Election of 1808 James Madison	Despite the escalating political crisis in the country, Jefferson remained popular and powerful, but like Washington, he chose to step down from the presidency after serving two terms.  When he chose not to run for re-election in 1808, he made it clear to party officials that he favored James Madison to replace him.      Although Jefferson and Madison had much in common and were long-term friends, they seemed very different from one another.  Unlike the tall, outgoing, redheaded Jefferson, Madison was short, dark, and introverted.  Few could say they knew Madison well, but those who did found him captivating, a man of few words but of piercing intellect and unflinching conviction.  Those less well-acquainted with him thought the quiet Virginian indecisive; where Jefferson tended to act on impulse, Madison approached matters of state as he approached matters of political philosophy--with caution, patience, and reason.      Riding his reputation as a brilliant political thinker and his status as Jefferson's chosen successor, Madison easily defeated his Federalist opponent, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney.  But the one-sided results disguised deep political divisions in the nation at large.  Federalist criticism of Jefferson's policies, especially of the embargo, was finding a growing audience as the depression deepened, and in the congressional election of 1808 the Republicans lost 28 seats to the Federalists in the House, as well as seats in the Senate.      Internal dissent also weakened the Republican Party.  Dissatisfied with Jefferson's policies, both southern and northeastern party members contested Madison's succession.  The Tertium Quid challenged Jefferson's authority in the party caucus and tried to secure nomination for the stately and conservative James Monroe, but Jefferson managed to hold the party's southern wing in line.  However, northeasterners, stinging under the pressure of the embargo, bucked the decision of the party caucus and nominated their own presidential candidate, New Yorker George Clinton.  Although Clinton polled only six electoral votes, his nomination was a sign of the growing divisions over the problems the United States faced in 1808.
The "War Hawks" Henry Clay	During Madison's first two years in office, lack of any progress towards resolving the nation's woes seemed to confirm critics' doubts about his ability as chief executive.  Despite that, Republicans actually made gains in the congressional elections of 1810:  they regained 14 of the seats they had lost in the House in 1808 and picked up two additional Senate seats.  But this was no vote of confidence in Madison.  Though the new congressmen were Republicans, 63 of them were dissidents who did not support Madison or his commitment to a conciliatory policy towards the British.  Led by Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, these new members of Congress were mostly very young and extremely patriotic.  They represented frontier constituents who were being ravaged by the depression.  For them, the Revolution was only a childhood memory.   They looked to the West rather than to the "corrupt"nations of Europe as the future of America's destiny.  They were eager to prove themselves--and their national honor.  In the months to come, their increasingly strident demands for aggressive action against England earned them the nickname "War Hawks."      The "War Hawks" harbored a strong sense of nationalism, and they were especially sensitive to slights of their nation's honor.  The abuses suffered at the hands of the British--especially the impressment of over 1,000 American citizens into the British navy--elicited cries of "free trade and sailors rights!" from their ranks.  (Never mind that most of these states had no coastline nor any sea trade.)  In reality, the primary complaint of the "War Hawks" concerned continued British interference with the Indians of the West.  British agents from Canada traded arms to the Indians, who used them in turn against the American settlers pouring into their lands.  The situation was growing worse by the day, and threatened to explode at any moment.
Tecumseh and "The Prophet" "The Prophet" Tecumseh	As Americans spread westward, conflicts with Indians became increasingly common.  Back in 1794, an American military force under the command of "Mad Anthony" Wayne defeated an Indian force at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.  In the aftermath of that battle, the United States signed a treaty exiling the Indians to a western "reservation" where they could retain their status as an independent nation.  [Note:  the status of Indians as a "foreign nation" symbolized their unresolved place in American life.]       One of the nations displaced westward was the Shawnee.  They were thrown off their native land in Ohio and forces into Indiana Territory.  There, food shortages, diseases, and continuing encroachment by settlers caused many young Indians to lose faith in their traditional beliefs and in themselves as human beings.      In the midst of this crisis, one disheartened, diseased alcoholic rose above his afflictions to lead his people into a brief new era of hope.  One of a set of triplets born into an influential family, the confident young Shawnee named Lalawathika had bragged that he would play an influential role in his people's affairs (his name meant the "Noise Maker").  But his prospects had declined along with those of his people, leading him to hopelessness, to alcoholism, and finally, in 1805, to critical illness.  Lalawithika claimed that he remembered dying and meeting the Master of Life, who showed him the way to lead his people out of degradation and had commanded him to return to the world of the living so he could tell the Indians what they must do to recover their dignity.  Then he awoke, cured of his illness.  Launching a full-fledged religious ad cultural revival designed to teach the ways revealed to him by the Master of Life, he adopted the nickname Tenskwatawa ("the Way").  Whites called him "The Prophet."       Blaming the decline of his people on their adoption of white ways, the Prophet taught them to return to their traditional lifestyle--to discard whites' religion, clothes, and especially alcohol--and live as their ancestors had lived.  He also urged his followers to unify against the temptations and threats of white explorers and hold on to what remained of their lands.  If they followed his teachings, the Prophet insisted, the Indians would regain control of their lives and lands, and the whites would vanish from the world.  In 1807, the Prophet established a religious settlement, Prophetstown, on the banks of Tippecanoe Creek in Indiana Territory.  This community was to serve as a center for the Prophet's activities and as a living model of revitalized Indian life.      Although the Prophet preached a message of ethnic pride, nonviolence, and passive resistance, as white settlers continued to pressure his people, he began to advocate more forceful solutions to the Indians' problems.  In a speech at an intertribal council in April of 1807, he suggested for the first time that warriors unite to resist white expansion.  Although he did not urge his followers to attack the whites, he made it clear that the Master of Life would defend them and his followers if war were pressed on them.       While Tenskwatawa continued to stress spiritual means for stopping white aggression, his brother, Tecumseh, pushed for a more political course of action.  Seven years older than the Prophet, Tecumseh had always inclined more to politics than warfare.  Known as a brave fighter and a persuasive political orator, Tecumseh traveled throughout the western frontier, working out political and military alliances designed to put a stop to white expansion once and for all.  Although he did not want to start a war against the settlers, Tecumseh exhorted Indians to defend every inch of land that remained to them.  In 1807, he warned Ohio governor Thomas Kirker that they would do so with their lives.       Tecumseh's plan could have brought about the Prophet's goals.  Faced by a unified defensive line of Indians stretching along the American frontier from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, the United States would have found it virtually impossible to expand any further, and the Indian confederacy would have become a significant force in America's future.      The brilliance of Tecumseh's reasoning and his success at organizing Indian groups caused great consternation among whites.  Various white officials were convinced that the Shawnee leader was a spy either for the French or the British, and that his activities were an extension of some hidden plot by one European power or another.  Though wrong, such theories helped escalate the air of crisis in the West and the nation at large.      Indiana governor William Henry Harrison had good reason to advance the impression of a conspiracy between Tecumseh and the British.  Harrison and men like him believed the United States had the right to control all of North America and, accordingly, to brush aside anything standing in the way by any means available.  Britain and the Indians were thus linked in their thinking.  Both were seen as obstacles to nation destiny--and many War Hawks prayed for the outbreak of war with the United States with one side of the other.  Such a war would provide an excuse for attacking the Indians along the frontier to break up their emerging confederation and dispossess them of their land.  In addition, a war would justify invading and seizing Canada, fulfilling what many considered a logical but frustrated objective of the American Revolution.  At the same time, taking Canada from the British would open rich timber, fur, and agricultural lands for American settlement.  More important, it would secure American control of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River--potentially a very valuable for agricultural produce from upper New York, northern Ohio, and the newly opened areas of the Old Northwest.
The Non-Intercourse Act (1809) and Macon's Bill No. 2 (1810)	With the nation reeling from depression as a result of the Embargo Act, Congress attempted a partial remedy with the passage of the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, which allowed resumption of foreign trade with all nations except Britain or France, and gave the president the power to lift the restrictions if either of the combatants rescinded its restrictions against American trade.  In 1810, Congress opened the door further with the passage of Macon's Bill No. 2.  According to this latter act, whichever nation, Britain or France, lifted its restrictions first, the U. S. would resume trade with that nation and continue the boycott against the other nation.  However, Napoleon cannily responded first to the offer contained in Macon's Bill No. 2.  In August 1810, he sent a letter promising to lift French restrictions against American trade.  In secret, however, he ordered his forces to continue seizing American ships.  Despite Napoleon's devious intentions, President Madison intended to use the French offer as a lever. He instructed the American mission in London to tell them he would close down trade with them unless they joined France in dropping their restrictions.  Sure that Napoleon was lying, the British refused, backing Madison into a diplomatic corner.  In February 1811, the provisions of Macon's Bill forced Madison to close trade with Britain for its failure to remove economic sanctions, stepping up tensions all around.
The Battle of Tippecanoe William Henry Harrison	Late in 1811, events in the West finally brought this diplomatic crisis with Europe to a head.  The provisions of the Fort Wayne Treaty, signed in the fall of 1809 between the Potawatomie, Miami, and Delaware Indians and representatives of the United States, provided for the payment of an outright bribe of $5,200 and individual annuities ranging from $250 to $500, to the leaders of these tribes, in return for the sale of over 3 million acres of tribal land in Indiana and Illinois--land already occupied by other Indian groups.  In August 1810, Tecumseh met with Governor William Henry Harrison in Vincennes, Indiana, to denounce the Fort Wayne Treaty.  Harrison insisted that the agreement was legitimate.  Speaking for those whose lands had been sold out from under them, Tecumseh said:  "They want to save that piece of land, we not wish you to take it.... I want the present boundary line to continue.  Should you cross it, I assure you it will be productive of bad consequences."  But Harrison refused to budge, and having reached a complete stalemate, both Harrison and Tecumseh withdrew.      The Vincennes meeting convinced the Indians that they must prepare for a white attack.  The Prophet increasingly preached that the Master of Life would support the faithful in battle against the whites.  Tecumseh traveled up and down the American frontier to enlist more allies into the growing Indian confederacy.  However, while he was gone on such a mission, Governor Harrison, eager to break the stalemate, took a chance by calling up militia forces in the fall of 1811 and leading them to Prophetstown.  The Prophet, who was not a warrior, foolishly sent his young warriors out to meet the whites, where they were defeated.  The Battle of Tippecanoe left the town open to attack from frontiersmen, who burned Prophetstown and killed or enslaved its inhabitants.  Harrison immediately called for a declaration of war against the British and the Indians (one and the same in his view).      Coming as it did while American was embroiled in debate over economic sanctions and British impressment, the outbreak on the frontier was enough to push Madison into action.  He stated that while Britain obviously had pursued a state of war against the United States, he yet hoped for peace between the two.  However, Congress was less circumspect in its declaration of hostilities towards Britain.  Citing Britain's aggression against American ships and citizens on the high seas and the consequent violation of American neutral rights, Congress passed a declaration of war against Great Britain in early 1812.  Although the heavily Federalist regions that depended upon trade voted against war, the southern and western representatives voted in favor, and their decision carried the day.  The United States had finally emerged from neutrality to declare war on Great Britain.
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