criticism, welcomed March 4, 1809. His friends urged him to "stay by the
ship" and accept a third term. He declined, saying that election for
life might result from repeated reelection. In following Washington's
course and defending it on principle, he set an example to all his
successors, making the "third term doctrine" a part of American
unwritten law.

His intimate friend, James Madison, to whom he turned over the burdens
of his high office was, like himself, a man of peace. Madison had been a
leader since the days of the Revolution, but in legislative halls and
council chambers, not on the field of battle. Small in stature,
sensitive in feelings, studious in habits, he was no man for the rough
and tumble of practical politics. He had taken a prominent and
distinguished part in the framing and the adoption of the Constitution.
He had served in the first Congress as a friend of Hamilton's measures.
Later he attached himself to Jefferson's fortunes and served for eight
years as his first counselor, the Secretary of State. The principles of
the Constitution, which he had helped to make and interpret, he was now
as President called upon to apply in one of the most perplexing moments
in all American history. In keeping with his own traditions and
following in the footsteps of Jefferson, he vainly tried to solve the
foreign problem by negotiation.

=The Trend of Events.=--Whatever difficulties Madison had in making up
his mind on war and peace were settled by events beyond his own control.
In the spring of 1811, a British frigate held up an American ship near
the harbor of New York and impressed a seaman alleged to be an American
citizen. Burning with resentment, the captain of the _President_, an
American warship, acting under orders, poured several broadsides into
the _Little Belt_, a British sloop, suspected of being the guilty party.
The British also encouraged the Indian chief Tecumseh, who welded
together the Indians of the Northwest under British protection and gave
signs of restlessness presaging a revolt. This sent a note of alarm
along the frontier that was not checked even when, in November,
Tecumseh's men were badly beaten at Tippecanoe by William Henry
Harrison. The Indians stood in the way of the advancing frontier, and it
seemed to the pioneers that, without support from the British in Canada,
the Red Men would soon be subdued.

=Clay and Calhoun.=--While events were moving swiftly and rumors were
flyin