Chapter XXI: Book III: The Treasury. 1801-1813 (8)

In all this confusion one thing was clear,--Mr. Gallatin's usefulness was exhausted. There are moments in politics when great results can be reached only by small men,--a maxim which, however paradoxical, may easily be verified. Especially in a democracy the people are apt to become impatient of rule, and will at times obstinately refuse to move at the call of a leader, when, if left to themselves, they will blunder through all obstacles, blindly enough, it is true, but effectually. Mr. Gallatin was now an impediment to government, even though it was conceded that the Treasury could not go on without him; that the party contained no man who could fill his place; that if he retired, confusion must ensue. To Mr. Madison the loss would of course be extremely embarrassing; for ten years Gallatin had taken from the President's shoulders the main burden of internal administration and a large part of the responsibilities of foreign relations; his immense knowledge, his long practical experience, his tact, his fertility of resource, his patience, his courage, his unselfishness, his personal attachment, his retentive memory, even his reticence, were each and all impossible to replace. The material from which Mr. Madison would have to draw was, in comparison, ridiculously unequal to the draft. For ten years the triumvirate had looked about them to find allies and successors; John Randolph had failed them from sheer inability to follow any straight course; John Breckenridge, of Kentucky, had died at the outset of his career; Monroe had not developed great powers, and had repeatedly disappointed their expectations, yet Monroe was still the best they had; William H. Crawford was a crude Georgian, with abilities not yet tried in administration; as for Giles, General Smith, and the other minor luminaries of the old party, their relations with Mr. Madison were hardly better than Randolph's. Whom, then, could he put in the Treasury? What dozen men in the party could pretend to make good to him the loss of his old companion? How could the Administration stand without him?

All this was urged at the time, and was obvious enough to the great body of Republicans in Congress; and yet, granting all this, it was answered that Mr. Gallatin had better retire. Undoubtedly the business of the Treasury would break down; that is to say, the public interests would for a time be ignorantly, wastefully, and perhaps corruptly managed; undoubtedly Mr. Madison would be left in a most unpleasant situation, and would find his personal difficulties vastly increased; Congress and the press would precipitate themselves upon him instead of upon Mr. Gallatin, and he would inevitably be swept away by the torrent. This, however, would be only temporary; the evil would cure itself; faction would produce force to oppose it, and a generation of younger men would invent its own processes to solve its own problems.

Mr. Gallatin saw the situation as clearly as any disinterested spectator could have done, and fully accepted it. At the close of the bank struggle he recognized that he was defeated and that his power for good was gone. It was at once rumored that he would resign. Judge Nicholson wrote on the 6th March, two days after the session ended: "Randolph is here, and told me that a friend mentioned to him that you would probably resign in September, as it would take you till that time to arrange the matters in the Treasury. He did not say in express terms, but I collected that he alluded to Crawford, and I fear that the joint remonstrances of his friends here have not had their due weight with Mr. M."

The following letter, printed from a first draft without date, was probably written at this time, and delivered on the adjournment of Congress, March 4, or immediately afterwards:

GALLATIN TO MADISON.

[March 4, 1811.?]

DEAR SIR,--I have long and seriously reflected on the present state of things and on my personal situation. This has for some time been sufficiently unpleasant, and nothing but a sense of public duty and attachment to yourself could have induced me to retain it to this day. But I am convinced that in neither respect can I be any longer useful under existing circumstances.

In a government organized like that of the United States, a government not too strong for effecting its principal object, the protection of national rights against foreign aggressions, and particularly under circumstances as adverse and embarrassing as those under which the United States are now placed, it appears to me that not only capacity and talents in the Administration, but also a perfect, heartfelt cordiality amongst its members, are essentially necessary to command the public confidence and to produce the requisite union of views and action between the several branches of government. In at least one of those points your present Administration is defective, and the effects, already sensibly felt, become every day more extensive and fatal. New subdivisions and personal factions equally hostile to yourself and the general welfare daily acquire additional strength. Measures of vital importance have been and are defeated; every operation, even of the most simple and ordinary nature, is prevented or impeded; the embarrassments of government, great as from foreign causes they already are, are unnecessarily increased; public confidence in the public councils and in the Executive is impaired, and every day seems to increase every one of those evils. Such state of things cannot last; a radical and speedy remedy has become absolutely necessary. What that ought to be, what change would best promote the success of your Administration and the welfare of the United States, is not for me to say. I can only judge for myself, and I clearly perceive that my continuing a member of the present Administration is no longer of any public utility, invigorates the opposition against yourself, and must necessarily be attended with an increased loss of reputation by myself. Under those impressions, not without reluctance and after having perhaps hesitated too long in hopes of a favorable change, I beg leave to tender you my resignation, to take place at such day within a reasonable time as you will think most consistent with the public service. I hope that I hardly need add any expressions of my respect and sincere personal attachment to you, of the regret I will feel on leaving you at this critical time, and the grateful sense I ever will retain of your kindness to me.

* * * * *

This letter, backed by the remonstrances of Crawford and others, produced a Cabinet crisis. Mr. Madison declined to accept it, and appears either to have returned it to Mr. Gallatin or to have burned it, for it is not to be found among his papers. He then took a step necessary in any event; he dismissed his Secretary of State, and authorized Mr. Gallatin to sound James Monroe, then Governor of Virginia, as to his willingness to enter the Cabinet. Mr. Gallatin applied to Richard Brent, a Senator from Virginia, who appears to have written to Mr. Monroe somewhere about the 7th March, but who did not receive a reply till the 22d.[104] A portion of this reply is worth quoting.

"You intimate," said Mr. Monroe, "that the situation of the country is such as to leave me no alternative. I am aware that our public affairs are far from being in a tranquil and secure state. I may add that there is much reason to fear that a crisis is approaching of a very dangerous tendency; one which menaces the overthrow of the whole Republican party. Is the Administration impressed with this sentiment and prepared to act on it? Are things in such a state as to allow the Administration to take the whole subject into consideration and to provide for the safety of the country and of free government by such measures as circumstances may require and a comprehensive view of them suggest? Or are we pledged by what is already done to remain spectators of the interior movement in the expectation of some change abroad, as the ground on which we are to act? I have no doubt, from my knowledge of the President and Mr. Gallatin, with the former of whom I have been long and intimately connected in friendship, and for both of whom in great and leading points of character I have the highest consideration and respect, that if I came into the government the utmost cordiality would subsist between us, and that any opinions which I might entertain and express respecting our public affairs would receive, so far as circumstances would permit, all the attention to which they might be entitled. But if our course is fixed and the destiny of our country dependent on arrangements already made, on measures already taken, I do not perceive how it would be possible for me to render any service at this time in the general government."

Mr. Monroe received the desired assurances, and assumed the new office on the 1st April, 1811. Mr. Robert Smith went out, and issued a manifesto against the government, in which, among numerous ill-digested and incongruous subjects of complaint, there were one or two which showed how serious a misfortune his incompetence had been. A newspaper war ensued, and curious readers may find in the National Intelligencer all the literature of the Smith controversy which they will need to satisfy their doubts. Mr. Smith had much the same fate as Colonel Pickering ten years before; he found that even his friends showed a certain unwillingness to fight his battles. Before the end of the summer it had become evident that Mr. Smith was reduced to insignificance, and it hardly needed the mild severity of Mr. Madison or the newspaper rhetoric of Joel Barlow to accomplish this; Mr. Smith's own clerk was equal to the task.[105]

The change in the State Department was a great relief to the President, and perhaps he may have asked the question why he had ever allowed himself to be dragooned into the fatal appointment of Mr. Smith; but Monroe came too late to save Gallatin. To him the change brought only an increase of annoyance. Although, as between Mr. Madison and Mr. Smith in the controversy about the removal, the name of Gallatin was not mentioned, the public well knew that the dismissal of Mr. Smith was the work of the Secretary of the Treasury, and the chorus of newspapers, led by the Aurora, joined in a cry of savage hostility against him. His course in regard to the bank had necessarily thrown a considerable portion of the press and the party into antagonism; Pennsylvania had long since abandoned him; Virginia now threw him over. The confidence of Mr. Madison and his own supereminent qualities alone sustained him. All this was notorious, and was little calculated to diminish the zeal of personal enmity. Duane's attacks were in themselves not formidable; his long articles of financial and political criticism were impressive only to the very ignorant; his colossal and audacious untruthfulness was evident to any intelligent reader, and had been evident ever since the Aurora had begun its existence; but nevertheless their effect was serious from the fact that they operated in a way perhaps not intended or fully understood by Duane himself. In discussing the next Presidential election, for example, the Aurora said:[106] "We are at present led into these considerations in consequence of the assertions of certain adherents of Mr. Gallatin, namely, 'that this gentleman possesses more talents than all the other officers in the Administration put together, including Mr. Madison himself; that Mr. Madison could not stand, nor the executive functions of the government be performed, without him.' This is verbatim the language that is held forth at present. Now, what do these assertions amount to? Why, clearly, that Mr. Gallatin is, to all intents and purposes, the President, and even more than President of the United States." "This comes from the particular friends of the Secretary of the Treasury,--can it be true? It is a fact that the people of the United States, in nominally electing Mr. Madison President, have in reality placed Mr. Gallatin in that high station.... It is said Mr. Gallatin aspires to the Presidency himself, but that we do not believe; no man knows better the impracticability of such a desire than himself; but if those assertions of Mr. Gallatin's friends are true, it cannot be so much an object to him, since the salary is very little compared with the profits to be made by the Treasury." Then comes the inevitable "extract of a letter from a gentleman of high standing" in New York to Dr. Leib: "The events at Washington have not at all surprised me; nay, they were such as I had been looking for for some time, knowing the ascendency which Gallatin had acquired over the mind of Mr. Madison, and knowing too the secret and invisible agency which was operating to produce it and to keep this crafty Genevan in place." Under the form of an allegory the same idea is intensified:[107] "He was a man of singular sagacity and penetration; he could read the very thoughts of men in their faces and develop their designs; a man of few words; made no promises but to real favorites that would help him out at a dead lift, and ever sought to enhance his own interest, power, and aggrandizement by the most insatiate avarice on the very vitals of the unsuspecting nation."

The charges of embezzlement and wholesale speculation in public lands, of immense wealth and limitless corruption, were probably harmless; they affected only the groundlings; but the insidious elevation of Mr. Gallatin, the displaying him as an irresistible magician whose touch was superhuman; the ascribing to him every power and every act that emanated from government, and the concentration upon him of the whole blaze of attack, destroyed his usefulness by indirection. No man can afford to stand in this attitude; it creates jealousies, estranges precisely the men of force and character who value their own independence, exposes to the attacks and obstructions of those who wish to be known by the greatness of their enmities, and in a manner stifles direct and warm co-operation. In such cases every newspaper, every Congressman, and every small politician thinks it necessary to protest that he is not under the alleged influence; that he is not afraid to oppose it; and that he holds a position of judicial neutrality. The Virginians thought it a matter of regret that Mr. Gallatin had not retired with Mr. Smith. Gallatin was fortunate if the men who disavowed him in public did not offer him an additional insult by assuring him in secret of their friendship.

"These repeated attacks are enough to beat down even you," wrote Judge Nicholson. And Mr. Dallas, in a letter dated 21st April, 1811, added: "If Mr. Jefferson and his powerful friends at Washington, in the year 1805, had not given their countenance to the proscriptions of the Aurora, the evils of the present time would not have happened. I do not say this by way of reproach, but to point out the true cause why no man of real character and capacity in the Republican party of Pennsylvania has the power to render any political service to the Administration. It rests with Duane and Binns to knock down and set up whom they delight to destroy or to honor. In the present conflict, so far as you are personally concerned, I see with pride and pleasure that the influence of Duane is at an end."

Even Mr. Jefferson was now obliged to choose sides. It is, perhaps, useless to expect that a public or private man will deal harshly with followers and flatterers; Duane had served Jefferson well, and Jefferson clung to him as to a wayward child; but now that Mr. Gallatin had at last forced the issue, Mr. Jefferson came to the President's support, and, stimulated by the blunt response of Wirt and the Richmond Republicans that Duane might go to the Smiths for money but would not get it from them, he wrote Duane a letter to say, with a degree of tenderness that seems to the cold critic not a little amusing, that the Aurora had gone too far and was to be read out of the party. This was well enough; but the curb, as Mr. Dallas very properly said, should have been applied five years before; the harm was done, and it made very little difference whether the Aurora were in opposition or not; perhaps, indeed, it was already more dangerous in friendship than in enmity.

Mr. Gallatin himself was far from exulting over the fall of Robert Smith. There was something humiliating in the mere thought that he should have been pitted against so unsubstantial an opponent: there was a loss of power, an exhaustion of reserved force in the very effort he had been obliged to make. His success, if it were success, deprived him of freedom of action, tied him beyond redemption to the chariot of government, and took away his last means of escape from the humiliations his enemies might inflict. As he wrote to Judge Nicholson on the 30th May, a few weeks after the Cabinet crisis: "Notwithstanding the change, I feel no satisfaction in my present situation, and the less so because that circumstance has made me a slave. Perhaps for that reason I feel an ineffable thirst for retirement and obscurity." Further Cabinet changes were imminent. Dr. Eustis, who had succeeded General Dearborn as Secretary of War, was unequal to the growing responsibilities of the office. Among prominent Republicans the only conspicuous candidate for the place was General Armstrong, just returned from France, one of the Clinton family, whom Mr. Gallatin always disliked, and who cordially returned the sentiment. There could be no real harmony between Mr. Gallatin and General Armstrong. Meanwhile, Justice Chase of the Supreme Court was dead, and the Attorney-General, Rodney, wished to be appointed to the bench. Mr. Madison passed him over to appoint Gabriel Duval, of Maryland; he resigned, and William Pinkney, recently minister to England, took the post of Attorney-General. The following letters of Mr. Dallas show the discontent aroused by these changes:

A. J. DALLAS TO GALLATIN.

24th June, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I do not know the arrangements to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Judge Chase. I do not wish to suggest any name from personal feelings. But perhaps it may be useful that you should know that Mr. Ingersoll would accept the appointment, as far as I can infer from his conversations during the vacancy occasioned by Judge Cushing's death.

Do you not think Pennsylvania entitled to some notice? Everybody else seems to think so.

A. J. DALLAS TO GALLATIN.

_Private and confidential: if such a thing can be._

24th July, 1811.

DEAR SIR,--I wrote to you respecting the vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court. I have, perhaps, no right to expect an answer in these times. But reports are so strange upon the succession to Judge Chase that I beg you explicitly to understand the sense of the Pennsylvania profession, Federal, Republican, Quid, and Quadroon. We do not think that the successor named in the public prints is qualified in any respect for the station. I care not who is appointed, provided he is fit in talents, in experience, and in manners; but, for Heaven's sake, do not make a man a judge merely to get rid of him as a statesman.

Poor Pennsylvania! Except yourself, who has been distinguished by Federal favor? Local offices must have local occupants; but from the commencement of the Federal government, and particularly from the commencement of the Republican Administration, what citizen of Pennsylvania has been invited by the Executive to share in Federal honors? There are the exceptions of Judge Wilson and Mr. Bradford, appointed by President Washington; but they are merely exceptions to my remark.

Look at the judiciary establishment! There are seven judges. Four reside on the south of the Potomac. Two reside in Virginia. The Attorney-General resides in Delaware. For the whole region beyond the Potomac, north-east, there are two judges. The report states that another judge is to be taken from Delaware, and an Attorney-General from Maryland!

I am cordially attached to the whole Administration. Of you personally I only think and speak as of a brother. But really, knowing that no confidence has ever been placed in me upon political subjects, and not knowing where your confidence is now placed, I do not understand your measures, nor am I acquainted with your friends. It is not the puff of a toast nor the flattery of a newspaper squib that can maintain the Republican cause or vindicate the Administration from reproach. A free press is an excellent thing, but a newspaper government is the most execrable of all things. The use of the press is to give information; its abuse is to impose the law upon private feeling and public sentiment. Do, therefore, think less of the denunciations of Duane and of the blandishments of Binns, and let your friends _know_ that you act right, in order that they may _think_ so.[108]

This letter I have a strong inclination to address to Mrs. Gallatin; for as men have ceased to keep secrets, I hope it will cease to be a wonder that a lady should keep them. But I will content myself with requesting you to tell her that if there is a special session of Congress, Mrs. Dallas and M.... will visit Washington.

* * * * *

Had Mr. Gallatin controlled the action of the Executive, he would long since have thrown Duane into open opposition, where he would have been harmless. Duane was simply a blackguard, of a type better understood now than then. That he had good qualities is evident from the descendants he left behind him, but these qualities had not been trained to excellence. The only way to deal with him was the direct way, and the only argument he would listen to was the coarse argument of the truth. From the first, however, both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison sacrificed their Secretary of the Treasury to this profligate adventurer, whom they conciliated, flattered, persuaded, argued with, and supported by public and private aid. On this subject Mr. Gallatin never opened his lips; the letter of Mr. Dallas, quoted above, shows that even to him, his oldest and most intimate political friend, he never mentioned it. He even submitted to bear, without reply, the sharp criticisms of Mr. Dallas on his own silence, and reflections manifestly unjust. That the manner of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison towards Duane cut deeply into the susceptibilities of Mr. Gallatin is certain; but, with the exception of one single expression, he never by word or sign intimated his sense of the indignity he felt himself to be receiving at their hands. His loyalty to his chiefs was too entire to be shaken for so mean a cause.

With this wound incessantly smarting at his heart; with all his great schemes and brilliant hopes of administrative success shattered into fragments; with a majority of bitter personal enemies in the Senate eager to obstruct every inch of his path; with a great part of his administrative machinery snatched out of his hands, and utter financial confusion around him; with a war against the richest and most powerful nation in the world staring him in the face, and almost certain domestic treason behind; with his own expedients invariably defeated, and with the most contemptible and shifting experiments in politics forced into his hands, Mr. Gallatin was now called upon to take up his burden again and march. He could not escape. Mr. Madison's friendship, when forced to the final test, proved true, and Gallatin was fettered by his own act.

Of his whole public life, the next year, which should be the most important, is the most obscure. He wrote none but public letters. He never recurred to the time with pleasure, and he left no notes or memoranda to explain his course. Much, therefore, must be left to inference, something may be drawn from scattered hints, and most must depend on the well-known traits of his character and his habits of thought.

The last Congress had, before adjournment, sanctioned the President's course in reviving the non-intercourse with England on the strength of the supposed revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees by Napoleon. The Administration party, in doing this, took the ground that the act was the necessary result of a contract with France already carried into effect by her. Thus the United States took one more step towards war with England by precluding herself from acting in any other direction than as the Emperor wished; even the most flagrant deception on his part could not shake the compact so far as America was concerned. For the wholesale robbery committed on American property in Europe by the Emperor's order, the United States mildly asked compensation. At about the same time Russia, then on the friendliest terms with France, directed her minister at Paris to intercede in favor of a similar claim on the part of Denmark. To Count Romanzoff's representation Bonaparte only replied: "Give them a very civil answer: that I will examine the claim, et cetera; mais on ne paye jamais ces choses-là, n'est-ce pas?"[109] The American claim had small chance of success, but perhaps all that, under the circumstances, it deserved. On the other hand, all the events of the summer tended to war with England. Mr. Foster, the new British minister, instead of lessening the conditions of repeal of the orders in council, increased them. The British Court of Admiralty resumed its sweeping condemnations. The affair of the Chesapeake was at last settled by Mr. Foster, but the British sloop-of-war Little Belt was fired upon and nearly sunk by the United States frigate President; and, what was of far more consequence than all this, the people of the United States, more especially in the south and west, and the younger generation, which cared little for old Jeffersonian principles, were at last in advance of their government and ready for war. Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Langdon Cheves, William Lowndes, Felix Grundy, the leaders of the new sect, were none of them more than thirty-five years of age at this time, or about the age at which Mr. Gallatin had entered Congress more than fifteen years before.

The President and his Cabinet did not want war, but, if the people demanded it, they were not disposed to resist. Mr. Madison would not allow his Administration to fall behind the public feeling in its assertion and maintenance of national dignity; nevertheless, Mr. Madison seems at this moment to have had only a very vague conception of what he himself did want. Although he had a superfluity of only too good causes for war with Great Britain, he allowed himself to be hoodwinked by France into an untenable statement of his case against the British government. He then called Congress together on the 4th November, which was hardly a peace measure. Possibly he underestimated the temper of that body, for his message, sent in on the 5th November, 1811, though high in tone, did not recommend war; it recommended that "a _system_ of more ample provisions for maintaining" national rights should be provided; it recommended Congress to put the country "into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis," namely, the filling up the regular army, providing an auxiliary force, volunteer corps and militia detachments, and organizing the militia; but government had urged nearly all this for years past. Yet on the 15th November, only ten days later, Mr. Madison fully understood the situation, for he wrote to Europe that, as between submission and hostilities, Congress favored the latter, though it would probably defer action till the spring.

Mr. Gallatin's report, which was sent in on the 25th November, was equally cautious. For the past year the Treasury showed a surplus of over $5,000,000, owing to the large importations under the system of open trade previous to February, 1810; but for the next year the estimated expense of increased armaments and the diminished receipts under the non-intercourse with England would cause a deficit of over one million dollars and necessitate a loan.

The public debt of the United States extinguished between the 1st April, 1801, and the 31st December, 1811, amounted to the sum of $46,022,810, and there remained on the 1st January, 1812, $45,154,189 of funded debt, bearing an annual interest of $2,222,481. This represents all that was directly accomplished by Mr. Gallatin towards his great object of the extinction of debt. This result had been accompanied by the abandonment of the internal taxes and the salt tax, but also by the imposition of the 2-1/2 per cent. ad valorem duties known as the Mediterranean Fund. "It therefore proves decisively," said the report, "the ability of the United States with their ordinary revenue to discharge in ten years of peace a debt of forty-two millions of dollars; a fact which considerably lessens the weight of the most formidable objection to which that revenue, depending almost solely on commerce, appears to be liable. In time of peace it is almost sufficient to defray the expenses of a war; in time of war it is hardly competent to support the expenses of a peace establishment. Sinking at once under adverse circumstances from fifteen to six or eight millions of dollars, it is only by a persevering application of the surplus which it affords in years of prosperity to the discharge of the debt, that a total change in the system of taxation, or a perpetual accumulation of debt, can be avoided."

The report went on to discuss the provision to be made for ensuing years. The present revenue, under existing circumstances, was estimated at $6,600,000; the expenditure at $9,200,000. To provide for the deficiency an addition of fifty per cent. to the existing duties on imports would be required, and was preferable to any internal tax. "The same amount of revenue would be necessary, and, with the aid of loans, would, it is believed, be sufficient in case of war." By inadvertence, Mr. Gallatin made here an important omission. He was speaking only of "fixed revenue," sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of government; and, as he was afterwards obliged to explain, this expression was wrongly applied to the case of war. He omitted to add that with each loan, provision to meet its interest must be made by increasing taxation; this fact had already been pointed out in the financial paragraph of the President's message, quoted in a previous part of the report, but the oversight gave rise to subsequent sharp attacks upon the Secretary.

He then came to the question of loans, and expressed the opinion that in case of war "the United States must rely solely on their own resources. These have their natural bounds, but are believed to be fully adequate to the support of all the national force that can be usefully and efficiently employed;" but it was to be understood that if the United States wished to borrow money it must pay for it: "It may be expected that legal interest will not be sufficient to obtain the sums required. In that case the most simple and direct is also the cheapest and safest mode. It appears much more eligible to pay at once the difference, either by a premium in lands or by allowing a higher rate of interest, than to increase the amount of stock created, or to attempt any operation which might injuriously affect the circulating medium of the country;" and he proceeded to show that "even" if forty millions were borrowed, the difference between paying eight and six per cent. would be only $800,000 a year until the principal was reimbursed.

These were the chief points of the report, and taken with the tone of the message they indicate clearly enough that the Administration, now as heretofore, whatever the private feelings of its members might be, was prepared to accept any distinct policy which Congress might lay down. One of the main grounds of attack upon Mr. Gallatin was that he had habitually alarmed the public with the poverty of the Treasury, and by doing so had checked energetic measures of defence. The charge was so far true that Mr. Gallatin had never concealed or attempted to color the accounts of the Treasury. On this occasion he probably aimed, as was always his habit, at furnishing Congress with as favorable an estimate as the truth would permit, with a view to obtaining united and cordial co-operation between the Executive and Congress. His only mistake was in accepting the estimates of war expenditure then current. He himself could not wish for war, and still hoped to avoid it; he knew that the Treasury, in its present situation, could not stand the burden, but he had suffered too much from the charge of attempting to direct legislation, to allow of his again exposing himself to it without necessity.

The President and the Secretary of the Treasury were therefore in perfect accord; they did not recommend war, but they recommended immediate and energetic preparation. The President advised Congress to provide troops; the Secretary recommended increased taxes and a loan of $1,200,000, to pay these troops and support them. This was the extent of their recommendations, and it remained for Congress to act.

Congress did indeed act; within a very short time it was clear that Mr. Madison had no control over its proceedings. To Mr. Gallatin the action of Congress was merely a sign that, as his influence in the Senate had long since vanished, his influence in the House had now followed it, and that for the future he could expect no friendly co-operation from the Legislature. At first, indeed, the proceedings of both bodies were in outward accord with the Executive recommendations; the reports of committees, and the House bill introduced in pursuance of them, were such as Mr. Madison had suggested; the only warlike measure proposed was that of permitting merchant vessels to arm. The Senate, however, very soon returned to its old tactics. Mr. Madison, as was well understood, asked only for an army of ten thousand men, and his recommendations were referred to a committee, of which Mr. Giles was the chairman, who immediately reported a bill for raising twenty-five thousand men, and in a speech on the 17th December fairly took the ground that his principal motive was to annoy the Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Giles declared himself a friend of peace; no man more deprecated war; but "if war should now come, it would be in consequence of the fatal rejection of the proposed measures of preparation for war." The only reason for rejecting them he averred to be "the decrepit state of the Treasury and the financial fame of the gentleman at the head of that Department." He launched into a bitter attack upon Mr. Gallatin, thoroughly in the spirit of Duane and the Aurora. Considering that he was playing with such tremendous interests, and that the national existence, to say nothing of private life and fortune, was dancing on the edge of this precipice of war at the mercy of Mr. Giles's personal malignity towards Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, there is actually something dramatic and almost classic in the taunts he now flung out. "Until now the honorable Secretary has had no scope for the demonstration of his splendid financial talents." "If, then, reliance can be placed upon his splendid financial talents, only give them scope for action; apply them to the national ability and will." "All the measures which have dishonored the nation during the last three years are in a great degree attributable to the indisposition of the late and present Administration to press on the Treasury Department and to disturb the popularity and repose of the gentleman at the head of it." In order to give sufficient occupation to the splendid financial talents of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Giles had done all that was in his power to do; he had thwarted every plan of policy; wasted every dollar of money; struck from the hands of government every resource and every financial instrument he could lay hold on; and all this was not enough. The Secretary still had reputation; he had popularity; he had, if not repose, at least dignity. The Senator from Virginia was equal to the occasion; there are few oratorical taunts on record which echo more harshly than this, that as yet "the Secretary has had no scope for the demonstration of his splendid financial talents;" war alone could do those talents justice, and war the Secretary should have.

Mr. Giles carried his bill through the Senate; Clay and Lowndes carried it through the House. The war spirit meanwhile was rapidly rising; resolutions poured in from the State Legislatures; Congress hurried into further measures. What Mr. Madison thought of these is shown in a letter of his to Mr. Jefferson, dated February 7, 1812: "The newspapers give you a sufficient insight into the measures of Congress. With a view to enable the Executive to step at once into Canada, they have provided, after two months' delay, for a regular force, requiring twelve to raise it, on terms not likely to raise it at all for that object. The mixture of good and bad, avowed and disguised motives accounting for these things, is curious enough, but not to be explained in the compass of a letter."

Although Mr. Gallatin had lost his old control in the House, he still preserved his influence with the Committee of Ways and Means and its chairman, Ezekiel Bacon, of Massachusetts. To this committee the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury was referred, and when it became clear that war was really imminent, the committee, early in December, requested Mr. Gallatin to appear before them to discuss the question of war taxes. Mr. Gallatin at once complied, and gave his opinions explicitly and emphatically: "I do not," said he, "feel myself particularly responsible for the nation being in the position in which it now finds itself; it might perhaps have been avoided by a somewhat different course of measures, or the ultimate issue longer deferred. But, placed as it is, I see not how we can now recede from our position with honor or safety. We must now go on and maintain that position with all the available means we can bring to bear on the enemy whom we have selected, and we should in my judgment resort immediately to a system of taxation commensurate with the objects stated in my annual report and by the President in his message at the opening of the session."[110] Very soon afterwards, on December 9, the committee, through its chairman, wrote Mr. Gallatin a letter asking for a written statement of his views, and a month later Mr. Gallatin sent in a paper, which was to all intents and purposes a war budget.

This was a remarkable--for Mr. Gallatin's calm temper, almost a defiant--document, written, said Mr. Bacon, "to the great disobligement, as we had reason to know, of some of his strong political friends at that time," and intended to force Congress into an honest performance of its financial duties. This intent was marked by a defence of his own course which could not but read as a severe criticism of the course pursued by Congress.

[Sidenote: 1812.]

"It was stated," said Mr. Gallatin, "in the annual report of December 10, 1808, that 'no internal taxes, either direct or indirect, were contemplated even in the case of hostilities carried against the two great belligerent powers;' an assertion which renders it necessary to show that the prospect then held out was not deceptive, and why it has not been realized.

"The balance in the Treasury amounted at that time to near fourteen millions of dollars; but aware that that surplus would in a short time be expended, and having stated that the revenue was daily decreasing, it was in the same report proposed 'that all the existing duties should be doubled on importations subsequent to the 1st day of January, 1809.'... If the measure then submitted had been adopted, we should, after making a large deduction for any supposed diminution of consumption arising from the proposed increase, have had at this time about twenty millions of dollars on hand,--a sum greater than the net amount of the proposed internal taxes for four years.

"In proportion as the ability to borrow is diminished, the necessity of resorting to taxation is increased. It is therefore also proper to observe that at that time the subject of the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States had been referred by the Senate to the Secretary of the Treasury, nor had any symptom appeared from which its absolute dissolution, without any substitute, could have then been anticipated. The renewal in some shape and on a more extensive scale was confidently relied on; and accordingly, in the report made during the same session to the Senate, the propriety of increasing the capital of the bank to thirty millions of dollars was submitted, with the condition that that institution should, if required, be obliged to lend one-half of its capital to the United States. The amount thus loaned might without any inconvenience have been increased to twenty millions. And with twenty millions of dollars in hand, and loans being secured for twenty millions more, without any increase of the stock of the public debt at market, internal taxation would have been unnecessary for at least four years of war, nor any other resource been wanted than an additional annual loan of five millions, a sum sufficiently moderate to be obtained from individuals and on favorable terms."

Leaving Congress to reflect at its leisure upon the criticisms implied in these remarks, the Secretary went on to lay down the rules now made necessary by the refusal to follow his previous advice. After doubling the imposts and reimposing the duty on salt, he could promise a net revenue of only $6,000,000 for war times. The committee assumed that annual loans of 110,000,000 would be required during the war, which left an annual deficiency, to be provided for by taxation, amounting to $5,000,000, calculated to cover the interest of the first two loans only, after which additional taxes must be imposed to provide for the interest of future loans.

Five millions a year, therefore, must be raised by internal taxes, and Mr. Gallatin proposed to obtain three millions by a direct tax and two millions by excise, stamps, licenses, and duties on refined sugar and carriages. A few remarks on loans and Treasury notes closed the letter.

This communication startled the House, and even produced an excitement of no ordinary nature. Congress suddenly awoke to the fact that the Secretary was in earnest, and that, if war came, Congress must learn to take advice. The faction that followed Mr. Giles and General Smith were not quick in learning this lesson, and fairly raved against the Secretary. What so exasperated them may be gathered best from a speech by Mr. Wright, of Maryland, one of the most extreme of the Smith connection. On March 2, 1812, he spoke thus:

"Sir, at the last session, when the question for rechartering the odious British bank was before us, we had to encounter the influence of the Secretary of the Treasury.... Now at this session he has told us that, if we had a national bank, we should have no occasion to resort to internal taxes; thereby calling the American people to review the conduct of their representatives in not continuing that bank, and thereby to fix the odium of these odious taxes on the National Legislature. Now a system of taxes is presented truly odious, in my opinion, to the people, to disgust them with their representatives and to chill the war spirit. Yet it is, under Treasury influence, to be impressed on the Committee of Ways and Means, and through them on the House. Sir, I, as a representative of the people, feel it my duty to resist it with all my energies.... Sir, is there anything of originality in his system? No! It is treading in the muddy footsteps of his official predecessors in attempting to strap round the necks of the people this odious system of taxation, adopted by them, for which they have been condemned by the people and dismissed from power.... And now, sir, with the view of destroying this Administration; with this sentence of a dismissal of our predecessors in office before our eyes, a sentence not only sanctioned, but executed by ourselves, we are to be pressed into a system known to be odious in the sight of the people, and which, on its first presentation in a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Committee of Ways and Means, and by them submitted to us, produced such an excitement in the House."

The "invisibles," however, were not the only class of men upon whom the war-budget fell with startling effect. Mr. Gallatin's old friends with whom he had acted in 1792, when at the unlucky Pittsburg meeting they had united in declaring "that internal taxes upon consumption, from their very nature, never can effectually be carried into operation without vesting the officers appointed to collect them with powers most dangerous to the civil rights of freemen, and must in the end destroy the liberties of every country in which they are introduced;" men like William Findley, his old colleague, were so deeply shocked at the reintroduction of the excise that they would not vote even for the printing of this letter. They looked upon Mr. Gallatin as guilty of flagrant inconsistency. They did not stop to reflect that, if inconsistency there were, it dated as far back as 1796, when, in his "Sketch of the Finances," Mr. Gallatin had taken essentially the same view of the excise as now;[111] and again in 1801, when he had refused to recommend the repeal of the internal taxes.

It was assumed that the Secretary of the Treasury could discover unknown resources; the Aurora dreamed of endless wealth in the national lands; but in point of fact this letter of Mr. Gallatin's erred only in calling for too little. He began by accepting the committee's estimate that loans to the extent of $50,000,000 would carry on a four years' war. The war lasted two years and a half, and raised the national debt from $45,000,000 to $123,000,000, or at the rate of somewhat more than $30,000,000 a year, nearly three times the estimate. Had Mr. Gallatin foreseen anything like the truth in regard to the coming contest, his demand for resources would have appeared absurd, and he would have lost whatever influence he still had.

For once, however, Gallatin was master of the situation. He could not force his enemies to vote for the taxes, but he could force them to vote for or against, and either alternative was equally unpleasant to them. The honest supporters of war found little difficulty in following Mr. Gallatin's lead, but the mere trimmers, and the men who supported a war policy because the Administration opposed it, were greatly disturbed. Mr. Bacon brought in a report with a long line of resolutions, and seriously proceeded to force them through the House. Nothing, one would think, could have given Mr. Gallatin keener entertainment than to see how his enemies acted under this first turn of the screw which they themselves had set in motion. It was a sign that government was again at work, and that the long period of chaos was coming to an end; but the struggle to escape was desperate, and it was partially successful. At first, indeed, Mr. Gallatin carried his point. On the 4th resolution, for a tax of twenty cents a bushel on salt, the House rebelled, and refused the rate by a vote of 60 to 57, but the next day the whip was freely applied, and Mr. Wright and his friends were overthrown by a vote of 66 to 54. This settled the matter for the time, and the House meekly swallowed the whole list of nauseous taxes, and ordered Mr. Bacon's committee, on the 4th March, 1812, to prepare bills in conformity with the resolutions. This was done, but the bills could not be got before the House till June 26, when there remained but ten days of the session. As it was out of the question to get these taxes adopted by the House and Senate in that short time, Mr. Gallatin was obliged to consent to their going over till November. Congress, however, was quite ready to authorize loans, and promptly began with one of eleven millions, which, small as it was, Mr. Gallatin found difficulty in negotiating, even with the active and valuable assistance of Mr. John Jacob Astor, who now became a considerable power in the state.

The attitude of the Administration towards the war during the winter of 1811-12 seems to have been one of passive acquiescence. Nothing has yet been brought to light, nor do the papers left by Mr. Gallatin contain the smallest evidence, tending to show that Mr. Madison or any of his Cabinet tried to place any obstacle in the way of the war party. That they did not wish for war is a matter of course. Their administrative difficulties even in peace were so great as to paralyze all their efforts, and from war they had nothing to expect but an infinite addition to them. The burden would fall chiefly upon Mr. Gallatin, who knew that the Treasury must break down, and upon the Secretary of War, Eustis, who was notoriously incompetent. Yet even Mr. Gallatin accepted war as inevitable, and wrote in that sense to Mr. Jefferson.

GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.

WASHINGTON, 10th March, 1812.

DEAR SIR,--...You have seen from your retreat that our hopes and endeavors to preserve peace during the present European contest have at last been frustrated. I am satisfied that domestic faction has prevented that happy result. But I hope, nevertheless, that our internal enemies and the ambitious intriguers who still attempt to disunite will ultimately be equally disappointed. I rely with great confidence on the good sense of the mass of the people to support their own government in an unavoidable war, and to check the disordinate ambition of individuals. The discoveries made by Henry will have a salutary effect in annihilating the spirit of the Essex junto, and even on the new focus of opposition at Albany. Pennsylvania never was more firm or united. The South and the West cannot be shaken. With respect to the war, it is my wish, and it will be my endeavor, so far as I may have any agency, that the evils inseparable from it should, as far as practicable, be limited to its duration, and that at its end the United States may be burthened with the smallest possible quantity of debt, perpetual taxation, military establishments, and other corrupting or anti-republican habits or institutions.

Accept the assurances of my sincere and unalterable attachment and respect.

* * * * *

Nevertheless there has always been something mysterious about Mr. Madison's share in causing the final declaration. This letter of Mr. Gallatin, dated March 10, shows that he already considered war to be unavoidable. On the 3d April, only three weeks later, Mr. Madison wrote to Mr. Jefferson that the action of the British government in refusing to repeal the orders in council left us nothing to do but to prepare for war, and that an embargo for sixty days had been recommended. The embargo was accordingly imposed, and on June 1 Mr. Madison finally sent in his message recommending a declaration of war against Great Britain, which took place on June 18.

The Federalist party, however, always maintained that Mr. Madison was dragooned into the war by a committee of Congress. The assertion is that the President, though willing to accept and sign a bill declaring war, was very far from wishing to recommend it, and that to overcome his reluctance a committee headed by Clay waited upon him to announce that he must either recommend the declaration or lose the nomination for the Presidency which was then pending; that he yielded; received the nomination on May 18, and sent in his message on June 1.

This story, openly told in Congress soon afterwards, and as openly and positively denied by Mr. Clay and his friends, has crept into all the principal histories, and in spite of contradiction has acquired much of the force of established fact. It has even been supported by an avowal of James Fisk, a prominent member from Vermont, that he was himself a member of the committee. The charge, such as it is, has been the principal stain on the political history of Mr. Madison, and also by consequence upon that of Mr. Gallatin, who, according to Mr. Hildreth,[112] "clung with tenacity to office" and "did not choose to risk his place by openly opposing what he labored in vain by indirect means to prevent," at a time when Mr. Gallatin would probably have been only too happy to find any honorable way of escaping from office.