Hartford Convention, The.—In no section of the country was there louder acclaim of President Wilson’s public insinuations of disloyalty against German Americans than in New England. The Boston papers particularly distinguished themselves in applauding this unwarranted sentiment. And it came with particularly bad grace from this section, which long antedated the South in measures designed to embarrass and disrupt the Union. During the War of1812 the New England banks sought to cripple the federal government in securing the necessary money to prosecute the war against England, and late in 1814 the legislature of Massachusetts called a convention of the New England states to meet at Hartford in December of that year. The sessions were secret and while the discussion was never published they were commonly held to be treasonable and intended to destroy the Union. The Convention recognized the principle of secession by proclaiming that “a severence of the Union by one or more states, against the will of the rest and especially in the time of war, can be justified only by absolute necessity.” The Convention made demands, the apparent intention of which was “to force these demands upon an unwilling administration while it was hampered by a foreign war, or in case of refusal to make such refusal a pretext for dismembering the Union.... An additional object of the Convention was to hamper and cripple the administration to the last degree, and at a moment when the country was overrun by a foreign foe, to overthrow the party in power, or to break up the Union. The men of this Convention were among the leading Federalists of the country, and with all their good qualities it is evident that their patriotism was shallow.” (“History of the United States” by Henry William Elson, Ph.D., Litt.D., The MacMillan Company, p.446-447.) The work of the Convention came to naught. Peace put a stop to its intended mischief.