President could think of no one who brought stronger recommendations than Wolcott, and accordingly sent his name to the Senate. A few days afterward John Randolph wrote to his friend Nicholson,1.

"The Senate have rejected the nomination of Alexander Wolcott to the bench of the Supreme Court, twenty-four to nine. The President is said to have felt great mortification at this result. The truth seems to be that he is President de jure only. Who exercises the office de facto I know not, but it seems agreed on all hands that there is something behind the throne greater than the throne itself.'

เ

February 21 the President nominated J. Q. Adams, then absent as minister at St. Petersburg, to the same place, and the Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment. The rejection of Wolcott had no meaning further than showing the opinion held by the Republican party of their President's judgment.

"Our Cabinet presents a novel spectacle in the world; " continued Randolph. "Divided against itself, and the most deadly animosity raging between its principal members, what can come of it but confusion, mischief, and ruin? Macon is quite out of heart."

Gallatin was also out of heart. The conduct of Duane and his "Aurora" put additional venom into the wounds made by the session. Commonly some foundation of truth or probability lay beneath political attacks; some show of evidence or some responsible voucher was alleged if not produced, and the charges

1 Adams's Gallatin, p. 430.

against public men, to be accepted, were shaped to suit the known character and habits of the victims; but this was not the case with Duane's assertions of Gallatin's wealth, speculations, embezzlements, and secret intrigues. Duane assumed the truth of his own inventions, and although few persons might be so credulous as to believe him, many were so far influenced as to draw aside and leave Gallatin and the Smiths to fight out their battles as they liked. This withdrawal of active support chiefly weakened the Administration. President Madison had no hold over his friends so long as he refused to declare whom he regarded as friends. He lost not only the Smiths, but also Gallatin, by standing aloof.

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Things as they are cannot go on much longer," wrote Randolph, February 17. "The Adminstration are now in fact aground at the pitch of high tide, and a spring tide too. Nothing then remains but to lighten the ship, which a dead calm has hitherto kept from going to pieces. If the cabal succeed in their present projects, and I see nothing but promptitude and decision that can prevent it, the nation is undone."

This judgment was so far true that none but persons hostile to all central government could look toward the future without alarm; for if the system continued in the future to lose energy as in the ten years past, the time was not far distant when the country must revert to the old Confederation, or to ties equally weak. Such a result was the outcome of Randolph's principles, and he should have wel

comed it; but Randolph was a creature of emotions; with feminine faults he had feminine instincts and insight, which made him often shrink from results of his own acts. At this crisis he showed more political judgment than could be expected from wiser men. Though a Republican of the narrowest Virginia creed, he would take part with none of the factions that racked the government. He opposed vehemently not only the legislative assertion that the French Decrees were withdrawn, but also the legislative violence that overthrew the constitution of the House by means of the previous question. If Randolph was wrong on either of these points, he was at least wrong in company with history itself. He favored his old policy of peace, economy, and a decentralized government, and lost his temper with his colleague Eppes, to the verge of a duel; but for this course he was little to be blamed, since the policy was that of his party, and the contest was not of his making. He gave to Gallatin all the support he had to give. Though more deeply committed than any regular party man to the Constitutional doctrines of narrow construction, he voted with the friends of the Bank. "Randolph's opinion on the bill to renew the charter of the United States Bank is, I believe, unknown to every person except himself," wrote Macon, February 20,1 although Macon, himself opposed to the Bank, was Randolph's intimate friend. Disgusted with the factiousness of others, Randolph became 1 Macon to Nicholson, Feb. 20, 1811; Nicholson MSS,

almost statesmanlike, and for a brief moment showed how valuable he might have been had his balance equalled his intelligence.

Randolph had long since ceased to hold direct relations with Gallatin, but neither then nor ever afterward did he doubt that Gallatin was the only capable character in the Government, and that he must be supported. "The cabal," whose influence excited disgust in his mind as it did in that of Macon, ought to be put down, and Randolph said plainly to Gallatin's friends that the President must be compelled to do it. This dreaded cabal drew life only from the President himself; in any other sense it was a creature of the imagination. So little did Randolph and Macon know about it that they called its members "the invisibles," and puzzled themselves to account for the influence it appeared to exert. In truth, the cabal had no strength that warranted the alarm it roused. Samuel Smith's abilities have shown themselves in the story. Few men of the time stand more definitely imaged than he in speeches, letters, intrigues, and ambitions, for the exactest measurement; but measured in whatever way he pleased, he was rather mischievous than alarming. His brother Robert, whom he had made Secretary of State, was a mere instrument. Giles possessed more ability, but could never become the leader of a party, or win the confidence of the public. Vice-President Clinton and his friends were an independent faction, ready to 1 Adams's Gallatin, p. 431.

coalesce with the Smiths and Giles for any personal objects; but they had little more capacity than the Marylanders. Michael Leib and Duane of the "Aurora" were more useful as intriguers, because they had less to lose; but they were also more dangerous to their friends. Seven or eight Federalist senators also could be depended upon as allies for all ordinary purposes of faction. Yet in such a combination no solidarity existed; no common head, no plan, no object held its members together. The persons engaged in this petty and vexatious war on the Administration could not invent a scheme of common action, or provide a capable leader, or act in unison on any two measures. As Randolph justly said:1

"I am satisfied that Mr. Gallatin, by a timely resistance to their schemes, might have defeated them and rendered the whole cabal as impotent as Nature would seem to have intended them to be; for in point of ability (capacity for intrigue excepted), they are utterly contemptible and insignificant.”

Randolph had ruined himself by impetuosity; his only idea of resistance implied violence. Gallatin never used the knife except when every other means had been tried; but when he did so, his act was proof that no other outlet could be opened by the clearest head and the most patient temper of his time. For two years he had waited, while the problem he placed before Madison and Jefferson in 1809 became more perplexed and less soluble with every month; but 1 Adams's Gallatin, p. 432.