Not only was the machinery of government unsuited to energetic use, but the Government itself was not in earnest. Hardly one third of the members of Congress believed war to be their best policy. Almost another third were Federalists, who wished to overthrow the Administration; the rest were honest and perhaps shrewd men, brought up in the school of Virginia and Pennsylvania politics, who saw more clearly the evils that war must bring than the good it might cause, and who dreaded the reaction upon their constituents. They could not understand the need of carrying into every detail a revolution in their favorite system of government. Clay and Calhoun, Cheves and Lowndes asked them to do in a single session what required half a century or more of time and experience,--to create a new government, and invest it with the attributes of old-world sovereignty under pretext of the war power. The older Republicans had no liking for such statesmanship, and would gladly have set the young Southerners in their right place. By force of will and intellect the group of war members held their own, and dragged Congress forward in spite of itself; but the movement was slow and the waste of energy exhausting. Perhaps they failed to carry their points more often than they succeeded. Energetic as their efforts were, after four months of struggle they had settled nothing, and found themselves in March no further advanced than in November. War should already have been declared; but Congress was still trying to avoid it. Federalists had much to do with causing the confusion of Republicans. Their conduct could seldom be explained on rational grounds, but in January, 1812, they seemed to lose reason. Their behavior, contradicting their own principles, embarrassed their friends still more than it confused their enemies. The British minister wrote to his Government constant complaints of the dangerous course his Federalist allies were pursuing. “The Federal leaders,” Foster wrote Dec. 11, 1811,[130] “make no scruple of telling me that they mean to give their votes for war, although they will remain silent in the debates; they add that it will be a short war of six or nine months. To my observations on the strange and dangerous nature of such a policy, they shrug their shoulders, telling me that they see no end to restrictions and non-importation laws but in war; that war will turn out the Administration, and then they will have their own way, and make a solid peace with Great Britain.” To this policy Federalist leaders adhered. As the weeks passed, Foster’s situation grew more difficult. Disgusted equally by the obstinacy of his Government and by the vacillations of Congress, he found his worst annoyances in the intrigues of his friends. Toward the close of the year he wrote:[131]--