278 ANDREW JACKSON 



land Federalists, enraged at Jefferson's embargo, enter- 

 tained thoughts of secession, and in 1814 there was 

 mischief brewing at Hartford. It was the result of 

 the war with Great Britain that dealt the first stagger- 

 ing blow to these separatist tendencies. In that grand 

 result, so far as the naval victories were concerned, the 

 chief credit was won by New England, and it went far 

 toward setting the popular sentiment in that part of 

 the country out of gear with the schemes of the moss- 

 back Federalist leaders. But as regarded the land 

 victories and the whole political situation, the chief 

 credit accrued to the West. It was the much-loved 

 statesman, " Harry of the West," the eloquent Henry 

 Clay, that had prevailed upon the country to appeal 

 to arms, in spite of the wrath of the New Englanders 

 and the misgivings of President Madison. It was the 

 invincible soldier of Tennessee that crowned the work 

 with a prodigious victory. Had the war ended simply 

 with the treaty of Ghent, which did not give us quite 

 so much as we wanted, the discontent of New Eng- 

 land would probably have continued. It was the battle 

 of New Orleans that killed New England federalism. 

 It struck a chord of patriotic feeling to which the peo- 

 ple of New England responded promptly. The Fed- 

 eralist leaders were at once discredited, and not a man 

 that had gone to the Hartford convention but had 

 hard work, for the rest of his life, to regain the full 

 confidence of his fellow-citizens. In the presidential 

 election of 1816 the Federalists still contrived to get 

 thirty-four electoral votes for Rufus King. In 1820 

 they did not put forward any candidate ; their party 

 was dead and buried. All but one of the electoral 

 votes w r ere given to James Monroe. One elector cast 



