n April 4, 1841, Vice President John Tyler of Virginia became the nation’s tenth president following the death of President William Henry Harrison. President Tyler was immediately confronted with the possibility of war with Great Britain, a prospect he and his secretary of state, Daniel Webster, hoped to avoid. A war would mark the third conflict between the two nations within a little over sixty years. Throughout the 1830s a simmering boundary dispute between Americans living in northern Maine and the province of New Brunswick in British Canada had soured relations between the United States, British Canada, and Great Britain. The United States claimed its boundary extended to the banks of the St. Lawrence River; Great Britain contended that the line should be drawn much farther south. Tensions flared during the “Aroostook War” of 1838–39, although no actual combat occurred (militias were called to duty but did not fight), yet hostilities seemed inevitable. Casualties on both sides during the nominal war were limited to those felled by disease or accidental deaths, perhaps some thirty-eight Americans in total. In February 1839 Congress passed legislation granting President Martin Van Buren “additional powers for the defense of the United States” and funding for 50,000 soldiers if necessary. The prospect of fighting yet another war with the world’s greatest superpower— and in a remote corner of northern Maine—was hardly a top priority for “His Accidency” John Tyler during his first year in office. But standing up to Great Britain was important to the people of Maine and to many other Americans who continued to view the British Empire with suspicion. Groping for a way out of the impasse, Tyler and Webster settled on a remarkable scheme whose details were kept concealed until 1970. The essence of the scheme was to run a covert operation designed to moderate American public opinion and open the way to a negotiated settlement. Secretary Webster recruited a former congressman from Maine, Francis O. J. Smith, to run this sensitive—in fact, illegal—operation. It was illegal because the money for the operation came out of the president’s Secret Service Fund, which was designed for confidential foreign operations, not domestic ones. Yet Tyler and Webster decided that avoiding conflict with Great Britain was so critical that extraordinary measures were required to secure the peace. Francis Smith and his operatives targeted opinion shapers in Maine, including journalists, clergymen, lawyers, and political figures, suggesting that they reconsider the idea of going to war. In some cases, Smith wrote anonymous newspaper editorials urging a peaceful solution, with many of these pieces published throughout the nation. Some of the money designated for this operation may have involved bribing these opinion shapers, to the point that the Secret Service Fund was drained. At this point, Secretary Webster turned to Lord Ashburton (1774–1848), a British diplomat, to provide supplemental funds from the British Secret Service. Ashburton delivered $14,500 (approximately $441,000 today) to Webster to continue the covert propaganda campaign against American citizens. The administration hoped that if the tide of public opinion turned in Maine, the rest of the nation would follow suit, which is precisely what happened. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed on August 9, 1842, resolving most of the issues that almost triggered a war. This collusion between the American and British governments was an extraordinary event in early American history, and it reveals the potential dangers of placing clandestine resources at the disposal of government officials, no matter how well intentioned. By opting to manipulate domestic public opinion through secret means, the U.S. government ran roughshod over the nation’s core principle of self-government. As Americans would discover in the twentieth century, the notion that “if the president does it, it is not illegal” opens the door to a wide array of abuses that undermine the rule of law. In the letter reprinted below, Smith outlined his plan to Webster regarding “divesting” the Maine border dispute of its “belligerent spirit.”