Madison was also obliged to select a new attorney-general in place of William Pinkney. Till then the attorney-general had not been regarded as standing on the same footing with other members of the Cabinet. The Secretaries of State and Treasury were paid five thousand dollars a year; those of the War and Navy were paid forty-five hundred; but the attorney-general was paid only three thousand. He had neither office-room nor clerks, and was not required to reside permanently at Washington, but pursued the private business of his profession where he liked, attending to the business of government rather as a counsel under general retainer than as a head of Department. Pinkney lived in Baltimore, and his abilities were so valuable that the President was glad to employ them on any terms, and was not inclined to impose conditions of residence which Pinkney could not accept without a greater sacrifice than he was ready to make.[490] Congress was not so forbearing as the President. John W. Taylor, a member from New York, moved a resolution January 5, directing the Judiciary Committee to inquire into the expediency of requiring the attorney-general to reside in Washington during the session of Congress. The committee reported a bill, January 22, requiring permanent residence from the attorney-general, with an increase of salary. The bill failed to become law, but Pinkney at once resigned.
Madison offered the post to Richard Rush, who accepted it. Rush’s abilities were more than respectable, and caused regret that he had not accepted the Treasury, for which he was better fitted than Campbell; but these changes did not improve the Cabinet. “His predecessor, Pinkney, I believe considered him the best lawyer in the nation,” wrote Macon;[491] “but that Campbell and Rush are equal to Gallatin and Pinkney is not, I imagine, believed by any one who knows them.” In the case of Pinkney and Rush, the advantages of permanent residence balanced in part the loss of ability; but no such consideration affected the change of Campbell for Gallatin.
Fortunately Madison lost enemies as well as friends. Time worked steadily in his favor. The old Smith faction, the Clinton party, and the “Aurora” were already broken. Senators who claimed too much independence of action found public opinion setting strongly against them. Samuel Smith and Giles were near the end of their terms, and had no chance of re-election. The legislature of North Carolina, in December, 1813, censured so severely the conduct of Senator Stone that the senator resigned his seat.[492] At the same time, Pennsylvania succeeded in ridding herself of Senator Leib, and Madison was able to punish the postmaster-general, Gideon Granger, whose friendship for Leib made him obnoxious to his party.
Granger was not a member of the Cabinet, but his patronage was the more important because at that time, by some anomaly in the law, it was not subject to approval by the Senate. Early in January one of his best post-offices, that of Philadelphia, became vacant. One senator of the United States had already resigned his seat to become postmaster of New York; and the Pennsylvanians had reason to fear that Leib, whose term was about to expire, would resign to become postmaster of Philadelphia, and that Granger wished to gratify him. Immediately all the Administration Republicans, including members of Congress and of the State legislature, joined in recommending another man, and warned Granger in private that his own removal from office would follow the appointment of Leib.[493] C. J. Ingersoll—a young member from Pennsylvania, among the warmest supporters of Madison and the war—reinforced the threat by moving the House, January 7, for a committee to amend the laws with a view to making postmasters subject to the usual rule of confirmation. The committee was appointed.
Irritated by this treatment, Granger in defiance of President and party appointed Michael Leib to the office, and Leib instantly resigned his seat and hastened to assume the duties of his new post. In this transaction Madison was the chief gainer. Not only did he rid himself of Leib, but he gained a warm ally in the person of Leib’s successor; for the Pennsylvania legislature, February 28, transferred Jonathan Roberts from the House to take Leib’s place in the Senate. Madison’s advantage was not limited by Leib’s departure or Roberts’s accession. He was able also to punish Granger in a manner at that time almost or quite without parallel. Executive offices ran, as a rule, during good behavior; and although Jefferson made removals of party enemies, neither he nor Madison had ventured to remove party friends, except in cases of misbehavior. Granger’s conduct exasperated the Pennsylvanians to a point where no rules were regarded. Eighty-six members of the Pennsylvania legislature joined in addressing a memorial to the President demanding the removal of Granger as the only means of getting rid of Leib, who had not only opposed Madison’s election, but who, “when entrusted with one of the highest offices in the gift of the State, ... acted in direct hostility to her wishes and interests, and aided as far as possible her political enemies.” Madison needed little urging. February 25 he nominated to the Senate as postmaster-general the governor of Ohio, Return Jonathan Meigs. After some little delay, the Senate confirmed the appointment, March 17, without a division.
Scarcely was this matter settled, when Congress yielded to Madison’s opinion in another instance where for ten years the House had obstinately resisted his wishes. The Yazoo bill became law. For this concession several reasons combined. The Supreme Court, through Chief-Justice Marshall, by an elaborate decision in February, 1810, settled the law in favor of the claimants. John Randolph’s defeat removed from Congress the chief obstacle to the proposed agreement. The threatening attitude of New England made every palliative necessary. Under these inducements, the Senate passed the bill, February 28, by a vote of twenty-four to eight, and the House passed it, March 26, by a vote of eighty-four to seventy-six.
Little by little the pressure of necessity compelled Congress and the country to follow Madison’s lead. Whether for good or for evil, he had his way. His enemies were overcome and driven from the field; his friends were rewarded, and his advice followed. Of revolt within the party he stood no longer in fear. Already political intrigue and factiousness began to take a direction which concerned him only so far as he felt an interest in the choice of his successor. Three years more would complete Madison’s public career, and in all probability if another President of the United States were ever elected, he would be one of Madison’s friends; but many persons doubted whether the country would reach another Presidential election, and the jealousy which actuated New England against the South was not the only ground for that opinion. In Madison’s immediate circle of friends, the jealousy between Virginia and New York threatened to tear the government in pieces. These States did not, like Massachusetts, threaten to leave the Union, but their struggles for power promised to bring government to a standstill.
The antipathy of New York for Virginia was not lessened by the success of Virginia in overthrowing Aaron Burr and DeWitt Clinton. The Republican party in New York quickly produced two new aspirants to the Presidency, whose hopes were founded on public weariness of Virginian supremacy. One of the two candidates was Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, whose services as war-governor of New York were great, and were rewarded by great popularity. Governor Tompkins was too remote from the capital to annoy Madison by direct contact with factions or activity in intrigue; but the other rival stood at the centre of Executive patronage. John Armstrong was a man capable of using power for personal objects, and not easily to be prevented from using it as he pleased.
Armstrong was an unusual character. The local influences which shaped Americans were illustrated by the leaders whom New York produced, and by none better than by Armstrong. Virginians could not understand, and could still less trust, such a combination of keenness and will, with absence of conventional morals as the Secretary of War displayed. The Virginians were simple in everything; even their casuistry was old-fashioned. Armstrong’s mind belonged to modern New York. The Virginians were a knot of country gentlemen, inspired by faith in rural virtues, and sustained by dislike for the city tendencies of Northern society. Among themselves they were genial, reluctant to offend, and eager to remove causes of offence. The domestic history of the government at Washington repeated the Virginian traits. Jefferson and his friends passed much time in making quarrels, and more in making peace. Unlike Pennsylvania, New York, and New England, Virginia stood stoutly by her own leaders; and however harsh Virginians might be in their judgment of others, they carried delicacy to an extreme in their treatment of each other. Even John Randolph and W. B. Giles, who seemed to put themselves beyond the social pale, were treated with tenderness and regarded with admiration.
The appearance of a rough and harshly speaking friend in such a society was no slight shock, and for that reason William Henry Crawford was regarded with some alarm; but Crawford was socially one of themselves, while Armstrong belonged to a different type and class. The faculty of doing a harsh act in a harsh way, and of expressing rough opinions in a caustic tone, was not what the Virginians most disliked in Armstrong. His chief fault in their eyes, and one which they could not be blamed for resenting, was his avowed want of admiration for the Virginians themselves. Armstrong’s opinion on that subject, which was but the universal opinion of New York politicians, became notorious long before he entered the Cabinet, and even then annoyed Madison.[494] The newspapers gossiped about the mean estimate which Armstrong expressed for the capacities of the Virginia statesmen. So old and fixed was the feud, that from the first the Virginians lost no opportunity to express their opinion of Armstrong, especially in the Senate, whenever he was nominated for office. Madison unwillingly selected him for the post of secretary after Crawford refused it, but neither of the Virginia senators voted on the question of confirmation. In appointing Armstrong, Madison bestowed on him neither respect nor confidence. He afterward declared the reasons that caused him to invite a person whom he distrusted into a position of the highest importance.