THE CABINET. PRESIDENT: JAMES MONROE, VIRGINIA. VICE-PRESIDENT: DANIEL D. TOMPKINS, NEW YORK. SECRETARY OF STATE: 1817.-JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, Massachusetts. SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: 1817.- WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD, Georgia. SECRETARIES OF WAR: 1817. ISAAC SHELBY, Kentucky (declined). SECRETARIES OF THE NAVY: 1817.- BENJAMIN W. CROWNINSHIELD, Massachusetts. 1818. 1823. SAMUEL L. Southard, New Jersey. POSTMASTERS-GENERAL: 1817.-R. J. MEIGS, Ohio. 1823.JOHN MCLEAN, Ohio. ATTORNEY-GENERAL: 1817.-WILLIAM WIRT, Virginia. CONTEMPORANEOUS ENGLISH HISTORY. George III. (Regency) and George IV. Lord Liverpool, Prime-Minister, 1812 to 1827. Suspension of the Habeas-Corpus Act in February and June, 1817, and August, 1822. Death of George III., January, 1820. Great prosperity in 1823 and 1824. Monetary crisis in 1825. JAMES MONROE. FROM - March 4, 1817, to 1825. DURATION.-Two terms, -eight years. PARTY.- Republican (State-rights). PRINCIPAL EVENTS.- Eastern States visited by the President: "Federal Boston" calls him a Federalist. Party differences gradually subsiding. Washington's revenue and foreign policy generally adopted. Colonization Society organized: Henry Clay and John Randolph vote for it. Seminole War, 1817. Gen. Jackson marches into Florida, and Pensacola is taken. Treaty with Spain, and cession of Florida to the United States, in 1821, for five million dollars and our claims to Texas. Financial embarrassments. Webster favors free trade. ("Let us not suppose that we are beginning the protection of manufactures by duties on imports. . . . Suppose all nations to act upon this principle, they would be prosperous, then, according to the argument, precisely in the proportion in which they abolished intercourse with one another.") Henry Clay favors protection. A protective tariff is passed, and manufacturers are greatly encouraged. Country agitated for two years, 1820 and 1821, on the slavery question. Union threatened. Fourteen thousand slaves smuggled into the United States from Africa and the West Indies. The Monroe Doctrine advanced Dec. 2, 1823 (see Message). Mississippi, Illi. nois, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri added to the Union,-the latter in August, 1821, under the Missouri Compromise; slavery to be excluded from all territory west of the Mississippi, north 742754 A of 36° 30′. Gen. Lafayette revisits the United States in 1824, and returns to France in 1825. Whole administration designated the "era of good feeling." John Quincy Adams elected President. 1817.-March 4. "It is particularly gratifying to me to enter on the discharge of my duties at a time when the United States are blessed with peace. It is a state most consistent with their prosperity and happiness. It will be my sincere desire to preserve it, so far as depends on the Executive, on just principles, with all nations; claiming nothing unreasonable of any, and rendering to each what is its due. Equally gratifying is it to witness the increased harmony of opinion which pervades our Union. Discord does not belong to our system. Union is recommended as well by the free and benign principles of our government, extending its blessings to every individual, as by the other eminent advantages attending it. The American people have encountered together great dangers, and sustained severe trials with success. They constitute one great family with a common interest. Experience has enlightened us on some questions of essential importance to the country. Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever was success so complete. If we look to the history of other nations, ancient and modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy. In contemplating what we have still to perform, the heart of every citizen must expand with joy when he reflects how near our government has approached to perfection; that, in respect to it, we have no essential improvement to make; that the great object is to preserve it in the essential principles. and features which characterize it; and that it is to be done by preserving the virtue and enlightening the minds of the people; and, as a security against foreign dangers, to adopt such arrangements as are indispensable to the support of our independence, our rights and liberties. If we persevere in the career in which we have advanced so far, and in the path already traced, we cannot fail, by the favor of a gracious Providence, to attain the high destiny which seems to await In the administrations of the illustrious men who have preceded me in this high station, with some of whom I have been connected by the us. closest ties from early life" (four of the first five presidents of the United States - Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were from Virginia), "examples are presented which will always be found highly instructive and useful to their From these I shall endeavor to de successors. rive all the advantages which they may afford. . . . Relying on the aid to be derived from the other departments of the government, I enter on the trust to which I have been called by the suffrages of my fellow-citizens, with my fervent prayers to the Almighty that he will be graciously pleased to continue to us that protection which he has already so conspicuously displayed in our favor.” 1817.-Dec. 2. "In contemplating the happy situation of the United States, our attention is drawn, with peculiar interest, to the surviving officers and soldiers of our Revolutionary army, who so eminently contributed by their services to lay its foundation. Most of those very meritorious citizens have paid the debt of nature, and gone to repose. It is believed, that, among the survivors, there are some, not provided for by existing laws, who are reduced to indigence, and |