JAMES MONROE.

236. Monroe's Administration (Fifth President; Two Terms, 1817-1825); Monroe a Soldier of the Revolution; his Inauguration. — Monroe,1 like Washington, got the best part of his education on the battle-field. When the Revolution broke out he was a student in the College of William and Mary,2 Virginia. Knowing that the country needed her young men to fight for her, he laid down his books and went to do his part in the cause of liberty; among the gallant officers who helped to gain the victory of Trenton James Monroe, then only eighteen, was one.

Mr. Monroe stood near the ruins of the Capitol at Washington when he took the oath of office, and delivered his inaugural address. The British had burned, but had not wholly destroyed that edifice, . and the foundations remained unharmed. Workmen were then busily engaged in rebuilding it. The President's address to the people was full of encouragement. It seemed to him that the solid foundations of the Capitol stood an image of the nation, and that, like them, the government was sure to continue to exist.

237. The President's Journey through the North; the "Era of Good Feeling."- Mr. Monroe spent the summer (1817) in travelling through New England and the Northern states. New England had been bitterly opposed to the war of 1812, because the stoppage of commerce had ruined many of her merchants and ship-builders. The President's journey in this part of the country did great good. He went as a peacemaker. All knew that he had fought under Washington; all respected the

1 James Monroe of Westmoreland County, Virginia (born 1758; died 1831), was elected President by the Republican or Democratic party (see page 191, note 4) by a very large majority over the Federalist candidate. Daniel D. Tompkins of New York was chosen Vice-President. On Monroe's second election, see page 221. 2 The College of William and Mary, near Williamsburg, Virginia, is the oldc:t college, except Harvard, in the United States, and at the outbreak of the Revolution it was the wealthiest.

8 See Paragraph 174.

4 See note 3, page 192.

5 See Paragraph 231. 6 The Capitol has since been greatly enlarged, and a new dome erected.

THE FIRST SEMINOLE WAR.

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man's unblemished character and honest purpose. When the New England people saw him dressed in the military costume of the Revolution, the sight brought back the old days that had 'tried men's souls.'1 In Boston and other cities the citizens brought out the shot-torn and smoke-stained battle-flags of '762 to decorate the streets. Gray-haired men, scarred with wounds received at Bunker Hill, at Trenton, at Saratoga, gathered to welcome the new President. When he spoke, it was of the inestimable worth of the Union, of the need that the North and the South had and always must have of each other. Men listened, and forgot their political differences and hatreds; party lines seemed to fade away. Every one declared that the "Era of Good Feeling" had begun. When Mr. Monroe was chosen President for the second time (1821) the people showed their respect for him and their confidence in him by their electoral vote, which lacked but a single one of being unanimous.

8

238. The First Seminole War; the Purchase of Florida. - Florida, which belonged to Spain, was a constant source of trouble to the people of the South. Pirates, robbers, desperadoes of all kinds, had got complete control of that territory. Many Seminoles, or wandering Indians,* had gone there from the country west of Georgia, and, uniting with runaway negroes from the South, they sallied out and attacked the Georgia planters, burning

1 No country ever made more generous provision for its old soldiers than the United States did (in Monroe's administration) for those who had fought in the Revolution. The government pensioned the veterans of the war, and their widows, spending in all about $65,000,000 in the noble work.

2 1776.

8 Out of 232 electoral votes cast by the twenty-four states then constituting the Union, Monroe received 231. The elector who cast the remaining vote (for John Quincy Adams) did it simply because he had vowed" that no later mortal should stand in Washington's shoes"- that is, receive, like Washington, every vote for the presidency.

4 Seminoles (wanderers). The name was given to the Indians of Florida by the Indians of Georgia and the Southwest. The second Seminole War began in 1835.

houses, murdering families, and carrying off property. Several attempts had been made (1817) to put a stop to these outrages ; but, as it was no easy matter to fight the Indians and negroes in the swamps and thickets of Florida, nothing satisfactory had been accomplished. Finally, General Jackson1 was sent (1818) to see what he could do. His measures were sharp and energetic; in three months he had conquered the country, though it still continued to belong to Spain.

The Spanish government found that these troubles were likely to break out again, and that the people of Georgia would never rest until they got possession of Florida; Spain therefore wisely decided to sell it to us. We obtained the entire territory, about sixty thousand square miles (1819), for five million dollars, thus adding another large area2 to the United States.3

239. The Question of the Western Extension of Slavery. -The year in which we purchased Florida the question came up, whether slavery should be permitted to establish itself beyond the Mississippi, in the northern part of the territory of Louisiana, then called Missouri. Congress had shut out slavery (1789) from the Northwest Territory; now the discussion began whether it should in like manner shut it out from that part of the country beyond the Mississippi, north of a line drawn west from near the point where the Ohio joins that river.

1 See Paragraph 230.

2 See Map, page 180.

5

8 When the United States made the treaty with Spain for the purchase of Florida (1819) we gave up to Spain all claim to the country west of the Sabine River (later known as Texas); and on the other hand, Spain agreed to make over to the United States all her title and claims to Oregon.

4 See Paragraph 215, and compare Map, page 204. Slaves were held in the southern part of that territory (in New Orleans and vicinity) when we purchased the territory from France; hence the state of Louisiana came in with slavery, in 1812.

5 That is, the territory north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, forming now the five states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. See Paragraph 195.

FEELING IN REGARD TO SLAVERY.

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Jefferson was afraid that this discussion would lead to trouble between the states. He said that the suddenness with which it arose terrified him "like a fire-bell in the night."

240. Change of Feeling in Regard to Slavery; Condition of Things at the North and at the South. The reason for this fear was that a great change had come over the country. Before, and even during, the Revolution, every colony held negroes in bondage. But in the North the slaves were chiefly houseservants, and their number was never very large. In the South, however, the planters raised all their crops by slave labor, and the number of negroes was constantly increasing. At first, few persons considered slavery an evil; but after a time many able men in both sections of the country came to believe it a bad thing for both the whites and the blacks.

In the North, this feeling gradually led to the passing of laws which gave the slaves their freedom. This was not the case at the South, because there the planters did not see how they could free their negroes without ruining themselves.

Later, as has been shown,1 the invention of the cotton-gin made. slave labor immensely profitable. The natural result was that the planters wished to keep the system up. At the same time, a good many Northern men who made money by manufacturing and dealing in cotton cloth became interested in maintaining slavery.

241. How Slavery divided the Country in regard to Trade with Europe. On the whole, the effect of the slave system was now to divide the nation, instead of uniting it. The people of the two sections not only thought differently about the right and the wrong of holding the negro in bondage, but their business interests had come to be different. The South devoted all its strength to raising cotton, rice, and tobacco. Whatever manufactured goods-such as cloth, shoes, hats—it needed, it had to buy; and as Europe could make such goods much cheaper

1 See Paragraph 205.

then than we possibly could, the South naturally wished for free trade, in order that it might import its supplies from the other side of the Atlantic.

The North, however, had gradually come to devote much of its labor and its money to making cloth and other goods; for this reason it was opposed to free trade in these articles. It wished to tax the importation of whatever it could manufacture to advantage, and so keep foreign goods high, and induce people to buy our own instead. Hence, while the South wanted liberty to send abroad for goods, the North believed that the country would thrive better if manufacturers were protected by government in making them here.

242. Why the North opposed the Extension of Slavery West of the Mississippi; why the South demanded it. — The great majority of the Northern people, believing slavery to be an evil, had therefore two chief reasons for opposing its establishment in the new territory west of the Mississippi: 1. They thought it would be a serious injury to that part of the country, and as great a mistake as for a farmer to take the thistles and weeds which grew on his old land and deliberately plant them on a field of freshly cleared soil. 2. They objected to it because, if the new territory should be admitted as slave states, the South would thereby gain such a great number of representatives in Congress that it would have a large majority. That section could then, by its votes, strengthen and extend slavery, and at the same time make laws giving it power to import all kinds of manufactured goods free.

The South, on the other hand, was firmly convinced that its prosperity depended on the extension of slave labor, and of free trade with Europe. The people there saw that the North was rapidly outstripping them in growth of population. If, then, the new territory should come in as free soil, the result would be that the North would soon get control of Congress, and so control of trade.