for Vice-President. Hitherto the caucus had excited little opposition, as public opinion had designated in advance its choice, but the large vote given to Crawford now indicated that a shrewd politician could develop much more strength in a Congressional caucus than he possessed before the people. The Federalist party was thoroughly discredited when the war closed and could make no real contest in this election. Monroe received 183 votes, Rufus King 34. Tompkins for Vice-President had 183, Jno. E. Howard, of Maryland, 22; 12 scattering. CHAPTER VI HISTORY UNDER PRESIDENT MONROE, 1817-1825. AMES MONROE had been Secretary of State under JA Madison. The eight years covered by his two terms. have passed into history as the "Era of Good Feeling." The Federalist party had died out, and nearly all citizens called themselves Republicans, and as evidence of this Henry Clay was unanimously elected Speaker of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congresses. In 1819 the United States purchased Florida from Spain for $5,000,000. In 1820 Missouri and Maine being both applicants for admission into the Union, the former as a slave, the latter as a free State, the so-called Missouri Compromise Act was passed prohibiting forever slavery in all territory north of the line of 36° 30', after which Maine and Missouri were admitted as above. In 1821 there were no candidates nominated, and Monroe received the unanimous vote of the electors with the exception of one vote given to John Quincy Adams by an elector in New Hampshire who was unwilling that any one should share with Washington the honor of a unanimous election. Tompkins was re-elected Vice-President. There arose no divisions of parties in this adminis tration, but there were in the Republican party the same materials for such division as had existed from the beginning, and Henry Clay, who prided himself very much on being a disciple of Thomas Jefferson, was already developing his Tariff and Internal Improvement doctrines and becoming a recognized leader of the loose constructionists in the country. Towards the close of Monroe's administration the question of internal improvements by the federal government was raised. The growth of population, the increase of the business and trade of the country, and the gradual extension of settlement toward the west, naturally called public attention to increase of facilities for travel and transportation. De Witt Clinton had just completed the New York Canal, and, as Benton tells us, had acquired so much popularity "that candidates for the Presidency began to spread their sails on the ocean of internal improvements." Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay favored a thorough and enlarged system of national highways. Calhoun seems at first to have been in accord with them, and Jackson and Crawford did not oppose the system, but sought to affix to it such limitations as would be consistent with their stricter ideas of constitutional construction. As preliminary to a general system an appropriation was made to make surveys of national routes, from which Mr. Monroe did not withhold his approval, but when an act was passed for the "preservation and repair" of what was called the Cumberland Road, although it met little opposition in Congress, the President felt called upon to interpose his veto. This veto was accompanied by an elaborate State paper in which he con |