a special commission to negotiate with the government of Great Britain,
began their labors in July, 1806. They were fortunate enough to find the
British government in friendly hands, for they happened to fall upon the
short administration of Mr. Fox. With much difficulty they negotiated a
treaty which was signed on the last day of the year. This treaty was
doubtless a bad treaty; not so bad as that of Mr. Jay, but still very
unsatisfactory, and, what was worse, the British government, by a formal
note appended to it, reserved the right to render it entirely nugatory
if the United States did not satisfy Great Britain that she would resist
the maritime decrees of France. Whether, under these circumstances, the
treaty was worth accepting, is doubtful; whether Mr. Jefferson erred in
insisting upon modifications of it, may be a question. Certain it is
that the Administration concurred in sending it back to England for
essential changes, and that Mr. Jefferson, undaunted by his previous
failure to influence France by fear of his alliance with England, now
expected to control England by fear of his alliance with France. "It is
all-important that we should stand on terms of the strictest cordiality"
with France, he wrote to Paris in announcing his treatment of the
British treaty; but this cordiality was to go no further than friendly
favors. "I verily believe," he wrote at the same time,[81] "that it will
ever be in our power to keep so even a stand between England and France
as to inspire a wish in neither to throw us into the scale of his
adversary."
Never did a man deceive himself more miserably, for even while he wrote
these lines the government of England was reverting to its policy of
crushing the commercial growth of America. Mr. Fox was dead; a new
Administration had come into power, strongly retrograde in policy, and
with George Canning for its soul. Whatever the errors or faults of Mr.
Canning may have been, timidity was not one of them, and the diplomatic
ingenuity of Mr. Jefferson, with its feeble attempts to play off France
against England and England against France, was the last policy he was
likely to respect. Even the American who reads the history of the year
1807, seeing the brutal directness with which Mr. Canning kicked Mr.
Jefferson's diplomacy out of his path, cannot but feel a certain respect
for the Englishman mingled with wrath at his insolent sarcasm. From the
moment Mr. Canning and his party assumed power, the fate of Mr.
Jefferson's Administration was sealed; nothing he could do or could have
done could avert it; England was determined to recover her commerce and
to take back her seamen, and America could not retain either by any
means whatever; she had no alternative but submission or war, and either
submission or war was equally fatal to Mr. Jefferson's Administration.
Mr. Canning cared little which course she took, but he believed she
would submit.
The first intimation of the new state of affairs came in an unexpected
and almost accidental shape. The winter of 1806-7 had passed, and, so
far as Congress was concerned, it had passed without serious conflicts.
Burr's wild expedition had startled and excited the country, but this
episode had no special connection with anything actual; it was rather a
sporadic exhibition of the personal peculiarities of Mr. Burr and his
lurid imagination. Congress adjourned on the 3d March, 1807; as the
summer advanced, Mr. Gallatin went with his family to New York; on the
25th June he was suddenly summoned back to Washington by a brief note
from Mr. Jefferson announcing the capture of the American frigate
Chesapeake by the British ship-of-war Leopard.
The story of this famous event, which more than any other single cause
tended to exasperate national jealousies and to make England and America
permanently hostile, is told in every American school history, and will
probably be familiar to every school-boy in the United States for
generations yet to come. Even time is slow in erasing the memory of
these national humiliations, and the singular spectacle has been long
presented of a great nation preserving the living memory of a wrong that
the offending nation hardly noticed at the time and almost immediately
forgot. The reason was that in this instance the wrong was a cruel and
cynical commentary on all the mistakes of our national policy; it gave
the sentence of death to the favorite dogmas and doctrines of the
American Administration, and it was a practical demonstration of their
absurdity, the more mortifying because of its incontestable
completeness.
Mr. Gallatin hastened to Washington, sickened by anxiety and
responsibility; his state of mind and that of his political friends may
be shown by a few extracts from his papers:
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
WASHINGTON, 10th July, 1807.
... I am afraid that in common with many more your feelings prevent your
taking a correct view of our political situation. To spurn at
negotiation and to tremble for the fate of New York are not very
consistent. But every person not blinded by passion and totally ignorant
of the laws and usages of civilized nations knows that, whenever
injuries are received from subordinate officers, satisfaction is
demanded from the government itself before reprisals are made; and that
time to receive our property from abroad and to secure our harbors as
well as we can is of importance to us, can any one doubt in New York? It
is our duty to ask for reparation, to avert war if it can be done
honorably, and in the mean while not to lose an instant in preparing for
war. On the last point I doubt, between ourselves, whether everything
shall be done which ought to be done. And for that reason alone I wish
that Congress may be called somewhat earlier than is now intended. The
President wishes the call for the last of October. I had at first
proposed the middle, but from various circumstances I now want an
immediate call. The principal objection will not be openly avowed, but
it is the unhealthiness of this city. I am glad to see the spirit of the
people, but I place but a moderate degree of confidence on those first
declarations in which many act from the first impulse of their feelings,
more from sympathy or fear, and only a few from a calm view of the
subject. I think that I have taken such a view, probed the extent of the
dangers and evils of a war, and, though fully aware of both, will
perhaps persevere longer under privations and evils than many others.
Our commerce will be destroyed and our revenue nearly annihilated. That
we must encounter; but our resources in money and men will be sufficient
considerably to distress the enemy and to defend ourselves everywhere
but at sea. I have, in a national point of view, but one subject of
considerable uneasiness, and that is New York, which is now entirely
defenceless, and from its situation nearly indefensible. This last idea
I keep altogether to myself. I think that I increased my sickness by
intensity of thinking and not sleeping at nights. I certainly grew
better as soon as my plans were digested, and, except as to New York, I
feel now very easy, provided that our resources shall be applied with
ability and in the proper direction. In the mean while the ships on our
coast may accelerate hostilities. This we will try to avoid, and so will
Mr. Erskine, who, having neither orders nor advice from his government
on this subject, cannot be very easy and will not be very influential.
(Admiral Berkeley's order is, very curiously, drawn and dated as far
back as 1st June.) But I think that these hostilities will be confined
to blockade and captures till they receive new instructions, and that
New York has no immediate danger to apprehend. At all events, against
such a force it may be defended. The difficulty is in case a fleet of
ten ships of the line shall attack it....
14th July, 1807.
... Of our public affairs I have nothing new to say. It is probable that
the attack on our frigate was not directly authorized by the British
government; it is certain that the subsequent acts of the commodore in
the vicinity of Norfolk were without any order even from his admiral.
But from the character and former orders of the last-mentioned
(Berkeley) it is probable that, considering the proclamation as hostile,
he will order all merchant vessels on our coast to be taken and the
Chesapeake to be blockaded. They will not venture on any hostilities on
shore until they receive orders from Great Britain; for their naval
arrogance induces them to make unfounded distinctions between what is
legal on land or on water even within our jurisdiction, and they have
not really sense or knowledge enough to feel that their present conduct
within the Chesapeake is as much an actual invasion as if an army was
actually landed. Upon the whole, you will, I am persuaded, have time to
do whatever is practicable for the defence of New York. I have seen Mr.
Erskine, whom I treated with more civility than cordiality; but I could
not help it. I believe that he is much embarrassed between what is right
and his fear of the naval officers and of his own government.
NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.
BUCK SPRING, 12th July, 1807.
SIR,--The attack of the British on the Chesapeake and their subsequent
conduct near Norfolk has much irritated every one here, and all are
anxious to learn what the President intends to do. From the tenor of his
proclamation I suppose he intends to have a representation made to the
British government, and, in case that does not produce the desired
effect, to order our ministers home, and in the mean time to have all
the preparations for war he can ready. I also suppose from the
proclamation that Congress will not be called until he hears from
London, unless there should be a change in the state of affairs....
If war must be, we ought to prosecute it with the same zeal that we have
endeavored to preserve peace, and by great exertions convince the enemy
that it is not from fear or cowardice that we dread it. But peace, if we
can have it, is always best for us, and if the Executive can get justice
done and preserve it, that Executive will deserve the thanks of every
democrat in the Union.
JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO GALLATIN.
Chesterfield, 14th July, 1807.
DEAR SIR,--...We are looking with great anxiety towards Washington for
the measures to be adopted by the government. For myself I consider a
war inevitable, and almost wish for it. An unqualified submission to
Britain would not be more degrading than forbearance now. The Ministry
may probably, and I think will, disavow the late act of their officer;
but there are insults and injuries for which neither an individual nor a
nation can accept an apology. I had hoped, therefore, that Mr. Erskine
would have been ordered home and our own envoys recalled. Nothing is now
left to negotiate on. No man ever saved his honor who opened a
negotiation for it. It is no subject of barter. If Tarquin had begged
pardon of Collatinus for ravishing his wife, I think it would not have
been granted. At all events we cannot, or at least ought not, negotiate
till our seamen are restored. In 1764, when France took possession of
Turk's Island, her minister at the Court of London proposed to negotiate
for some claims that his master had upon it. George Grenville told him,
"We will not hear you; we will listen to nothing while the island is in
your possession. Restore it, and we will then hear what you have to
say." It was instantaneously given up. I wish Mr. Jefferson would read
the history of that transaction, and also Lord Chatham's celebrated
speech on the business of Falkland Islands. Each furnishes an admirable
lesson for the present moment. But one feeling pervades the nation. All
distinctions of federalism and democracy are vanished. The people are
ready to submit to any deprivation, and if we withdraw ourselves within
our own shell, and turn loose some thousands of privateers, we shall
obtain in a little time an absolute renunciation of the right of search
for the purposes of impressment. A parley will prove fatal, for the
merchants will begin to calculate. They rule us, and we should take them
before their resentment is superseded by considerations of profit and
loss. I trust in God the Revenge is going out to bring Monroe and
Pinkney home.
GALLATIN TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.
WASHINGTON, 17th July, 1807.
DEAR SIR,--...With you I believe that war is inevitable, and there can
be but one opinion on the question whether the claims of the parties
prior to the attack on the Chesapeake should be a subject of discussion.
There were but two courses to be taken: either to consider the attack as
war and retaliate accordingly, or, on the supposition that that act
might be that of an unauthorized officer, to ask simply, and without
discussion, disavowal, satisfaction, and security against a recurrence
of outrages. The result will in my opinion be the same, for Great
Britain will not, I am confident, give either satisfaction or security;
but the latter mode, which, as you may have perceived by the President's
proclamation and his answer to military corps, has been adopted, was
recommended not only by the nature of our Constitution, which does not
make the President arbiter of war, but also by the practice of civilized
nations; and the cases of Turk's Island, Falkland Islands, Nootka Sound,
etc., are in point in that respect. Add to this that the dissatisfaction
caused by that course operates only against the Administration, and that
the other will produce an unanimity in support of the war which would
not otherwise have existed. It will also make our cause completely
popular with the Baltic powers, and may create new enemies to Britain in
that quarter. Finally, four months were of importance to us, both by
diminishing the losses of our merchants and for preparations of defence
and attack.
I will, however, acknowledge that on that particular point I have not
bestowed much thought; for, having considered from the first moment war
was a necessary result, and the preliminaries appearing to me but
matters of form, my faculties have been exclusively applied to the
preparations necessary to meet the times; and although I am not very
sanguine as to the brilliancy of our exploits, the field where we can
act without a navy being very limited, and perfectly aware that a war in
a great degree passive and consisting of privations will become very
irksome to the people, I feel no apprehension of the immediate result.
We will be poorer both as a nation and as a government; our debt and
taxes will increase, and our progress in every respect be interrupted.
But all those evils are not only not to be put in competition with the
independence and honor of the nation, they are, moreover, temporary, and
very few years of peace will obliterate their effects. Nor do I know
whether the awakening of nobler feelings and habits than avarice and
luxury might not be necessary to prevent our degenerating, like the
Hollanders, into a nation of mere calculators. In fact, the greatest
mischiefs which I apprehend from the war are the necessary increase of
Executive power and influence, the speculation of contractors and
jobbers, and the introduction of permanent military and naval
establishments....
NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.
ROCK SPRING, 2d August, 1807.
... Peace is everything to us, especially in this part of the Union.
Here the three last crops have been uncommonly short, and the last the
shortest of the three. These bad crops have compelled many, who were
both careful and industrious, to go in debt for bread and to leave their
merchant account unpaid. If the Executive shall put a satisfactory end
to the fracas with Great Britain, it will add as much to his reputation
as the purchase of Louisiana. But if this cannot be done, we must try
which can do the other the most harm.
I suppose while I am thinking what effect the war may have on my
neighbors and countrymen, you are engaged in calculating its effects on
the payment of the national debt.
I still wish peace, but if this be denied to us I am for strong measures
against the enemy.
Until it was quite certain whether the attack on the Chesapeake was an
authorized act, government could only prepare for war. Mr. Jefferson
called upon his Cabinet for written opinions, and Mr. Gallatin prepared
an elaborate paper containing a general view of the defensive and
offensive measures which war would require.[82] This done, and temporary
arrangements made, the Cabinet again separated, and Mr. Gallatin
returned to New York.
Congress was called for the 26th October, 1807, and the Administration
came together a few weeks earlier to prepare for the meeting. When Mr.
Jefferson sent as usual the draft of his message for revision, Mr.
Gallatin found that it was drawn up "rather in the shape of a manifesto
issued against Great Britain on the eve of a war, than such as the
existing, undecided state of affairs seems to require." He remonstrated
in a letter, too long to quote, but of much historical interest.[83] The
conclusion was that "in every view of the subject I feel strongly
impressed with the propriety of preparing to the utmost for war and
carrying it with vigor if it cannot be ultimately avoided, but in the
mean while persevering in that caution of language and action which may
give us some more time and is best calculated to preserve the remaining
chance of peace, and most consistent with the general system of your
Administration." Mr. Jefferson at once acceded to this view.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
WASHINGTON, 30th October, 1807.
... Varnum has, much against my wishes, removed Randolph from the Ways
and Means and appointed Campbell, of Tennessee. It was improper as
related to the public business, and will give me additional labor.
Vanzandt has missed the clerkship of the House, and lost his place, from
Mr. Randolph's declaration that he had listened to and reported secret
debates. The punishment, considering its consequences on his future
prospects, is rather hard. (The President's speech was originally more
warlike than was necessary, but I succeeded in getting it neutralized;
this between us; but it was lucky; for) Congress is certainly peaceably
disposed....
* * * * *
The British government, however, had no intention of making a war out of
the Chesapeake affair. With much dexterity Mr. Canning used this
accident for his own purposes. He applied the curb and spur at the same
moment with marvellous audacity; disavowing the acts of the British
naval officers, he evaded the demand of our government for satisfaction,
and, while thus showing how sternly he meant to repress what he chose to
consider our insolence, he sent Mr. Rose to Washington to amuse Mr.
Jefferson with negotiations, while at the same time he himself carried
out his fixed policy, with which the affair of the Chesapeake had no
other than a general and accidental connection. Contemptuously refusing
to renew negotiations over Mr. Monroe's treaty, at the very moment of
Mr. Rose's departure to Washington he issued his famous orders in
council of November 11, 1807, by which the chief part of the trade of
America with the continent of Europe was, with one stroke of the pen,
suppressed.
As there was no pretence of law or principle under which this act could
be justified, Mr. Canning put it upon the ground of retaliation for the
equally outrageous decrees of France; but in fact he cared very little
what ground it was placed upon. The act was in its nature one of war,
and, as a war measure for the protection of British commercial shipping
rapidly disappearing before French regulations and American competition,
this act was no more violent than any other act of war. Its true
foundation was a not unwarranted contempt for American national
character. As Lord Sidmouth, who disapproved the orders in council,
wrote in 1807: "It is in vain to speculate on the result when we have to
bear with a country in which there is little authority in the rulers,
and as little public spirit and virtue in the people. America is no
longer a bugbear; there is no terror in her threats."[84] America had
her redress if she chose to take it; if she did not choose to take it,
as Mr. Canning would probably have argued, it could only be because,
after all, it was against her interest to do so, which to Mr. Canning
was the demonstration of his own problem.[85]
The certain news of the orders in council of November 11 reached
Washington on December 18, together with threatening news from France. A
Cabinet council was instantly held, and the confidential friends of the
Administration consulted. The situation was clear. In the face of the
orders in council our commerce must be kept at home, at least until
further measures could be taken. Whether as a war or as a peace measure,
an embargo was inevitable, and, unwilling as all parties were to be
driven into it, there was no alternative. A much more difficult question
was whether the embargo should be made a temporary measure; in other
words, whether war, after a certain date, should be the policy of the
government.
Mr. Gallatin's opinions on these points are fortunately preserved. He
wrote to Mr. Jefferson, apparently after a Cabinet council, on the 18th
December as follows:
GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, 18th December, 1807.
DEAR SIR,--Reflecting on the proposed embargo and all its bearings, I
think it essential that foreign vessels may be excepted so far at least
as to be permitted to depart in ballast or with such cargoes as they may
have on board at this moment. They are so few as to be no object to us,
and we may thereby prevent a similar detention of our vessels abroad, or
at least a pretence for it. Such a seizure of our property and seamen in
foreign ports would be far greater than any possible loss at sea for six
months to come. I wish to know the name of the member to whom Mr. Rodney
sent the sketch of a resolution, in order to mention the subject to him,
and also, if you approve, that you would suggest it to such as you may
see. I also think that an embargo for a limited time will at this moment
be preferable in itself, and less objectionable in Congress. In every
point of view, privations, sufferings, revenue, effect on the enemy,
politics at home, &c., I prefer war to a permanent embargo. Governmental
prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is
not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate
the concerns of individuals as if he could do it better than themselves.
The measure being of a doubtful policy, and hastily adopted on the first
view of our foreign intelligence, I think that we had better recommend
it with modifications, and at first for such a limited time as will
afford us all time for reconsideration, and, if we think proper, for an
alteration in our course without appearing to retract. As to the hope
that it may have an effect on the negotiation with Mr. Rose, or induce
England to treat us better, I think it entirely groundless.
Respectfully, your obedient servant.
Mr. Jefferson wrote back approving the first suggestion, and it was
inserted in the bill, but on the other point Mr. Gallatin was overruled.
Mr. Jefferson and most of the Southern leaders of his party had a strong
faith in the efficacy of commercial regulations; they believed that as
the commerce of America was very valuable to England and France,
therefore England and France might be forced to do our will by depriving
them of that commerce; and perhaps they were in the right, within
certain limits, for, other agencies being disregarded and the influences
of commerce being left to act through periods of years, nations will
ultimately be controlled by them; England herself was ultimately
compelled by the policy of commercial restrictions to revoke her orders
in council, but only after five years of experiment and too late to
prevent war.
Meanwhile, the effect of a permanent embargo was to carry out by the
machinery of the United States government precisely the policy which Mr.
Canning had adopted for his own. American shipping ceased to exist;
American commerce was annihilated; American seamen were forced to seek
employment under the British flag, and British ships and British
commerce alone occupied the ocean. The strangest and saddest spectacle
of all was to see Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Gallatin, after seven years of
patient labor in constructing their political system, forced to turn
their backs upon that future which only a few weeks before had been so
brilliant, and, with infinitely more labor and trouble than they had
used in building their edifice up, now toil to pull it down.
[Sidenote: 1808.]
Mr. Gallatin had no faith in the embargo as a measure of constraint upon
the belligerent powers; he characterized as "utterly groundless" the
idea that it would have any effect on negotiation or induce England to
treat us better; but he accepted it as the policy fixed by his party and
by Congress, for the adoption of which Congress was primarily
responsible, and for the execution of which he had himself to answer; he
accepted it also as the only apparent alternative to war, but not as a
permanent alternative.
Mr. Jefferson went much farther. Without at this time avowing a belief
that the embargo would force England and France to recede, he was warm
in the determination that its power should be tried. "I place immense
value in the experiment being fully made how far an embargo may be an
effectual weapon in future as on this occasion," he wrote to Mr.
Gallatin.[86] Elsewhere he repeated the same earnest wish to test the
powers of this "engine for national purposes," as he called it. He was
restive and even intolerant of opposition on this subject. The embargo
as a coercive measure against England and France was in fact the only
policy upon which a fair degree of unanimity in the party was
attainable, or which their political education had prescribed. No
spectacle could be more lamentable and ludicrous than the Congressional
proceedings of this session; under the relentless grasp of Mr. Canning,
the American Congress threw itself into contortions such as could not
but be in the highest degree amusing to him, and when watched as a mere
spectacle of powerless rage may have been even instructive. There was
but one respectable policy,--war, immediate and irrespective of cost or
risk; but of war all parties stood in dread, and as between England and
France it was difficult to choose an opponent. Even for war some
preparation was necessary, but when Congress attempted to consider
preparations, some members wished for militia, some for regular troops,
some for a navy, some for fortifications, some for gun-boats, and there
were convincing reasons to prove that each of these resources was
useless by itself, and that taken together they were not only far
beyond the national means, but quite opposed to American theories.
Nevertheless, a good deal of money was appropriated in an unsystematic
manner among these various objects, and Mr. Gallatin's surplus soon
began to dwindle away.
[Sidenote: 1808.]
On the embargo alone some degree of unanimity could be attained. The
omnipotent influence with which Mr. Jefferson had begun his
Administration, although steadily diminishing with the advent of a new
generation and the apparent accomplishment of the great objects for
which the party had been educated, was still capable of revival in its
full strength to give effect to the old party dogma of commercial
regulations. Every one was earnestly impressed with what Mr. Jefferson
called "our extreme anxiety to give a full effect to the important
experiment of the embargo at any expense within the bounds of reason."
The first embargo law of December 22, 1807, was a mere temporary measure
of precaution; in order to carry out the policy with effect, a completer
system had to be framed, and Mr. Gallatin was obliged himself to draft
the bill which was to beggar the Treasury; but no ordinary grant of
powers would answer a purpose which consisted in stopping the whole
action and industry of all the great cities and much of the rural
population; thus the astonishing spectacle was presented of Mr.
Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Gallatin, the apostles of strict
construction, of narrow grants, the men who of all others were the
incarnation of that theory which represented mankind as too much
governed, and who, according to Mr. Jefferson, would have had government
occupy itself exclusively with foreign affairs and leave the individual
absolutely alone to manage his own concerns in his own way,--of these
men demanding, obtaining, and using powers practically unlimited so far
as private property was concerned; powers in comparison with which the
alien and sedition laws were narrow and jealous in their grants; powers
which placed the fortunes of at least half the community directly under
their control; which made them no more nor less than despots which gave
Mr. Jefferson the right to say: "we may fairly require positive proof
that the individual of a town tainted with a general spirit of
disobedience has never said or done anything himself to countenance
that spirit;"[87] and which dictated his letter to the Governor of
Massachusetts, then among the proudest, the wealthiest, and the most
populous States in the Union, that the President had permitted her to
have sixty thousand barrels of flour; that this was enough, and she must
have no more.[88]
Congress conferred on the President the enormous grants of power which
he asked for, and Mr. Gallatin proceeded to execute the law; the result
was what he had predicted when he said that government prohibitions do
always more harm than was calculated. The law was first evaded, then
resisted; then came the ominous demand for troops, gun-boats, and
frigates to use against our own citizens, and to be used by Mr.
Gallatin, who, of all men, held military force so applied in horror;
then came the announcement of insurrection, in August, from the Governor
of New York, an insurrection which became chronic along the northern
frontier, from Passamaquoddy to Niagara. All along the coast the United
States navy was spread out to destroy that commerce which it had been
built to protect, and the officers of our ships of war, frantic to
revenge upon the British cruisers their disgrace in the Chesapeake, were
compelled to assist these very cruisers to plunder their own countrymen.
The struggle between government and citizens was violent and prolonged.
Mr. Gallatin's letters at this time to Mr. Jefferson are curious
reading. He set himself with his usual determination to the task of
carrying out his duty; his agents and instruments broke down in every
direction; his annoyances were innumerable and his efforts only
partially successful. The powers he had demanded and received, immense
as they were, proved insufficient, and he demanded more. Already in
July, 1808, he had reached this point. On the 29th of that month he
wrote to Mr. Jefferson from New York: "I am perfectly satisfied that if
the embargo must be persisted in any longer, two principles must
necessarily be adopted in order to make it sufficient: 1st. That not a
single vessel shall be permitted to move without the special permission
of the Executive. 2d. That the collectors be invested with the general
power of seizing property anywhere, and taking the rudders or otherwise
effectually preventing the departure of any vessel in harbor, though
ostensibly intended to remain there; and that without being liable to
personal suits. I am sensible that such arbitrary powers are equally
dangerous and odious. But a restrictive measure of the nature of the
embargo applied to a nation under such circumstances as the United
States cannot be enforced without the assistance of means as strong as
the measure itself. To that legal authority to prevent, seize, and
detain, must be added a sufficient physical force to carry it into
effect; and, although I believe that in our seaports little difficulty
would be encountered, we must have a little army along the lakes and
British lines generally. With that result we should not perhaps be much
astonished, for the Federalists having at least prevented the embargo
from becoming a measure generally popular, and the people being
distracted by the complexity of the subject,--orders of council,
decrees, embargoes,--and wanting a single object which might rouse their
patriotism and unite their passions and affections, selfishness has
assumed the reins in several quarters, and the people are now there
altogether against the law. In such quarters the same thing happens
which has taken place everywhere else, and even under the strongest
governments, under similar circumstances. The navy of Great Britain is
hardly sufficient to prevent smuggling, and you recollect, doubtless,
the army of employees and the sanguinary code of France, hardly adequate
to guard their land frontiers.
"That in the present situation of the world every effort should be
attempted to preserve the peace of this nation cannot be doubted. But if
the criminal party rage of Federalists and Tories shall have so far
succeeded as to defeat our endeavors to obtain that object by the only
measure that could possibly have effected it, we must submit and prepare
for war. I am so much overwhelmed even here with business and
interruptions that I have not time to write correctly or even with
sufficient perspicuity; but you will guess at my meaning where it is not
sufficiently clear. I mean generally to express an opinion founded on
the experience of this summer, that Congress must either invest the
Executive with the most arbitrary powers and sufficient force to carry
the embargo into effect, or give it up altogether. And in this last case
I must confess that, unless a change takes place in the measures of the
European powers, I see no alternative but war. But with whom? This is a
tremendous question if tested only by policy, and so extraordinary in
our situation that it is equally difficult to decide it on the ground of
justice, the only one by which I wish the United States to be governed.
At all events, I think it the duty of the Executive to contemplate that
result as probable, and to be prepared accordingly."
There can be no more painful task to a man of high principles than to do
what Mr. Gallatin was now doing. Not only was he obliged to abandon the
fruit of his long labors, and to see even those results that had seemed
already gained suddenly cast in doubt, but he was obliged to do this
himself by means which he abhorred, and which he did not hesitate to
characterize, even to Mr. Jefferson, as "equally dangerous and odious,"
"most arbitrary powers," such as his whole life had offered one long
protest against. On this score he had no defence against the ferocity of
party assaults; he disdained to attempt a defence; all that could
reasonably be said was true, and he felt the consequences more keenly
than any one; he uttered no complaints, but accepted the responsibility
and kept silence. Others were less discreet.
A. J. DALLAS TO GALLATIN.
30th July, 1808.
... The Spanish affairs have an obvious effect upon our political and
territorial position. I do not know the measures or the designs of the
government, and of course I cannot say what ought to be done as to
foreign nations. As to ourselves, I will candidly tell you that almost
everything that is done seems to excite disgust. I lament the state of
things, but I verily believe one year more of writing, speaking, and
appointing would render Mr. Jefferson a more odious President, even to
the Democrats, than John Adams. My only hope is that Mr. Madison's
election may not be affected, nor his administration perplexed, in
consequence of the growing dissatisfaction among the reputable members
of the Republican party. But I have abandoned politics, and hasten to
assure you of the constant love and esteem of all my family for all
yours.
ROBERT SMITH TO GALLATIN.
BALTIMORE, August 1, 1808.
DEAR SIR,--Your favor of the 29th, with the enclosures, I have received.
The letters of General Dearborn and Lincoln I have forwarded to the
President. The requisite orders will go without delay to the commanders
of the Chesapeake, the Wasp, and the Argus. Most fervently ought we to
pray to be relieved from the various embarrassments of this said
embargo. Upon it there will in some of the States, in the course of the
next two months, assuredly be engendered monsters. Would that we could
be placed upon proper ground for calling in this mischief-making
busybody.
* * * * *
Even in his own family Mr. Gallatin maintained perfect silence on this
point. The use of arbitrary, odious, and dangerous means having been
decided upon by his party and by Congress, and he being the instrument
to employ these means, he did employ them as conscientiously as he had
formerly opposed them, not because they were his own choice, but because
he could see no alternative. Not even war was clearly open to him, for
it was impossible to say which of the two belligerents he ought to make
responsible for the situation. How obnoxious the embargo was to him can
only be seen in his allusions to its effects: "From present
appearances," he wrote to his wife on June 29, 1808, "the Federalists
will turn us out by 4th March next;" and on the 8th July, "As to my
Presidential fears, they arise from the pressure of the embargo and
divisions of the Republicans. I think that Vermont is lost; New
Hampshire is in a bad neighborhood, and Pennsylvania is extremely
doubtful. But I would not even suggest such ideas so that they should go
abroad." But he suggested them to the President on the 6th August: "I
deeply regret to see my incessant efforts in every direction to carry
the law into effect defeated in so many quarters, and that we will
probably produce, at least on the British, but an inconsiderable effect
by a measure which at the same time threatens to destroy the Republican
interest. For there is almost an equal chance that if propositions from
Great Britain, or other events, do not put it in our power to raise the
embargo before the 1st of October, we will lose the Presidential
election. I think that at this moment the Western States, Virginia,
South Carolina, and perhaps Georgia, are the only sound States, and that
we will have a doubtful contest in every other. The consciousness of
having done what was right in itself is doubtless sufficient; but for
the inefficacy of the measure on the lakes and to the northward there is
no consolation; and that circumstance is the strongest argument that can
be brought against the measure itself."
These fears proved ungrounded; Mr. Madison was elected by a large
majority, and only the New England States reverted to opposition; but
New England was on the verge of adopting the ground taken by Mr.
Jefferson and Mr. Madison ten years before, and declaring the embargo,
as they had declared the sedition law, unconstitutional, null, and void.
Mr. Canning treated the embargo with sarcastic and patronizing contempt
as a foolish policy, which he regretted because it was very inconvenient
to the Americans. As an "engine for national purposes" it had utterly
failed, but no one was agreed what to do next.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
WASHINGTON, July, 1808.
I enclose a National Intelligencer, one paragraph of which, together
with the Bayonne decree, contains _the substance_ of the intelligence.
The last we have not officially. I think the aspect of affairs
unfavorable. England seems to rely on our own divisions and on the
aggressions of France as sufficient to force us into a change of
measures, perhaps war with France, without any previous reparation or
relaxation on her part. Of the real views of the French Emperor nothing
more is known than what appears on the face of his decrees and in his
acts; and these manifest, in my opinion, either a deep resentment
because we would not make war against England, or a wish to seek a
quarrel with us. Between the two our situation is extremely critical,
and I believe that poor, limited human wisdom can do and will do but
little to extricate us. Yet I do not feel despondent, for so long as we
adhere strictly to justice towards all, I have a perfect reliance on the
continued protection of that Providence which has raised us and blessed
us as a nation. But we have been too happy and too prosperous, and we
consider as great misfortunes some privations and a share in the general
calamities of the world. Compared with other nations, our share is
indeed very small....
GALLATIN TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.
WASHINGTON, 18th October, 1808.
... Your political questions are of no easy solution. We cannot yet
conjecture whether the belligerent powers will alter their orders and
decrees, and if they do not, what is to be done? I am as much at a loss
what answer to make as yourself. The embargo, having been adopted,
ought, if there was virtue enough in the Eastern people, to be
continued. But without the support and the full support of the people,
such a strong coercive measure cannot be fairly executed. If the embargo
is taken off, I do not perceive yet any medium between absolute
subjection or war. Perhaps, however, some substitute may be devised. A
non-importation act is the only one which has been suggested; and that
would not answer entirely the object which had been intended by the
embargo, which was to avoid war without submitting to the decrees of
either nation....
GALLATIN TO CHARLES PINCKNEY, GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
24th October, 1808.
... On the subject of the embargo, and particularly of what you should
communicate to the Legislature, I must refer you to the President, who
can alone judge of the propriety and extent of communications prior to
the meeting of Congress. As an individual, but this is conjecture and
not fact, I believe that the British ministry is either unwilling, if
they can avoid it, to repeal their orders in any event whatever, or that
they wait for the result of their intrigues and of the exertions of
their friends here, with hopes of producing irresistible dissatisfaction
to the embargo, and a change of measures and of men. I trust that if
this be their object they will be disappointed, and of the steadiness
and patriotism of South Carolina I never entertained any doubt. On an
alteration in the measures of the French Emperor I place no more
confidence, perhaps even less, than on Great Britain. The only
difference in his favor, and it arises probably from inability alone, is
that he interferes not with our domestic concerns. But let those nations
pursue what course they please, I feel a perfect confidence that America
will never adopt a policy which would render her subservient to either,
and that, after twenty-five years of peace and unparalleled prosperity,
she will meet with fortitude the crisis, be it what it will, which may
result from the difficult situation in which she is for the first time
placed since the treaty of 1783.
* * * * *
Mr. Gallatin, to judge from these last words, which he repeated in
"Campbell's Report," seems to have considered the situation as
infinitely more difficult than it had been in 1798 or in 1794. In one
respect at least he was certainly right. Mr. Jefferson's hope of having
to swallow less foreign insolence than his predecessors was by this time
thoroughly dispelled. There seems to have been no form of insult, simple
or aggravated, which Mr. Jefferson and his Administration did not
swallow; between the exquisitely exasperating satire of Mr. Canning and
the peremptory brutality of Bonaparte, he was absolutely extinguished;
he abandoned his hope of balancing one belligerent against another, and
his expectation of guiding them by their interests; he abandoned even
the embargo; he laid down the sceptre of party leadership; he had no
longer a party; Virginia herself ceased to be guided by his opinion; his
most intimate friend, Mr. Wilson Cary Nicholas, favored war; Mr. William
B. Giles was of the same mode of thinking; Mr. Jefferson, overwhelmed by
all these difficulties, longed for the moment of his retreat: "Never did
a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as I shall on
shaking off the shackles of power."[89] So cowed was he as to do what no
President had ever done before, or has ever done since, and what no
President has a constitutional right to do: he abdicated the duties of
his office, and no entreaty could induce him to resume them. So soon as
the election was decided, he hastened to throw upon his successor the
burden of responsibility and withdrew himself from all but the
formalities of administration: "I have thought it right," he wrote on
December 27, 1808, "to take no part myself in proposing measures, the
execution of which will devolve on my successor. I am therefore chiefly
an unmeddling listener to what others say."[90] "Our situation is truly
difficult. We have been pressed by the belligerents to the very wall,
and all further retreat is impracticable."
The duty of providing a policy fell of necessity upon Mr. Madison and
Mr. Gallatin, although they could not act effectively without the
President's power. Under these circumstances, on the 7th November, 1808,
Congress met. The President's message, in conformity with his
determination to decline any expression of opinion,[91] proposed nothing
in regard to the embargo, and this silence necessarily threw the party
into still greater disorder, until Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin were
driven to make a combined attempt to recall Mr. Jefferson to his duties.
GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.
DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY, 15th November, 1808.
DEAR SIR,--Both Mr. Madison and myself concur in opinion that,
considering the temper of the Legislature, or rather of its members, it
would be eligible to point out to them some precise and distinct course.
As to what that should be we may not all perfectly agree, and perhaps
the knowledge of the various feelings of the members and of the apparent
public opinion may on consideration induce a revision of our own. I
feel myself nearly as undetermined between enforcing the embargo or war
as I was on our last meetings. But I think that we must (or rather you
must) decide the question absolutely, so that we may point out a
decisive course either way to our friends. Mr. Madison, being unwell,
proposed that I should call on you and suggest our wish that we might
with the other gentlemen be called by you on that subject. Should you
think that course proper, the sooner the better. The current business
has prevented my waiting on you personally in the course of the morning.
* * * * *
Mr. Jefferson, however, as appears from his letter to Dr. Logan of
December 27, quoted above, persisted in declining responsibility. Mr.
Madison and Mr. Gallatin were obliged to follow another course. Mr.
Gallatin drafted a report for the Committee of Foreign Relations, which
was, on the 22d November, 1808, presented to the House by Mr. G. W.
Campbell for the committee, and which has been always known under the
name of Campbell's Report. This paper is probably the best statement
ever made of the American argument against the British government and
the orders in council; it certainly disposed of the pretence that those
orders were justifiable either on the ground of retaliation upon France
or on that of American acquiescence in French infractions of
international law; but its chief object was to unite the Republican
party on common ground and to serve as the foundation of a policy; for
this purpose it concluded by recommending the adoption of three
resolutions, the first of which pledged the nation not to submit to the
edicts of Great Britain and France; the second pledged them to exclude
the commerce and productions of those countries from our ports; and the
third, to take immediate measures to put the United States in a better
condition of defence. These resolutions were debated nearly a month, and
finally adopted by large majorities.
In the mean time Mr. Gallatin asked for the extension which he needed of
powers to carry out the embargo law, and the force to back these powers.
A bill to that effect was soon reported, and was rapidly passed, a bill
famous in history as the Enforcement Act. It was a terrible measure, and
in comparison with its sweeping grants of arbitrary power, all previous
enactments of the United States Congress sank into comparative
insignificance. How it could be defended under any conceivable theory of
the Republican party, and how it could receive the support of any
Republican whose memory extended ten years back, are questions which
would be difficult to answer if the Annals of Congress were not at hand
to explain. The two parties had completely changed their position, and
while the Republicans stood on the ground once occupied by the
Federalists, the Federalists were seeking safety under the States'
rights doctrines formerly avowed by the Virginia and Kentucky
Republicans.
As a result of eight years' conscientious and painful effort, the
situation was calculated to sober and sadden the most sanguine Democrat.
The idea was at last impressed with unmistakable emphasis upon every
honest and reflecting mind in the Republican party that the failures of
the past were not due to the faults of the past only, and that
circumstances must by their nature be stronger and more permanent than
men. Brought at last face to face with this new political fact which
gave the lie to all his theories and hopes, even the sanguine and supple
Jefferson felt the solid earth reel under him,[92] and his courage fled;
it was long before he recovered his old confidence, and he never could
speak of the embargo and the last year of his Presidency without showing
traces of the mental shock he had suffered.
Mr. Gallatin was made of different stuff. In his youth almost as
sanguine as Mr. Jefferson, he knew better how to accept defeat and adapt
himself to circumstances, how to abandon theory and to move with his
generation; but it needed all and more than all the toughness of Mr.
Gallatin's character to support his courage in this emergency. He knew,
quite as well as John Randolph or as any Federalist, how far he had
drifted from his true course, and how arbitrary, odious, and dangerous
was the course he had to pursue; but he at least now learned to
recognize in the fullest extent the omnipotence of circumstance. He had
no longer a principle to guide him. Except, somewhere far in the
background, a general theory that peace was better than war, not a
shred was left of Republican principles. Facts, not theories, were all
that survived in the wreck of Mr. Jefferson's Administration, and the
solitary fact which asserted itself prominently above all others, was
that the United States could only be likened to an unfortunate rat
worried by two terrier bull-dogs; whether it fought or whether it fled,
its destiny was to be eaten up. The only choice was one of evils; that
of the manner of extinction. The country had selected the manner of its
own free will, not under any urgency from Mr. Gallatin; but when it was
tried, it was found to be suicide by suffocation. New England, hostile
to the government, and dependent more immediately on commerce than her
neighbors, resisted, revolted, and gasped convulsively for life and air.
Her struggle saved her; necessity taught new modes of existence and made
her at length almost independent of the sea. Virginia, however, friendly
to the government and herself responsible for the choice, submitted with
hardly a murmur, and never recovered from the shock; her ruin was
accelerated with frightful rapidity because she made no struggle for
life.
Mr. Gallatin saw the situation as clearly as most men of his time, and
at this moment, when New England was struggling most wildly, he was
obliged to say whether in his opinion the policy of government should be
changed or not. How slowly and doubtfully he came to his decision has
been seen in his letters, and was inevitable from his character. As he
said on December 18, 1807, to Mr. Jefferson, he preferred war in every
point of view to a permanent embargo; but the embargo had been adopted
as a policy; it had been maintained at a fearful cost; the injury it
could inflict was for the most part accomplished; the difficulties of
enforcing it were overcome; its effect on England was only beginning to
be felt; so far as New England was concerned, the danger was less
imminent than it appeared to be, and the task of carrying that part of
the country into armed rebellion was by no means an easy one; to abandon
the embargo now was to exhibit the government in the light of a
vacillating and feeble guide, to destroy all popular faith in its wisdom
and courage, to shake the supports and undermine the authority of the
new Administration, and to encourage every element of faction. Abroad
the effect of this feebleness would be fatal. In the face of opponents
like Canning and Bonaparte, weakness of will was the only unpardonable
and irrevocable crime.
Another motive which probably decided Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin was
one they could not use for an argument. Mr. Erskine, the British
minister at Washington, was a young man of liberal politics and with an
American wife; he was honestly anxious to restore friendly relations
between the two governments, and he was stimulated by the idea of
winning distinction. It appears from his letters that as early as the
end of November, 1808, the moment the election was fairly decided and
Mr. Jefferson had in effect surrendered the Presidency to Mr. Madison,
the idea had begun to work in his mind that the time for attempting a
reconciliation had come. What Mr. Canning had refused to concede to Mr.
Jefferson, the friend of France, he might be willing to offer to Mr.
Madison, whose sympathies were rather English than French. Mr. Erskine
lost no time in sounding the members of the new Administration, and he
found them one and all disposed to encourage him. He talked long and
earnestly with Mr. Gallatin, "whose character," he wrote to Mr. Canning
on December 4, 1808, "must be well known to you to be held in the
greatest respect in this country for his unrivalled talents as a
financier and a statesman." Mr. Gallatin flattered and encouraged him.
"At the close of my interview with Mr. Gallatin, he said, in a familiar
way, 'You see, sir, we could settle a treaty in my private room in two
hours which might perhaps be found to be as lasting as if it was bound
up in all the formalities of a regular system.'" He hinted to Mr.
Gallatin his theory that Mr. Jefferson had acted with partiality to
France, at which Mr. Gallatin "seemed to check himself," and turned the
conversation immediately upon the character of Mr. Madison, saying "that
_he_ could not be accused of having such a bias towards France," whereat
the young diplomatist, instead of inferring that Mr. Gallatin saw
through him and all his little motives and meant to let them work
undisturbed, drew only the inference that Mr. Gallatin thought as he did
about Mr. Jefferson, but dared not say so.
Acting under these impressions, Mr. Erskine early in December, 1808,
wrote a series of despatches to Mr. Canning, suggesting that this
favorable moment should be used. While waiting for the necessary
instructions, he continued his friendly relations with the Cabinet, and
the Cabinet, not a little pleased at discovering at length one example
of a friendly Englishman, cultivated these relations with cordiality.
The policy adopted by Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin is to be found in
scattered pieces of evidence. Mr. Gallatin's letter of 15th November,
1808, to Mr. Jefferson seems to prove that he was still on that day not
quite decided; but his annual report, dated December 10, which was
clearly intended to supply to some extent the want of distinctness in
the President's message, shows that in the interval the course had been
marked out which the new Administration meant to pursue.
This report began, as usual, with a sketch of the financial situation.
The receipts of the Treasury during the year ending September 30, 1808,
had been $17,952,000, a sum greater than the receipts of any preceding
year, but principally consisting of revenue accrued during 1807. On
January 1, 1809, the Treasury would have a sum of $16,000,000 on hand,
of which Mr. Gallatin estimated that the expenses of 1809 would consume
$13,000,000, leaving a surplus of only $3,000,000 to be disposed of.
Thus the government could look forward with confidence to the 1st
January, 1810, and if extraordinary preparations for war were necessary,
it could, by stopping the redemption of debt, provide some $5,000,000
additional for the year without recurring to loans.
After thus describing the resources of the government, the Secretary
proceeded to discuss its probable expenses under the four contingencies
among which he supposed the choice of Congress to lie. Two of these were
merely forms of submission to Great Britain and France, and, as in this
case resistance would not be contemplated, no provision beyond an
immediate reduction of expenses was required. The other two were forms
of resistance; embargo, or war.
The embargo considered as a temporary measure, which would ultimately be
superseded by war, was, financially, to be considered as a war measure,
and preparations made accordingly; while if the embargo were adopted as
a permanent system, coterminous with the belligerent edicts, it was a
peace measure, and needed no other provision than economy at least for
the next two years.
War must be carried on principally by loans, and the embargo had
produced a situation most favorable for effecting loans. No internal
taxes of any description need be imposed. All that the Treasury
required, besides economy, was to double the import duties; to limit the
system of drawbacks; either to repeal or to complete the partial
non-intercourse law, and to reform the system of accountability in the
Army and Navy Departments.
The report was decidedly warlike; clearly, if war was to come, Mr.
Gallatin wished it to be begun within another year. His policy,
therefore, is evident; he would have had Congress take a strong tone;
continue the embargo for a given time until the results of Mr. Erskine's
representations should be known; and let it be clearly understood that
the embargo was to give place to war. He would have had Congress apply
six or eight millions to the purchase of arms and stores, to the
building of forts or of ships, and to the organization of the militia;
and with a firm party behind him and such measures of preparation, he
would have spoken to Mr. Canning and to Napoleon with as much authority
as it was in his power to command. He would boldly have retaliated upon
both.
This was the plan adopted for the new Administration and earnestly
pressed by the Secretary of the Treasury whom the President elect then
looked upon as his future Secretary of State. Mr. Jefferson's theory
that his successor was responsible for the government after his election
was decided, utterly untenable and mischievous as it was, compelled Mr.
Madison to act through Mr. Gallatin. The whole future of his
Administration turned on his success in holding the party together on
this line of policy, and Mr. Gallatin labored night and day to effect
this object.
MACON TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.
WASHINGTON, December 4, 1808.
... The war men in the House of Representatives are, I conceive, gaining
strength, and I should not be much surprised if we should be at war with
both Great Britain and France before the 4th of March. Gallatin is most
decidedly for war, and I think that the Vice-President and W. C.
Nicholas are of the same opinion. It is said that the President gives no
opinion as to the measures that ought to be adopted. It is not known
whether he be for war or peace. It is reported that Mr. Madison is for
the plan which I have submitted, with the addition of high protecting
duties to encourage the manufacturers of the United States. I am as much
against war as Gallatin is in favor of it. Thus I have continued in
Congress till there is not one of my old fellow-laborers that agrees
with me in opinion. I do not know what plan Randolph will pursue. He is
against continuing the embargo. I wish he would lay some plan before the
House. It grieves me to the heart to be compelled from a sense of right
and duty to oppose him. I am not consulted, as you seem to suppose,
about anything, nor do I consult any one. I am about as much out of
fashion as our grand-mothers' ruffle cuffs, and I do not believe that I
shall be in fashion as soon as they will.
GALLATIN TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.
WASHINGTON, 29th December, 1808.
[Sidenote: 1809.]
... Never was I so overwhelmed with public business. That would be
nothing if we went right. But a great confusion and perplexity reign in
Congress. Mr. Madison is, as I always knew him, slow in taking his
ground, but firm when the storm arises. What I had foreseen has taken
place. A majority will not adhere to the embargo much longer, and if war
be not speedily determined on, submission will soon ensue. This entirely
between us. When will you be here? We expect you, and the sooner the
better. Exclusively of the pleasure we always have in seeing you, rely
upon it that your presence will at this crisis be useful. I actually
want time to give you more details, but I will only state that it is
intended by the Essex Junto to prevail on the Massachusetts Legislature,
who meet in two or three weeks, to call a convention of the five New
England States, to which they will try to add New York; and that
something must be done to anticipate and defeat that nefarious plan.
* * * * *
Mr. Jefferson's private letters tell the story of Mr. Madison's failure
to control his party, and of the collapse of his war policy. On the 19th
January, 1809, he wrote to Thomas Lomax:[93] "I think Congress, although
they have not passed any bill indicative of their intentions, except the
new embargo law, have evidently made up their minds to let that continue
only till their meeting in May, and then to issue letters of marque and
reprisal against such powers as shall not then have repealed their
illegal decrees. Some circumstances have taken place which render it
very possible that Great Britain may revoke her orders of council. This
will be known before May." Two days later, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr.
Leiper:[94] "The House of Representatives passed last night a bill for
the meeting of Congress on the 22d of May. This substantially decides
the course they mean to pursue,--that is, to let the embargo continue
till then, when it will cease, and letters of marque and reprisal be
issued against such nations as shall not then have repealed their
obnoxious edicts. The great majority seem to have made up their minds on
this, while there is considerable diversity of opinion on the details of
preparation, to wit: naval force, volunteers, army, non-intercourse,
&c." But on the 7th February Mr. Jefferson wrote:[95] "I thought
Congress had taken their ground firmly for continuing their embargo till
June, and then war. But a sudden and unaccountable revolution of opinion
took place the last week, chiefly among the New England and New York
members, and in a kind of panic they voted the 4th of March for removing
the embargo, and by such a majority as gave all reason to believe they
would not agree either to war or non-intercourse. This, too, was after
we had become satisfied that the Essex Junto had found their expectation
desperate of inducing the people there to either separation or forcible
opposition. The majority of Congress, however, has now rallied to
removing the embargo on the 4th of March, non-intercourse with France
and Great Britain, trade everywhere else, and continuing war
preparations." The defeat of the Administration on the crucial point of
fixing the 1st June, 1809, for removing the embargo, took place on
February 2, by a vote of 73 to 40. The substitution of March 4 was
carried on February 3, by a vote of 70, no ayes and noes having been
taken on either side. The new Administration had already met with a
serious if not fatal check. As Mr. Gallatin said in a note to Mr.
Jefferson of February 4, the day after the disaster: "As far as my
information goes, everything grows more quiet in Massachusetts and
Maine. All would be well if our friends remained firm here."
The votes of February 2 and February 4, 1809, carried a deeper
significance to Mr. Gallatin than to any one else, for they did not
stand alone. Congress had already shown that it meant to accept his
control no longer, and this was no mere panic and no result of New
England defection. He had at last to meet the experience of defeat where
he had supposed himself strongest. As has been seen, the administration
of naval affairs had always been repugnant to Mr. Gallatin's wishes; the
time when he had opposed a moderate navy had long passed, and, as
Secretary of the Treasury, he had never wished to diminish the
efficiency or lessen the force of the few frigates we had; but he
conceived that the management of the Department under Mr. Robert Smith
was wasteful and inefficient. Very large sums of money had been spent,
for which there was little to show except one hundred and seventy
gun-boats, which had cost on an average $9000 each to build and would
cost $11,500 a year in actual service. At the beginning of the session
it had been distinctly intimated by the Executive that no present
increase of force was required; but suddenly, on the 4th January, 1809,
the Senate adopted a bill which directed that all the frigates and other
armed vessels of the United States, including the gun-boats, should be
immediately fitted out, officered, manned, and employed. The law was
mandatory; it required the immediate employment of some six thousand
seamen and the appropriation of some six million dollars, and this
excessive expenditure on the part of the navy was not accompanied by any
corresponding measures for shore armaments and defences. If war did not
take place the expense was entirely lost. Had these six millions been
expended in buying arms, constructing fortifications and putting them in
readiness for war, or in organizing and arming the militia, or in
building frigates and ships of the line, the government would have had
something to show for them; but to waste the small national treasure
before war began; to support thousands of seamen in absolute idleness,
with almost a certainty that the moment a British frigate came within
sight they would have to run ashore for safety, seemed insane
extravagance. Yet when the Senate's amendment came before the House it
was adopted on the 10th January by a vote of 64 to 59, in the teeth of
Mr. Gallatin's warm remonstrances. Among his papers is the following
curious analysis of this vote.
THE NAVY COALITION OF 1809.
By whom were sacrificed
Forty Republican members, nine Republican States,
The Republican cause itself, and the people of the United States,
To a system of
Favoritism, extravagance, parade, and folly.
1. _Smith Faction, or Ruling Party._
File Leader, W. C. Nicholas, E. W.; Assistants, Dawson,
J. G. Jackson, McCreery, Montgomery, Newton 6
2. _Federalists, Old and New._ }
}
Dana, Elliot, Goldsborough, Harris, Kay, Lewis, }
Livermore, Lyon, Masters, Mosely, Pitkin, Russel, Sloan, }
Stedman, Sturges, Van Dyke, Van Rensselaer 17 }
}
3. _Quids._ } 27*
}
Cook, Findley, Gardner, Van Horn 4 }
}
4. _New York Malcontents._ }
}
Mumford, Swart, Thompson, Van Cortland, Wilson, Riker 6 }
---
33
5. Scared Yankees. 33
Bacon, Barker, Durell, Illsley, Storer 5
6. Republicans. }
Virginia. N. York. N. England. N. Jersey. Other States. }
Basset. Blake. Cutts. Helms. Kenan. }
Clay. Humphreys. Deane. Lambert. N. Moore. }
Clopton. Kirkpatrick. Fisk. Newbold. Smelt. }
Gholson. Van Allan. Green. Troup. }
Holmes. Verplanck. Seaver. }
Smith. Smith. }
Wilbour. }
25 }
7. Sui Generis.
Jones 1
--
64
--
*27
---
Friendly only 37
The meaning of all this confusion was soon made clear to Gallatin. A web
of curious intrigue spun itself over the chair which Mr. Madison now
left empty in the Department of State; there was no agreement upon the
person who was to fill it, and who would, perhaps, be made thereby the
most prominent candidate for succession to the throne itself. Not until
his inauguration approached did Mr. Madison distinctly give it to be
understood that he intended to make Mr. Gallatin his Secretary of State.
This intention roused vehement opposition among Senators. Leib and the
Aurora influence were of course hostile to Gallatin, and Leib now found
a formidable ally in William B. Giles, Senator from Virginia. Giles made
no concealment of his opposition. "From the first," wrote Mr. Wilson
Cary Nicholas, "Mr. Giles declared his determination to vote against
Gallatin. I repeatedly urged and entreated him not to do it; for several
days it was a subject of discussion between us. There was no way which
our long and intimate friendship would justify, consistent with my
respect for him, in which I did not assail him. To all my arguments he
replied that his duty to his country was to him paramount to every other
consideration, and that he could not justify to himself permitting
Gallatin to be Secretary of State if his vote would prevent it." "The
objection to him that I understood had the most weight, and that was
most pressed in conversation, was that he was a foreigner. I thought it
was too late to make that objection. He had for eight years been in an
office of equal dignity and of greater trust and importance."
But Leib and Giles, separate or combined, were not strong enough to
effect this object; they needed more powerful allies, and they found
such in the Navy influence, represented in the Senate chiefly by General
Smith, Senator from Maryland, brother of the Secretary of the Navy, and
brother-in-law of Wilson Cary Nicholas. General Smith joined the
opposition to Gallatin. An effort appears to have been made to buy off
the vote of General Smith; it is said that he was willing to compromise
if his brother were transferred to Mr. Gallatin's place in the Treasury,
and that Mr. Madison acquiesced in this arrangement, but Gallatin dryly
remarked that he could not undertake to carry on both Departments at
once, and requested Mr. Madison to leave him where he was. Mr. Madison
then yielded, and Robert Smith was appointed Secretary of State.
Mr. J. Q. Adams, who at just this moment was rejected as minister to
Russia by the same combination, has left an unpublished account of this
affair:
MADISON AND GALLATIN. 1809.
"In the very last days of his [Jefferson's] Administration there
appeared in the Republican portion of the Senate a disposition to
control him in the exercise of his power. This was the more remarkable,
because until then nothing of that character had appeared in the
proceedings of the Senate during his Administration. The experience of
Mr. Burr and of John Randolph had given a warning which had quieted the
aspirings of others, and, with the exception of an ineffectual effort to
reject the nomination of John Armstrong as minister to France, there was
scarcely an attempt made in the Senate for seven years to oppose
anything that he desired. But in the summer of 1808, after the peace of
Tilsit, the Emperor Alexander of Russia had caused it to be signified
to Mr. Jefferson that an exchange of ministers plenipotentiary between
him and the United States would be very agreeable to him, and that he
waited only for the appointment of one from the United States to appoint
one in return. Mr. Jefferson accordingly appointed an old friend and
pupil of his, Mr. William Short, during the recess of the Senate, and
Mr. Short, being furnished with his commission, credentials, and
instructions, proceeded on his mission as far as Paris. Towards the
close of the session of Congress he nominated Mr. Short to the Senate,
by whom the nomination was rejected. This event occasioned no small
surprise. It indicated the termination of that individual personal
influence which Mr. Jefferson had erected on the party division of Whig
and Tory. It was also the precursor of a far more extensive scheme of
operations which was to commence, and actually did commence, with the
Administration of Mr. Madison.
"He had wished and intended to appoint Mr. Gallatin, who had been
Secretary of the Treasury during the whole of Mr. Jefferson's
Administration, to succeed himself in the Department of State, and Mr.
Robert Smith, who had been Secretary of the Navy, he proposed to
transfer to the Treasury Department. He was not permitted to make this
arrangement. Mr. Robert Smith had a brother in the Senate. It was the
wish of the individuals who had effected the rejection of Mr. Short that
Mr. Robert Smith should be Secretary of State, and Mr. Madison was given
explicitly to understand that if he should nominate Mr. Gallatin he
would be rejected by the Senate.
"Mr. Robert Smith was appointed. This dictation to Mr. Madison, effected
by a very small knot of association in the Senate, operating by
influence over that body chiefly when in secret session, bears a strong
resemblance to that which was exercised over the same body in 1798 and
1799, with this difference, that the prime agents of the faction were
not then members of the body, and now they were.
"In both instances it was directly contrary to the spirit of the
Constitution, and was followed by unfortunate consequences. In the first
it terminated by the overthrow of the Administration and by a general
exclusion from public life of nearly every man concerned in it. In the
second its effect was to place in the Department of State, at a most
critical period of foreign affairs and against the will of the
President, a person incompetent, to the exclusion of a man eminently
qualified for the office. Had Mr. Gallatin been then appointed Secretary
of State, it is highly probable, that the war with Great Britain would
not have taken place. As Providence shapes all for the best, that war
was the means of introducing great improvements in the practice of the
government and of redeeming the national character from some unjust
reproaches, and of strongly cementing the Union. But if the people of
the United States could have realized that a little cluster of Senators,
by caballing in secret session, would place a sleepy Palinurus at the
helm even in the fury of the tempest, they must almost have believed in
predestination to expect that their vessel of state would escape
shipwreck. This same Senatorial faction continued to harass and perplex
the Administration of Mr. Madison during the war with Great Britain,
till it became perceptible to the people, and the prime movers losing
their popularity were compelled to retire from the Senate. They left
behind them, however, practices in the Senate and a disposition in that
body to usurp unconstitutional control, which have already effected much
evil and threaten much more."
* * * * *
Thus the Administration of Mr. Jefferson, whose advent had been hailed
eight years before by a majority of the nation as the harbinger of a new
era on earth; the Administration which, alone among all that had
preceded or were to follow it, was freighted with hopes and aspirations
and with a sincere popular faith that could never be revived, and a
freshness, almost a simplicity of thought that must always give to its
history a certain indefinable popular charm like old-fashioned music;
this Administration, into which Mr. Gallatin had woven the very web of
his life, now expired, and its old champion, John Randolph, was left to
chant a palinode over its grave: "Never has there been any
Administration which went out of office and left the nation in a state
so deplorable and calamitous."
Under such conditions, with such followers and such advisers, Mr.
Madison patched up his broken Cabinet and his shattered policy; broken
before it was complete, and shattered before it was launched. He had to
save what he could, and by rallying all his strength in Congress he
succeeded in preserving a tolerable appearance of energy towards the
belligerent nations; but in fact the war-policy was defeated, and a
small knot of men in the Senate were more powerful than the President
himself. The Cabinet was an element not of strength but of weakness, for
whatever might be Mr. Smith's disposition he could not but become the
representative of the group in the Senate which had forced him into
prominence. Under such circumstances, until then without a parallel in
our history, government, in the sense hitherto understood, became
impossible.
Had Mr. Gallatin followed his own impulses, he would now have resigned
his seat in the Cabinet and returned to his old place in Congress. That
course, as the event proved, would have been the wisest for him, but his
ultimate decision to remain in the Treasury was nevertheless correct. He
had at least an even chance of regaining his ground and carrying out
those ideas to which his life had been devoted; the belligerents might
return to reason; the war in Europe could not last forever; the country
might unite in support of a practicable policy; at all events there was
no immediate danger that the government would go to pieces, and heroic
remedies were not to be used but as a last resort. So far as Mr. Madison
was concerned, the question was not whether he was to be deserted, but
in what capacity Mr. Gallatin could render him the most efficient
support.
Suddenly the skies seemed to clear, and the new Administration for a
brief moment flattered itself that its difficulties were at an end. Mr.
Erskine received the reply of Mr. Canning to his letters of December 3
and 4, and this reply declared in substance that if the United States
would of her own accord abandon the colonial trade and allow the British
fleet to enforce that abandonment, England would withdraw her orders in
council. This was, it is true, a matter of course. Mr. Canning's object
in imposing the orders in council, though nominally retaliatory upon
France, had been really to counteract Napoleon's Continental policy and
to save British shipping and commerce from American competition, and his
condition of withdrawing the orders could only be that America should
abandon her shipping and employ British ships of war in destroying her
own trade. Mr. Erskine, however, conceived that a loose interpretation
might be put on these conditions. After communicating their substance to
the Secretary of State and receiving the reply that they were
inadmissible, he "considered that it would be in vain to lay before the
government of the United States the despatch in question, which I was
_at liberty_ to have done in extenso had I thought proper."[96] He
therefore set aside his instructions and proceeded to act in what he
conceived to be their spirit. A hint thrown out by Mr. Gallatin that the
substitution of non-intercourse for embargo had so altered the situation
as to put England in a more favorable position with reference to France,
served as the ground for Mr. Erskine's propositions; but these
propositions, in fact, rested on no solid ground whatever, for in them
Mr. Erskine entirely omitted all reference to an abandonment of the
colonial trade, and while the American government professed its
readiness to abandon that trade so far as it was _direct_ from the West
Indies to Europe, this was all the foundation Mr. Erskine had for
considering as fulfilled that condition of his instructions by which
America was to abjure all colonial trade, direct and indirect, and allow
the British fleet to enforce this abjuration.
On this slender basis, and without communicating his authority, Mr.
Erskine, early in April, 1809, made a provisional arrangement with the
Secretary of State by which the outrage on the Chesapeake was atoned
for, and the orders in council withdrawn. The President instantly issued
a proclamation bearing date the 19th April, 1809, declaring the trade
with Great Britain renewed. Great was the joy throughout America; so
great as for the moment almost to obliterate party distinctions. When
Congress met on May 22, for that session which had been called to
provide for war, all was peace and harmony; John Randolph was loudest in
singing praises of the new President, and no one ventured to gainsay
him. The Federalists exulted in the demonstration of their political
creed that Mr. Jefferson had been the wicked author of all mischief, and
that the British government was all that was moderate, just, and
injured.
The feelings of Mr. Canning on receiving the news were not of the same
nature. The absurd and ridiculous side of things was commonly uppermost
in his mind, and in the whole course of his stormy career there was
probably no one event more utterly absurd than this. His policy in
regard to the United States was simple even to crudeness; he meant that
her neutral commerce, gained from England and France, should be taken
away, and that, if possible, she should not be allowed to fight for it.
In carrying out this policy he never wavered, and he was completely
successful; even an American can now admire the clearness and energy of
his course, though perhaps it has been a costly one in its legacy of
hate. That one of his subordinates should undertake to break down his
policy and give back to the United States her commerce, and that the
United States should run wild with delight at this evidence of Mr.
Canning's defeat and the success of her own miserable embargo, was an
event in which the ludicrous predominated over the tragic. Mr. Canning
made very short work of poor Mr. Erskine; he instantly recalled that
gentleman and disavowed his arrangement; but in order to prevent war he
announced that a new minister would be immediately sent out. Even this
civility, however, was conceded with very little pretence of a
disposition to conciliate, and the minister chosen for the purpose was
calculated rather to inspire terror than good-will. Mr. Rose had at
least borne an exterior of civility, and had affected a decent though
patronizing benevolence. Mr. Jackson made no such pretensions. His
feelings and the object of his mission were odious enough at the time,
and, now that his private correspondence has been published,[97] it can
hardly be said that, however insolent the American government may have
thought him, he was in the least degree more insolent than his chief
intended him to be.
The news of Mr. Canning's disavowal reached America in July, and spread
consternation and despair. Mr. Gallatin found himself involved in a sort
of controversy with Mr. Erskine, resulting from the publication of
Erskine's despatches in England, and, although he extricated himself
with skill, the result could at best be only an escape. The
non-intercourse had to be renewed by proclamation, and the
Administration could only look about and ask itself in blank dismay what
it could do next.
GALLATIN TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.
WASHINGTON, 20th April, 1809.
DEAR SIR,--I do not perceive, unless the President shall otherwise
direct, anything that can now prevent my leaving this on Sunday for
Baltimore. I fear that Mrs. Gallatin will not go; she is afraid to leave
the children, who have all had slight indispositions. Yet she would, I
think, be the better for a friendly visit to Mrs. Nicholson and croaking
with you. As you belong to that tribe, I presume that, although you
found fault yesterday with Mr. Madison because he did not make peace,
you will now blame him for his anxiety to accommodate on any terms. Be
that as it may, I hope that you will get 1 dollar and 60/100 for your
wheat. And still you may say that you expected two dollars. Present my
best respects to Mrs. Nicholson.
Yours truly.
Eustis may have his faults, but I will be disappointed if he is not
honorable and disinterested.
GALLATIN TO JOHN MONTGOMERY.
WASHINGTON, 27th July, 1809.
... The late news from England has deranged our plans, public and
private. I was obliged to give up my trip to Belair, have also postponed
our Virginia journey, and have written to Mr. Madison that I thought it
necessary that he should return here immediately. We have not yet
received any letters from Mr. Pinckney nor any other official
information on the subject. Even Mr. Erskine, who is, however, expected
every moment, has not written. I will not waste time in conjectures
respecting the true cause of the conduct of the British government, nor
can we, until we are better informed, lay any permanent plan of conduct
for ourselves. I will only observe that we are not so well prepared for
resistance as we were one year ago. All or almost all our mercantile
wealth was safe at home, our resources entire, and our finances
sufficient to carry us through during the first year of the contest. Our
property is now all afloat; England relieved by our relaxations might
stand two years of privations with ease; we have wasted our resources
without any national utility; and, our Treasury being exhausted, we must
begin our plan of resistance with considerable and therefore unpopular
loans. All these considerations are, however, for Congress; and at this
moment the first question is, what ought the Executive to do? It appears
to me from the laws and the President's proclamation, that as he had no
authority but that of proclaiming a certain fact on which alone rested
the restoration of intercourse, and that fact not having taken place,
the prohibitions of the Non-Intercourse Act necessarily revive in
relation to England, and that a proclamation to that effect should be
the first act of the Executive. If we do not adopt that mode, our
intercourse with England must continue until the meeting of Congress,
whilst her orders remain unrepealed and our intercourse with France is
interdicted by our own laws. This would be so unequal, so partial to
England and contrary to every principle of justice, policy, and national
honor, that I hope the Attorney-General will accede to my construction
and the President act accordingly.
The next question for the Executive is how we shall treat Mr. Jackson;
whether and how we will treat with him. That must, it is true, depend in
part on what he may have to say. But I have no confidence in Canning &
Co., and if we are too weak or too prudent to resist England in the
direct and proper manner, I hope at least that we will not make a single
voluntary concession inconsistent with our rights and interest. If Mr.
Jackson has any compromise to offer which would not be burthened with
such, I will be very agreeably disappointed. But, judging by what is
said to have been the substance of Mr. Erskine's instructions, what can
we expect but dishonorable and inadmissible proposals? He is probably
sent out, like Mr. Rose, to amuse and to divide, and we will, I trust,
by coming at once to the point, bring his negotiation to an immediate
close....
* * * * *
One may reasonably doubt whether during the entire history of the United
States government the difficulties of administration have ever been so
great as during the years 1809-11. Peace usually allows great latitude
of action and of opinion without endangering the national existence. War
at least compels some kind of unity; the path of government is then
clear. Even in 1814 and in 1861 the country responded to a call; but in
1809 and 1810 the situation was one of utter helplessness. The session
of 1808-9 had proved two facts: one, that the nation would not stand the
embargo; the other, that it could not be brought to the point of war. So
far as Mr. Madison and his Administration are concerned, it is safe to
say that they would at any time have accepted any policy, short of
self-degradation, which would have united the country behind them. As
for Mr. Gallatin, he had yielded to the embargo because it had the
support of a great majority of Congress; he had done his utmost to
support the only logical consequence of the embargo, which was war.
Congress had rejected both embargo and war, and had in complete
helplessness fallen back on a system of non-intercourse which had most
of the evils of embargo, much of the expense of war, and all the
practical disgrace of submission. He could do nothing else than make the
best of this also. The country had lost its headway and was thoroughly
at the mercy of events.
When studied as a mere matter of political philosophy, it is clear
enough that this painful period of paralysis was an inevitable stage in
the national development. The party which had come into power in 1801
held theories inconsistent with thorough nationality, and, as a
consequence, with a firm foreign policy. The terrible treatment which
the government received, while in its hands, from the great military
powers of Europe came upon the Republican party before it had outgrown
its theories, and necessarily disorganized that party, leaving the old
States-rights, anti-nationalizing element where it stood, and forcing
the more malleable element forward into a situation inconsistent with
the party tenets. Another result was to give the mere camp-followers and
mercenaries of both parties an almost unlimited power of mischief.
Finally, the Federalist opposition, affected in the same manner by the
same causes, also rapidly resolved itself into three similar elements,
one of which seriously meditated treason, while the more liberal one
maintained a national character. It was clear, therefore, or rather it
is now clear, that until the sentiment of nationality became strong
enough to override resistance and to carry the Administration on its
shoulders, no effective direction could be given to government.
That Mr. Gallatin consciously and decidedly followed either direction,
it would be a mistake to suppose. He too, like his party, was torn by
conflicting influences. A man already fifty years old, whose life has
been earnestly and arduously devoted to certain well-defined objects
that have always in his eyes stood for moral principles, cannot throw
those objects away without feeling that his life goes with them. So long
as a reasonable hope was left of attaining the results he had aimed at,
or of preventing the dangers he dreaded, it was natural that Mr.
Gallatin should cling to it and fight for it; but, on the other hand, he
was a man of very sound understanding, and little, if at all, affected
by mere local prejudices; his ideal government was one which should be
free from corruption and violence; which should interfere little with
the individual; which should have neither debt, nor army, nor navy, nor
taxes, beyond what its simplest wants required; and which should wish
"to become a happy, and not a powerful, nation, or at least no way
powerful except for self-defence." On this side he was in sympathy with
all moderate and sensible men in both parties, and was more naturally
impelled to act with them than with his old allies, who were chiefly
jealous of national power because it diminished the sovereignty of
Virginia or South Carolina.
To one standing, therefore, as Mr. Gallatin was now standing, on the
verge of several years' inaction, out of which the nation could rescue
itself only by a slow process of growth, the ends to be attained and the
dangers to be feared would arrange themselves almost axiomatically. War
was out of the question, not only because both parties had united
against it, but because the Treasury was very rapidly losing its war
fund and would soon be unable to promise resources. If peace, therefore,
were to be preserved, the policy of commercial restrictions was the only
form of protest practicable, and it must again become the task of
diplomacy to re-establish the old Jeffersonian "balance" between the
belligerents. In other words, diplomacy had become more important than
finance.
Candid criticism certainly tends to show that the only national policy
which had a chance of success was also the only one which had not a
chance of adoption. A sudden, concentrated, and determined attack upon
Bonaparte would, in all human probability, have been successful; the
Emperor would have given way, and in this case England must also have
receded; but this would have been a mere repetition of the Federalist
policy of 1798, and the Republican party had no fancy for Federalist
precedents. The behavior of Canning had roused so bitter a feeling as to
paralyze measures against Bonaparte, while the Republican party was as
little competent to imitate the dash and stubborn intensity of the
Federalists as the calm temperament of Mr. Madison to lash itself into
the fiery impetuosity of John Adams. Nothing remained but to settle the
nature and extent of the mild protest which was to be maintained against
the armed violence of the two belligerents, and, now that the doors of
the State Department were closed in Mr. Gallatin's face, his only hope
was to create a new financial system that would serve to meet the wants
of the new political situation as Congress might ultimately give it
shape. Throwing behind him, therefore, all his old hopes and ambitions,
all schemes for discharging debt and creating canals, roads, and
universities, he turned his energies to the single point of defending
the Treasury and resisting follies. He regarded the habit of borrowing
money with horror; this was a resource to be reserved for war, when
national life depended upon it; until that time came he insisted that
the expenditure should not exceed the revenue. The experience of only
last winter had shown how readily Congress wasted its resources:
although Mr. Gallatin had succeeded in partially checking the navy
appropriations, nearly three millions were voted, and two and a half
millions were actually spent on the navy in 1809, without increasing its
force or effecting the smallest good; and meanwhile the surplus upon
which Mr. Gallatin had relied to carry on the first year of war was
rapidly vanishing, while the militia were not organized, the forts were
not completed, arms were not on hand, and military roads were wholly
wanting.
To raise by taxation, so long as peace lasted, all the money to be spent
by Congress, was the rule which Mr. Gallatin was now struggling to
enforce. If Congress appropriated money, Congress must lay taxes. To
maintain this ground required a firm, almost a rough hand, and unless
both the Cabinet and the Senate were ready to support the Secretary of
the Treasury in his effort, his position was untenable, and resignation
must follow of course.