James Madison

Birth-Death: (1751 - 1836 ) Term: (1809-1817 )

Most of the attention during the presidency of James Madison was focused on the war. However, since many of the Federalists did not support the military conflict, they seriously considered seceding from the United States. If it wasn't for the quick victory and the Treaty of Ghent, the United States would have been forever divided.

Domestic Events of James Madison

    At the end of Jefferson's term the country found itself separated between party lines. The Federalist northeast was fed up with the Democratic-Republican president, and the embargoes he had levied. At the same time, the Democratic south supported the new Democratic candidate. In the election that followed, Madison defeated Charles C. Pinckney by a 122 to 47 margin. As expected, Madison received strong support from the South and the West, but carried only one state in the Northeast, Vermont, a state without a seacoast.

    When Madison delivered his speech promoting the declaration of war on Great Britain, he received strong support not from the Northeastern people, whose friends and relatives were being impressed into the British navy, but rather from the heart of the country, the states of Kentucky and Tennessee. Obviously there was a hidden objective to the war. One reason it was declared was to expand the boundaries of the United States into Canada.

    The Federalists objected to this move, and arranged the Hartford Convention in 1812. There they vowed to stop the Democratic-Republican dynasty and secede from the Union if they had to. Their list of grievances was delivered to Washington on the same say as news about Jackson's victory at New Orleans and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The Federalists were seen as traitors, as anti-nationalists, and this, together with the political rivalry inside led to the destruction of the Federalist Party by 1820, when James Monroe ran unopposed for presidency of the United States.