Mr. Jefferson pursued his policy of peace till it brought the nation to the borders of internal war.

An embargo of fourteen months' duration was at last reluctantly abandoned by him, when it had ceased to be obeyed by the people, and State courts were ready to pronounce it unconstitutional. A non-intercourse was then substituted in its place, and the helm of State passed from the hands of Mr. Jefferson to those of Mr. Madison, precisely at the moment of this perturbation of earth and sea threatened with war from abroad and at home, but with the principle definitely settled that in our intercourse with foreign nations, reason, justice and commercial restrictions require live oak hearts and iron or brazen mouths to speak, that they may be distinctly heard, or attentively listened to, by the distant ear of foreigners, whether French or British, monarchical or republican.

The administration of Mr. Madison was, with regard to its most essential principles, a continuation of that of Mr. Jefferson. He, too, was the friend of peace, and earnestly desirous of maintaining it. As a last resource for the preservation of it, an act of Congress prohibited all commercial intercourse with both belligerents, the prohibition to be withdrawn from either or both in the event of a repeal by either of the orders and decrees in violation of neutral rights. France ungraciously and equivocally withdrew hers. Britain refused, hesitated, and at last conditionally Withdrew hers when it was too late after a formal declaration of war had been issued by Congress at the recommendation of President Madison himself.

Of the necessity, the policy or even the justice of this war, there were conflicting opinions, not yet, perhaps never to be, harmonized. This is not the time or the place to discuss them. The passions, the prejudices and the partialities of that day have passed away. That it was emphatically a popular war, having reference to the whole people of the United States, will, I think, not be denied. That it was in a high degree unpopular in our own section of the Union, is no doubt equally true; and that it was so, constituted the greatest difficulties and prepared the most mortifying disasters in its prosecution.

Party spirit and party feeling ran high throughout the Union, and the declaration of war was very differently received in different sections of the Union. In the city of Boston, in full view of the old Temple of Liberty, the flags of the shipping were hoisted at half-mast, in token of mourning; while at Baltimore, a Federal editor was mobbed, his office in great part demolished, one of his friends killed, and he, with others, including Henry Lee, a distinguished officer of the Revolution, but a most bitter and vindictive Federal partisan, seriously injured, for having the hardihood to utter his sentiments through the columns of his paper.

In the eastern States the opposition to the war was marked and virulent. Every one who dared to speak in defense of the administration was denounced in the most unmeasured terms, and curses and anathemas were liberally hurled from the pulpit on the heads of all those who aided, directly or indirectly, in carrying on the war. In the middle and southern States, public opinion was divided, though a large majority approved the measures adopted by Congress. But in the West there was only one sentiment: love of country sparkled in every eye, and animated every heart. The importing merchants, the lawyers in the principal cities, some planters, and the clergy for the most part, were numbered in the ranks of the opposition; and the war found its most ardent and enthusiastic advocates among the farmers and the planters, the mechanics, the mariners, and the laboring men.

The war itself was an ordeal through which the Constitution of the United States, as the government of a great nation, was to pass. Its trial in that respect was short but severe. In the intention of its founders, and particularly of Mr. Madison, it was a Constitution essentially pacific in its character, and for a nation, above all others, the lover of peace yet its great and most vigorous energies, and all its most formidable powers, are reserved for the state of war and war is the condition in which the functions allotted to the separate States sink into impotence compared with those of the general government.

The war was brought to a close without any definitive adjustment of the controverted principles in which it had originated. It left the questions of neutral commerce with an enemy and his colonies, of bottom and cargo, of blockade and contraband of war, and even of impressment, precisely as they had been before the war. With the European war all the conflicts between belligerent and neutral rights had ceased. Great Britain, triumphant as she was after a struggle of more than twenty years' duration against revolutionary, republican and imperial France, was in no temper to yield the principles for which in the heat of her contest she had defied the power of neutrality and the voice of justice. As little were the Government or people of the United States disposed to yield principles in the defense of the rights of neutrality, and of conceding too much to the lawless pretensions of naval war.

The extreme solicitude of the American government for the perpetuity of peace, especially with Great Britain, induced Mr. Madison to institute with her negotiations after the peace of Ghent, for the adjustment of all these questions of maritime collisions between the warlike and the pacific nation.