ER XX

SETTLEMENT OF OUR BOUNDARIES

%291. Monroe inaugurated.%--The administration of Madison ended on
March 4, 1817, and on that day James Monroe and Daniel D. Tompkins were
sworn into office. They had been nominated at Washington in February,
1816, by a caucus of Republican members of Congress, for no such thing
as a national convention for the nomination of a President had as yet
been thought of. The Federalists did not hold a caucus; but it was
understood that their electors would vote for Rufus King for
President.[1]

[Footnote 1: In 1816 there were nineteen states in the Union (Indiana
having been admitted in that year), and of these Monroe carried sixteen
and King three. The inauguration took place in the open air for the
first time since 1789.]

[Illustration: on the right of the previous paragraph, with caption
"James Monroe"]

%292. Death of the Federalist Party.%--The inauguration of Monroe
opens a new era of great interest and importance in our history. From
1793 to 1815, the questions which divided the people into Federalists
and Republicans were all in some way connected with foreign countries.
They were neutral rights, Orders in Council, French Decrees,
impressment, embargoes, non-intercourse acts, the conduct of England,
the insolence of the French Directory, the triumphs and the treachery of
Napoleon. Every Federalist sympathized with England; every Republican
was a warm supporter of France.

But with the close of the war in 1815, all this ended. Napoleon was sent
to St. Helena. Europe was at peace, and there was no longer any foreign
question to divide the people into Federalists and Republicans. This
division, therefore, ceased to exist, and after 1816 the Federalist
party never put up a candidate for the presidency. It ceased to exist
not only as a national but even as a state party, and for twelve years
there was one great party, the Republican, or, as it soon began to be
called, the Democratic.

%293. The "Era of Good Feeling."%--A sure sign of the disappearance
of party and party feeling was seen very soon after Monroe was
inaugurated. In May, 1817, he left Washington with the intention of
visiting and inspecting all the forts and navy yards along the eastern
seaboard and the Great Lakes. Beginning at Baltimore, he went to New
York, then to Boston, and then to Portland; where he turned westward,
and crossing New Hampshire and Vermont to Lake Champlain, made his way
to Ogdensburg, wher