t, or Republican,--all equally disliked
Virginia; and this innate jealousy gave to the career of Martin Van
Buren for forty years a bias which perplexed his contemporaries, and
stood in singular contradiction to the soft and supple nature he
seemed in all else to show."--Henry Adams, _History of the United
States_, Vol. 6, pp. 409, 410.]

Van Buren's work not only encouraged several Federalists to vote for
Clinton electors, but it compelled the Madisonians not to vote at all.
It seemed easy, when a master hand guided the helm, to bring order out
of chaos. Upon joint ballot, the Clintonian electors received
seventy-four votes to the Federalists' forty-five; twenty-eight blanks
represented the Madison strength. Van Buren, however, could not
control in other States. If some one in Pennsylvania, of equal tact in
the management of men, could have supplemented his work, Clinton must
easily have won. But it is not often given a party, or an individual,
to have the assistance of two such men at the same time. After the
votes were counted, it appeared that Clinton had carried New
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Delaware, and had five votes in Maryland--eighty-nine in all.
The remaining one hundred and twenty-eight belonged to Madison.

In estimating the discontent excited by the declaration of war Clinton
had failed to foresee that there is something captivating to a
spirited people about the opening of a new war. He had also failed to
notice that military failures could not affect Madison's strength. The
surrender of Detroit, Dearborn's blunder in wasting time, and the
inefficiency of the secretary of war had raised a storm of public
wrath sufficient to annihilate Hull and to shake the earth under
Eustis; but it passed harmlessly over the head of the President. The
foreign policy of Jefferson and Madison, approved by the Republican
party, was on trial, and the defeat of the Administration meant a want
of confidence in the party itself. Here, then, was a contingency
against which Clinton had never thought of providing, and, as so often
happens, the one thing not taken into consideration, proved decisive
in the result.

CHAPTER XIX

QUARRELS AND RIVALRIES

1813

After Clinton's loss of the Presidency, it must have been clear to his
friends and enemies alike that his influence in the Republican party
was waning. A revolution in sentiment did not then sweep over the
State