In the fall of 1814, the legislature of Massachusetts invited a convention of the New England states, which assembled in Hartford in December of that year and adopted a series of resolutions in which it was declared, among other things, that, "In cases of deliberate, dangerous and palpable violations of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of a state and the liberties of a people, it was not only the right but the duty also of that state, to interpose its authority for their protection, when emergencies occur, either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunal or too pressing to admit of delay incident to their forms; states which have no common umpire must be their own judges and execute their own decisions." The danger to the Union from these steps on the part of Massachusetts and the other New England states, in a time of public war, was put to an end by the unexpected arrival of the news of a treaty of peace; this perhaps prevented the former state from proceeding to assert her sovereignty and making a separate peace with Great Britain. In fact in 1809, during the existence of the troubles growing out of the embargo passed before the close of Mr. Jefferson's administration, John Quincy Adams had communicated to the government at Washington that the object of the dominant party in Massachusetts was, and had been for several years, the establishment of a separate confederacy, as he knew from unequivocal evidence; and that in case of a civil war, the aid of Great Britain to affect that purpose would be assuredly resorted to, as it would be indispensably necessary to the design. There was strong reason to suspect that during the war some secret arrangement existed with the enemy, by which New England withheld from the country the support of her troops and her soil was kept free from invasion. In all the measures then resorted to in order to embarrass the government, Massachusetts took the lead, yet when a war of invasion and subjugation against the Southern states was waged, Massachusetts found no constitutional difficulties, had no scruples about sending her troops into the South. The idea that any of the Southern states resorted to secession because of the loss of the power and patronage of the government is not founded on fact, as neither had ever been used for their special benefit even when in the hands of Southern men, but it was the Northern states whose trade and factories had grown up under the fostering care of the government throughout its whole history, while the schools of the Northwest had been richly endowed from the public lands and the gigantic system of railroads in the same quarter had been built up mainly from grants of this common property.