THE ORDEAL PASSED.

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nity and honor of his country, came manfully to the support of the administration and into the ranks of the Republicans. He believed, with Mr. Jefferson, that the British pretense respecting the right of impressment should be promptly and forcibly repelled.

After laying the embargo, Mr. Jefferson resorted again to diplomacy, with a view to convince that government that its position on that subject was untenable. Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney undertook the service, and did, in fact, conclude a treaty with the British minister; yet, as it was found to contain no express renunciation of the practice of impressment, the vital point of the controversy, Mr. Jefferson rejected it without laying it before the senate, on his own responsibility. During the progress of negotiations the embargo was relinquished for another measure, called the "non-intercourse."

The ordeal of the Republican theory of our government was now passed. Every substantive idea embodied in the platform upon which Mr. Jefferson was elected and which he asserted in his inaugural, was now exemplified and impressed on the domestic and foreign policy of the government. Republicanism was now tested, and was no longer characterized as the dream of a disordered imagination, nor as a theory altogether utopian. It was now demonstrated to be a substantial and practical reality; a reasonable, feasible, yet forcible and dispensable plan of administering the Federal constitution with firmness, but without proscription, for the benefit of the governed. It need not be said in this connection, that its influences upon all the varied interests of the country were genial, and upon the feelings, sentiments, and aspirations of the people, benign.

CHAPTER III.

NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF JAMES MADISON-HIS PREVIOUS SERVICESHIS CONTINUANCE OF THE JEFFERSONIAN POLICY-HIS EFFORTS TO AVERT A WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN-REVOCATION OF THE BERLIN AND MILAN DECREES-OVERTURES BY THE BRITISH MINISTER-ADHERENCE TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL AND IMPRESSMENTS-HENRY, THE BRITISH EMISSARY-DEath of GEORGE CLINTON-RE-NOMINATION OF MR. MADISON-ELBRIDGE GERRY FOR VICE PRESIDENT-DEFECTION AMONG REPUBLICANS-NOMINATION OF DEWITT CLINTON AND JARED INGERSOLL-ISSUES BEFORE THE PEOPLETRIUMPH OF MR. MADISON-THE WAR AND ITS INCIDENTS-PEACE AND BENEVOLENT SOCIETIES-BLUE LIGHT TELEGRAPHS AND THE HARTFORD CONVENTION-THE POPISH PLOT TERMINATION OF THE WAR-CONDITION OF PARTIES.

JAMES MADISON of Virginia was indicated by the Republican party as Mr. Jefferson's successor. George Clinton was desired to continue in the office of vice president. They were unanimously nominated at a caucus held by ninety-four members of both houses of congress, on the 19th of January, 1808, at which the former received eighty-three, and the latter all the votes given at the informal ballot. They were supported in the canvass against Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King, the candidates of the Federalists, and confirmed in the colleges of that year by one hundred and twenty-two against forty-seven electoral votes.

Mr. Madison was deeply read in all the history, philosophy, and logic that appertained to institutions for human government. He was habitually solemn and contemplative. Until now his position had been less conspicuous than that of his predecessor, and it had never required of

him the exercise of high executive talents; yet he had considered well all the issues which had been made with the British government, all the principles and interests which had been involved in that controversy, and all the pledges and guarantees which had been made by the continental congress and by the constitutional convention to the people of this country, in respect to their rights and immunities under the new system, and he had contributed liberally with his voice and pen, toward the upholding and vindicating the American cause. He had drafted the memorable address of the federal congress to the people of the United States, issued by that body on the 18th of April, 1783, which defined the rights for which the colonies contended with Great Britain, to be the rights of human nature. He had been prominent in the convention which framed the constitution, where the word "slave" was stricken from the draft on his motion, because he would not consent to acknowledge the "right of property in man." He had expounded and commended that instrument to the favor of the several states, by a series of arguments alike patriotic and convincing. And he had been secretary of state under Mr. Jefferson, for eight years, in which position he had conducted the foreign correspondence of the country with great ability, and identified himself still more with the entire republican policy which that statesman had inaugurated.

Mr. Madison entered upon the presidency on the 4th of March, 1809, and associated with himself Robert Smith of Maryland as secretary of state, Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania as secretary of the treasury, William Eustis of Massachusetts as secretary of war, Paul Hamilton of South Carolina as secretary of the navy, and Cæsar A. Rodney of Pennsylvania as attorney general. The last two were in their offices on the nomination of Mr. Jeffer

son, and were continued. The postmaster general was not at that date recognized as a cabinet officer. As it was Mr. Madison's purpose to assume the mantle of Jefferson and carry forward his foreign policy, as the latter had been conducted, with a view to avert, if possible, a dernier resort, and as he had been, in connection with his predecessor, accused of French proclivities, it became his first duty to exculpate himself from censure by explicit declarations that the United States had fulfilled their neutral obligations with scrupulous impartiality; that they had endeavored to cultivate peace by the observance of justice; but that Great Britain, in her rage against the French, had resorted to measures of retaliation and for recruiting her navy, which were contrary to reason and acknowledged law.

In respect to the general policy which it would be his aim to pursue during his administration, he announced his intention to cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having correspondent dispositions; to maintain sincere neutrality toward belligerent nations; to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to arms; to exclude foreign intrigues and foreign partialities, so degrading to all countries and so baneful to free ones; to foster a spirit of independence too just to invade the rights of others, too proud to surrender our own, too liberal to indulge unworthy prejudices ourselves, and too elevated not to look down upon them in others; to hold the union of the states as the basis of their peace and happiness; to support the constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities; to respect the rights and authorities reserved to the states and to the people, as equally incorporated with and essential to the success of the general system;

INHERITED THE WAR.

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to avoid the slightest interference with the rights of conscience or the functions of religion, so wisely exempted from civil jurisdiction; to preserve in their full energy the other salutary provisions in behalf of private and personal rights, and the freedom of the press; to observe economy in public expenditures; to liberate the public resources by an honorable discharge of the public debts; to keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics-that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones, safe; to promote by authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture, to manufactures, and to external as well as internal commerce; to favor in like manner the advancement of science and the diffusion of information as the best aliment to true liberty; to carry on the benevolent plans which had been so meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and wretchedness of savage life to a participation of the improvements of which the human mind and manners are susceptible in a civilized state.

Mr. Madison inherited from his predecessor the pending controversy with Great Britain, which resulted, during his administration, in a war with that government, the prospects of which were rapidly thickening. France and Great Britain were yet at a dead-lock, and reciprocating blows which fell promiscuously upon each other, and upon intervening or neighboring neutrals. Each had become. desperate and reckless. Great Britain, for the purpose of recruiting her navy, pertinaciously insisted that "a man once a subject, was always a subject," and that no act of his, in connection with any other government, could absolve him from his original allegiance, or cut off her claim to his services; and also that her men-of-war had the right C*