Albert Gallatin
were instruments of power more calculated to annoy the trade of other
nations than to protect that of the nations to which they belonged. The
price England had paid for her navy was a debt of three hundred millions
of pounds sterling. He opposed appropriations even for the three
frigates, United States, Constitution, and Constellation,--the
construction of which had been ordered,--the germs of that navy which
was later to set his theory at naught, redeem the honor of the flag,
protect our commerce, and release the country and the civilized world
from ignominious tribute to the Mediterranean pirates, who were
propitiated in this very session only at the cost of a million of
dollars to the Treasury of the United States, and by the gift of a
frigate.
In the debate over the payment of the sum of five millions, which the
United States Bank had demanded from the government, the greatest part
of which had been advanced on account of appropriations, he lamented the
necessity, but urged the liquidation. This was the occasion of another
personal encounter. In reply to a charge of Gallatin that the
Federalists were in favor of debt, Sedgwick alluded to Gallatin's part
in the Whiskey Insurrection, and said that none of those gentlemen whom
Gallatin had charged with "an object to perpetuate and increase the
public debt" had been known to have combined "in every measure which
might obstruct the operation of law," nor had declared to the world
"that the men who would accept of the offices to perform the necessary
functions of government were lost to every sense of virtue;" "that from
them was to be withheld every comfort of life which depended on those
duties which as men and fellow-citizens we owe to each other. If," he
said, "the gentlemen had been guilty of such nefarious practices, there
would have been a sound foundation for the charge brought against them."
Gallatin made no reply. This was the one political sin he had
acknowledged. His silence was his expiation.
The Treasury Department and its control, past and present, was the
object of his unceasing criticism. In April, 1796, he said, "The
situation of the gentleman at the head of the department [Wolcott] was
doubtless delicate and unpleasant; it was the more so when compared with
that of his predecessor [Hamilton]. Both indeed had the same power to
borrow money when necessary; but that power, which was efficient in the
hands of the late secretary and liberally enough used by him, was become
useless at present. He wished the present secretary to be extricated
from his present difficulty. Nothing could be more painful than to be at
the head of that department with an empty treasury, a revenue inadequate
to the expenses, and no means to borrow." Nevertheless he feared that if
it were declared that the payment of the debt incurred by themselves
were to be postponed till the present generation were over, it might
well be expected that the principle thus adopted by them would be
cherished, that succeeding legislatures and administrations would follow
in their steps, and that they were laying the foundations of that
national curse,--a growing and perpetual debt.
On the last day of the session W. Smith had challenged the correctness
of Gallatin's charge that there had been an increase of the public debt
by five millions under the present administration, and claimed that
there were errors in Gallatin's statement of more than four and a half
millions. Gallatin defended his figures. At this day it is impossible to
determine the merits of this dispute.
One incident of this session deserves mention as showing the distaste of
Gallatin for anything like personal compliment, stimulated in this
instance, perhaps, by his sense of Washington's dislike to himself. It
had been the habit of the House since the commencement of the government
to adjourn for a time on February 22, Washington's birthday, that
members might pay their respects to the President. When the motion was
made that the House adjourn for _half an hour_, the Republicans
objected, and Gallatin, nothing loath to "bell the cat," moved that the
words "half an hour" be struck out. His amendment was lost without a
division. The motion to adjourn was then put and lost by a vote of 50
nays to 38 ayes. The House waited on the President at the close of the
business of the day. On June 1 closed this long and memorable session,
in which the assaults of the Republicans upon the administration were so
persistent and embarrassing as to justify Wolcott's private note to
Hamilton, April 29, 1796, that "unless a radical change of opinion can
be effected in the Southern States, the existing establishments will not
last eighteen months. The influence of Messrs. Gallatin, Madison, and
Jefferson must be diminished, or the public affairs will be brought to a
stand." Here is found an early recognition of the political
"triumvirate," and Gallatin is the first named.
Gallatin seems to have had some doubts as to his reelection to Congress.
As he did not reside in the Washington and Allegheny district, his name
was not mentioned as a candidate, and, to use his own words, he expected
to "be gently dropped without the parade of a resignation." In his
distaste at separation from his wife, the desire to abandon public life
grew upon him. But personal abuse of him in the newspapers exasperating
his friends, he was taken up again in October, and he arrived on the
scene, he says, too late to prevent it. He had no hope, however, of
success, and was resolved to resign a seat to which he was in every way
indifferent. "Ambition, love of power," he wrote to his wife on October
16, he had never felt, and he added, if vanity ever made one of the
ingredients which impelled him to take an active part in public life, it
had for many years altogether vanished away. He was nevertheless
reelected by the district he had represented.
* * * * *
The second session of the fourth Congress began on December 5, 1796. At
the beginning of this session Mr. Gallatin took the reins of the
Republican party, and held them till its close. The position of the
Federalists had been strengthened before the country by the energy of
Washington, who, impatient of the delays which Great Britain opposed to
the evacuation of the posts, marched troops to the frontier and obtained
their surrender. Adet, the new French minister, had dashed the feeling
of attachment for France by his impudent notice to the President that
the dissatisfaction of France would last until the executive of the
United States should return to sentiments and measures more conformable
to the interests and friendships of the two nations. In September
Washington issued his Farewell Address, in which he gave the famous
warning against foreign complications, which, approved by the country,
has since remained its policy; but neither the prospect of his final
withdrawal from the political and official field, nor the advice of
Jefferson to moderate their zeal, availed to calm the bitterness of the
ultra Republicans in the House.
The struggle over the answer to the President's message, which Fisher
Ames on this occasion reported, was again renewed. An effort was made to
strike out the passages complimentary to Washington and expressing
regret at his approaching retirement. Giles, who made the motion, went
so far as to say that he 'wished him to retire, and that this was the
moment for his retirement, that the government could do very well
without him, and that he would enjoy more happiness in his retirement
than he possibly could in his present situation.' For his part he did
not consider Washington's administration either "wise or firm," as the
address said. Gallatin made a distinction between the administration and
the legislature, and in lieu of the words, wise, firm, and patriotic
administration, proposed to address the compliment directly to the
wisdom, firmness, and patriotism of Washington. But Ames defended his
report, and it was adopted by a vote of 67 to 12. Gallatin voted with
the majority, but Livingston, Giles, and Macon held out with the small
band of disaffected, among whom it is amusing also to find Andrew
Jackson, who took his seat at this Congress to represent Tennessee,
which had been admitted as a State at the last session.[5]
The indebtedness of the States to the general government, in the old
balance sheet, on the payment of which Gallatin insisted, was a subject
of difference between the Senate and the House. Gallatin was appointed
chairman of the committee of conference on the part of the House. The
reduction of the military establishment, which he wished to bring down
to the footing of 1792, was again insisted upon. Gallatin here
ingeniously argued against the necessity for the number of men
proposed, that it was a mere matter of opinion, and if it was a matter
of opinion, it was not strictly necessary, because if necessary it was
no longer a matter of opinion. Naval appropriations were also opposed,
on the ground that a navy was prejudicial to commerce. Taxation, direct
and indirect, and compensation to public officers were also subjects of
debate at this session. On the subject of appropriations, general or
special, he was uncompromising. He charged upon the Treasury Department
that notwithstanding the distribution of the appropriations they thought
themselves at liberty to take money from an item where there was a
surplus and apply it to another where it was wanted. To check such
irregularity, he secured the passage of a resolution ordering that "the
several sums shall be solely applied to the objects for which they are
respectively appropriated," and tacked it to the appropriation bill. The
Senate added an amendment removing the restriction, but Gallatin and
Nicholas insisting on its retention, the House supported them by a vote
of 52 to 36, and the Senate receded.
Notwithstanding the apparent enthusiasm of the House in the early part
of the session, when the tricolor of France, a present from the French
government to the United States, was sent by Washington to Congress, to
be deposited with the archives of the nation, French influence was on
the wane. The common sense of the country got the better of its
passion. In the reaction the Federalists regained the popular favor for
a season.
Whatever latent sympathy the French people may have had for America as
the nation which set the example of resistance to arbitrary rule, the
French government certainly was moved by no enthusiasm for abstract
rights. Its only object was to check the power of their ancient enemy,
and deprive it of its empire beyond the seas. Nevertheless, France did
contribute materially to American success. The American government and
people acknowledged the value of her assistance, and, in spite of the
prejudices of race, there was a strong bond of sympathy between the two
nations; and when, in her turn, France, in 1789, threw off the feudal
yoke, she expected and she received the sympathy of America. Beyond this
the government and the people of the United States could not and would
not go. The position of France in the winter of 1796-97 was peculiar.
She was at war with the two most formidable powers of Europe,--Austria
and England, the one the mistress of Central Europe, the other supreme
ruler of the seas. The United States was the only maritime power which
could be opposed to Great Britain. The French government determined to
secure American aid by persuasion, if possible, otherwise by threat. The
Directory indiscreetly appealed from the American government to the
American people, forgetting that in representative governments these are
one. Nor was the precedent cited in defense of this unusual
proceeding--namely, the appeal of the American colonists to the people