Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/152

140 unpopularity; but he favored the raising of the per diem. The pay of members of Congress was fixed at eight dollars per day. This was the only time that his home constituency threatened to fail him.

James Monroe was elected President in 1816 with little opposition. He received 183 electoral votes; while his competitor, Rufus King, the candidate of the Federalists, had only 34. Monroe was inaugurated March 4, 1817, and the famous “era of good feeling” set in, — that is to say, with the disappearance of the Federal party as a national organization, the great organized contests of the old parties for power ceased, to make room for the smaller contests of personal ambitions. But these infused fully as much bitterness into the era of good feeling as the differences on important questions of public policy had infused into great party struggles. Until then the Presidents of the United States had been men of note in the American Revolution. Monroe was the last of the Revolutionary generation and of the “Virginia dynasty.” It was taken for granted that he would have his two terms, and that then the competition for the presidency would be open to a new class of men. As Madison had been Jefferson's Secretary of State before he became President, and Monroe had been Madison's, the secretaryship of state was looked upon as the stepping-stone to the presidency. Those who expected to be candidates for the highest place in the future, therefore, coveted it with peculiar solicitude.