Albert Gallatin
vessels to sail in an armed condition. A collision might, therefore,
occur at any moment.
On March 27, 1798, a resolution was introduced that it is not now
expedient for the United States to resort to war against the French
Republic; a second, to restrict the arming of merchant vessels; and a
third, to provide for the protection of the seacoast and the internal
defense of the country. Speaking to the first resolution, Mr. Gallatin
said that the United States had arrived at a crisis at which a stand
must be made, when the House must say whether it will resort to war or
preserve peace. If to war, the expense and its evils must be met; if
peace continue, then the country must submit: in either case American
vessels would be taken. It was a mere matter of calculation which course
would best serve the interest and happiness of the country. If he could
separate defensive from offensive war, he should be in favor of it; but
he could not make the distinction, and therefore he should be in favor
of measures of peace. The act of the President was a war measure.
Members of the House so designated it in letters to their constituents.
On April 2 the President was requested to communicate the instructions
and dispatches from the envoys extraordinary, mention of which he had
made in his message of March 19. Gallatin supported the call. He said
that the President was not afraid of communicating information, as he
had shown in the preceding session, and that to withhold it would
endanger the safety of our commerce, or prevent the happy issue of
negotiation. On April 3 Mr. Gallatin presented a petition against
hazarding the neutrality and peace of the nation by authorizing private
citizens to arm and equip vessels. This was signed by forty members of
the Pennsylvania legislature. Protests of a similar character were
presented from other parts of the country. On the same day the President
sent in the famous X Y Z dispatches, in confidence. These letters
represented the names of Hottinguer, Bellamy, and Hauteval, the agents
of Talleyrand, the foreign minister of the First Consul, which were
withheld by the President. The mysterious negotiations contained a
distinct demand by Talleyrand of a douceur of 1,200,000 livres to the
French officials as a condition of peace. The effect was immediately to
strengthen the administration, Dayton, the speaker, passing to the ranks
of the Federalists.
On the 18th the Senate sent down a bill authorizing the President to
procure sixteen armed vessels to act as convoys. Gallatin still held
firm. He admitted that from the beginning of the European contest the
belligerent powers had disregarded the law of nations and the
stipulations of treaties, but he still opposed the granting of armed
convoys, which would lead to a collision. Let us not, he said, act on
speculative grounds; if our present situation is better than war, let us
keep it. Better even, he said, suffer the French to go on with their
depredations than to take any step which may lead to war.
Allen of Connecticut read a passage from the dispatches which envenomed
the debate. By it one of the French agents appears to have warned the
American envoys that they were mistaken in supposing that an exposition
of the unreasonable demands of France would unite the people of the
United States. He said, "You should know that the _diplomatic skill_ of
France and the _means_ she possesses in your country are sufficient to
enable her, with the _French party_ in America, to throw the blame which
will attend the rupture of the negotiations on the _Federalists_, as you
term yourselves, but on the _British party_, as France terms you, and
you may assure yourselves this will be done." Allen then charged upon
Gallatin that his language was that of a foreign agent. Gallatin replied
that the representatives of the French Republic in this country had
shown themselves to be the worst diplomatists that had ever been sent to
it, and he asked why the gentlemen who did not come forward with a
declaration of war (though they were willing to go to war without the
declaration) charge their adversaries with meaning to submit to France.
France might declare war or give an order to seize American vessels, but
as long as she did not, some hope remained that the state of peace might
not be broken; and he said in conclusion "that, notwithstanding all the
violent charges and personal abuse which had been made against him, it
would produce no difference in his manner of acting, neither prevent him
from speaking against every measure which he thought injurious to the
public interest, nor, on the other hand, inflame his mind so as to
induce him to oppose measures which he might heretofore have thought
proper."
The war feeling ran high in the country; "Millions for defense, but not
one cent for tribute,"[7] was the popular cry. On May 28 Mr. Harper
introduced a bill to suspend commercial intercourse with France.
Gallatin thought this a doubtful measure. Its avowed purpose was to
distress France in the West Indies, but he said that in six months that
entire trade would be by neutral vessels. In the discussion on the bill
to regulate the arming of merchant vessels, he showed that it was the
practice of neutral European nations to allow such vessels to arm, but
not to regulate their conduct. Bonds are required in cases of letter of
marque, and the merchant who arms is bound not to break the laws of
nations or the agreements of treaties. Restriction was therefore
unnecessary. Government should not interfere. Commercial intercourse
with France was suspended June 13.
In the pride of their new triumph and the intensity of their personal
feeling the Federalists overleaped their mark, and began a series of
measures which ultimately cost them the possession of the government
and their political existence. The first of these was the Sedition Bill,
which Jefferson believed to be aimed at Gallatin in person. Mr. Gallatin
met it at its inception with a statement of the constitutional
objections, viz., 1st, that there was no power to make such a law, and
2d, the special provision in the Constitution that the writ of _habeas
corpus_ shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion and
invasion. There was neither. The second, the Alien Bill, gave the
President power to expel from the country all aliens. Over this measure
Gallatin and Harper had hot words. Gallatin charged upon Harper not only
a misrepresentation of the arguments of his opponents, but an
arraignment of the motives of others, while claiming all purity for his
own. Harper answered in words which show that Gallatin, for once, had
met warmth with warmth, and anger with anger. When, Harper said, a
gentleman, who is usually so cool, all at once assumes such a tone of
passion as to forget all decorum of language, it would seem as if the
observation had been properly applied. On the vote to strike out the
obnoxious sections, the Federalists defeated their antagonists, and on
June 21 the bill itself was passed with all its odious features by 46 to
40.
On June 21 President Adams sent in a message with letters from Gerry,
who had remained at Paris after the return of Marshall and Pinckney, on
the subject of a loan. They contained an intimation from Talleyrand that
he was ready to resume negotiations. In this message Adams said, "I
will never send another minister to France without assurances that he
will be received, respected, and honored as the representative of a
great, free, powerful, and independent nation." On the 25th an act was
passed authorizing the commanders of merchant vessels to defend
themselves against search and seizure under regulations by the
President. On June 30 a further act authorized the purchase and
equipment of twelve vessels as an addition to the naval armament. To all
intents and purposes a state of war between the two countries already
existed.
The 4th of July (1798) was celebrated with unusual enthusiasm all over
the United States, and the black cockade was generally worn. This was
the distinctive badge of the Federalists, and a response to the tricolor
which Adet had recommended all French citizens to wear in 1794.
On July 5 a resolution was moved to appoint a committee to consider the
expediency of declaring, by legislative act, the state of relations
between the United States and the French Republic. Mr. Gallatin asked if
a declaration of war could not be moved as an amendment, but the
speaker, Mr. Dayton, made no reply. Mr. Gallatin objected that Congress
could not declare a state of facts by a legislative act. But this view,
if tenable then, has long since been abandoned. In witness of which it
is only necessary to name the celebrated resolution of the Congress of
1865 with regard to the recognition of a monarchy in Mexico. July 6 the
House went into committee of the whole on the state of the Union to
consider a bill sent down by the Senate abrogating the treaty with
France. The bill was passed on the 16th by a vote of 47 ayes to 37 nays,
Gallatin voting in the negative. The House adjourned the same day.
While thus engaged in debates which called into exercise his varied
information and displayed not only the extent of his learning but his
remarkable powers of reasoning and statement, Mr. Gallatin never lost
sight of reform in the administration of the finances of the government.
To the success of his efforts to hold the Treasury Department to a
strict conformity with his theory of administration, Mr. Wolcott, the
secretary, gave ample if unwilling testimony. To Hamilton he wrote on
April 5, 1798, "The management of the Treasury becomes more and more
difficult. The legislature will not pass laws in gross; their
appropriations are minute. Gallatin, to whom they yield, is evidently
intending to break down this department by charging it with an
impracticable detail."
During these warm discussions Gallatin rarely lost his self-control.
Writing to his old friend Lesdernier at this period, he said, "You may
remember I am blessed with a very even temper; it has not been altered
by time or politics."
* * * * *
The third session of the fifth Congress opened on December 3, 1798. On
the 8th, when the President was expected, Lieutenant-General Washington
and Generals Pinckney and Hamilton entered the hall and took their
places on the right of the speaker's chair. They had been recently
appointed to command the army of defense.
The President's speech announced no change in the situation. "Nothing,"
he said, "is discoverable in the conduct of France which ought to change
or relax our measures for defense. On the contrary, to extend and
invigorate them is our true policy. An efficient preparation for war can
alone insure peace. It must be left to France, if she is indeed desirous
of accommodation, to take the requisite steps. The United States will
steadily observe the maxims by which they have hitherto been governed."
The reply to this patriotic sentiment was unanimously agreed to, and was
most grateful to Adams, who thanked the House for it as "consonant to
the characters of representatives of a great and free people."
On December 27 a peculiar resolution was introduced to punish the
usurpation of the executive authority of the government of the United
States in carrying on correspondence with the government of any foreign
prince or state. Gallatin thought this resolution covered too much
ground. The criminality of such acts did not lie in their being
usurpations, but in the nature of the crime committed. There was no
authority in the Constitution for a grant of such a power to the
President. To afford aid and comfort to the enemy was treason, but
there was no war, and therefore no enemy. He claimed the right to