I’ve Seen It Before, and I’ll See It Again

Apropos of nothing, Abigail Adams wrote to her son, John Quincy, on 7 September 1814:

upon the 26th of August; I wrote to you, and Sent my Letter to Newyork; to go in a dispatch vessel; I did not at that time know of the Humiliating, and disgracefull Catastrophy, which had befallen the City of Washington!! I have not language to describe my feelings, at the Torpor, which blinded the Government to a Sense of their danger, and their defenceless Situation¹.

The Capitol is destroyed! but America is not conquered, and I trust in God, that it will not be.

When private, and domestic afflictions have assailed me, by the immediate hand of Heaven, I bow with submission to the Sovereign will.

But When calamities are brought upon us, through a want of foresight, and Energy to repell them; through incapacity in those who direct the counsels of the Nation; or through the stupidity, and conceit of a Secretary at War; the Nation has cause to complain aloud.

The whole force of Great Britain, which has been Liberated by the general pacification of Europe, is now let loose upon us, to assail us upon every quarter, where we are most vulnerable, upon our extensive Sea coast, to destroy our cities, to lay waste our borders, appears to be the object of the Hostile fleets, and to guard them all, so extensive as they are; is beyond our ability, and we must suffer calamities Similar to those which other Nations have experienced.

You will no doubt receive the British account of the destruction of the Capital of the Nation. their high exultation at the mighty feat of gothic vandalism in destroying the Presidents unprotected house, and the seat of the National Counsels, this as a Specimen of their contempt, and hatred towards America, is received, and felt as it ought to be...

Dear Old Dad followed up a month later with this:

Britain changefull as a Child at play, cannot bear prosperity any better than Napoleon, or than the U.S.—I believe you have often heard me Say, that human Nature cannot bear Prosperity. It invariably intoxicates Individuals and Nations. Adversity is the great Reformer. Affliction is the purifying Furnace. 

Prosperity has thrown our dear America into an easy trance for 30 years. The dear delights of Riches and Luxury have drowned all her intellectual and physical Ennergies. But there are symptoms, that the Germ of Virtue is not destroyed. The Root of the matter is Still in us, and alive.

That sure is something to reflect upon even today.  Now, JQA was in Beligum working on the Treaty of Ghent, and this is what he recorded (unawares) on the day Red Coats burned Washington:

The peculiar difficulty with Mr Bayard is that his view is always exclusive— My draught contained a view of the Law of Nations, as applied to the relations between Settlements of European origin in America, and the Indians— 

I thought it important, because the Article proposed to us by the British Commissioners as a “sine qua non” would produce a total change of the Public Law, in that respect, and because Lord Castlereagh had pledged the faith of his Government, not to ask any thing contrary to the established maxims of Public Law— 

Almost the whole of what I had written on this subject has been struck out and when I stated that the right of civilized Nations to settle upon Lands where Indians had been was explicitly recognized by Vattel, Mr Bayard called upon me to produce the passage, and was perfectly unaware that I could produce it, much more strongly than I had stated it.

About that sine qua non:

[T]he British proposed to create an Indian buffer state that would exist between the United States and Canada. Their idea was that they could use the buffer state block American westward expansion on the one hand, and to protect British interests in the inland fur trade on the other.

A buffer state, you say? Well, the Duke of Wellington would have none of that:

I think you have no right, from the state of war, to demand any concession of territory from America...You have not been able to carry it into the enemy's territory, notwithstanding your military success, and now undoubted military superiority, and have not even cleared your own territory on the point of attack. You cannot on any principle of equality in negotiation claim a cession of territory except in exchange for other advantages which you have in your power... 

Then if this reasoning be true, why stipulate for the uti possidetis²? You can get no territory: indeed, the state of your military operations, however creditable, does not entitle you to demand any.

Now THAT is something for Trump and Putin to reflect upon.  Anyway, it's all just a little bit of history repeating.

Selah.

1 - Senator James Bayard, Federalist from Delaware, had warned of such things.

2 - Possession is 9/10 of the law?