Albert Gallatin
the House to the President, but Gallatin showed that, as there was no
power to compel attendance, no formal excuse was necessary. When the
motion was put as to whether they should go in a body as usual to
present their answer, Mr. Gallatin voted in the negative. He
nevertheless accompanied the members, who were received pleasantly by
President Adams and "treated to cake and wine."
Harper was made the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Though of
high talents and a fine speaker, Gallatin found him a "great bungler" in
the business of the House, a large share of which fell upon his own
shoulders as well as the direction of the Republicans, of whom,
notwithstanding the jealousy of Giles, he now was the acknowledged
leader. As a member for Pennsylvania, Mr. Gallatin presented a memorial
from the Quakers with regard to the arrest of fugitive slaves on her
soil; the law of Pennsylvania declaring all men to be free who set foot
in that State except only servants of members of Congress. There was
already an opposition to hearing any petition with regard to slaves, but
Gallatin insisted on the memorial taking the usual course of reference
to a committee. He directed the House also in the correct path in its
legislation as to foreign coins. It was proposed to take from them the
quality of legal tender; but he showed that it was policy not to
discriminate against such coins until the mint could supply a
sufficiency for the use of the country. In this argument he estimated
the entire amount of specie in the United States at eight millions of
dollars. At this early period in his political career he was acquiring
that precise knowledge of the facts of American finance which later
served to establish the principles upon which it is based.
This session was noteworthy by reason of the first personal encounter on
the floor of the House. It was between two Northern members, Lyon of
Vermont and Griswold of Connecticut. Gallatin stood by Lyon, who was of
his party, and showed that the House could not expel him, since it was
not at the time in organized session. As the Federalists would not
consent to censure Griswold, both offenders escaped even a formal
reproof. The general bitterness of feeling which marked the summer
session was greatly modified in the expectant state of foreign politics;
but the occasion for display of political divergence was not long
delayed.
On January 18, 1798, Mr. Harper, who led the business of the House,
moved the appropriation for foreign intercourse. This was seized upon by
the opposition to advance still further their line of attack by a
limitation of the constitutional prerogative of the President. In
addition to the usual salaries of the envoys to Great Britain and
France, appropriations were asked for the posts at Madrid, Lisbon, and
Berlin, which last Mr. Adams had designated as a first-class mission.
The discussion on the powers of the President, and the extent to which
they might be controlled by paring down the appropriations, lifted the
debate from the narrow ground of economy in administration to the
higher plane of constitutional powers. Nicholas opened on the
Republican side by announcing that it was seasonable to bring back the
establishment of the diplomatic corps to the footing it had been on
until the year 1796. In all governments like our own he declared that
there was a tendency to a union and consolidation of all its parts into
the executive, and the limitation and annexion of the parts with each
other as settled by the Constitution would be destroyed by this
influence unless there were a constant attention on the part of the
legislature to resist it. The appointment of a minister plenipotentiary
to Prussia, with which we had little or no commercial intercourse,
offered an opportunity to determine this limitation. Harper said that
this was a renewal of the old charge that foreign intercourse was
unnecessary, and the old suggestion that our commerce ought to be given
up or left to shift for itself. Mr. Gallatin laid down extreme theories
which have never yet found practical application. He took the question
at once from party or personal ground by admitting that the government
was essentially pure, its patronage not extensive, or its effect upon
the legislative or any other branch of the government as yet material.
The Constitution had placed the patronage in the executive. There he
thought it was wisely placed. The legislature would be more corrupt
than the executive were it placed with them. While not willing at once
to give up political foreign intercourse, he thought that it should by
degrees be altogether declined. To it he ascribed the critical situation
of the country. Commercial intercourse could be protected by the
consular system. He then argued that the power to provide for expenses
was the check intended by the Constitution. To this Griswold answered
that this doctrine of checks contained more mischief than Pandora's box;
Bayard, that the checks were all directed to the executive, and that
they would check and counter-check until they _stopped the wheels of
government_.[6] When the President was manacled and at the mercy of the
House they would be satisfied. He held the executive to be the weakest
branch of the government, because its powers are defined; but the limits
of the House are undefined.
As the debate advanced, Nicholas declared that the purpose of the
Republicans was to define the executive power and to put an end to its
extension through their power over appropriations. Later he would bring
in a motion to do away with all foreign intercourse. Goodrich answered
that the office of foreign minister was created by the Constitution
itself, and the power of appointment was placed in the President. The
House might speculate upon the propriety of doing away with all
intercourse with foreign powers, but could not decide on it, for
political intercourse did not depend on the sending of ministers abroad.
Foreign ministers would come here and the Constitution required their
reception. The idea that we should have no foreign intercourse was taken
from Washington's Farewell Address, but his words applied only to
alliances offensive and defensive. If ministers were abandoned, envoys
extraordinary must be sent, a much more dangerous practice; the only
choice was between ministers and spies. In conclusion he accused the
Republicans of making one continuous attack upon the administration, and
charged that the opposition to the appropriation bill was not a single
measure, but connected with others, and intended to clog the wheels of
government.
The purpose of the Republicans being thus declared by Nicholas and
squarely met by the friends of the administration, Mr. Gallatin, March
1, 1798, summed up the opposition arguments in an elaborate speech three
hours and a quarter in length. He denied the novel doctrine that each
department had checks within itself, but none upon others; he claimed
that the principle of checks is admitted in all mixed governments.
Commercial intercourse, he said, is regulated by the law of nations, by
the municipal law of respective countries and by treaties of commerce,
the application of which is the province of consuls. What advantages, he
asked, had our commercial treaties given us, either that with France or
that with England? He excepted that part of the treaty with Great
Britain which arranged our difference with that power, as foreign to the
discussion. He claimed that the restriction which we had laid upon
ourselves by our commercial treaties had been attended with political
consequences fatal to our tranquillity. Washington had advised a
separation of our political from our commercial relations. The message
of President Adams intimated a different policy and alluded to the
balance of power in Europe as not to be forgotten or neglected.
Interesting as that balance may be to Europe, how does it concern us? We
shall never throw our weight into the scale. Passing from this to the
danger of the absorption of powers by the executive, he cited the
examples of the Cortes of Spain, the Etats Generaux of France, the Diets
of Denmark. In all these countries the executive is in possession of
legislative, of absolute powers. The fate of the European republics was
similar. Venice, Switzerland, and Holland had shown the legislative
powers merging into the executive. The object of the Constitution of the
United States is to divide and distribute the powers of government. With
uncontrolled command over the purse of the people the executive tends to
prodigality, to taxes, and to wars. He closed with a hope that a fixed
determination to prevent the increase of the national expenditure, and
to detach the country from any connection with European politics, would
tend to reconcile parties, promote the happiness of America, and
conciliate the affection of every part of the Union. No such admirable
exposition of the true American doctrine of non-interference with
European politics had at that time been heard in Congress.
In reply, Harper insisted on the admission that the purpose of the
amendment of Nicholas was to restrain the President; that it was a
question of power, not of money. Mr. Gallatin admitted the right of
appointment, but denied that the House was bound to appropriate. Harper
rejoined that the offices did not originate with the President but with
the Constitution, and that they could not be destroyed by the action of
the House, and, leaving the general ground of debate, made a brilliant
attack upon the Republicans as revolutionists, whom he divided into
three classes: the philosophers, the Jacobins, and the _sans-culottes_.
The philosophers are most to be dreaded. "They declaim with warmth on
the miseries of mankind, the abuses of government, and the vices of
rulers; all which they engage to remove, providing their theories should
once be adopted. They talk of the perfectibility of man and of the
dignity of his nature; and, entirely forgetting what he is, declaim
perpetually about what he should be." Of Jacobins there are plenty. They
profit by the labors of others; tyrants in power, demagogues when not.
Fortunately for America there are few or no _sans-culottes_ among her
inhabitants. Jefferson, he said, returned from France a missionary to
convert Americans to the new faith, and he charged that the system of
French alliance and war with Great Britain by the United States was a
part of the scheme of the French revolutionists, and was imported into
this country. Gallatin and his friends he regarded in the light of an
enemy who has commenced a siege against the fortress of the
Constitution.
The restricting amendment was lost, and the bill passed by a vote of 52
yeas to 43 nays. Nor is it easy to see how the theory of Mr. Gallatin
with regard to diplomatic relations could have been applied successfully
with the existing channels of intercourse. Now that the ocean cable
brings governments into direct relation with each other, there is a
tendency to restrict the authority of ambassadors, for whom there is no
longer need, and the entire system will no doubt soon disappear. Mr.
Gallatin's speech was the delight of his party and his friends. He was
called upon to write it out, and two thousand copies of it were
circulated as the best exposition of Republican doctrine.
Early in February the President informed Congress of certain captures
and outrages committed by a French privateer within the limits of the
United States, including the burning of an English merchantman in the
harbor of Charleston. On March 19, in a further special message, he
communicated dispatches from the American envoys in France, and also
informed Congress that he should withdraw his order forbidding merchant