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lature reported that the whole number of impressed Americans, prior to the war (of 1812), was only eleven, though we have shown it to have been many thousands. Mr. Pickering said, Great Britain only "desired to obtain her own subjects," and that the "evil we complained of arose from the impossibility of always distinguishing the persons of the two nations."

How near this was true is shown by Mr. Pickering's official letter, dated September 26, 1796, to Rufus King, our minister in England, in which he said: "For the British Government, then, to make professions of respect to the rights of our citizens and willingness to release them, and yet deny the only means of ascertaining those rights, is an insulting tantalism." And to Congress, in 1799, referring to a refusal by the British to investigate cases not coming through the British minister, he said: “Under this determination there will be detained, not only the subjects of his Britannic Majesty not naturalized since the peace of 1783, but all who, born elsewhere, were then resident in, and had become citizens of the United States; also all foreigners, as Germans, Swedes, Danes, Portuguese, and Italians, who voluntarily serve in the vessels of the United States. It is a fact that such foreigners have been frequently impressed, although their language and other circumstances demonstrate that they are not British subjects."

It is seen that Mr. Pickering substantially convicts himself of untruths. The Legislature of Massachusetts, on the 15th of July, agreed to a remonstrance denouncing the continuance of the war, after Great Britain repealed her orders in council, because she found her people would be stirred up against us. It denounced it as unjust because we had not removed proper causes of complaint by providing against employing British seamen. They said we had not exhausted negotiation on the subject; that "under such circumstances silence toward the Government would be treachery to the people."

Although the better classes of Federalists did not openly make, or authorize excuses for British impressments, they did not generally publicly condemn them. The lower strata, from what they saw and heard, believed that their conduct was approved and sus tained by the whole Federal party.

These cases of impressments show one party excusing, if not approving of them, while the other was willing to, and did actually declare war and hazard their lives to prevent their continuance. The former was anti-democratic as well as anti-patriotic, while the latter presents a striking instance of what democratic principles require and lead men to do, in order to protect the persons and property of the people, to the end that they may pursue the road to happiness as they choose.

20.-JAMES MADISON AND HIS POLITICAL PRINCIPLES.

Mr. Madison was the personification of honesty, intelligence, and pure democratic principles. A native of Virginia, near the residence of Jefferson, he was educated at Princeton, New Jersey. After going through the usual college studies, and graduating, he remained at that institution, pursuing mainly under the celebrated Doctor Witherspoon, at that time its president, those higher and broader studies which so eminently fitted him for the high positions he held and adorned in after-life. He cherished through life a lively recollection of the services and instruction of this learned man and pure patriot. Returning to Virginia, he devoted considerable attention to the study of the law, and the principles upon which it was founded, without burdening his mind with those tortuous rules of practice which often bewilder and entangle, without improving the mental faculties. He never commenced the practice of the law, nor is it certain that he was ever admitted to the bar.

At the age of twenty-five he was elected a member of the Legislature, where his extreme diffidence so far overcame him as to make him a silent and not a popular member. He failed of his reëlection the next year upon two grounds-one, because he could not speak, and the other because he would not treat the electors. The first was owing to his extreme diffidence, and the last because he held it inconsistent with the purity of elections. Hence it is seen that in one of the first steps of his public life he sacrificed success to that purity and sobriety of conduct from which nothing could ever induce him to swerve. The Legislature repaired this error by electing him a member of the State Council,

a place he held until 1779, when he was elected a delegate to Congress. In the Council he early exhibited extraordinary capacity in the preparation of documents, and soon acquired great skill and ability in debate. He was found the most useful member of the Council, as he was in Congress, after he took his seat in that body.

After serving in Congress, and again in the State Legislature, Mr. Madison was elected a member of the convention to prepare a Constitution for the Union, where his knowledge, skill, and efficiency in debate made him the leader of those devoted to democratic principles, as Hamilton was of those of an opposite character. His labors were so efficient and successful, that he was rightfully called the Father of the Constitution. When that instrument was before the Virginia Convention for its consideration, he defended it, as he had done in a large number of articles then published, which, with others, are now called The Federalist. When the new Government was formed, and went into operation, in 1789, he was elected to Congress, to aid in putting it in motion, according to the intentions of the framers of the Constitution and the people, whose agents adopted it. He continued in Congress until 1797-—a period of eight years, during which political parties under the Constitution were formed, each representing political principles which to this day are in full operation. Madison, following the instincts of an active and pure benevolence, was, and remained, a Democrat throughout his life. Hamilton, and his associates, by instinct, believed that mankind could not govern themselves, and that the knowing few should rule and guide the ignorant many; and their successors still believe in these principles and enforce them whenever they have the power to do so.

When Jefferson came in as President, Madison became Secretary of State, and continued eight years, when he was elected President, receiving 122 votes over C. C. Pinckney, who had 89. He retired from the presidency on the 4th of March, 1817, after having sustained our country in a three years' war with Great Britain, which was closed on the plains of New Orleans, January 8, 1815, in "a blaze of glory." Many of the incidents

of this war, illustrating our political theories, will be hereafter. given.

On leaving public life, Mr. Madison retired to his estate at Montpelier, in Virginia, where he enjoyed the esteem and respect of mankind during a period of twenty years. Such was the purity of his character and his conceded high motives, that during this period few even of the arrows of Federalism were aimed at him. It is now conceded that Mr. Madison's state papers are among the ablest and best written of any produced in our own or any other country. Not a useful or proper word was omitted, nor a useless one inserted. If he was not as warm-hearted and sympathetic as Jefferson, he was as wise, prudent, and unselfish. Like Jefferson, he was opposed to pomp, display, and ceremonies both in public and in private. Like Jefferson, he was in principle a Democrat, without alloy.

21.-THE DECLARATION OF WAR.

In imposing the embargo, Jefferson and his friends sought to avoid war, with its expenses and destruction. They sought to impress it upon the public mind, that a surrender of the embargo must end in national disgrace or war. Many Federalists professed to prefer war with all its certain calamities and doubtful results to continuing it, with its inconvenience. They declared the Democrats had no idea of war, whatever might happen, but were obeying the bidding of the Emperor of France for the benefit of his country, or to aid him in his merciless wars. Mr. Quincy, in a speech in Congress, declared that the Government could not be "kicked into a war." The same sentiment was, at different periods, proclaimed by other Federal members. The effort was to spread a belief that the Democrats dare not fight, and did not intend to do so, however much the country might be insulted.

The Boston Repertory said: "My life on it, our Executive has no more idea of declaring war than my grandmother. . . . Our Government will not make war on Great Britain, but will keep up a constant irritation, on some pretence or other, for the sake of maintaining influence as a party. . . We are firmly per

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suaded that the majority in Congress do not mean to declare war at present, that they dare not, and that all their threats are contemptible vaporing."

The Philadelphia Gazette said, "They shrink from it, . . they are frightened as the aspect becomes a little serious, and wish to go home and think about it.”

The Baltimore Federal Gazette said: "If you think that a vote to raise 25,000 men looks like a war, quiet your apprehensions. You do not understand what is here called management. There will, as I believe, be no war. The war-whoop, the orders in council, the non-importation, the Presidential caucusing, will vanish before summer." A thousand similar extracts might be found and presented.

But when the declaration of war was recommended by Mr. Madison, every Federalist voted against it. The whole party raised its voice against it. Every form and variety of denunciation was heard against those who voted for, or approved the declaration. Το say it was wicked and unjust, was too moderate an expression for the more violent.

David Osgood, a Massachusetts clergyman, said in his pulpit: "The strong prepossessions of so great a portion of my fellow-citizens in favor of a race of demons and against a nation of more religion, virtue, good faith, generosity, and benevolence than any that now is or ever has been upon the face of the earth, wring my soul with anguish and fill my heart with apprehensions and terror of the judgments of Heaven upon this sinful people. . . . If, at the command of weak and wicked rulers, they undertake an unjust war, each man who volunteers his service in such a cause or loans his money for its support, or, by his conversation or writings or any other mode of influence, encourages its prosecution, that man is an accomplice in the wickedness, loads his conscience with the blackest crimes, brings the guilt of blood upon his soul, and in the sight of God and His law is a murderer."

Dr. Gardiner, a Boston clergyman, said: "It is a war unexampled in the history of the world; wantonly proclaimed on the most frivolous and groundless pretences, against a nation from whose friendship we might derive the most signal advantages and

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