eath the surface of things
historical, that he was wanting in strength of character and in courage.
He did not lack discernment as to what was wisest and best; but he was
too easily influenced by others, or led by the hope of gaining some
glittering prize which ambition coveted, to turn his back upon his own
convictions. It was this weakness which swept him beyond his depth into
troubled waters where his struggles were hopeless. Had he refused to
assume the responsibility of a war which his judgment condemned, and
which he should have known that he wanted the peculiar ability to bring
to a successful and honorable conclusion, he might never have been
President, but his fame would have been of a higher order. History might
have overlooked the act of political fickleness in his earlier career,
which was so warmly resented by many of his contemporaries. Abandonment
of party is too common and often too justifiable to be accounted as
necessarily a crime; and it can rarely be said with positiveness,
whatever the probabilities, that a political deserter is certainly moved
by base motives. It is rather from _ex post facto_ than from immediate
evidence, as in Madison's case, that a just verdict is likely to be
reached. But there can be neither doubt nor mistake as to the
President's management of foreign affairs during the two years preceding
the declaration of war against England; nor of the remarkable
incompetence which he showed in rallying the moral and material forces
of the nation to meet an emergency of his own creation.

Opposition to war generally and therefore opposition to an army and navy
were sound cardinal principles in the Jeffersonian school of politics.
Mr. Madison was curiously blind to the logical consequences of this
doctrine; he could not see, or he would not consider, that, when war
seemed advisable to an administration, the result must depend mainly
upon the success of the appeal to the people for their countenance and
help. But he unwisely sought to raise and employ an army for the
invasion and conquest of the territory of the enemy in spite of the
opposition of a large proportion of the wealthiest and most intelligent
people in the country; while at the same time he refused to see any
promise or any presage in a naval warfare which had opened with
unexpected brilliancy, and would, had it been followed up, have been
sure of popular support. His title to fame rests, with the multitude,
upon the fact that h