Lewis Cass Author:Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE WAR OF 1812 In many ways the history of our country in the first forty years of its existence as an independent nation does not furnish a s... more »tory to be read with unraingled delight. The fierce opposition to the adoption of the Constitution perpetuated itself in party opposition and obstruction after 1789. And scarcely had the infant state been given vigorous development by the tender care of the party which had stood sponsor at its birth, when it was turned over to those who had been its opponents and might still prove untrustworthy managers of its affairs. Political feeling ran high in 1801, when the Federalists in their horror of Jefferson plotted seriously to bestow the chief magistracy on Burr. With a sense of strange familiarity one comes into that atmosphere of sectional strife. It is discouraging to see how long there has been "solidity." north and south of Mason and Dixon's line. The British cruiser boarded New England vessels and impressed New England seamen. Napoleon pounced upon our defenseless commerce, and skillfully avoided all consideration of redress. Nor was it because a Boston merchant thought moreof his cargo than he did of his countrymen, doomed to fight as Englishmen whether they would or not, that he bore English cruelty with patience, and fumed only at the arrogance of France. It was largely because the southern party, the party of Jefferson, which the New Englander detested, could see no wrong in French aggressions that the New England Federalist saw very clearly the reverse. Nor is the exasperating timidity of Jefferson to be overlooked. In pursuance of the "terrapin policy " of his administration the country had drawn itself within its shell, in the hope of being coaxed out by sweet concessions. But the embargo, which was said at one t...« less