%258. Jefferson refuses a Third Term.%—During 1806, the states of New Jersey, Vermont,[2] Pennsylvania, New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Georgia, and North Carolina invited Jefferson to be President a third time. For a while he made no reply, but in December, 1807, he declined, and gave this reason: "That I should lay down my charge at a proper period is as much a duty as to have borne it faithfully. If some termination to the services of the Chief Magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally four years, will in fact become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance." This wise answer was heartily approved by the people all over the country, and with Washington's similar action established a custom which has been generally followed ever since.
[Footnote 2: Vermont was admitted into the Union in 1791 (p. 243).]
As Jefferson would not accept a third term, a caucus of Republican members of Congress met one evening at the Capitol in Washington and nominated James Madison and George Clinton. The Federalists held no caucus, but agreed among themselves to support C.C. Pinckney and Rufus King. Madison and Clinton were easily elected, and were sworn into office March 4, 1809.
[Illustration: James Madison]
%259. The Macon Bill; Non-intercourse.%—When Congress met in 1809 one more effort was made to force France and England to respect our rights on the sea. Non-importation had failed. The embargo had failed. Non-intercourse had failed, and now in desperation they passed a law which at the time was called the "Macon Bill," from the member of Congress who introduced it. This restored trade with France and England, but declared that if either would withdraw its Decrees or Orders, the United States would stop all trade with the other.
%260. Trickery of Napoleon.%—And now Napoleon came forward and assured the American minister that the Berlin and Milan Decrees should be recalled on November 1, 1810, provided the United States would restore non-intercourse with England. To this Madison agreed, and on November 1, 1810, issued a proclamation saying that unless Great Britain should, before February 1, 1811, recall her Orders in Council, trade with her should stop on that day. Great Britain did not recall her Orders, and in February, 1811, we once more ceased to trade with her.
Trade with France was resumed on November 1, 1810, and of course a great fleet of merchants went off to French ports. But they were no sooner there than the villainy of Napoleon was revealed, for on December 25, by general order, every American ship in the French ports was seized, and $10,000,000 worth of American property was confiscated. He had not recalled his Decrees, but pretended to do so in order to get the American goods and provisions which he sorely needed.
It is surprising how patient the Americans of those days were. But their patience as to Great Britain now gave out, and our minister at London was recalled in 1811. This alarmed the British, who promptly began to take steps to keep the peace, and offered to make amends for the Leopard-Chesapeake outrage which had occurred four years before (June, 1807). They agreed to replace the three American sailors on the deck of the Chesapeake and did so (June, 1812). But the day for peaceful settlement was gone. The people were aroused and angry, and this feeling showed itself in many ways.
%261. The President and the Little Belt.%—In the early part of May, 1811, a British frigate was cruising off the harbor of New York with her name Guerrière painted in large letters on her fore-topsail, and one day her captain stopped an American vessel as it was about to enter New York, and impressed a citizen of the United States. Three years earlier this outrage would have been made the subject of a proclamation. Now, the moment it was known at Washington, an order was sent to Captain Rogers of the frigate President to go to sea at once, search for the Guerrière, and demand the delivery of the man, Rogers was only too glad to go, and soon came in sight of a vessel which looked like the Guerrière; but it was half-past eight o'clock at night before he came within speaking distance. A battle followed and lasted till the stranger became unmanageable, when the President stopped firing; and the next morning Rogers found that his enemy was the British twenty-two-gun ship, Little Belt.
%262. The War Congress.%—Another way in which the anger of the people showed itself was in the election, in the autumn of 1810, of a Congress which met in December, 1811, fully determined to make war on Great Britain. In that Congress were two men who from that day on for forty years were great political leaders. One was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina; the other was Henry Clay of Kentucky.