HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.

CHAPTER I.

THE "National Intelligencer," which called public attention only to such points of interest as the Government wished to accent, noticed that President Madison was "dressed in a full suit of cloth of American manufacture" when he appeared at noon, March 4, 1809, under escort of the "troops of cavalry of the city and Georgetown," amid a crowd of ten thousand people, to take the oath of office at the Capitol. The suit of American clothes told more of Madison's tendencies than was to be learned from the language of the Inaugural Address, which he delivered in a tone of voice so low as not to be heard by the large audience gathered in the new and imposing Representatives' Hall. Indeed, the Address suggested a doubt whether the new President wished to be understood. The conventionality of his thought nowhere betrayed itself more plainly than in this speech on the greatest

1 Diary of J. Q. Adams, March 4, 1809; i. 544. VOL. V. — 1

occasion of Madison's life, when he was required to explain the means by which he should retrieve the failures of Jefferson.

"It is a precious reflection," said Madison to his anxious audience, "that the transition from this prosperous condition of our country to the scene which has for some time been distressing us, is not chargeable on any unwarrantable views, nor as I trust on any voluntary errors, in the public councils. Indulging no passions which trespass on the rights or the repose of other nations, it has been the true glory of the United States to cultivate peace by observing justice, and to entitle themselves to the respect of the nations at war by fulfilling their neutral obligations with the most scrupulous impartiality. If there be candor in the world, the truth of these assertions will not be questioned; posterity at least will do justice to them."

Since none of Madison's enemies, either abroad or at home, intended to show him candor, his only hope was in posterity; yet the judgment of posterity depended chiefly on the course which the new Presi dent might take to remedy the misfortunes of his predecessor. The nation expected from him some impulse toward the end he had in mind; foreign nations were also waiting to learn whether they should have to reckon with a new force in politics; but Madison seemed to show his contentment with the policy hitherto pursued, rather than his wish to change it.

"This unexceptionable course," he continued, “could not avail against the injustice and violence of the bellig

erent Powers. In their rage against each other, or impelled by more direct motives, principles of retaliation have been introduced equally contrary to universal reason and acknowledged law. How long their arbitrary edicts will be continued, in spite of the demonstrations that not even a pretext for them has been given by the United States, and of the fair and liberal attempt to induce a revocation of them, cannot be anticipated. Assuring myself that under every vicissitude the determined spirit and united councils of the nation will be safeguards to its honor and essential interests, I repair to the post assigned me, with no other discouragement than what springs from my own inadequacy to its high duties."

Neither the actual world nor posterity could find much in these expressions on which to approve or condemn the policy of Madison, for no policy could be deduced from them. The same iteration of common-\/ places marked the list of general principles which filled the next paragraph of the Address. Balancing every suggestion of energy by a corresponding limitation of scope, Madison showed only a wish to remain within the limits defined by his predecessor. "To cherish peace and friendly intercourse with all nations having corresponding dispositions" seemed to imply possible recourse to war with other nations; but "to prefer in all cases amicable discussion and reasonable accommodation of differences to a decision of them by an appeal to arms" seemed to exclude the use of force. "To promote by authorized means improvements friendly to agriculture, to manufactures, and to

external as well as internal commerce" was a phrase so cautiously framed that no one could attack it. "To support the Constitution, which is the cement of the Union, as well in its limitations as in its authorities," seemed a duty so guarded as to need no further antithesis; yet Madison did not omit the usual obligation "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." No one could object to the phrases with which the Address defined Executive duties; but no one could point out a syllable implying that Madison would bend his energies with sterner purpose to maintain the nation's rights.

At the close of the speech Chief-Justice Marshall administered the oath; the new President then passed the militia in review, and in the evening Madison and Jefferson attended an inauguration ball, where "the crowd was excessive, the heat oppressive, and the entertainment bad."1 With this complaint, so familiar on the occasion, the day ended, and President Madison's troubles began.

About March 1, Wilson Cary Nicholas had called on the President elect to warn him that he must look for serious opposition to the expected appointment of Gallatin as Secretary of State. Nicholas had the best reason to know that Giles, Samuel Smith, and Leib were bent on defeating Gallatin.

1 Diary of J. Q. Adams, i. 544.

"I believed from what I heard he would be rejected," wrote Nicholas two years afterward;1" and that at all events, if he was not, his confirmation would be by a bare majority. During my public service but one event had ever occurred that gave me as much uneasiness: I mean the degradation of the country at that very moment by the abandonment of [the embargo]."

The two events were in fact somewhat alike in character. That Gallatin should become Secretary of State seemed a point of little consequence, even though it were the only remaining chance for honorable peace; but that another secretary should be forced on the President by a faction in the Senate, for the selfish objects of men like Samuel Smith and Giles, foreboded revolution in the form of government. Nicholas saw chiefly the danger which threatened his friends; but the remoter peril to Executive independence promised worse evils than could be caused even by the overthrow of the party in power at a moment of foreign aggression.

The effort of Giles and Smith to control Madison had no excuse. Gallatin's foreign birth, the only objection urged against him, warranted doubt, not indeed of his fitness, but of difficulty in obliging European powers to deal with a native of Geneva, who was in their eyes either a subject of their own or an enemy at war; but neither Napoleon nor King George in the year 1809 showed so much regard to American feelings that the United States needed to 1 W. C. Nicholas to Nicholas MSS.