Addresses poured upon the President, warmly approving of his measures, and of none more than the Embargo. The Legislatures of Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Orleans Territory, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, addressed him to this effect during the session and the succeeding recess. To these were added similar communications from large popular meetings, or political organizations, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburg, and other cities-from the Republicans of Connecticut generally, and from those of various counties in other States. He also received a large number of approbatory addresses from religious bodies, principally of the Baptist and Quaker denominations-though the Methodist Churches sent a considerable number. The Baptist Associations very generally addressed him.

The legislatures of Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey and North Carolina-all, perhaps, that acted, in 1808, before Mr. Jefferson's final refusal to serve a third term had been made publicsolicited his continuance in office. The answer to each, on this subject, was as follows:

"That I should lay down my charge at a proper period, is as much a duty as to have borne it faithfully. If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, will, in fact, become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance. Believing that a representative government, responsible at short periods of election, is that which produces the greatest sum of happiness to mankind, I feel it a duty to do no act which shall essentially impair that principle; and I should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term of office.

"Truth, also, requires me to add, that I am sensible of that decline which advancing years bring on; and feeling their physical, I ought not to doubt their mental effect. Happy if I am the first to perceive and to obey this admonition of nature, and to solicit a retreat from cares too great for the wearied faculties of age."

the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation the less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed? I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies, that the General Government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are relig ious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it."

On the 19th of January, Senator Bradley, of Vermont, the chairman of the last Presidential caucus, issued notices calling a meeting of the Republican members of Congress in the Senate chamber on the 23d, for, as it was well understood, the nomination of a President. Eighty-nine (thirty or forty short of the full number) assembled, including John Quincy Adams, and Kirkpatrick, of New York, elected as Federalists. Of the absentees, some were ill, some out of the city, and some kept aloof, because they supported the claims of Mr. Monroe or Vice President Clinton, and it was already well known that Mr. Madison would receive a large majority of the caucus vote. No member attended from New York but Kirkpatrick; but it would be wrong to infer that all the absences were occasioned by the last named cause. For the Presidential nomination, Madison received eighty-three votes, Clinton three, and Monroe three. For the Vice-Presidential nomination, Clinton received seventy-nine votes, John Langdon five, General Dearborn three, and J. Q. Adams one.

The results of the Presidential nomination were embarrassing to the Administration. The defeated candidates and their friends refused to acquiesce in the decision of the caucus, and a protest appeared not long after (March 7th), signed by seventeen Republican members, including Quids.

A large majority of the friends of Clinton and Monroe in Congress, as well as both of those gentlemen, believed that the President and his Cabinet, with perhaps the exception of Gallatin,' had exerted their official and personal influence in favor of Madison, and they resented it accordingly in private, though prudence, if no other consideration, prevented them from openly taking an issue which would at once overwhelm all their own. hopes.

Between Mr. Clinton and the President, no explanation ever took place; though we may presume one would have taken place had the former lived to settle down in the calm of retirement. Mr. Clinton died in April, 1812.

A letter from Mr. Jefferson to Colonel Monroe (February

1 So we find it stated in a manuscript letter of George Clinton lying before us, and in a copy of one written at the time by D. C. Verplank, one of the New York members, to General Bailey, of New York, and forwarded by him to Mr. Clinton.

2 On the contrary, we learn from his manuscript letters that Mr. Clinton considered some of the absentees his opponents-particularly the senators Mitchell and Smith.

See APPENDIX, No. 21.

18th, 1808), on the subject of the nomination, is too characteristic to be omitted:

"I see with infinite grief a contest arising between yourself and another, who have been very dear to each other, and equally so to me. I sincerely pray that these dispositions may not be affected between you; with me I confidently trust they will not. For independently of the dictates of public duty, which prescribes neutrality to me, my sincere friendship for you both will ensure its sacred observance. I suffer no one to converse with me on the subject. already perceive my old friend Clinton, estranging himself from me. No doubt lies are carried to him, as they will be to the other two candidates, under forms which, however false, he can scarcely question. Yet I have been equally careful as to him also, never to say a word on the subject. The object of the contest is a fair and honorable one, equally open to you all; and I have no doubt the personal conduct of all will be so chaste, as to offer no ground of dissatisfaction with each other. But your friends will not be as delicate. I know too well from experience the progress of political controversy, and the exacerbation of spirit into which it degenerates, not to fear for the continuance of your mutual esteem. One piquing thing said draws on another, that a third, and always with increasing acrimony, until all restraint is thrown off, and it becomes difficult for yourselves to keep clear of the toils in which your friends will endeavor to interlace you, and to avoid the participation in their passions which they will endeavor to produce. A candid recollection of what you know of each other will be the true corrective. With respect to myself, I hope they will spare me. My longings for retirement are so strong, that I with difficulty encounter the daily drudgeries of my duty. But my wish for retirement itself is not stronger than that of carrying into it the affections of all my friends. I have ever viewed Mr. Madison and yourself as two principal pillars of my happiness. Were either to be withdrawn, I should consider it as among the greatest calamities which could assail my future peace of mind. I have great confidence that the candor and high understanding of both will guard me against this misfortune, the bare possibility of which has so far weighed on my mind, that I could not be easy without unburdening it."

This did not appease the early élève and always dear friend. Monroe had been surrounded by some hot-headed, bitter-spirited advisers and probably informers. He replied to Jefferson warmly, complaining of his conduct in regard to the English mission and treaty. The latter did not lose his temper, but again (March 10th), wrote a long, calm, kind letter of explanations. We presume this healed the breach, for we soon find them again on the footing of their ancient, close and confiding friendship.

In none of his letters to Monroe, while disavowing an interference between him and Madison, does Jefferson disavow a personal choice. There is no doubt his preference was then for Madison. If the latter was not the better, he was at least the

older soldier. With ripe experience, and at the very zenith of his splendid intellect, he had been eight years at the President's side. His dispatches and other official papers had displayed a profundity of understanding and knowledge that placed him in the first class of living statesmen.1

He never had separated from the President in action, or in an important opinion-was perfectly versed in his policy, and was sure to continue it intelligently and faithfully through another administration. He was a great constitutional jurist, and there were still left unsettled executive questions which needed the decision of such a chief magistrate.

Few persons ever knew Monroe intimately, who did not love him. There was a downrightness-a manliness-a crystal-like integrity in his character, which constantly grew upon associates. Jefferson's frequent remark that he was so perfectly honest, that "if his soul was turned inside out, not a spot would be found on it," has become historic. His countrymen, probably, have not generally-this was a remark of Mr. Madison'ssufficiently appreciated his solid but not showy understanding. Yet if either he or Madison was to be elected President in 1808, there can be but little doubt that seniority in years and deeds better entitled the latter to the preference.'

The President had been empowered to partly or wholly

1 For a specimen, let the reader peruse his examination of the British doctrines in regard to neutral trade, published unofficially in 1806.

The following is from Mr. Trist's Memoranda :

Observations by Mr. Madison, Montpellier, Dec. 8, 1827.

"Mr. Monroe:-his understanding very much underrated-his judgment particularly good. Few men have ever made more of what may be called sacrifices in the service of the public. When he considered the interests or the dignity of the country involved, his own interest was never regarded. Besides this cause, his extreme generosity-not only to the numerous members of his family dependent on him-but to friends not united by blood, has greatly contributed to his impoverishment. Perhaps there never was another instance of two men brought so often, and so directly at points, who retained their cordiality towards each other unimpaired through the whole. We used to meet in days of considerable excitement, and address the people on our respective sides; but there never was an atom of ill will between us. On one occasion we met at a church up here (pointing towards the northwest). There was a nest of Dutchmen in that quarter, who generally went together, and whose vote might very probably turn the scale. We met there at a church. Service was performed, and then they had music with two fiddles. They are remarkably fond of music. When it was all over, we addressed these people, and kept them standing in the snow listening to the discussion of constitutional subjects. They stood it out very patiently-seemed to consider it a sort of fight, of which they were required to be spectators. I then had to ride in the night, twelve miles to quarters; and got my nose frost-bitten, of which I bear the mark now (touching the end of his nose to the left side)."

We have seen how gracefully Jefferson deferred to John Adams's seniority. John Adams was about seven years and a half older than Jefferson. Jefferson was seven years older than Madison. Madison was nine years and a half older than Monroe.

suspend the Embargo during the recess of Congress, should a withdrawal of its edicts by either of the European belligerents call, in his judgment, for that measure. Instructions were immediately addressed by him to the American ministers in France and England, to offer to suspend it, on such conditions, and to hold out the idea to each of those powers that a separate persistence in its edicts by the other would be met by hostilities from the United States.'

France returned no definite answer to the proposal. England, flushed by the reverses of her great enemy in the Peninsula, in the summer of 1808, and somewhat relieved by the new theatre thus opened to her commerce, assumed a still more unyielding attitude towards the United States.

Under color of exhibiting sympathy for the patriots of Spain, a strong effort was made, during the summer, to induce the President to suspend the Embargo in relation to that country. He declined, on the grounds that the information in possession of Government in regard to the state of affairs in Spain was yet indefinite, and that Congress was soon to assemble.

The views of our Minister in England on the preceding proposition, and his general views in regard to a repeal of the Embargo, were expressed with great decision to our Government. He characterized the trade which it was proposed to reopen in the Peninsula as a "sordid traffic" with England through an indirect channel, "at a time when it might be said that we were emboldened by French reverses to do what before

1 The opposition subsequently claimed that partiality had been shown to France. On the other hand, Mr. Macon-without having seen the instructions, it is presumedexpressed the opinion in the House of Representatives that partiality had been shown to England. The following sentences from the instructions speak for themselves. The Secretary of State wrote Mr. Pinkney, April 30th, 1808:

"Should the French Government revoke so much of its decrees as violate our neutral rights, or give explanations and assurances having the like effect, and entitling it, therefore, to a removal of the Embargo as it applies to France, it will be impossible to view a perseverance of Great Britain in her retaliating orders, in any other light than that of war, without even the pretext now assumed by her.

Should

the British Government take this course, you may authorize an expectation that the President will, within a reasonable time, give effect to the authority vested in him on the subject of the embargo laws."

The same officer wrote General Armstrong, May 2d, 1808:

"Should wiser councils or increasing distresses induce Great Britain to revoke her impolitic orders against neutral commerce, and thereby prepare the way for the removal of the Embargo, as it applies to her, France could not persist in the illegal part of her decrees, if she does not mean to force a contest with the United States. On the other hand, should she set the example of revocation, Great Britain would be obliged, either by following it to restore to France the full benefit of neutral trade, which she needs, or, by persevering in her obnoxious orders after the pretext for them had ceased, to render collisions with the United States inevitable."