once
the most vehement of "war-hawks"--was in appearance a victory for
neither side. Frontiers remained exactly as they were when the first
shot was fired. No indemnity was demanded or paid by either combatant.
The right of impressment--the original cause of war, was neither
affirmed nor disclaimed, though since that date England has never
attempted to use it. Yet there is no such thing in history as "a drawn
war." One side or the other must always have attempted the imposition of
its will and failed. In this case it was England. America will always
regard the war of 1812 as having ended in victory; and her view is
substantially right. The new Republic, in spite of, or, one might more
truly say, because of the dark reverses she had suffered and survived,
was strengthened and not weakened by her efforts. The national spirit
was raised and not lowered. The _mood_ of a nation after a war is a
practically unfailing test of victory or defeat; and the mood of America
after 1814 was happy, confident, creative--the mood of a boy who has
proved his manhood.

In 1816 Madison was succeeded by Monroe. Monroe, though, like his
successor, a Virginian and a disciple of Jefferson, was more of a
nationalist, and had many points of contact with the new Democracy which
had sprung up first in the West, and was daily becoming more and more
the dominant sentiment of the Republic. "Federalism" had perished
because it was tainted with oligarchy, but there had been other elements
in it which were destined to live, and the "National Republicans," as
they came to call themselves, revived them. They were for a vigorous
foreign policy and for adequate preparations for war. They felt the
Union as a whole, and were full of a sense of its immense undeveloped
possibilities. They planned expensive schemes of improvement by means of
roads, canals, and the like to be carried out at the cost of the Federal
Government, and they cared little for the protests of the doctrinaires
of "State Right." To them America owes, for good or evil, her Protective
system. The war had for some years interrupted commerce with the Old
World, and native industries had, perforce, grown up to supply the wants
of the population. These industries were now in danger of destruction
through the reopening of foreign trade, and consequently of foreign
competition. It was determined to frame the tariff hitherto imposed
mainly, if not entirely, with a view to revenue in such a way as to