Albert Gallatin
publication of a pamphlet on the Oregon question, which was then as
threatening as that of the northeastern boundary had been. This
admirable exposition, which put before the people as well as the
negotiators the precise merits of the controversy, powerfully
contributed to the ultimate peaceful settlement.
Still once more Mr. Gallatin threw his authoritative words into the
scale of justice. His last appearance in public had been when he
presided on April 24, 1844, at a meeting in New York city to protest
against the annexation of Texas. He then held that the resolution of the
House declaring the treaty of annexation between the United States of
America and the Republic of Texas to be the fundamental law of union
between them, without and against the consent of the Senate, was a
direct and undisguised usurpation of power and a violation of the
Constitution. In the storm of opposition he lifted his feeble voice in
condemnation of the violation of treaties, and the disregard of the
sacred obligations of mankind. "I am highly gratified," were his final
words, "I am highly gratified that the last public act of a long life
should have been that of bearing testimony against this outrageous
attempt. It is indeed a consolation that my almost extinguished voice
has been on this occasion raised in defense of liberty, of justice, and
of our country." Of the war with Mexico, he was wont to say, "that it
was the only blot upon the escutcheon of the United States." Aged as he
was, he would not rest until he had made his last appeal for peace with
Mexico. He also prepared supplementary essays on war expenses: the first
of these was published in 1847, the second in 1848. For months all his
faculties, all his feelings were absorbed in this one subject. These
pamphlets were widely circulated by the friends of peace. The venerable
sage had the comfort of knowing that his words were not in vain. Peace
with Mexico was signed on February 2, 1848.
* * * * *
Mr. Gallatin was no believer in the doctrine of 'manifest destiny,'--the
policy of bringing all North America into the occupation of a race
speaking the same language, and under a single government. On February
16, 1848, before news of the signature of the treaty at Guadalupe
Hidalgo, by Mr. Trist, the American negotiator, was known in New York,
Mr. Gallatin condemned this idea in a remarkable passage, in a letter to
Garrett Davis:--
"What shall be said of the notion of an empire extending from the
Atlantic to the Pacific and from the North Pole to the Equator? Of
the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race, of its universal monarchy over
the whole of North America? Now, I will ask, which is the portion
of the globe that has attained the highest degree of civilization
and even of power--Asia, with its vast empires of Turkey, India,
and China, or Europe divided into near twenty independent
sovereignties? Other powerful causes have undoubtedly largely
contributed to that result; but this, the great division into ten
or twelve distinct languages, must not be neglected. But all these
allegations of superiority of race and destiny neither require nor
deserve any answer. They are but pretences under which to disguise
ambition, cupidity, or silly vanity."
The justice of these reflections was assuredly borne out by the
experience of history, but manifest destiny takes no account of past
lessons.
Before these lines of Mr. Gallatin were penned, on January 19, 1848,
gold was discovered in California. The announcement startled the world
and opened a new era, not only to Europe, but to mankind. Extending the
metallic basis, which no man better than Mr. Gallatin recognized and
held to be the true solvent of money transactions, it postponed for a
half century the inevitable conflict between capital and labor, the
first outbreaks of which in Europe had been with difficulty suppressed,
when the news of good tidings gave promise of unexpected relief. Credit
revived, new enterprises of colossal magnitude were undertaken, and the
demand for labor quickly exceeded the supply. Emigration to America rose
to incredible proportions. Had Mr. Gallatin lived, he would have found
new elements to be weighed in his nice balance of probabilities. He
would no longer, as in 1839, have been compelled to say that "specie is
a foreign product," but would have given to us inestimable advice as to
the proper use to be made of the vast sums taken out from our own soil.
He would have been also brought to face the ethnologic problem of a
continent inhabited by a single race, not Anglo-Saxon, nor Teutonic, nor
yet Latin, but a composite race in which all these will be merged and
blended; a new American race which, springing from a broader surface,
shall rise to higher summits of intellectual power and, with a greater
variety of natural qualities, achieve excellence in more numerous ways.
This vision was denied to Mr. Gallatin. He died at the threshold of the
new era--of the golden age. A half century has not passed since his
death, and the United States has taken from her soil a value of over
three thousand millions of dollars, in gold and silver (gold two
thousand millions, silver one thousand millions), more than two thirds
of the total amount estimated by Mr. Gallatin as the store of Europe in
1839; and has also added to her population, by immigration alone, ten
millions of people, of whom but a small proportion are of the
Anglo-Saxon race.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: _Life of Albert Gallatin_, p. 546.]
[Footnote 20: The frigate Chesapeake was captured by the British
man-of-war Leopard in June, 1807.]
[Footnote 21: A translation of this work, _Economie Politique_, was
published under Jefferson's supervision in 1818.]
CHAPTER IX
CANDIDATE FOR THE VICE-PRESIDENCY
During the twelve years that Mr. Gallatin was in the Treasury he was
continually looking for some man who could take his place in that
office, and aid in the direction of national politics; to use his own
words, "who could replace Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and himself."
Breckenridge of Kentucky only appeared and died. The eccentricities of
John Randolph unfitted him for leadership. William H. Crawford of
Georgia, Monroe's secretary of the treasury, alone filled Gallatin's
expectations. To a powerful mind Crawford "united a most correct
judgment and an inflexible integrity. Unfortunately he was neither
indulgent nor civil, and, consequently, was unpopular." Andrew Jackson,
Gallatin said, "was an honest man, and the idol of the worshipers of
military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual
disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, entirely unfit for the
office of president." John C. Calhoun he looked upon as "a smart fellow,
one of the first amongst second-rate men, but of lax political
principles and an inordinate ambition, not over-delicate in the means of
satisfying itself." Clay he considered to be a man of splendid talents
and a generous mind; John Quincy Adams to be 'wanting to a deplorable
degree in that most essential quality, a sound and correct judgment.'
The contest lay between Adams and Crawford. Crawford was the choice of
Jefferson and Madison as well as of Gallatin. The principles of the
Republican party had so changed that Nathaniel Macon could say in 1824,
in reply to a request from Mr. Gallatin to take part in a caucus for the
purpose of forwarding Mr. Crawford's nomination, that there were "not
five members of Congress who entertained the opinions which those did
who brought Mr. Jefferson into power." But Macon was of the Brutus stamp
of politicians; of that stern cast of mind which does not 'alter when it
alteration finds or bend with the remover to remove,' and held yielding
to the compulsion of circumstances to be an abandonment of principle.
Jefferson still held the consolidation of power to be the chief danger
of the country, and the barrier of state rights, great and small, to be
its only protection even against the Supreme Court. Gallatin took
broader ground, and found encouragement in the excellent working of
universal suffrage in the choice of representatives to legislative
bodies. But he was opposed to the extension of the principle to
municipal officers having the application of the proceeds of taxes,
forgetting that universal suffrage is the lever by which capital is
moved to educate labor and relieve it from the burdens of injury,
disease, and physical incapacity at the expense of the whole. Without
stopping to argue these debatable questions, Mr. Gallatin, with
practical statesmanship, determined to maintain in power the only agency
by which he could at all shape the political future, and he threw
himself into the canvass with zeal.
Crawford had unfortunately been stricken with paralysis, and the choice
of a vice-president became a matter of grave concern. Mr. Gallatin was
selected to take this place on the ticket. To this tender he replied
that he did not want the office, but would dislike to be proposed and
not elected, and he honestly felt that as a foreigner and a residuary
legatee of Federal hatred his name could not be of much service to the
cause. Still, he followed the only course by which any party can be held
together, and surrendered his prejudices and fears to the wishes of his
friends. The Republican caucus met on February 14, 1824, in the chamber
of the House of Representatives. Of the 216 members of the party only 66
attended. Martin Van Buren, then senator from New York, managed this,
the last congressional caucus for the selection of candidates.
The solemnity given to the congressional nominations, and the publicity
of the answers of candidates, Mr. Gallatin held to be political
blunders. In fact the plan was adroitly denounced as an attempt to
dictate to the people.
Crawford was nominated for president by 64 votes, Gallatin for
vice-president by 57. This nomination Mr. Gallatin accepted in a note to
Mr. Ruggles, United States senator, on May 10, 1824. But there were
elements of which party leaders of the old school had not taken
sufficient account. Macon was right when he said that "every generation,
like a single person, has opinions of its own, as much so in politics as
anything else," and that 'the opinions of Jefferson and those who were
with him were forgotten.' And Jefferson himself, in his complacent
reflection that even the name of Federalist was "extinguished by the
battle of New Orleans," did not see that the Republican party of the old
school had been snuffed out by the same event. The new democracy, whose
claims to rule were based, not on the policy of peace or restricted
powers, but on the seductive glitter of military glory, was in the
ascendant, and General Jackson was the favorite of the hour. New
combinations became necessary, and Mr. Gallatin was requested to
withdraw from the ticket, and make room for Mr. Clay, whose great
western influence it was hoped would save it from defeat. This he gladly
did in a declaration of October 2, addressed to Martin Van Buren, dated
at his Fayette home, and published in the "National Intelligencer." The
result of the election was singular. Calhoun was elected vice-president
by the people. The presidential contest was decided in the House, Adams
being chosen over Jackson and Crawford, by the influence of Clay. Mr.
Gallatin quickly discerned in the failure of the people to elect a
president the collapse of the Republican party. He considered it as
"fairly defunct."
Jackson had already announced the startling doctrine that no regard was
to be had to party in the selection of the great officers of government,
which Mr. Gallatin considered as tantamount to a declaration that