neutral, for it had not observed impartiality toward belligerents, and had obeyed Napoleon's paper blockades established by the Berlin Decree a year before.

The new British orders threw the country into an uproar. Jefferson had called Congress to meet in special session, but he had no solution to propose for the troubles which beset the country. He dwelt on the necessity of preparations for coast defense, but was feeble and halting in his recommendations for a land force. His most ardent admirers could not but feel the inadequacy of every measure suggested.

Nothing was done for two months after the assembling of Congress, save to wait for some possible news from England of a favorable character. All hopes of an amicable adjustment of the trouble were swept away when, in December, England's Orders in Council reached the President. It was now thought that Jefferson must take a stand. He must give up his lifelong dream of peace and accept war. But neither Europe nor his own country knew the extraordinary tenacity with which Jefferson adhered to an idea. He now adopted the most extraordinary course ever devised to avoid war. With the aid of Madison he formulated a brief message to Congress recommending to it the advantages which might be expected from an inhibition of the departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States. Despite the vehement remonstrance of Gallatin, the one adviser for whose opinion he had profound respect, he sent the message with a packet of documents to both Houses. The Senate at once went into secret session. Now ensued a process of legislation as extraordinary as was the purpose underlying it. In a few minutes a bill was drawn up embodying the President's wishes. The rule of three separate readings on three separate days was suspended. No debate was allowed. Within four hours a bill had been passed which laid an embargo for an indefinite period on all shipping within the ports of the United States. But the House was less subservient than the Senate. Though it went immediately into secret session, the passage of the bill was delayed three days. John Randolph, of Roanoke, leading the Quids and Federalists, eagerly welcomed

the opportunity to embarrass and alarm the President. As fast as one modification of the Senate Bill was voted down, he presented another. No limitation was allowed to the time for which the embargo was to prevail, nor was any class of vessels, except at the discretion of the President, to be exempted. Five days after the Orders in Council reached Jefferson, he signed the act for an absolute embargo and thus became master of the commerce of his country-a power to which neither George III nor Napoleon had ever approached. The reason assigned for the measure was that a lack of trade with the United States would bring England to her knees.

The effects of the Embargo Act were almost immediately felt, and they were felt first by that section of country always most inimical to Republicanism—that is, by New England and the parts of New York adjacent to Canada, where the shipping trade was the chief source of revenue. To suspend this trade even for a day would produce results of inconvenience in thousands of homes. To suspend it indefinitely meant starvation for the laboring classes and ruin for the wealthy and the moderately well-to-do. Smuggling was inevitable. At first, it was engaged in by the bold and lawless. As the pinch of necessity became greater, it was taken up by citizens usually law abiding. To enforce the law in great seaports and centers of population was not difficult, but to enforce it along the Canadian border was impossible. Jefferson issued a proclamation directed against the people around Lake Champlain as conspirators and insurgents. The proclamation was not heeded, and acts of violence became frequent along the whole border. More serious for the President than these insurrections was the steady opposition developed in the thickly settled sections of New England, where town after town passed resolutions denouncing the act and even threatening a dissolution of the Union. The election in many of those States had in the spring gone overwhelmingly Anti-Republican. When Congress met in November, 1808, the Federalists felt bold enough to move the repeal of the Embargo Act. The administration had nothing to show as its results but suffering at home and failure abroad. The President

feared to stake his prestige on forcing the Republican votes of the House into a defense of the Act. As early as June, 1808, he had written to Dr. Leib: "They [the extreme Federalists] are endeavoring to convince England that we suffer more by the embargo than they do, and that, if they will hold out a while, we must abandon it. It is true, the time will come when we must abandon it. But if this is before the repeal of the Orders of Council, we must abandon it only for a state of war. The day is not distant when that will be preferable to a longer continuance of the embargo. But we can never remove that, and let our vessels go out and be taken under these orders without making reprisals." He left Congress at liberty to do what it would. After three and a half months of debate, modifications so extensive were passed as to amount to a virtual repeal of the Embargo Act. Most of these modifications were to take effect on March 15th, 1809. Jefferson signed the bill embracing them three days before going out of office. He protested to the last that the Embargo, if it had been steadfastly adhered to, would have accomplished its purpose, and American shipping would have been restored to its rights without war.

Jefferson's embarrassment over the Embargo was accompanied by annoyance at jealousies within his party. He was the undisputed leader, a title which meant far more than being merely an official head. He had long since made his choice of a successor. This was well understood; and in January, 1808, his partisans in the Virginia Legislature held a caucus and named Madison as their choice for the next President. Following this example, a Congressional caucus was held, and again Madison was named; but many Republican Senators and Representatives held aloof. Madison, in the minds of these latter, was inseparably associated with Hamilton as an author of the Federalist; and this idea was encouraged by Randolph and his immediate followers, who, as we have seen, had been pushing Monroe as their opposition candidate. George Clinton, though named by Madison's supporters as the candidate for Vice-President, had also become sullen at Madison's elevation over him. In the midst of these unseemly but inevitable quar

rels within the party, Jefferson strove for harmony, but would not give up his favorite. He wrote to Monroe letters even more soothing than those he had dispatched while the latter was abroad. He went with him through the entire history of his late mission, denying any intention to slight or ignore him, and pleading for the old intimacy between him and Madison. Monroe, besides fearing to break openly from Jefferson, even though the latter was soon to be a private citizen, cherished a deep reverence for him, and this asserted itself after a brief period of chagrin. Neither John Randolph nor George Clinton was the man to solidify the Federalist opposition to the Embargo and to win its vote. The Federalists on their side had to give up hope of a coalition, and in the summer of 1808, they put forth their old candidates, Pinckney and King. Madison was favored by good fortune throughout. The legislatures were chosen before the Embargo Act reached its highest pitch of unpopularity, and Madison received the electoral votes of several States that returned Federal Congressmen in the autumn. Notwithstanding this fact, the vote for Madison and Clinton fell far below that cast for Jefferson and Clinton four years before. Jefferson had received 162 electoral votes; Madison now received only 122. The Federalists had received 14 in 1804; in 1808 they received 47.

JEFFERSON'S LAST YEARS.

On March 4th, 1809, Thomas Jefferson transferred the executive power to James Madison. He had eight years before indulged in many professions of reluctance to undertake the duties of President. The sincerity of these professions may be a matter of doubt, but no doubt can arise concerning the expressions of relief which now escaped him. Had he retired four years earlier they would have had no existence; but his second administration had brought with it much that was harassing. He was disappointed at the miscarriage of his favorite theory, the necessity of preserving peace at whatsoever cost. The Embargo Act had forced the country into measures which had

threatened its dissolution and had brought great financial distress to a certain section, with a corresponding depression in all. His party had been compelled virtually to acknowledge its failure by abandoning it. True, he had tasted of supreme power, but he had also felt, as never before, its accompanying penalties. His appointments to office had won him enemies as well as friends. Always keenly sensitive to slander and even to criticism, he had for two years been sorely wounded. Without these reasons, indeed, he would willingly have retired. Rotation in office had always been one of the cardinal points in his political creed; and he had never ceased to commend Washington's example. He had early in his first term announced his intention of following it. Now that personal feelings were thus thrown into the scale, he looked toward retirement with more than willingness. For many months before, his letters are full of longing for the day of relief. This culminates in a letter written from Washington to M. Dupont de Nemours two days before Madison was installed. "Within a few days I retire to my family, my books and farms; and having gained the harbor myself, I shall look on my friends still buffeting the storm, with anxiety indeed, but not with envy. Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on shaking off the shackles of power. Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions. I thank God for the opportunity of retiring from them without censure, and carrying with me the most consoling proofs of public approbation.”

Jefferson reached Monticello on March 15th. The usual discomforts of the journey inseparable from the season were increased by a snow storm through which he traveled eight hours, most of the time on horseback. He experienced no disastrous results, and wrote the President that from this he "had more confidence in his vis vitae than he had before entertained." His neighbors of Albemarle County had wished to