The election of Jefferson ended the line of the succession to the Presidency from the Vice-Presidency. Adams as Vice-President succeeded Washington as President, and Jefferson as Vice-President succeeded Adams, but the Burr fiasco made it impossible for the succession to be maintained, and for many years the line of succession to the Presidency was in the Premiers of the administration. Indeed during the entire century from 1800 to 1900 but one Vice-President has been elected to the Presidency. That single exception was Martin Van Buren, and he started under the Jackson administration as Premier. Madison, who was Secretary of State under Jefferson, succeeded Jefferson to the Presidency; Monroe, Secretary of State under Madison, succeeded Madison as President; John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State under Monroe, succeeded Monroe as President, and since that time Buchanan was the only Secretary of State who reached the Presidency, although Webster, Cass and Blaine, who were Premiers under several administrations, were defeated in Presidential contests. [Illustration: JAMES MADISON] Madison was generally regarded as the favorite of Jefferson for the succession, and Jefferson’s power at that time was second only to the power of Washington in dictating who should succeed him to the highest honor of the Republic. Irritating opposition to Madison came from his own State of Virginia, where the friends of Monroe were quite aggressive. Two caucuses had been held in the Virginia Legislature, one by the friends of Madison, and the other, much smaller in number, by the friends of Monroe, and both were thus formally presented to the country to succeed Jefferson. A caucus of the Republican members of both branches of Congress was called to meet on the 23d of January, 1808. It was known that the friends of Madison largely outnumbered the friends of Monroe in Congress, and the active supporters of Monroe earnestly opposed a nomination by the Congressional caucus. The caucus was held, however, and was attended by a majority of the Senators and Representatives, and Madison was nominated on the 1st ballot, receiving 83 votes to 3 for Monroe and 3 for George Clinton. Monroe had a considerably larger strength in Congress, but the result was predetermined, and a number of them did not participate. George Clinton was nominated by substantially the same vote for Vice-President. The caucus system was under fire, and the caucus, in justification of its own act, adopted a resolution declaring that in making the nominations the members had “acted only in their individual characters as citizens,” and because it was “the most practical mode of consulting and respecting the interests and wishes of all upon a subject so truly interesting to the people of the United States.”