Albert Gallatin
and the foundation was laid of a lasting political friendship and social
intimacy. In the recess of the legislature, Mr. Gallatin joined Mr.
Dallas and his wife in an excursion to the northward. Mr. Gallatin's
health had suffered from close confinement and too strict attention to
business, and he needed recreation and diversion. In the course of the
journey the party was joined by some ladies, friends of Mrs. Dallas,
among whom was Miss Hannah Nicholson. The excursion lasted nearly four
weeks. The result was that Mr. Gallatin returned to Philadelphia the
accepted suitor of this young lady. He describes her in a letter to
Badollet as "a girl about twenty-five years old, who is neither handsome
nor rich, but sensible, well-informed, good-natured, and belonging to a
respectable and very amiable family." Nor was he mistaken in his
choice,--a more charming nature, a more perfect, well-rounded character
than hers is rarely found. They were married on November 11, 1793. She
was his faithful companion throughout his long and honorable career, and
death separated them but by a few months. This alliance greatly widened
his political connection.
Commodore James Nicholson, his wife's father, famous in the naval annals
of the United States as the captain of the Trumbull, the first of
American frigates, at the time resided in New York, and was one of the
acknowledged leaders of the Republican party in the city. His two
brothers--Samuel and John--were captains in the naval service. His two
elder daughters were married to influential gentlemen;--Catharine to
Colonel Few, senator from Georgia; Frances, to Joshua Seney, member of
Congress from Maryland; Maria later (1809) married John Montgomery, who
had been member of Congress from Maryland, and was afterwards mayor of
Baltimore. A son, James Witter Nicholson, then a youth of twenty-one,
was, in 1795, associated with Mr. Gallatin in his Western Company, and,
removing to Fayette, made his home in what was later and is now known as
New Geneva. Here, in connection with Mr. Gallatin and the brothers
Kramer, Germans, he established extensive glass works, which proved
profitable.
* * * * *
Mr. Gallatin's election to the United States Senate did not disqualify
him for his unfinished legislative term, and, on his return to
Philadelphia, he was again plunged in his manifold duties. The few days
which intervened between his marriage and the meeting of Congress--a
short honeymoon--were spent under the roof of Commodore Nicholson in New
York.
On February 28, 1793, the Vice-President laid before the Senate a
certificate from the legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to
the election of Albert Gallatin as senator of the United States. Mr.
Gallatin took his seat December 2, 1793. The business of the session was
opened by the presentation of a petition signed by nineteen individuals
of Yorktown, Pennsylvania, stating that Mr. Gallatin had not been nine
years a citizen of the United States. This petition had been handed to
Robert Morris, Mr. Gallatin's colleague for Pennsylvania, by a member of
the legislature for the county of York, but he had declined to present
it, and declared to Mr. Gallatin his intention to be perfectly neutral
on the occasion--at least so Mr. Gallatin wrote to his wife the next
day; but Morris did not hold fast to this resolution, as the votes in
the sequel show. The petition was ordered to lie upon the table. On
December 11 Messrs. Rutherford, Cabot, Ellsworth, Livermore, and
Mitchell were appointed a committee to consider the petition. These
gentlemen, Gallatin wrote, were undoubtedly "the worst for him that
could have been chosen, and did not seem to him to be favorably
disposed." He himself considered the legal point involved as a nice and
difficult one, and likely to be decided by a party vote. The fourth
article of the Constitution of the first Confederation of the United
States reads as follows:--
"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and
intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union,
the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds,
and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all
privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States."
Article 1, section 3, of the new Constitution declares:--
"No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the
age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that
State for which he shall be chosen."
Mr. Gallatin landed in Massachusetts in July, 1780, while still a minor.
His residence, therefore, which had been uninterrupted, extended over
thirteen years. He took the oath of citizenship and allegiance to
Virginia in October, 1785, since which, until his election in 1793, nine
years, the period called for by the United States Constitution, had not
elapsed. On the one hand, his actual residence exceeded the required
period of citizenship; on the other, his legal and technical residence
as a citizen was insufficient. In point of fact, his intention to become
a citizen dated from the summer of 1783.
To take from the case the air of party proscription, which it was
beginning to assume, the Senate discharged its special committee, and
raised a general committee on elections to consider this and other
cases. On February 10, 1794, the report of this committee was submitted,
and a day was set for a hearing by the Senate, with open doors. On that
day Mr. Gallatin exhibited a written statement of facts, agreed to
between himself and the petitioners, and the case was left to the Senate
on its merits. On the 28th a test vote was taken upon a motion to the
effect that "Albert Gallatin, returned to this House as a member for the
State of Pennsylvania, is duly qualified for and elected to a seat in
the Senate of the United States," and it was decided in the
negative--yeas, 12; nays, 14.[2]
Motion being made that the election of Albert Gallatin to be a senator
of the United States was void,--he not having been a citizen of the
United States for the term of years required as a qualification to be a
senator of the United States,--it was further moved to divide the
question at the word "void;" and the question being then taken on the
first paragraph, it passed in the affirmative--yeas, 14; nays, 12. The
yeas and nays were required, and the Senate divided as before. The
resolution was then put and adopted by the same vote. Thus Mr. Gallatin,
thirteen years a resident of the country, a large land-holder in
Virginia, and for several terms a member of the Pennsylvania
legislature, was excluded from a seat in the Senate of the United
States.
Mr. Gallatin conducted his case with great dignity. On being asked
whether he had any testimony to produce, he replied, in writing, that
there was not sufficient matter charged in the petition and proved by
the testimony to vacate his seat, and declined to go to the expense of
collecting evidence until that preliminary question was settled.
Short as the period was during which Mr. Gallatin held his seat, it was
long enough for him seriously to annoy the Federal leaders. Indeed, it
is questionable whether, if he had delayed his embarrassing motion, a
majority of the Senate could have been secured against him. Certain it
is that the Committee on Elections, appointed on December 11, did not
send in its report until the day after Mr. Gallatin moved his
resolution, calling upon the secretary of the treasury for an elaborate
statement of the debt on January 1, 1794, under distinct heads,
including the balances to creditor States, a statement of loans,
domestic and foreign, contracted from the beginning of the government,
statements of exports and imports; finally for a summary statement of
the receipts and expenditures to the last day of December, 1790,
_distinguishing the moneys received under each branch of the revenue and
the moneys expended under each of the appropriations, and stating the
balances of each branch of the revenue remaining unexpended on that
day_, and also calling for similar and separate statements for the years
1791, 1792, 1793. This resolution, introduced on January 8, was laid
over. On the 20th it was adopted. It was not until February 10 that a
reply from the secretary of the treasury was received by the Senate, and
on the 11th submitted to Gallatin, Ellsworth, and Taylor for
consideration and report. In this letter (February 6, 1794) Hamilton
stated the difficulty of supplying the precise information called for,
with the clerical forces of the department, the interruption it would
cause in the daily routine of the service, and deprecated the practice
of such unexpected demands.
With this response of the secretary the inquiry fell to the ground, but
it was neither forgotten nor forgiven by his adherents, and Mr. Gallatin
paid the penalty on at least one occasion. This was years later, when he
himself was secretary of the treasury. On March 2, 1803, the day before
the adjournment of Congress, Mr. Griswold, Federalist from Connecticut,
attacked the correctness of the accounts of the sinking fund, and
demanded an answer to a resolution of the House on the management of
this bureau. Had such been his desire, Mr. Gallatin was foreclosed from
Hamilton's excuse. On the night of the 3d he sent in an elaborate
statement which set accusation at rest and criticism at defiance.
Mr. Gallatin's short stay in the Senate revealed to the Federalists the
character of the man, who, disdaining the lesser flight, checked only at
the highest game. He accepted his exclusion with perfect philosophy.
Soon after the session opened he said, "My feelings cannot be much hurt
by an unfavorable decision, since having been elected is an equal proof
of the confidence the legislature of Pennsylvania reposed in me, and not
being qualified, if it is so decided, cannot be imputed to me as a
fault." His exclusion was by no means a disadvantage to him. It made
common cause of the honor of Pennsylvania and his own; it endeared him
to the Republicans of his State as a martyr to their principles. It
"secured him," to use his own words, "many staunch" friends throughout
the Union, and extended his reputation, hitherto local and confined,
over the entire land; more than all, it led him to the true field of
political contest--the House of Representatives of the people of the
United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: The yeas and nays being required by one fifth of the
senators present, there were: _Affirmative_.--Bradley, Brown, Burr,
Butler, Edwards, Gunn, Jackson, Langdon, Martin, Monroe, Robinson,
Taylor; 12.
_Negative_.--Bradford, Cabot, Ellsworth, Foster, Frelinghuysen, Hawkins,
Izard, King, Livermore, Mitchell, Morris, Potts, Strong, Vining; 14.]
CHAPTER IV
THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION
Mr. Gallatin was now out of public life. For eighteen months since he
came up to the legislature with his friends of the Pittsburgh
convention, he had not returned to Fayette. His private concerns were
suffering in his absence. Neither his barn, his meadow, nor his house
was finished at the close of 1793. In May, 1794, he took his wife to his
country home. Their hopes of a summer of recreation and domestic comfort
in the wild beauties of the Monongahela were not to be realized. Before
the end of June the peaceful country was in a state of mad agitation.
The seeds of political discontent, sown at Pittsburgh in 1792, had
ripened to an abundant harvest. An act passed by Congress June 5, 1794,
giving to the state courts concurrent jurisdiction in excise cases,
removed the grievance of which Gallatin complained, the dragging of