Madison cabinet

The presidency of James Madison began on March 4, 1809, when James Madison was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1817. Madison, the fourth United States president, took office after defeating Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney decisively in the 1808 presidential election. He was re-elected four years later, defeating DeWitt Clinton in the 1812 election. His presidency was dominated by the War of 1812 with Britain. Madison was succeeded by Secretary of State James Monroe, a fellow member of the Democratic-Republican Party.

Madison's presidency was dominated by the effects of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars. Initially, American merchants had benefited from the war in Europe since it allowed them to increase their shipping activities, but both the British and French began attacking American ships in an attempt to cut off trade. In response to persistent British attacks on American shipping and the British practice of impressment, the United States declared war on Britain, beginning the War of 1812. The war was an administrative morass, as the United States had neither a strong army nor financial system, and the United States failed to conquer Canada. In 1814, the British entered Washington and set fire to the White House and the Capitol. However, the United States won several notable naval victories and crushed the resistance of British-allied Native Americans in the West. Shortly after the American triumph at the Battle of New Orleans, the war ended with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, in which neither party made major concessions. Despite the lack of gains in the war, the timing of the treaty convinced many Americans that the United States had won a great victory in the war, and Madison's popularity grew. The Federalists collapsed as a national party in the aftermath of the war, which they had strongly opposed.

Madison entered office intending to continue the limited government legacy of his Democratic-Republican predecessor, Thomas Jefferson. However, in the aftermath of the war, Madison favored higher tariffs, increased military spending, and the establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Despite opposition from strict constructionists like John Randolph, much of Madison's post-war agenda was enacted. Madison left office highly popular, and his chosen successor, James Monroe, was elected with little opposition. Though many historians are critical of Madison's presidency, he is generally ranked as an above average president in polls of historians and political scientists.

Election of 1808

With Thomas Jefferson's second term winding down, and Jefferson's decision to retire widely known, Madison emerged as the leading presidential contender in the Democratic-Republican Party in 1808. Madison's candidacy faced resistance from Congressman John Randolph, the leader of a Democratic-Republican group known as the Tertium Quids, which opposed many of Jefferson's policies. A separate group of Democratic-Republicans from New York favored nominating incumbent Vice President George Clinton for president. At the congressional nominating caucus, Madison defeated Clinton and the favored candidate of the Tertium Quid, James Monroe. As the opposition Federalist Party by this time had largely collapsed outside New England, Madison easily defeated its candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, in the general election.Rutland (1999), p. 5 Madison won 122 electoral votes to Pinckney's 47 votes, while Clinton received 6 electoral votes for president from his home state of New York. Clinton was also re-elected as vice president, easily defeating Federalist Rufus King for vice president.

The main issue of the election was the Embargo Act of 1807, a general embargo placed on all ships and vessels in U.S. ports and harbors. The banning of exports had hurt merchants and other commercial interests, although it encouraged domestic manufactures. These economic difficulties revived the Federalist opposition, especially in trade-dependent New England. This election was the first of only two instances in American history in which a new president would be elected but the incumbent vice president would continue in office.

Administration

Cabinet

Upon his inauguration in 1809, Madison immediately faced opposition to his planned nomination of Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin as Secretary of State. Madison chose not to fight Congress for the nomination but kept Gallatin, a carryover from the Jefferson administration, in the Treasury Department. The talented Swiss-born Gallatin was Madison's primary advisor, confidant, and policy planner.Rutland (1990), pp. 32–33. The other members of Madison's initial cabinet, selected more for geographical balance and partisan loyalty than for ability, were less helpful. Secretary of War William Eustis's only military experience had been as a surgeon during the American Revolutionary War, while Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton was an alcoholic. Madison appointed Secretary of State Robert Smith only at the behest of Smith's brother, the powerful Senator Samuel Smith; Madison had no affection for either brother. Vice President Clinton also actively worked to undermine Madison's presidency. With a cabinet full of those he distrusted, Madison rarely called cabinet meetings and instead frequently consulted with Gallatin alone.

After feuding with Gallatin, Smith was dismissed in 1811 in favor of James Monroe, and Monroe became a major influence in the Madison administration. Madison appointed several new cabinet members after winning re-election. Hamilton was finally replaced by William Jones, while John Armstrong Jr. replaced Eustis, much to the dismay of Monroe, who hated Armstrong. During the War of 1812, Gallatin was sent as a peace envoy to Europe and was successively replaced as Treasury Secretary by Jones (on an interim basis), George W. Campbell, and finally Alexander Dallas. A frustrated Madison dismissed Armstrong after several failures, replacing him with Monroe. Richard Rush, Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, and Dallas also joined the cabinet in 1814, and for the first time Madison had an effective and harmonious cabinet.

Vice Presidents

Two persons served as vice president under Madison. George Clinton served from March 4, 1809 until his death on April 20, 1812. Clinton was the first vice president to die in office. As no constitutional provision existed for filling an intra-term vacancy in the vice presidency prior to ratification of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967, the office was left vacant. After the Democratic-Republican ticket's victory in the 1812 presidential election, Elbridge Gerry took office on March 4, 1813. He served until his death on November 23, 1814; the vice presidency remained vacant for the remainder of Madison's second term. Madison is the only president to have had two vice presidents die while in office.

Ambassadorial appointments

Madison appointed William Pinkney, who had been co-minister with James Monroe for the preceding two years, ambassador to Great Britain. Pinkney came home in 1811. Madison replaced him with Jonathan Russell, who served until the outbreak of war in 1812. Upon resumption of the peace John Quincy Adams took over this post, having relinquished the office of ambassador to Russia. Madison appointed James A. Bayard to replace Adams in Russia, but he refused the post. It remained vacant until the following administration. For France, Madison left Jefferson's appointee John Armstrong in office until 1810. Madison replaced him with the poet Joel Barlow, who died of pneumonia near the front in Poland. Madison replaced him with William H. Crawford until 1814 and then former Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin. For Spain Madison kept Chargé d'Affaires George W. Erving, a holdover from the Jefferson administration, raising the post to Minister Plenipotentiary in 1814. For Portugal, Madison appointed Thomas Sumter Jr.

Judicial appointments

Madison had the opportunity to fill two vacancies on the Supreme Court during his presidency. The first came late in 1810, following the death of Associate Justice William Cushing. As Supreme Court justices of the time had to ride circuit, Madison had to find a replacement for Cushing who lived in Massachusetts from New England, but there were few qualified potential nominees who were compatible ideologically and politically. At Jefferson's recommendation, Madison first offered the position to former Attorney General Levi Lincoln Sr., but he declined due to ailing health. Madison then nominated Alexander Wolcott, an undisguised partisan of the Democratic-Republicans, but Wolcott was rejected by the Senate. The next nominee was John Quincy Adams, then serving as the ambassador to Russia, but Adams declined as he hoped to one day run for president. Finally, over the objections of Jefferson, Madison offered the position to Joseph Story, a young Democratic-Republican lawyer who had voted against the embargo during his one term in the House. Story was quickly confirmed by the Senate, and would serve until 1845. Another vacancy arose in 1811, following the death of Associate Justice Samuel Chase. Madison nominated Gabriel Duvall to fill the vacancy on November 15, 1811. Duvall was confirmed by the Senate on November 18, 1811, and received commission the same day. Though Jefferson and Madison had hoped to weaken Chief Justice John Marshall's influence on the Marshall Court, neither of Madison's appointments altered the Federalist ideological leanings of the court.

Madison appointed eleven other federal judges, two to the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, and nine to the various United States district courts. One of those judges was appointed twice, to different seats on the same court.

Pre-war economic policies

Madison sought to continue Jefferson's agenda, and in his inaugural address he called for low taxes and a reduction of the national debt. One of the most pressing issues Madison confronted upon taking office was the future of the First Bank of the United States, as the bank's twenty-year charter was scheduled to expire in 1811. A second major issue was the economy, which had entered a slump late in Jefferson's second term. Gallatin favored renewing the bank's charter since it served as an important source of capital and a safe place to deposit government funds, especially in tough economic times. However, most Democratic-Republicans hated the bank, which they saw as a corrupt tool of city-based elites. Madison did not take a strong stand on the issue, and Congress allowed the national bank's charter to lapse. Over the next five years, the number of state-chartered banks more than tripled. Many of these banks issued their own banknotes, and those banknotes became an important part of the U.S. monetary system, as the federal government itself did not issue banknotes at that time.

West Florida

The acquisition of West Florida from Spain had been one of President Jefferson's major goals. Jefferson and James Monroe, who had negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, contended that the purchase had included West Florida, and Madison continued to uphold this claim. Spanish control of its New World colonies had weakened due to the ongoing Peninsular War, and Spain exercised little effective control over West Florida and East Florida. Madison was especially concerned about the possibility of the British taking control of the region, which, along with Canada, would give the British Empire control of territories on the northern and southern borders of the United States. However, the United States was reluctant to go to war for the territory when France or Great Britain might intervene.

Madison sent William Wykoff into West Florida in the hopes of convincing the settlers of the region to request annexation by the United States. Partly due to Wykoff's prodding, the people of West Florida held the St. Johns Plains Convention in July 1810. Most of those who were elected to the convention had been born in the United States, and they largely favored independence from Spain, but they feared that declaring independence would provoke a Spanish military response. In September 1810, after learning that the Spanish governor of West Florida had requested military assistance from Spain, a militia made up of West Floridians and led by Philemon Thomas captured the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge. The leaders of the St. Johns Plains Convention declared the establishment of the Republic of West Florida and requested that Madison send troops to prevent a Spanish reprisal. Acting on his own initiative, the governor of Mississippi Territory, David Holmes, ordered U.S. Army soldiers into West Florida. In what became known as the October Proclamation, Madison announced that the United States had taken control of the Republic of West Florida, assigning it to the Territory of Orleans. Spain retained control of the portion of West Florida east of the Perdido River. Madison also employed George Mathews to stir up a rebellion against Spain in East Florida and the remaining Spanish portions of West Florida, but this effort proved unsuccessful. Spain would later recognize U.S. control of West Florida in the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty, in which Spain also ceded control of East Florida.

Wilkinson affair

General James Wilkinson had been appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory by Jefferson in 1805. In 1809, Madison placed Wilkinson in charge of Terre aux Boeufs on the Louisiana coast to protect the U.S. from invasion. Wilkinson proved to be an incompetent general; many soldiers complained that he was ineffectual: their tents were defective, and they became sick by malaria, dysentery, and scurvy; dozens died daily. Wilkinson made excuses and a long Congressional investigation was inconclusive. Madison retained Wilkinson because of his political influence in Pennsylvania. After Wilkinson's two battle defeats by the British, Madison finally relieved him from active duty in 1812. Historian Robert Allen Rutland states the Wilkinson affair left "scars on the War Department" and "left Madison surrounded by senior military incompetents ..." at the beginning of the War of 1812.

War of 1812

Prelude to war

The French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars had engulfed Europe since the early 1790s. Napoleon had won a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, and as a consequence Europe remained mostly at peace for the next few years, but tensions continued on the high seas, where the United States had long traded with both France and Britain. The United States benefited from these wars for much of the period prior to 1807, as American shipping expanded and Napoleon sold Louisiana Territory to the United States. In 1807, the British announced the Orders in Council, which called for a blockade on the French Empire. The French announced a policy that allowed for attacks on any American ships that visited British ports, but this policy had relatively little effect as Britain had established naval dominance at the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. In response to subsequent British and French attacks on American shipping, the Jefferson administration had passed the Embargo Act of 1807, which cut off trade with Europe. Congress repealed this act shortly before Madison became president.Rutland (1990), p. 13 In early 1809, Congress passed the Non-Intercourse Act, which opened trade with foreign powers other than France and Britain. Aside from U.S. trade with France, the central dispute between Great Britain and the United States was the impressment of sailors by the British. During the long and expensive war against France, many British citizens were forced by their own government to join the navy, and many of these conscripts defected to U.S. merchant ships. Unable to tolerate this loss of manpower, the British seized several U.S. ships and forced captured crewmen, some of whom were not in fact not British subjects, to serve in the British navy. Though Americans were outraged by this impressment, they also refused to take steps to limit it, such as refusing to hire British subjects. For economic reasons, American merchants preferred impressment to giving up their right to hire British sailors.

Although initially promising, President Madison's diplomatic efforts to get the British to withdraw the Orders in Council were rejected by British Foreign Secretary George Canning in April 1809. In August 1809, diplomatic relations with Britain deteriorated as minister David Erskine was withdrawn and replaced by "hatchet man" Francis James Jackson.Rutland (1990), pp. 40–44. Madison resisted calls for war, as he was ideologically opposed to the debt and taxes necessary for a war effort. British historian Paul Langford sees the removal in 1809 of Erskine as a major British blunder:

The British ambassador in Washington rskinebrought affairs almost to an accommodation, and was ultimately disappointed not by American intransigence but by one of the outstanding diplomatic blunders made by a Foreign Secretary. It was Canning who, in his most irresponsible manner and apparently out of sheer dislike of everything American, recalled the ambassador Erskine and wrecked the negotiations, a piece of most gratuitous folly. As a result, the possibility of a new embarrassment for Napoleon turned into the certainty of a much more serious one for his enemy. Though the British cabinet eventually made the necessary concessions on the score of the Orders-in-Council, in response to the pressures of industrial lobbying at home, its action came too late…. The loss of the North American markets could have been a decisive blow. As it was by the time the United States declared war, the Continental System f Napoleonwas beginning to crack, and the danger correspondingly diminishing. Even so, the war, inconclusive though it proved in a military sense, was an irksome and expensive embarrassment which British statesman could have done much more to avert.

After Jackson accused Madison of duplicity with Erskine, Madison had Jackson barred from the State Department and sent packing to Boston.Rutland (1990), pp. 44–45. In early 1810, Madison began asking Congress for more appropriations to increase the army and navy in preparation for war with Britain.Rutland (1990), pp. 46–47 Congress also passed an act known as Macon's Bill Number 2, which reopened trade with France and Britain, but promised to reimpose the embargo on one country if the other country agreed to end its attacks on American shipping. Madison, who wished to simply continue the embargo, opposed the law, but he jumped at the chance to use the law's provision enabling a re-imposition of the embargo on one power. Seeking to split the Americans and British, Napoleon offered to end French attacks on American shipping so long as the United States punished any countries that did not similarly end restrictions on trade. Madison accepted Napoleon's proposal in the hope that it would convince the British to revoke the Orders-in-Council, but the British refused to change their policies. Despite assurances to the contrary, the French also continued to attack American shipping.

As the attacks on American shipping continued, both Madison and the broader American public were ready for war with Britain. Some observers believed that the United States might fight a three-way war with both Britain and France, but Democratic-Republicans, including Madison, considered Britain to be far more culpable for the attacks. Many Americans called for a "second war of independence" to restore honor and stature to the new nation, and an angry public elected a "war hawk" Congress, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. With Britain in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, many Americans, Madison included, believed that the United States could easily capture Canada, at which point the U.S. could use Canada as a bargaining chip for all other disputes or simply retain control of it.. On June 1, 1812, Madison asked Congress for a declaration of war. The declaration was passed along sectional and party lines, with intense opposition from the Federalists and the Northeast, where the economy had suffered during Jefferson's trade embargo.Rutland, ''James Madison: The Founding Father'', pp. 217–24

Madison hurriedly called on Congress to put the country "into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis," specifically recommending enlarging the army, preparing the militia, finishing the military academy, stockpiling munitions, and expanding the navy. Madison faced formidable obstacles—a divided cabinet, a factious party, a recalcitrant Congress, obstructionist governors, and incompetent generals, together with militia who refused to fight outside their states. The most serious problem facing the war effort was lack of unified popular support. There were serious threats of disunion from New England, which engaged in extensive smuggling with Canada and refused to provide financial support or soldiers.Stagg, 1983. Events in Europe also went against the United States. Shortly after the United States declared war, Napoleon launched an invasion of Russia, and the failure of that campaign turned the tide against French and towards Britain and her allies. In the years prior to the war, Jefferson and Madison had reduced the size of the military, closed the Bank of the U.S., and lowered taxes. These decisions added to the challenges facing the United States, as by the time the war began, Madison's military force consisted mostly of poorly trained militia members.

Military action

Madison hoped that the war would end in a couple months after the capture of Canada, but his hopes were quickly dashed. Madison had believed the state militias would rally to the flag and invade Canada, but the governors in the Northeast failed to cooperate. Their militias either sat out the war or refused to leave their respective states for action. The senior command at the War Department and in the field proved incompetent or cowardly—the general at Detroit surrendered to a smaller British force without firing a shot. Gallatin discovered the war was almost impossible to fund, since the national bank had been closed, major financiers in the New England refused to help, and government revenue depended largely on tariffs. Though the Democratic-Republican Congress was willing to go against party principle to authorize an expanded military, they refused to levy direct taxes until June 1813. Lacking adequate revenue, and with its request for loans refused by New England bankers, the Madison administration relied heavily on high-interest loans furnished by bankers based in New York City and Philadelphia. The American campaign in Canada, led by Henry Dearborn, ended with defeat at the Battle of Stoney Creek. Meanwhile, the British armed American Indians, most notably several tribes allied with the Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, in an attempt to threaten American positions in the Northwest.Rutland (1990), pp. 133–134

After the disastrous start to the War of 1812, Madison accepted a Russian invitation to arbitrate the war and sent Gallatin, John Quincy Adams, and James Bayard to Europe in hopes of quickly ending the war. While Madison worked to end the war, the U.S. experienced some military success, particularly at sea. The United States had built up one of the largest merchant fleets in the world, though it had been partially dismantled under Jefferson and Madison. Madison authorized many of these ships to become privateers in the war, and they captured 1,800 British ships. As part of the war effort, an American naval shipyard was built up at Sackets Harbor, New York, where thousands of men produced twelve warships and had another nearly ready by the end of the war. The U.S. naval squadron on Lake Erie successfully defended itself and captured its opponents, crippling the supply and reinforcement of British military forces in the western theater of the war. In the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie, General William Henry Harrison defeated the forces of the British and of Tecumseh's Confederacy at the Battle of the Thames. The death of Tecumseh in that battle represented the permanent end of armed Native American resistance in the Old Northwest. In March 1814, General Andrew Jackson broke the resistance of the British-allied Muscogee

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