The Senate passed a bill authorizing the President during the recess to suspend the embargo in whole or in part if in his judgment the conduct of the belligerent Powers should render suspension safe. After a hot debate, chiefly on the constitutionality of the measure, it passed the House, and April 22 became law. April 25 the session ended. As the result of six months’ labor, Congress could show besides the usual routine legislation a number of Acts which made an epoch in the history of the Republican party. First came the Embargo, its two Supplements, and the Act empowering the President to suspend it at will. Next came the series of appropriation Acts which authorized the President to spend in all four million dollars in excess of the ordinary expenditures,--for gunboats, eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars; for land fortifications, one million; for five new regiments of infantry, one of riflemen, one of light artillery, and one of light dragoons, two million dollars; and two hundred thousand dollars for arming the militia. Such progress toward energy was more rapid than could have been expected from a party like that which Jefferson had educated and which he still controlled. FOOTNOTES: [159] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1251, _n._ [160] Jefferson to John Taylor, Jan. 6, 1808; Works, v. 226. [161] Story’s Life and Letters of Joseph Story, i. 158-159. [162] Bill for the Punishment of Treason and other crimes; Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 108. [163] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1717. [164] Annals of Congress, Feb. 17, 1808; Thirteenth Congress, pp. 1627, 1631. [165] Message of Feb. 25, 1808; Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1691. [166] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1901. [167] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1916. [168] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1922. [169] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1937. [170] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1939. [171] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 1959. [172] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 2037. [173] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 2049. [174] Jefferson to Madison, Aug. 15, 1804; Works, iv. 557. [175] Erskine to Madison, Feb. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 209. [176] Champagny to Armstrong, Jan. 15, 1808; State Papers, iii. 248. [177] Annals of Congress, 1807-1808, p. 364. CHAPTER X.