America's Greatest 19th Century Presidents (12 page)

Secretary of State Madison

When Jefferson assumed the Presidency in 1801, he chose his long-time ally to be Secretary of State.  James Madison became Secretary shortly after Jefferson's swearing in, and unlike many Secretaries of State who followed him, he remained in the position for the president’s second term.

Upon his own swearing in, Madison was confronted with a landmark lawsuit which came to bear his name:
Marbury v. Madison
.  Before Jefferson took office, Adams and Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which modified the Judiciary Act of 1789 to allow Adams to name several additional judges to lower courts while reducing the number of Supreme Court justices. Before vacating the White House, President Adams then appointed numerous judges to inferior courts.  Because he did so in the last hours of his Presidency, these judges came to be known as “Midnight Justices.” 

The moves infuriated the Democratic-Republicans, and Jefferson thought they were unconstitutionally appointed, so he directed Madison not to deliver their commissions. When Madison did not deliver his commission, Marbury sued the government asking the Court to compel Madison to deliver it.  However, the Court found the original Judiciary Act of 1789 itself was unconstitutional, meaning that even if Madison should have delivered the commission, Marbury had no right of redress to begin with. The case, now widely considered the most important in the history of American jurisprudence, established the doctrine of judicial review, which allowed the Supreme Court to determine the constitutionality of all laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.

With the Napoleonic Wars raging in Europe, much of Madison's diplomatic achievements were focused on maintaining American neutrality amid the conflicts.  Trying to take advantage of the situation, Madison played a critical part in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase from France.  Acquiring the territory more than doubled the land area of the United States of America.  It also enabled the Louis and Clark Expedition and exploration in the West.

A more controversial piece of Madison and Jefferson's foreign policy came in the final years of Jefferson's presidency.  In 1807, Congress enacted a general embargo against both France and Great Britain as well as all of Europe, ending all trade between the United States and those nations.  The purpose was to compel the European powers to respect American neutrality, but the country, which was still in fledgling status compared to the European superpowers, bit off more than it could chew. The embargo had little effect on France and Britain, while the American economy collapsed and fell into its first depression.  It was an enormously unpopular move among the American public, and it threatened Madison's hopes of winning the White House in 1808.

Chapter 5 – Presidency, 1808-1816

The Election of 1808

Madison began his quest for the Presidency right in the middle of the controversy surrounding the Embargo Act.  It’s possible that the unpopularity of the embargo could have sunk the Democratic-Republican's chances of maintaing a hold on the federal government, but the Federalist Party had completely collapsed after the Adams presidency and Hamilton’s death in 1804.

Madison’s stiffest competition would come from within his own party. In running for his party's nomination, Madison had to compete against James Monroe, who he had defeated earlier in his bid for Congress. Monroe was running for the Presidency on the strength of the support of Representative John Randolph, one of Jefferson's personal enemies.  Randolph thought Madison was too closely allied with Jefferson and hoped to bring new leadership to the Democratic-Republican Party.

The threat from Monroe eventually proved minimal.  After all, Madison and Jefferson had together founded the Democratic-Republican Party, and it seemed absurd to deny the presidential nomination to one of its founders.  Madison easily won the nomination over Monroe, and prepared to face his Federalist opponent, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. In addition to being a delegate at the Constitutional Convention, Pinckney was a veteran of Presidential contests, having run in 1804 against Thomas Jefferson.  In 1808, Pinckney improved his performance over 1804, but not nearly enough to secure the Presidency: Madison won 122 electoral votes to Pinckney's 47.  Madison and Jefferson were disturbed, however, both by Pinckney's improved performance and Madison's loss of almost all of New England.  Opposition to the Embargo Act was the clear reason for New England's distaste for James Madison.

Dealing with the Embargo Act and Neutrality

Madison's election made it very clear that the American people were dissatisfied with the Embargo Act.  Three days before leaving the White House, Jefferson had repealed the act, so  Madison was left to decide how to better convince Europe that the United States demanded neutrality.

When he moved into the White House, Madison's Democratic-Republican Party had grown to take in some former Federalists, who sensed their own party was in its death throes.  Federalists had been staunchly pro-Britain, however, and this complicated Madison's ability to deal with neutrality amid the Napoleonic wars going on in Europe.

Initially, Madison formed a compromise in Congress.  Rather than ban all trade with Europe, as Jefferson's Embargo Act had done, Madison signed the Nonintercourse Act of 1809, which banned trade only with France and Great Britain.  Yet again, this did not significantly improve the American economy because France and Great Britain were the largest powers in Europe and accounted for the majority of U.S. trade. Continuing a policy of closed trade hurt the American economy. 

A year later, in 1810, Macon's Bill #2 passed through Congress and Madison signed it.    Unlike the previous bills, which aimed for neutrality, Macon’s Bill allowed Britain and France to choose whether they would be American allies.  Macon's Bill stated that if either France or Great Britain formally agreed to stop seizing American ships and impressing sailors, the U.S. would enforce a trade embargo on the other nation.  In February 1811, Napoleon agreed to stop impressing American ships and met the terms of Macon's Bill.  With that, the U.S. again embargoed trade against Great Britain, as the bill supposed.

Policies Concerning Native Americans

Madison’s presidency is best remembered for the War of 1812, but the first fighting duringhis presidency was not war with Britain.  Instead, war with the Native Americans was the first crisis Madison tackled in the White House. Initially, Madison maintained amicable relationships with the various Native American tribes, even meeting with chiefs.  Much like Jefferson, Madison believed the Indians should be gradually converted to agriculture and give up their hunter-gatherer lifestyles.  Both Jefferson and Madison were reluctant to militarily force Native Americans off their land, and they held hopes that white settlers and natives could live side by side.

This peaceful outlook and hope for gradual assimilation changed abruptly in 1811.  Around that time, the Shawnee Indians, as well as many others from the Southeast, began to long for a return to their ancestral ways.  They hoped to forgo assimilation and to restore control over their territory.

Hostility between the Native Americans and white settlers on the Western frontier quickly erupted.  Led by the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, a group of Shawnee Indians began raiding the Indiana territory.  In response, Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison raised a militia and opted to wage war on Tecumseh.  His hopes were to eliminate all Native Americans from the Indiana territory, open it to white settlement, and allow Indiana to qualify for statehood.

A 19
^th
century depiction of Tecumseh

On November 7
^th
, 1811, Harrison achieved the victory he wanted.  At the Battle of Tippecanoe, General Harrison crushed the Shawnee forces and ensured that Indiana was firmly held by the United States, with no Indian settlement.  Harrison became a national war hero because of the victory and would subsequently use the Battle of Tippecanoe in his 1840 campaign for the Presidency in one of the most famous political slogans in American history: “Tippecanoe and Tyler too”. 

One result of the Shawnee Wars, however, was less positive for the United States.  Many suspected that the Native American uprisings in the West were prompted by British support, and during negotiations with Tecumseh, the Shawnee Chief reportedly told General Harrison of an alliance with the British.

Deciding to Declare War on Britain

With talk of an alliance between Native Americans and the British on the Western Frontier, many members of Congress began to loudly call for war.  In the midterm elections of 1810, a group of Congressmen committed to war with Britain had been elected.  Led by Speaker Henry Clay, the group became known as the “War Hawks.”  With the knowledge gained from the Shawnee Wars, the War Hawks only began to call for war more loudly.

President Madison was under enormous pressure, and he was personally wavering on what to do.  He supported the advice of President Washington and hoped to maintain neutrality.  On the other hand, the British had continued to disrespect American neutrality, and were also threatening the nation's sovereignty and security in the West.  Being unsure himself, Madison sent a message to Congress asking them to come up with a plan.

Even Congress was indecisive.  They came up with a course of action, but it was not a broadly popular one.  By a vote of 79 to 49 in the House, and 19 to 13 in the Senate, Congress offered President Madison a Declaration of War against Great Britain.  The effort for war was led by Henry Clay and his largely Southern and Western War Hawk allies.  In New England, the War of 1812 was enormously unpopular; the region had even continued some illegal trade with Great Britain despite the federal embargo.  All 39 of the Federalists in Congress voted against war.  It was a shaky start to the nation's first major military conflict. Regardless, President Madison accepted Congress' declaration on June 18
^th
, 1812, starting the War of 1812.

The Declaration of War came very close to Madison's reelection in November.  While Madison was reelected, he won by a much smaller margin than he had in 1808.  Compared to 1808, Madison lost New England by an even wider margin, and he also lost New York and New Jersey.  The admission of Louisiana to the Union in his first term and increases in the electoral strength of the South, gave Madison a comfortable margin of victory in the Electoral College: 128 to DeWitt Clinton's 89.  In the popular vote, however, Madison only won 50.4%.

The War of 1812

Much as the declaration of war came with a shaky resolve, the military effort itself was equally uncertain.  When the nation declared war, it had no large standing army; since the days when Washington disbanded the Continental Army after the Revolution, American culture had largely disfavored standing armies, especially the Democratic-Republicans.  In 1812, the U.S. only had 12,000 troops, scattered around the huge North American continent, meaning the country relied primarily on local militia forces to organize for defense. And while the Navy was the country’s strongest force, it was clearly no match for the powerful Royal Navy, which had dominated naval warfare for centuries.

Despite these handicaps, the U.S. planned a three-pronged attack on British-held Canada: an attack on Montreal, another across the Niagara frontier to Toronto and a third into upper Canada through present-day Michigan. As fate would have it, these attacks didn't just fail spectacularly; they nearly sacrificed the very independence of the United States.  In the summer of 1812, instead of invading Canada through Michigan, Commander William Hull surrendered the city of Detroit,
without firing a single shot.
  It was a disaster.

Matters only worsened.  New York's militia, led by Stephen Van Rensselaer, led a force of nearly 3,000 men over the Niagara River into Canada.  While they managed to get into Canada, they were quickly sieged against the river, unable to withdraw, and were forced to surrender.  Finally, in November of 1812, Major General Henry Dearborn, having gotten news of the failures in Detroit and Niagara, refused to invade Montreal at all, sensing it too would be a disaster.

That wasn't the end of the Americans' failed War of 1812, however.  Matters got
much
worse, bringing the war right to Madison's front door, literally. By the fall of 1812 and throughout 1813, the British Navy became heavily involved with the war.  While the U.S. thought it could do well on the high seas, this too proved grossly unrealistic.  The US was proud of its fleet of 14 seaworthy vessels until they were put up against a fleet of 1,048 British ships.  Despite this huge numerical disadvantage, the U.S. did manage to achieve some maritime victories, most famous among these was the success of the
USS Constitution
, since known fondly as “Old Ironside.”  Infrequent naval victories proved inconsequential, however; the British blockaded all American trade, bringing the U.S. economy to an unprecedented collapse.