for President 122, and George Clinton 6. Pinckney had for President 47.. For Vice-President Clinton had 113, King 47, and 15 were scattering. Congress adjourned sine die March 4, 1809. Madison and Clinton were sworn into office March 4. 1809. VI. MADISON'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. March 4, 1809-March 3, 1813. JAMES MADISON, VA., President. GEORGE CLINTON, N. Y., Vice ...Continued. Robert Smith, Md. Secretary of Treasury.....Albert Gallatin, Pa..... * Of those marked scattering Clinton received 6 for President, and for Vice-President Madison received 3, John Langdon 9, and James Monroe 3. †The Cabinets as here found are those first organized by the incoming administrations. For the changes and all incumbents see the respective department heads under "Ruling Nationally." The Cabinet-Continued. Secretary of War........ William Eustis, Mass. Postmaster-General....... Gideon Granger, Conn.. .Continued. 66 POLITICAL SITUATION—The Republicans were on the eve of an entire change of policy. Jefferson had adroitly handled the old Federal policy of neutrality so as to keep a show of firmness, and at the same time avoid armed conflict with England or France. On the score of economy he opposed high taxes, a navy, an army. Madison fell heir to this policy. When Erskine, British Minister, mistakingly informed him that England desired peace, Madison immediately suspended the NonIntercourse Act, as he was authorized by its terms to do, so far as England was concerned. But when England repudiated the conduct of Erskine, the President had to restore the operation of the act. Whether this was sheer double-dealing on the part of England, or only a Republican trick to influence sentiment, as the Federals claimed, from that time on the drift toward war was too strong for the Republicans to resist. The schism in the ranks of the party left an active minority to operate on the strict party flanks. It was a time when a body of new leaders, active and strong, could walk away with the organization and shift its ancient policy. From this time on, too, we begin to hear popular mention of the word Democrat. As admiration for France, which had made the word Republican popular, subsided, as Jacobin and Democrat were no longer offensively identical, and further as there were two schools of thought in the Republican ranks, one newer and more aggressive than the other, it became common for the older to designate themselves as Democrats, that is, the true Republicans, the primitive Democratic-Republicans. ELEVENTH CONGRESS-Extra Session.-Met May 22, 1809, with a Republican majority. Organized by re-electing Joseph B. Varnum, Mass., Speaker. The only matter before it was the President's suspension and reassertion of the Non-Intercourse Act. After affirming his action Congress adjourned, June 28, 1809. ELEVENTH CONGRESS-First Regular Session. -Met Nov. 27, 1809. The Non-Intercourse act was continued, and the British Minister was censured for contradictory statements and obtrusive conduct. France had shrewdly shaped her commercial policy so as to receive all the benefits of the American position. This galled England all the more, and as a consequence her attitude became more hostile. In advocacy of her right to search American vessels for deserted British seamen, she announced as final the doctrine, "Once an Englishman, always an Englishman." During the session the Republicans had a large majority and shaped legislation without much dissent from the Federals. Adjourned May 1, 1810. ELEVENTH CONGRESS-Second Session. Met Dec. 3, 1810. The Non-Intercourse Act was repealed as to France and continued as to England. This threw both England and America on their mettle. But the administration was not yet done with its economic and peace ideas. The National Bank, chartered in 1791 for twenty years, was asking for a new lease of life. It had, as we have seen, secured the favor of a charter through a momentary spasm of liberal construction on the part of strict interpreters of the Constitution. Such a spasm was not now on, though it had so many Republican friends in both branches that the bill granting a new charter was defeated by only one vote in the House and by the casting vote of the VicePresident in the Senate. It therefore wound up its business and ceased to exist. The attitude of Federal and Republican on this question of a national bank became, in after years, that of Whig and Democrat on the same question. Congress adjourned sine die, March 3, 1811. TWELFTH CONGRESS-First Session. Met Nov. 4, 1811. Either the administration must accept the idea of forcible resistance to England or go to the wall. American vessels, estimated at 900, had been captured since 1803. American commerce had become a thing of the past. It would not do to allow the idea to grow further that the Republicans were aiming a blow at commercial New England by persistence in their suicidal policy of dilly-dallying diplomacy and devouring peace. A new order of men came to the front. Henry Clay, Ky., was elected Speaker. John C. Calhoun, S. C., became an ambitious and able leader in the House, as did William H. Crawford, Ga., in the Senate. Fortunately none of these new leaders, fully imbued with the war spirit, thoroughly determined on a change from the economic, hesitating, and now cowardly, policy of Jefferson and Madison, were mistrusted by Madison. Clay had been his firm friend, and had come out of a two-term career in the Senate the better to lead on the wider plane of the House. Therefore their work of swinging the administration and the party from its peace moorings was comparatively easy. During the session, and against the opposition of the Federals and a Republican minority, bills for increasing the navy and organizing the militia were passed. Whatever scruples the President may still have had about accepting the situation and affirming this heterodox legislation was overcome by the intimation that his renomination depended on his acquiescence. He therefore fell fully in with the new leaders, and made his exposé of the Henry documents * which so outraged the sentiment of New England, but which brought from Congress the action designed, viz., a resolution denunciatory of England for an attempt to divide a friendly nation. This was followed by an Embargo on American shipping for ninety days, which of course brought an announcement from the English Minister (May 30, 1812), which was supported by the Parliament, that England would not change her policy toward neutrals. DECLARATION OF WAR.-A message from the President, June 1, 1812, referred to a committee, brought a report which, as a summary of grievances, complained of the British orders in council, of the unfair system of blockades of the French ports, of the refusal to settle claims for damages, and, last but not least, of the searching of American ships and impressment of American seamen. It recommended a declaration of war. A *The President made this exposé in a special message. The documents, he said, he bought of one John Henry for $50,000. They purported to show how Henry had been a Canadian agent sent to influence New England Federals to join their cause with that of England. The British Minister denied all knowledge of such agent or agency. war act was consequently passed and promptly signed by the President (June 18, 1812), who had by this time received a second nomination for the Presidency and who was acting in strict concert with the war wing of his party. At first the declaration of war was received with applause. But a reaction soon set in. The Federals of New England published a protest against it as sectional and not national, the act of a party and not of the country. Strictly construing the Constitution, Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to permit their militia to go beyond the boundary of their States till an actual invasion had taken place. To answer them the Republicans became liberal interpreters of the Constitution and would obliterate State lines and forget all about State rights in order to present a solid national front to the foe. Louisiana had become a State in the Union, April 30, 1812. TARIFF OF 1812.-Madison had urged in his message a revision of the Tariff. The new leaders took it up. Calhoun and Lowndes favored Clay's new doctrine that the Protective idea ought not any longer to be secondary to the Revenue idea. South Carolina was then a high protection State, England having levied exorbitant duties on raw cotton. Here was a marvellous shifting of party doctrine. The Republicans became such liberal interpreters of the Constitution that they not only swung to the Protective notion, but actually used the report of Hamilton, which brought the earliest Tariff acts, in vindication of their position. The Federals, in their weakness, forgetfulness of party traditions and determination to see nothing good in the administration, swung clear over to the abandoned strict construction. doctrine of their political enemies, and through such as Webster (then in the House) and others opposed the Protective thought. Sentiment on this Tariff act ought to be carefully noted. It was the beginning of that division in the Republican party which prepared the way for "The American Idea," for "Internal Improvement," and for the Whig organization, which was Clay's outlet from the strict construction columns. Indeed, even at this session a bill for internal improvement was passed under Clay's leadership, which Madison vetoed. The tariff act was |