aited for the passing of the Vice President. DeWitt Clinton,
whatever his defects of character and however lacking he may have been
in an exalted sense of political principle, appears to have been
sincere in his anxiety to elevate his uncle to the presidential chair.
During Jefferson's administration his efforts seem never to have been
intermitted, and only when the infirmities of advanced age admonished
him that George Clinton's life and career were nearly at an end, did
his mind and heart, acquiescing in the appropriation of his relative's
mantle, seize the first opportunity of satisfying his unbounded
ambition.

The opening presented in the spring of 1812 was not an unattractive
one. A new party, controlled by a remarkable coterie of brilliant
young men from the South, whose shibboleth was war with England, had
sprung up in Congress, and, by sheer force of will and intellect, had
dragged to the support of its policies the larger part of the
Republican majority.[164] President Madison was thoroughly in
sympathy with these members. He thought war should be declared before
Congress adjourned, and, to hasten its coming, he had recommended an
embargo for sixty days. "For my own part," he wrote Jefferson, "I look
upon a short embargo as a step to immediate war, and I wait only for
the Senate to make the declaration."[165] This did not sound like a
peace voice; yet the anti-English party felt little cordiality for
him. His abilities, as the event amply proved, were not those likely
to wage a successful war. He was regarded as a timid man, incapable of
a burst of passion or a bold act. In place of resolute opinion he
courted argument; with an inclination to be peevish and fretful, he
was at times arrogantly pertinacious. Although his health, moreover,
was delicate and he looked worn and feeble, he exhibited no
consciousness of needing support, declining to reconstruct his Cabinet
that abler men might lend the assistance his own lack of energy
demanded. As time went on Republicans would gladly have exchanged him
for a stronger leader, one better fitted by character and temperament
to select the men and find a way for a speedy victory. It was no less
plain that the conservatives thoroughly disliked him, and if they
could have wrought a change without disrupting the party, it would
have suited their spirit and temper to have openly opposed his
renomination.

[Footnote 164: Of ninety-eight senators and representatives who vote