A short debate took place at the last moment of the session, on a bill authorizing the President to accept a corps of fifty thousand volunteers. The measure had been reported by Crawford of Georgia in the Senate, from a committee appointed to consider the occupation of West Florida. March 1 the Senate passed the bill without a division, for it implied neither a new principle nor any necessary expense; while the President, without such authority, would find himself helpless to deal with any trouble that might arise from the affairs of Florida. When the bill reached the House, John Dawson of Virginia urged its adoption; “it was incumbent on them,” he said, “to do something to provide for defence.” Matthew Lyon said he had frequently voted for such bills when there was no prospect of war; “and now, when we were going to war [with Spain], and giving the provocation ourselves, he was of opinion it ought to be passed.” The House, without a division, indefinitely postponed the bill; and thus refusing to do more business of any kind, toward midnight of Sunday, March 3, the Eleventh Congress expired, leaving behind it, in the minds of many serious citizens, the repute of having brought Government to the last stage of imbecility before dissolution. CHAPTER XVII. THE government of the United States reached, March 4, 1811, the lowest point of its long decline. President Madison had remained so passive before domestic faction, while so active in foreign affairs, that the functions of government promised to end in confusion. Besides the greater failures of the last session, more than one personal slight had been inflicted on the President. He obtained the confirmation of Joel Barlow as Armstrong’s successor at Paris, by a vote of twenty-one to eleven in the Senate; but when he nominated Alexander Wolcott of Connecticut to succeed Justice Cushing on the Supreme Bench, he met a sharp rebuff. The selection was far from brilliant, but New England offered no great choice among Republicans suited to the bench. Sullivan was dead; Levi Lincoln declined the office; Barnabas Bidwell, detected in a petty defalcation, had absconded to Canada; Joseph Story, still a young man, only thirty-one years of age, was obnoxious to many Republicans on account of his hostility to the embargo, and particularly to Jefferson, who took personal interest in this appointment.[279] The President could think of no one who brought stronger recommendations than Wolcott, and accordingly sent his name to the Senate. A few days afterward John Randolph wrote to his friend Nicholson,[280]--