HISTORY

OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.

BY

JAMES SCHOULER.

VOL. II.

1801-1817.

WASHINGTON, D. C. :

WILLIAM H. MORRISON.

1882.

AUTHOR'S NOTICE.

By way of supplement to the preface contained in volume first, the author desires at this time to make two special acknowledgments. Upon the period embraced in the second volume, much new light has recently been shed by publications of the later Adamses, members of an American family already exceptionally illustrious through four successive generations of vigorous statesmen and thinkers. Among these publications the Diary of John Quincy Adams and the Life and Works of Albert Gallatin here deserve especial mention. The author's other acknowledgment relates to the Monroe Correspondence, at present a huge mass of interesting matter relative to our earlier national history, which lies unassorted in the Department of State, and for whose editorial supervision and publication it is to be fervently hoped that Congress will some day make suitable provision. Through the courtesy of the late Secretary of State, Hon. William M. Evarts, and the accomplished Librarian, Mr. Theodore W. Dwight, the present writer has been permitted, as the first probably among students. engaged in such research, to make copious notes from this truly rich historical material.

Encouraged by the reception of his first volume, the author announces his full decision, if life, health, and opportunity are spared him, to continue researches into our national history, so as to bring the narrative gradually down to the end of Buchanan's administration and the great conflict of 1861. To this task he pledges his personal investigation and an honest (iii)

purpose to deal impartially with men and events. But as much time must necessarily elapse before a third volume is ready for publication, the first two volumes of the present work, which comprehend the history of what may be called our first national era, are now issued, with an index, as essentially a distinct and completed work.

March 20, 1882.

J. S.