“The Compensation Bill,” said Forsyth at the next session,[133] “was the only one of any interest pushed through the Committee of the whole House and ordered to a third reading in a single day. All motions to amend were rejected; for the committee to rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again, met with a similar fate.... The House refused repeated propositions to adjourn, and continued its sittings until the bill was ordered to be engrossed.”
No time was lost. Johnson moved for a committee March 4; the committee reported the bill March 6; the House in committee took it up March 7, and reported it the same day. The House passed it March 8, by a vote of eighty-one to sixty-seven. In the Senate the bill was read for a second time March 12. In the course of the debate one of the New Jersey senators, commenting on the haste shown by the House to pass the bill, added that also “in the Senate postponement, commitment, and amendment are all refused, and it is to be pushed through by main strength with a haste altogether unusual.” The Senate passed it March 14, by a vote of twenty-one to eleven; and it received the President’s signature March 19, barely a fortnight after Johnson’s request for a committee.
At the time when the bill was still under consideration by the President, and the House had just passed the Bank Act, the Republican members of both Houses met to nominate a candidate to succeed Madison as President. Three candidates were in the field,—Daniel D. Tompkins, William H. Crawford, and James Monroe.
The choice was a matter of small consequence, for any candidate of the Republican party was sure of almost unanimous election, and all were respectable men; but Tompkins could expect little support at a time when Congress selected the candidate, for only men well known in the national service were likely to satisfy the standard of Congressmen. The true contest lay between Crawford and Monroe, and was complicated, as far as the candidates themselves understood it, by personal intrigues on both sides. Perhaps Crawford’s strength was the greater, for four fifths of the New York members favored him rather than the Virginian.[134] In cases where no strong feeling fixed results, dexterity in management might overcome a preference between persons; and by some means never explained, the preference of the New York members for Crawford was overcome. One of these members—a competent observer—believed that Martin Van Buren and Peter B. Porter, for reasons of their own, prevented New York from declaring for Crawford when such a declaration would have decided the result.[135] Crawford himself at the last professed to withdraw from the contest,[136] and several of his warm friends did not attend the caucus. On the evening of March 15, one hundred and nineteen senators and representatives appeared in the hall of the House of Representatives in obedience to an anonymous notice addressed to one hundred and forty-three Republican members. Sixty-five, or less than half the Republican representation, voted for Monroe; fifty-four voted for Crawford; and eighty-five then united in nominating Governor Tompkins as Vice-President.
Monroe’s character was well known, and his elevation to the Presidency was a result neither of great popularity nor of exceptional force, but was rather due to the sudden peace which left him the residuum of Madison’s many Cabinets. A long list of resignations alone remained to recall the memory of his associates. Robert Smith, Cæsar Rodney, William Eustis, Paul Hamilton, Gallatin, G. W. Campbell, William Jones, William Pinkney, and John Armstrong had all resigned in succession, leaving Monroe and Dallas in possession of the government when peace was declared. Dallas was not a popular character, whatever were his abilities or services; and no other man occupied high ground. Under such circumstances the strength shown by Crawford was surprising, and proved that Monroe, notwithstanding his advantages, was regarded with no exclusive favor.
In truth Monroe had no party. His original friends were the old Republicans,—John Taylor of Caroline, Littleton Tazewell, John Randolph, and their associates, from whom he had drawn apart. His new friends were chiefly northern Democrats, whose motives for preferring him to Crawford were selfish. In any case an epoch of personal politics could be foreseen, for men like Crawford, Calhoun, and Clay never submitted long to a superior; and for such an epoch Monroe was probably the best choice.
Shortly after the nomination Dallas gave notice to the President that he meant to retire from the Treasury in order to resume his practice at the bar.[137] Madison immediately wrote to Gallatin, April 12, inviting him to resume charge of the Treasury; but Gallatin was weary of domestic politics, and preferred diplomacy. He went as minister to France, while Dallas remained at the Treasury until October, to set the new Bank in motion.
These arrangements closed the first session of the Fourteenth Congress, which adjourned April 30, leaving Madison in unaccustomed peace, harassed by no more enemies or dissensions, to wait the close of his public life.
CHAPTER VI.
The prosperity that followed the Peace of Ghent suffered no check during the year 1816, or during the remainder of Madison’s term. The exports of domestic produce, officially valued at $45,000,000 for the year ending Sept. 30, 1815, were valued at nearly $65,000,000 for the following year, and exceeded $68,000,000 for 1817. The Southern States still supplied two thirds of the exported produce. Cotton to the amount of $24,000,000, tobacco valued at nearly $13,000,000, and rice at $3,500,000, contributed more than forty of the sixty-five millions of domestic exports in 1816. The tables[138] showed that while South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana gained with unparalleled rapidity, New England lost ground, and New York only maintained its uniform movement. While the domestic exports of Georgia and Louisiana trebled in value, those of New York increased from eight to fourteen millions.