THE CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 215 



the same time pardonable as the only weapon left us 

 in that period of national weakness. 



Affairs were drawing slowly toward some kind of 

 crisis when, at the expiration of Jefferson's second 

 term, Mr. Madison was elected President of the 

 United States by 122 electoral votes against 47 for 

 Cotesworth Pinckney and 6 for George Clinton, who 

 received 1 1 3 votes for the vice-presidency, and was 

 elected to that office. The opposition of the New 

 England states to the embargo had by this time 

 brought about its repeal and the substitution for it of 

 the act declaring non-intercourse with England and 

 France. By this time, many of the most intelligent 

 Federalists, including John Quincy Adams, had gone 

 over to the Republicans. In 1810 Congress repealed 

 the non-intercourse act, which as a measure of intimi- 

 dation had proved ineffectual. Congress now sought 

 to use the threat of non-intercourse as a kind of bribe, 

 and informed England and France that if either 

 nation would repeal its obnoxious edicts, the non-inter- 

 course act would be revived against the other. Napo- 

 leon took prompt advantage of this, and informed Mr. 

 Madison's government that he revoked his Berlin and 

 Milan decrees as far as American ships were con- 

 cerned; but at the same time he gave secret orders 

 by which the decrees were to be practically enforced 

 as harshly as ever. The lie served its purpose, and 

 Congress revived the non-intercourse act as against 

 Great Britain alone. In 1811 hostilities began on 

 sea and land, in the affair of Tippecanoe and of 

 the President and Little Belt. The growing desire 

 for war was shown in the choice of Henry Clay for 

 Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mr. 



