=312. The Treaty of Ghent.=—If those had been the days of the telegraph, the battle of New Orleans would not have been fought, and the American people would have had no great land victory to salve the pride that had been touched to the quick by the capture of Washington, Hull’s surrender, and other disgraceful events of the war. On December 24, 1814, American and British commissioners had signed a treaty of peace at Ghent. Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard, who were already abroad, had been joined by Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell; and the five had defended American interests very well. Gallatin was the most influential member and succeeded in curbing the zeal of Clay and Adams, who wished to press matters like the British right to navigate the Mississippi and the fisheries question, in which the people of the West and of New England took a great interest. Curiously enough, the treaty did not touch the impressment abuse, or the right of searching vessels, for the sake of which, in the main, the war had been waged. Still, after her naval victories, America was not likely to suffer in the future from such abuses. Each side restored the territory of the other that it occupied, and both felt relieved that the anomalous war was over. THE DISAFFECTION OF NEW ENGLAND. =313. Political Events.=—Political events in Madison’s second administration were naturally overshadowed by the war or else connected with it. As we have seen, the finances were badly managed, nor were the affairs of the War Department on a better footing. Congress was scarcely more efficient, especially when its Speaker, Henry Clay, was absent with the commissioners at Ghent. But the disaffection of the New England Federalists was the most serious element in the political problem. With the waning of their party and the assured success of the Democratic-Republicans, they naturally grew more rancorous. They coquetted with the British before and during the war, and they had little or no sympathy with the idea that the United States was a nation. In the debate in 1811 on the admission of Louisiana as a state, one of their leaders, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, actually declared that the passage of the bill would be a virtual dissolution of the Union, and that it would be the duty of some of the states, “to prepare for a separation amicably” if they could, “violently if they must.”