frontier. Nevertheless, we are told, the people "passed
from gloom to glory" when the news of peace arrived. The bells were
rung; schools were closed; flags were displayed; and many a rousing
toast was drunk in tavern and private home. The rejoicing could
continue. With Napoleon definitely beaten at Waterloo in June, 1815,
Great Britain had no need to impress sailors, search ships, and
confiscate American goods bound to the Continent. Once more the terrible
sea power sank into the background and the ocean was again white with
the sails of merchantmen.

THE REPUBLICANS NATIONALIZED

=The Federalists Discredited.=--By a strange turn of fortune's wheel,
the party of Hamilton, Washington, Adams, the party of the grand nation,
became the party of provincialism and nullification. New England,
finding its shipping interests crippled in the European conflict and
then penalized by embargoes, opposed the declaration of war on Great
Britain, which meant the completion of the ruin already begun. In the
course of the struggle, the Federalist leaders came perilously near to
treason in their efforts to hamper the government of the United States;
and in their desperation they fell back upon the doctrine of
nullification so recently condemned by them when it came from Kentucky.
The Senate of Massachusetts, while the war was in progress, resolved
that it was waged "without justifiable cause," and refused to approve
military and naval projects not connected with "the defense of our
seacoast and soil." A Boston newspaper declared that the union was
nothing but a treaty among sovereign states, that states could decide
for themselves the question of obeying federal law, and that armed
resistance under the banner of a state would not be rebellion or
treason. The general assembly of Connecticut reminded the administration
at Washington that "the state of Connecticut is a free, sovereign, and
independent state." Gouverneur Morris, a member of the convention which
had drafted the Constitution, suggested the holding of another
conference to consider whether the Northern states should remain in the
union.

[Illustration: _From an old cartoon_

NEW ENGLAND JUMPING INTO THE HANDS OF GEORGE III]

In October, 1814, a convention of delegates from Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and certain counties of New Hampshire and
Vermont was held at Hartford, on the call of Massachusetts. The counsels
of the extremists were rejected but the conv