ames Madison.
From a painting by Gilbert Stuart--property of T. Jefferson Coolidge.

Bad was changed to worse with the progress of the new and more desperate
war between Great Britain and Napoleon. The Emperor shut the
North-German ports to Britain; Britain declared Prussian and all West
European harbors in a state of blockade. The Emperor's Berlin decree,
November, 1806, paper-blockaded the British Isles; his Milan decree,
December, 1807, declared forfeited all vessels, wherever found,
proceeding to or from any British port, or having submitted to British
search or tribute. In fine, Britain would treat as illicit all commerce
with the continent, France all with Britain. But while Napoleon, in
fact, though not avowedly, more and more receded from his position,
England maintained hers with iron tenacity.

[1810]

Sincere as was our Government's desire to maintain strict neutrality in
the European conflict, it naturally found difficulty in making England
so believe. Their opponents at home ceaselessly charged Jefferson,
Madison, and all the Republicans with partiality to France, so that
Canning and Castlereagh were misled; and they were confirmed in their
suspicion by Napoleon's crafty assumption that our embargo or
non-intercourse policy was meant to act, as it confessedly did,
favorably to France. Napoleon's confiscation of our vessels, at one time
sweeping, he advertised as a friendly proceeding in aid of our embargo.
Yet all this did not, as Castlereagh captiously pretended, prove our
neutrality to be other than strict and honest. At this time it certainly
was both. So villainously had Napoleon treated us that all Americans now
hated him as heartily as did any people in England.

[1812]

The non-intercourse mode of hostility, a boomerang at best, had played
itself out before Jefferson's retirement; and since George's ministry
showed no signs whatever of a changed temper, guiltily ill-prepared as
we were, no honorable or safe course lay before us but to fight Great
Britain. Clay, Calhoun, Quincy Adams, and Monroe--the last the soul of
the war--deserved the credit of seeing this first and clearest, and of
the most sturdy and consistent action accordingly. Their spirit proved
infectious, and the Republicans swiftly became a war party.

Most of the "war-hawks," as they were derisively styled, were from the
South and the southern Middle States. Fearing that, if it were a naval
war, glory would redound to New Engla