two Louisiana senators still adhering to the hostile interest. Adams and Bayard were then confirmed with little opposition.
After the passage of many years, the propriety of the decision may still be left open to debate. As far as the Federalists were concerned, their votes contradicted their own precedents; and if they conceded, as their precedents required, that the question was not one of law but of expediency, they assumed responsibility in acting as final judges. The incompatibility asserted by them was a matter of dispute. Two successive chief-justices had been sent as envoys abroad. No one could doubt that the Secretary of the Treasury, or any other member of the Executive or Judicial departments, might be appointed to negotiate a treaty in Washington. Temporary absence from Washington had never implied incompatibility. Everyone knew that the Secretary of War meant in person to conduct the war on the frontier. No one could question the President’s right to appoint acting secretaries. If convenience alone was the point at issue, surely the President knew best the demands of his own Executive departments, and might be trusted with the responsibility which belonged to him. That he should fail to see, as soon as the Senate could discover, an incompatibility that would work only against
himself, need not be taken for granted by his own party, whatever might be the case with the opposition.
On the other hand every one might admit that as the country grew, Secretaries of the Treasury were likely to find work in their own Department that would effectually limit their capacity for foreign travel; and if the Senate thought that stage to be already reached, senators were right in insisting upon the appointment of a new secretary in Gallatin’s place. Unfortunately for their argument, their power did not extend so far. Gallatin remained Secretary of the Treasury, and continued to negotiate as such, without paying attention to the Senate or its theories.
The Senate further weakened its position in acting on the nomination of Jonathan Russell as Minister to Sweden. The subject was referred, June 2, to a committee consisting of Senator Goldsborough of Maryland, together with Anderson and Rufus King. Jonathan Russell had made himself obnoxious to the peace party by eagerness shown, while he was in charge at London, to bring on the war. The committee not only entered on an investigation of his doings at Paris, but also introduced a Resolution declaring that any mission to Sweden at that time was inexpedient, and by order of the Senate asked a conference with the President. Monroe, angry at this conduct, declared privately that a faction in the Senate, counting on the death not only of President Madison but of Vice-President Gerry, and the election of Giles as President of the Senate, were scheming to usurp the Executive power.
41
In order to counteract their manœuvre, and also to relieve the President, who was then dangerously ill, Monroe took the ground that the Executive would not confer with a co-ordinate branch of government except through an agent, because his dignity would not allow him to meet a committee except by a committee of his own. Monroe thus expressed this somewhat unrepublican doctrine: “A committee of the Senate ought to confer with a committee of the President through a head of a Department, and not with the Chief Magistrate; for in the latter case a committee of that House is equal to the President.”
42 As a necessary conclusion, Monroe’s argument
seemed to the Senate not beyond dispute; but they answered it, three days afterward, still less logically, by passing Goldsborough’s Resolution that it was inexpedient at that time to send a Minister Plenipotentiary to Sweden.
Whatever might have been the case with Gallatin’s rejection, no one could doubt that the vote on Russell’s appointment was factious. When twenty-two senators, including Jeremiah Mason, Christopher Gore, Samuel Dana, Rufus King, and William B. Giles, declared that a minister resident in Sweden was inexpedient in the summer of 1813, they declared what every other well-informed man knew to be an error. If any American envoy was ever expedient, it was an envoy to Sweden in 1813; for in Sweden at that moment all that was left of American commerce centred after being driven from England, and the political interests of Sweden were greatly involved with those of the United States. The error was the less to be denied, because, only six months afterward, the Senate admitted itself in the wrong, and approved the appointment of Russell.
These votes of the Senate made a deep impression. In time of peace and safety the Senate might show factiousness without necessarily exciting public anger, although at no time was the experiment quite safe; but at a moment like July, 1813, when public opinion tended toward a serious temper, factiousness was out of place, and was the more dangerous because President Madison, though never showing great power as a popular leader, had still a clear perception of the moment when to strike an enemy. He rarely failed to destroy when he struck. The time had come when the Republican party, with one voice, would be obliged to insist that party discipline must be restored; and this result was precipitated by the Senate’s conduct in regard to the diplomatic nominations.
An illustration of the dangers into which the spirit of faction at that excited moment led the factious, was furnished by the legislature of Massachusetts, which met, May 26, and after listening to a long speech from Governor Strong arraigning the national government for its injustice to England and partiality to France, referred the subject to committees which lost no time in reporting. One of these reports, presented June 4 by Josiah Quincy of the
State Senate, closed with a Resolution that the Act admitting Louisiana into the Union violated the Constitution, and that the Massachusetts senators in Congress should use their utmost endeavors to obtain its repeal. Another report, by a joint committee, contained a remonstrance addressed to Congress against the war, couched in terms of strong sectional hostility to the Southern States, and marked throughout by a covert argument for disunion. A third report, also by Josiah Quincy, on a naval victory lately won by Captain James Lawrence of the “Hornet,” contained a phrase even longer remembered than Quincy’s assertion that the Government could not be kicked into a war. The Government had in fact been kicked into the war, but Quincy was not the better pleased. He reported that in order not to give offence to many of the good people of the Commonwealth by appearing to encourage the continuance of an unjust, unnecessary, and iniquitous war, the Massachusetts senate while admiring Lawrence’s virtues refrained from approving his acts,—
“And to the end that all misrepresentations on this subject may be obviated,—
Resolved, as the sense of the Senate of Massachusetts, that in a war like the present, waged without justifiable cause, and prosecuted in a manner which indicates that conquest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express any approbation of military or naval exploits which are not immediately connected with the defence of our sea-coast and soil.”
Such tactics, whether in or out of Congress, were more dangerous to their authors than any blunders of the Administration could ever be to the party in power. If the nation should be successful in the war, it might perhaps in good nature leave unpunished the conduct of its malcontents; but if by their means the nation should be conquered or forced into a humiliating peace, the people would never forget, and never forego revenge. Mere opposition to foreign war rarely injured public men, except while the
war-fever lasted. Many distinguished statesmen of Europe and America had been, at one time or another, in opposition to some special war,—as was the case with Talleyrand, Charles James Fox, Lord Grey, Jefferson, and Madison; but opposition became unpardonable when it took a form which could have no apparent object except national ruin. The Federalists who held the ideas expressed by the legislature of Massachusetts could explain or defend their future course only by the conviction that the inevitable and long-expected “crisis” was at hand, which must end either in disunion or in reconstruction of the Union on new ground. As “a moral and religious people,” they separated from the common stock, and thenceforward, if the Union lasted, could expect no pardon.
The extravagance of the Massachusetts Federalists was counterbalanced by the same national disasters which caused it. Nothing showed that the war was popular in any of the sea-board States; but the pressure of circumstances, little by little, obliged lukewarm and even hostile communities to support it. Virginia and the Southern States were drawn into relations toward the government which they had never intended to accept. Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tennessee submitted to exactions that would at any previous stage of their history have produced a revolution. Perhaps the strongest proof of change in popular prejudices was furnished by the taxes. Tax-bills which were supposed to have already overthrown one great political party,—bills which inflicted the evils so hotly and persistently denounced by Jefferson, Gallatin, and John Randolph in opposition, and which had been long delayed by fear of their popular effect,—were passed by Congress quickly, by decided votes, and with less debate than was given to the discussion whether the President had or had not told all he knew about Bassano’s Decree of April 28, 1811. From the time they were approved by the President, in July and August, 1813, to the time of their repeal, neither the President nor his party was troubled by popular discontent on account of the passage of these Acts. They were accepted as a necessary part of the national system, and of a war-policy.
The most curious symptom, and the one which most perplexed the Federalists, was that this popular movement of concentration
acted in direct resistance to the movement of events. In every respect as the Federalists looked back at the past twelve years their prophecies had come true. The Republican party, they argued, had proved itself incompetent, and had admitted the failure of its principles; it had been forced to abandon them in practice, to replace the government where the Federalists had put it, and to adopt all the Federalists’ methods; and even then the party failed. Equally imbecile in peace and war, the democratic movement had ended in such disgrace and helplessness as few governments had ever outlived, and such as no nation with a near and powerful neighbor could have survived. In 1813 the evidence of downfall had become patent. The government was ruined in credit and character; bankrupt, broken, and powerless, it continued to exist merely because of habit, and must succumb to the first shock. All this the Federalists had long foreseen. Fisher Ames in the press, scores of clergymen in the pulpit, numberless politicians in Congress, had made no other use of their leisure than to point out, step by step, every succeeding stage in the coming decline. The catastrophe was no longer far away, it was actually about them,—they touched and felt it at every moment of their lives. Society held itself together merely because it knew not what else to do.
Under circumstances following each other in necessity so stringent, no Federalist could doubt that society would pursue the predicted course; but it did not. Illogical and perverse, society persisted in extending itself in lines which ran into chaos. The threatened “crisis” had arrived, wanting no characteristic of those so long foretold; but society made no effort to save itself. A vaster ruin and still more terrible retribution lay beyond. The Federalists were greatly and naturally perplexed at discovering the silent undercurrent which tended to grow in strength precisely as it encountered most resistance from events. They tried to explain the phenomenon in their own way,—the clergy according to religious conceptions, the politicians according to their ideas of popular character. The political theory was the more plausible and less respectable. A. C. Hanson, the extreme Maryland Federalist, mobbed and nearly killed in Baltimore in June, 1812, only to be elected to Congress in November, thought that the national movement of 1813 was due to
military glory Hanson wrote to Pickering on the subject, in the autumn:43 —
“The war is becoming more popular every day in this State [Maryland]. Our successes, and the weak manner in which it is conducted by the enemy make it so.... It would seem that after a while, unless the British can gather the sense and courage to strike some severe blows, the war by its own generative powers will create the means for its support. The vanity of a people cannot bear these brilliant naval victories, and there is no passion to which the rulers of a people can address themselves with greater effect. Even in my district the active opposers of the war are falling off every day, and unless we shortly meet with some reverses, the Administration will shortly find more friends than enemies in this State by a great deal.... The impression is becoming universal that the enemy cannot harm us if he would. A few hard blows struck in the right place would be of great service to the country.”
A people that could feel its vanity flattered by such glories as the war gave in 1813 must have felt the want of flattery to an unusual degree. The idea was extravagant. Not so much the glories as the disgraces of the war roused public sympathy; not so much the love of victory as the ignominy of defeat, and the grinding necessity of supporting government at any cost of private judgment. At such a moment any success was keenly felt, and covered every failure. The slow conviction that come what would the nation must be preserved, brought one man after another into support of the war, until the Federalists found their feet in a quicksand. The “crisis” produced the opposite effect to that which Burke’s philosophy predicted.
Congress finished its work, and August 2 adjourned. Immediately afterward the President went to Montpelier to recover his strength in the air of the Blue Ridge. The session had not been unsatisfactory, for although the Senate refused to impose an embargo, wanted by the President in order to cut off illegitimate trade with England’s dependencies, and although the same body put
its negative on the appointments of Gallatin and Jonathan Russell, yet Congress passed the tax-bills, authorized another loan of seven and a half millions, and made the business of trading under a British license a penal offence. The operations of war alone remained to burden the President’s mind.
CHAPTER IV.
T fall of Detroit and Chicago in August, 1812, threw the American frontier back to the line of the Wabash and the Maumee, and threatened to throw it still farther back to the Indian boundary itself. The Miami or Maumee River was defended by Fort Wayne; the Wabash had no other defence than the little fort or blockhouse which Harrison built during the Tippecanoe campaign, and named after himself. Fort Harrison stood near the later city of Terre Haute, close to the border of Illinois; Fort Wayne stood within twenty miles of the Ohio border. The width of Indiana lay between the two.
Had Brock been able, after the capture of Detroit, to lead his little army into Ohio, he might have cleared not only the Maumee River, but the whole western end of Lake Erie from American possession. Recalled in haste to defend Niagara, Brock left only two or three companies of troops as garrison at Detroit and Malden. The Indians could do little without the aid of regular forces, but they tried to carry both Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison by stratagem. The attacks were made almost simultaneously a few days after September 1, and not without skill. In the case of Fort Harrison the Indians were nearly successful, not so much in fighting as in burning it. With great difficulty its young captain, Zachary Taylor, of the Seventh Infantry, succeeded in saving his post. Fort Wayne was held by Captain James Rhea of the First Infantry until reinforcements arrived, September 12. Except the usual massacres of scattered families, the Indians accomplished nothing.
Upon the State of Ohio, with its quarter of a million inhabitants, and of Kentucky with four hundred thousand, fell the immediate burden of defending the border between the Ohio and the Lakes. Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory leaving Vincennes June 19, the day after the declaration of war, was at
