and Congress promptly undertook, a system of commercial retaliation by the Embargo Act of 1807.

This act laid an embargo on all ships and vessels in the ports and places within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States bound to any foreign port or place. Vessels were allowed to go from one port to another in the United States under certain regulations, including the giving of bonds. This act was supported by John Quincy Adams, but soon became very unpopular in New England, as it bore disastrously upon her shipping interests. In order to allay the growing opposition in that section it was replaced, in 1809, by the Non-InterCourse Act.

Several facts deserve to be noted in the political history of Jefferson's administration.

Some of the Federal Judges were impeached; among them and most notable was Justice Chase, of Maryland, a judge of the Supreme Court, for arbitrary and tyrannical conduct in trying cases under the Sedition laws. The trial became a mere party contest, and the Republicans had not the necessary two-thirds to con

vict.

Aaron Burr was tried on the charge of treason, in 1807, at Richmond, before Chief-Justice Marshall. The real object of his expedition down the Mississippi is wrapped in mystery. His trial likewise assumed a partisan color, and, although Jefferson earnestly endeavored to secure his conviction, Burr was acquitted.

Strong pressure was brought to bear on Jefferson to stand for a third term, from influential bodies of citizens

and from State Legislatures, and there is no reason to doubt that he could have been re-elected; but he firmly declined, thus adding the weight of his great example to that of Washington's against the indefinite re-eligibility of the President, and in favor of two terms as the extreme tenure of the executive office.

This is not the least in his titles to the gratitude of posterity, and it is to be hoped that the unwritten law against a third term made by the great statesman who first held Presidential office will never again be assailed, as in the recent effort of a large part of the Republican party in the candidacy of General Grant.

Madison, who was Secretary of State, seemed in every way the proper successor of Jefferson. Randolph, however, with a part of the Virginia Legislature supporting him, brought forward James Monroe to to antagonize him. Among the Republicans generally there was an occasional comment on the continued Virginian ascendancy.

A caucus of the Republican members of Congress was held January 23, 1808, in the face of some opposition, which was attended by ninety-four Senators and Representatives. Of the 89 votes cast Madison received 83, Monroe 3, George Clinton 3. For Vice-President, Clinton. received 79 votes, John Langdon 5, Henry Dearborn 3, and John Q. Adams 1. Madison and Clinton were thus nominated and the caucus, in announcing the result, declared that the members had acted "only in their individual characters as citizens, from the necessity of the case, and from a deep conviction of the importance of union to the Republicans throughout the United States

in the present crisis of both our external and internal affairs, and as being the most practicable mode of consulting and inspecting the wishes of all." The Federalists by tacit consent gave their votes to Pinckney and King, as in the last election.

The vote in the electoral college stood, 122 for Madison, 6 for Clinton, 47 for Pinckney. For Vice-President, Clinton received 113, Madison 3, Monroe 3, Langdon 9, King 47.

James Madison thus became President and George Clinton Vice-President of the United States; and Thomas Jefferson retired to Monticello where, for the remainder of his life, he enjoyed the respect of the American people as a wise and great statesman, and was constantly turned to by his party as its most sagacious counsellor.

M

CHAPTER V.

HISTORY UNDER PRESIDENT

MADISON, 1809-1817.

ADISON'S administration inherited the foreign troubles

of his predecessor and, after many futile efforts to secure our rights by negotiation and retaliatory legislation, finally abandoned the peace policy and began preparations for war.

The Republicans were in the majority in both Houses and supported the administration on all its measures, but, numbering among their members such rising young men as Clay and Calhoun, naturally inclined to a spirited and defiant policy. The Federalists, having censured and criticised the peace policy and long-enduring patience of the Republicans, were equally prompt, and perhaps far more sincere, in opposing their war policy. When, therefore, war was declared, June 18, 1812, the Federal members of Congress published a protest against it in an address to their constituents. Of the war of 1812 it is only necessary to say that it was not declared until we had borne, for six years, wrongs and insults that would have justified resentment from the beginning. Both Jefferson and Madison were inclined to peaceful measures and both faithfully tried to escape the necessity for actual war by commercial legislation which proved ineffectual. The war itself was not