BOOK III. THE TREASURY. 1801-1813. (continued 5)

Dear Sir,—I wrote to you respecting the vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court. I have, perhaps, no right to expect an answer in these times. But reports are so strange upon the succession to Judge Chase that I beg you explicitly to understand the sense of the Pennsylvania profession, Federal, Republican, Quid, and Quadroon. We do not think that the successor named in the public prints is qualified in any respect for the station. I care not who is appointed, provided he is fit in talents, in experience, and in manners; but, for Heaven’s sake, do not make a man a judge merely to get rid of him as a statesman.

Poor Pennsylvania! Except yourself, who has been distinguished by Federal favor? Local offices must have local occupants; but from the commencement of the Federal government, and particularly from the commencement of the Republican Administration, what citizen of Pennsylvania has been invited by the Executive to share in Federal honors? There are the exceptions of Judge Wilson and Mr. Bradford, appointed by President Washington; but they are merely exceptions to my remark.

Look at the judiciary establishment! There are seven judges. Four reside on the south of the Potomac. Two reside in Virginia. The Attorney-General resides in Delaware. For the whole region beyond the Potomac, north-east, there are two judges. The report states that another judge is to be taken from Delaware, and an Attorney-General from Maryland!

I am cordially attached to the whole Administration. Of you personally I only think and speak as of a brother. But really, knowing that no confidence has ever been placed in me upon political subjects, and not knowing where your confidence is now placed, I do not understand your measures, nor am I acquainted with your friends. It is not the puff of a toast nor the flattery of a newspaper squib that can maintain the Republican cause or vindicate the Administration from reproach. A free press is an excellent thing, but a newspaper government is the most execrable of all things. The use of the press is to give information; its abuse is to impose the law upon private feeling and public sentiment. Do, therefore, think less of the denunciations of Duane and of the blandishments of Binns, and let your friends know that you act right, in order that they may think so.[108]

This letter I have a strong inclination to address to Mrs. Gallatin; for as men have ceased to keep secrets, I hope it will cease to be a wonder that a lady should keep them. But I will content myself with requesting you to tell her that if there is a special session of Congress, Mrs. Dallas and M.... will visit Washington.

Had Mr. Gallatin controlled the action of the Executive, he would long since have thrown Duane into open opposition, where he would have been harmless. Duane was simply a blackguard, of a type better understood now than then. That he had good qualities is evident from the descendants he left behind him, but these qualities had not been trained to excellence. The only way to deal with him was the direct way, and the only argument he would listen to was the coarse argument of the truth. From the first, however, both Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison sacrificed their Secretary of the Treasury to this profligate adventurer, whom they conciliated, flattered, persuaded, argued with, and supported by public and private aid. On this subject Mr. Gallatin never opened his lips; the letter of Mr. Dallas, quoted above, shows that even to him, his oldest and most intimate political friend, he never mentioned it. He even submitted to bear, without reply, the sharp criticisms of Mr. Dallas on his own silence, and reflections manifestly unjust. That the manner of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison towards Duane cut deeply into the susceptibilities of Mr. Gallatin is certain; but, with the exception of one single expression, he never by word or sign intimated his sense of the indignity he felt himself to be receiving at their hands. His loyalty to his chiefs was too entire to be shaken for so mean a cause.

With this wound incessantly smarting at his heart; with all his great schemes and brilliant hopes of administrative success shattered into fragments; with a majority of bitter personal enemies in the Senate eager to obstruct every inch of his path; with a great part of his administrative machinery snatched out of his hands, and utter financial confusion around him; with a war against the richest and most powerful nation in the world staring him in the face, and almost certain domestic treason behind; with his own expedients invariably defeated, and with the most contemptible and shifting experiments in politics forced into his hands, Mr. Gallatin was now called upon to take up his burden again and march. He could not escape. Mr. Madison’s friendship, when forced to the final test, proved true, and Gallatin was fettered by his own act.

Of his whole public life, the next year, which should be the most important, is the most obscure. He wrote none but public letters. He never recurred to the time with pleasure, and he left no notes or memoranda to explain his course. Much, therefore, must be left to inference, something may be drawn from scattered hints, and most must depend on the well-known traits of his character and his habits of thought.

The last Congress had, before adjournment, sanctioned the President’s course in reviving the non-intercourse with England on the strength of the supposed revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees by Napoleon. The Administration party, in doing this, took the ground that the act was the necessary result of a contract with France already carried into effect by her. Thus the United States took one more step towards war with England by precluding herself from acting in any other direction than as the Emperor wished; even the most flagrant deception on his part could not shake the compact so far as America was concerned. For the wholesale robbery committed on American property in Europe by the Emperor’s order, the United States mildly asked compensation. At about the same time Russia, then on the friendliest terms with France, directed her minister at Paris to intercede in favor of a similar claim on the part of Denmark. To Count Romanzoff’s representation Bonaparte only replied: “Give them a very civil answer: that I will examine the claim, et cetera; mais on ne paye jamais ces choses-là, n’est-ce pas?”[109] The American claim had small chance of success, but perhaps all that, under the circumstances, it deserved. On the other hand, all the events of the summer tended to war with England. Mr. Foster, the new British minister, instead of lessening the conditions of repeal of the orders in council, increased them. The British Court of Admiralty resumed its sweeping condemnations. The affair of the Chesapeake was at last settled by Mr. Foster, but the British sloop-of-war Little Belt was fired upon and nearly sunk by the United States frigate President; and, what was of far more consequence than all this, the people of the United States, more especially in the south and west, and the younger generation, which cared little for old Jeffersonian principles, were at last in advance of their government and ready for war. Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Langdon Cheves, William Lowndes, Felix Grundy, the leaders of the new sect, were none of them more than thirty-five years of age at this time, or about the age at which Mr. Gallatin had entered Congress more than fifteen years before.

The President and his Cabinet did not want war, but, if the people demanded it, they were not disposed to resist. Mr. Madison would not allow his Administration to fall behind the public feeling in its assertion and maintenance of national dignity; nevertheless, Mr. Madison seems at this moment to have had only a very vague conception of what he himself did want. Although he had a superfluity of only too good causes for war with Great Britain, he allowed himself to be hoodwinked by France into an untenable statement of his case against the British government. He then called Congress together on the 4th November, which was hardly a peace measure. Possibly he underestimated the temper of that body, for his message, sent in on the 5th November, 1811, though high in tone, did not recommend war; it recommended that “a system of more ample provisions for maintaining” national rights should be provided; it recommended Congress to put the country “into an armor and an attitude demanded by the crisis,” namely, the filling up the regular army, providing an auxiliary force, volunteer corps and militia detachments, and organizing the militia; but government had urged nearly all this for years past. Yet on the 15th November, only ten days later, Mr. Madison fully understood the situation, for he wrote to Europe that, as between submission and hostilities, Congress favored the latter, though it would probably defer action till the spring.

Mr. Gallatin’s report, which was sent in on the 25th November, was equally cautious. For the past year the Treasury showed a surplus of over $5,000,000, owing to the large importations under the system of open trade previous to February, 1810; but for the next year the estimated expense of increased armaments and the diminished receipts under the non-intercourse with England would cause a deficit of over one million dollars and necessitate a loan.

The public debt of the United States extinguished between the 1st April, 1801, and the 31st December, 1811, amounted to the sum of $46,022,810, and there remained on the 1st January, 1812, $45,154,189 of funded debt, bearing an annual interest of $2,222,481. This represents all that was directly accomplished by Mr. Gallatin towards his great object of the extinction of debt. This result had been accompanied by the abandonment of the internal taxes and the salt tax, but also by the imposition of the 2½ per cent. ad valorem duties known as the Mediterranean Fund. “It therefore proves decisively,” said the report, “the ability of the United States with their ordinary revenue to discharge in ten years of peace a debt of forty-two millions of dollars; a fact which considerably lessens the weight of the most formidable objection to which that revenue, depending almost solely on commerce, appears to be liable. In time of peace it is almost sufficient to defray the expenses of a war; in time of war it is hardly competent to support the expenses of a peace establishment. Sinking at once under adverse circumstances from fifteen to six or eight millions of dollars, it is only by a persevering application of the surplus which it affords in years of prosperity to the discharge of the debt, that a total change in the system of taxation, or a perpetual accumulation of debt, can be avoided.”

The report went on to discuss the provision to be made for ensuing years. The present revenue, under existing circumstances, was estimated at $6,600,000; the expenditure at $9,200,000. To provide for the deficiency an addition of fifty per cent. to the existing duties on imports would be required, and was preferable to any internal tax. “The same amount of revenue would be necessary, and, with the aid of loans, would, it is believed, be sufficient in case of war.” By inadvertence, Mr. Gallatin made here an important omission. He was speaking only of “fixed revenue,” sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of government; and, as he was afterwards obliged to explain, this expression was wrongly applied to the case of war. He omitted to add that with each loan, provision to meet its interest must be made by increasing taxation; this fact had already been pointed out in the financial paragraph of the President’s message, quoted in a previous part of the report, but the oversight gave rise to subsequent sharp attacks upon the Secretary.

He then came to the question of loans, and expressed the opinion that in case of war “the United States must rely solely on their own resources. These have their natural bounds, but are believed to be fully adequate to the support of all the national force that can be usefully and efficiently employed;” but it was to be understood that if the United States wished to borrow money it must pay for it: “It may be expected that legal interest will not be sufficient to obtain the sums required. In that case the most simple and direct is also the cheapest and safest mode. It appears much more eligible to pay at once the difference, either by a premium in lands or by allowing a higher rate of interest, than to increase the amount of stock created, or to attempt any operation which might injuriously affect the circulating medium of the country;” and he proceeded to show that “even” if forty millions were borrowed, the difference between paying eight and six per cent. would be only $800,000 a year until the principal was reimbursed.

These were the chief points of the report, and taken with the tone of the message they indicate clearly enough that the Administration, now as heretofore, whatever the private feelings of its members might be, was prepared to accept any distinct policy which Congress might lay down. One of the main grounds of attack upon Mr. Gallatin was that he had habitually alarmed the public with the poverty of the Treasury, and by doing so had checked energetic measures of defence. The charge was so far true that Mr. Gallatin had never concealed or attempted to color the accounts of the Treasury. On this occasion he probably aimed, as was always his habit, at furnishing Congress with as favorable an estimate as the truth would permit, with a view to obtaining united and cordial co-operation between the Executive and Congress. His only mistake was in accepting the estimates of war expenditure then current. He himself could not wish for war, and still hoped to avoid it; he knew that the Treasury, in its present situation, could not stand the burden, but he had suffered too much from the charge of attempting to direct legislation, to allow of his again exposing himself to it without necessity.

The President and the Secretary of the Treasury were therefore in perfect accord; they did not recommend war, but they recommended immediate and energetic preparation. The President advised Congress to provide troops; the Secretary recommended increased taxes and a loan of $1,200,000, to pay these troops and support them. This was the extent of their recommendations, and it remained for Congress to act.

Congress did indeed act; within a very short time it was clear that Mr. Madison had no control over its proceedings. To Mr. Gallatin the action of Congress was merely a sign that, as his influence in the Senate had long since vanished, his influence in the House had now followed it, and that for the future he could expect no friendly co-operation from the Legislature. At first, indeed, the proceedings of both bodies were in outward accord with the Executive recommendations; the reports of committees, and the House bill introduced in pursuance of them, were such as Mr. Madison had suggested; the only warlike measure proposed was that of permitting merchant vessels to arm. The Senate, however, very soon returned to its old tactics. Mr. Madison, as was well understood, asked only for an army of ten thousand men, and his recommendations were referred to a committee, of which Mr. Giles was the chairman, who immediately reported a bill for raising twenty-five thousand men, and in a speech on the 17th December fairly took the ground that his principal motive was to annoy the Secretary of the Treasury. Mr. Giles declared himself a friend of peace; no man more deprecated war; but “if war should now come, it would be in consequence of the fatal rejection of the proposed measures of preparation for war.” The only reason for rejecting them he averred to be “the decrepit state of the Treasury and the financial fame of the gentleman at the head of that Department.” He launched into a bitter attack upon Mr. Gallatin, thoroughly in the spirit of Duane and the Aurora. Considering that he was playing with such tremendous interests, and that the national existence, to say nothing of private life and fortune, was dancing on the edge of this precipice of war at the mercy of Mr. Giles’s personal malignity towards Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, there is actually something dramatic and almost classic in the taunts he now flung out. “Until now the honorable Secretary has had no scope for the demonstration of his splendid financial talents.” “If, then, reliance can be placed upon his splendid financial talents, only give them scope for action; apply them to the national ability and will.” “All the measures which have dishonored the nation during the last three years are in a great degree attributable to the indisposition of the late and present Administration to press on the Treasury Department and to disturb the popularity and repose of the gentleman at the head of it.” In order to give sufficient occupation to the splendid financial talents of the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Giles had done all that was in his power to do; he had thwarted every plan of policy; wasted every dollar of money; struck from the hands of government every resource and every financial instrument he could lay hold on; and all this was not enough. The Secretary still had reputation; he had popularity; he had, if not repose, at least dignity. The Senator from Virginia was equal to the occasion; there are few oratorical taunts on record which echo more harshly than this, that as yet “the Secretary has had no scope for the demonstration of his splendid financial talents;” war alone could do those talents justice, and war the Secretary should have.

Mr. Giles carried his bill through the Senate; Clay and Lowndes carried it through the House. The war spirit meanwhile was rapidly rising; resolutions poured in from the State Legislatures; Congress hurried into further measures. What Mr. Madison thought of these is shown in a letter of his to Mr. Jefferson, dated February 7, 1812: “The newspapers give you a sufficient insight into the measures of Congress. With a view to enable the Executive to step at once into Canada, they have provided, after two months’ delay, for a regular force, requiring twelve to raise it, on terms not likely to raise it at all for that object. The mixture of good and bad, avowed and disguised motives accounting for these things, is curious enough, but not to be explained in the compass of a letter.”

Although Mr. Gallatin had lost his old control in the House, he still preserved his influence with the Committee of Ways and Means and its chairman, Ezekiel Bacon, of Massachusetts. To this committee the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury was referred, and when it became clear that war was really imminent, the committee, early in December, requested Mr. Gallatin to appear before them to discuss the question of war taxes. Mr. Gallatin at once complied, and gave his opinions explicitly and emphatically: “I do not,” said he, “feel myself particularly responsible for the nation being in the position in which it now finds itself; it might perhaps have been avoided by a somewhat different course of measures, or the ultimate issue longer deferred. But, placed as it is, I see not how we can now recede from our position with honor or safety. We must now go on and maintain that position with all the available means we can bring to bear on the enemy whom we have selected, and we should in my judgment resort immediately to a system of taxation commensurate with the objects stated in my annual report and by the President in his message at the opening of the session.”[110] Very soon afterwards, on December 9, the committee, through its chairman, wrote Mr. Gallatin a letter asking for a written statement of his views, and a month later Mr. Gallatin sent in a paper, which was to all intents and purposes a war budget.

This was a remarkable—for Mr. Gallatin’s calm temper, almost a defiant—document, written, said Mr. Bacon, “to the great disobligement, as we had reason to know, of some of his strong political friends at that time,” and intended to force Congress into an honest performance of its financial duties. This intent was marked by a defence of his own course which could not but read as a severe criticism of the course pursued by Congress.

1812.

“It was stated,” said Mr. Gallatin, “in the annual report of December 10, 1808, that ‘no internal taxes, either direct or indirect, were contemplated even in the case of hostilities carried against the two great belligerent powers;’ an assertion which renders it necessary to show that the prospect then held out was not deceptive, and why it has not been realized.

“The balance in the Treasury amounted at that time to near fourteen millions of dollars; but aware that that surplus would in a short time be expended, and having stated that the revenue was daily decreasing, it was in the same report proposed ‘that all the existing duties should be doubled on importations subsequent to the 1st day of January, 1809.’... If the measure then submitted had been adopted, we should, after making a large deduction for any supposed diminution of consumption arising from the proposed increase, have had at this time about twenty millions of dollars on hand,—a sum greater than the net amount of the proposed internal taxes for four years.

“In proportion as the ability to borrow is diminished, the necessity of resorting to taxation is increased. It is therefore also proper to observe that at that time the subject of the renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States had been referred by the Senate to the Secretary of the Treasury, nor had any symptom appeared from which its absolute dissolution, without any substitute, could have then been anticipated. The renewal in some shape and on a more extensive scale was confidently relied on; and accordingly, in the report made during the same session to the Senate, the propriety of increasing the capital of the bank to thirty millions of dollars was submitted, with the condition that that institution should, if required, be obliged to lend one-half of its capital to the United States. The amount thus loaned might without any inconvenience have been increased to twenty millions. And with twenty millions of dollars in hand, and loans being secured for twenty millions more, without any increase of the stock of the public debt at market, internal taxation would have been unnecessary for at least four years of war, nor any other resource been wanted than an additional annual loan of five millions, a sum sufficiently moderate to be obtained from individuals and on favorable terms.”

Leaving Congress to reflect at its leisure upon the criticisms implied in these remarks, the Secretary went on to lay down the rules now made necessary by the refusal to follow his previous advice. After doubling the imposts and reimposing the duty on salt, he could promise a net revenue of only $6,000,000 for war times. The committee assumed that annual loans of 110,000,000 would be required during the war, which left an annual deficiency, to be provided for by taxation, amounting to $5,000,000, calculated to cover the interest of the first two loans only, after which additional taxes must be imposed to provide for the interest of future loans.

Five millions a year, therefore, must be raised by internal taxes, and Mr. Gallatin proposed to obtain three millions by a direct tax and two millions by excise, stamps, licenses, and duties on refined sugar and carriages. A few remarks on loans and Treasury notes closed the letter.

This communication startled the House, and even produced an excitement of no ordinary nature. Congress suddenly awoke to the fact that the Secretary was in earnest, and that, if war came, Congress must learn to take advice. The faction that followed Mr. Giles and General Smith were not quick in learning this lesson, and fairly raved against the Secretary. What so exasperated them may be gathered best from a speech by Mr. Wright, of Maryland, one of the most extreme of the Smith connection. On March 2, 1812, he spoke thus:

“Sir, at the last session, when the question for rechartering the odious British bank was before us, we had to encounter the influence of the Secretary of the Treasury.... Now at this session he has told us that, if we had a national bank, we should have no occasion to resort to internal taxes; thereby calling the American people to review the conduct of their representatives in not continuing that bank, and thereby to fix the odium of these odious taxes on the National Legislature. Now a system of taxes is presented truly odious, in my opinion, to the people, to disgust them with their representatives and to chill the war spirit. Yet it is, under Treasury influence, to be impressed on the Committee of Ways and Means, and through them on the House. Sir, I, as a representative of the people, feel it my duty to resist it with all my energies.... Sir, is there anything of originality in his system? No! It is treading in the muddy footsteps of his official predecessors in attempting to strap round the necks of the people this odious system of taxation, adopted by them, for which they have been condemned by the people and dismissed from power.... And now, sir, with the view of destroying this Administration; with this sentence of a dismissal of our predecessors in office before our eyes, a sentence not only sanctioned, but executed by ourselves, we are to be pressed into a system known to be odious in the sight of the people, and which, on its first presentation in a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury to the Committee of Ways and Means, and by them submitted to us, produced such an excitement in the House.”

The “invisibles,” however, were not the only class of men upon whom the war-budget fell with startling effect. Mr. Gallatin’s old friends with whom he had acted in 1792, when at the unlucky Pittsburg meeting they had united in declaring “that internal taxes upon consumption, from their very nature, never can effectually be carried into operation without vesting the officers appointed to collect them with powers most dangerous to the civil rights of freemen, and must in the end destroy the liberties of every country in which they are introduced;” men like William Findley, his old colleague, were so deeply shocked at the reintroduction of the excise that they would not vote even for the printing of this letter. They looked upon Mr. Gallatin as guilty of flagrant inconsistency. They did not stop to reflect that, if inconsistency there were, it dated as far back as 1796, when, in his “Sketch of the Finances,” Mr. Gallatin had taken essentially the same view of the excise as now;[111] and again in 1801, when he had refused to recommend the repeal of the internal taxes.

It was assumed that the Secretary of the Treasury could discover unknown resources; the Aurora dreamed of endless wealth in the national lands; but in point of fact this letter of Mr. Gallatin’s erred only in calling for too little. He began by accepting the committee’s estimate that loans to the extent of $50,000,000 would carry on a four years’ war. The war lasted two years and a half, and raised the national debt from $45,000,000 to $123,000,000, or at the rate of somewhat more than $30,000,000 a year, nearly three times the estimate. Had Mr. Gallatin foreseen anything like the truth in regard to the coming contest, his demand for resources would have appeared absurd, and he would have lost whatever influence he still had.

For once, however, Gallatin was master of the situation. He could not force his enemies to vote for the taxes, but he could force them to vote for or against, and either alternative was equally unpleasant to them. The honest supporters of war found little difficulty in following Mr. Gallatin’s lead, but the mere trimmers, and the men who supported a war policy because the Administration opposed it, were greatly disturbed. Mr. Bacon brought in a report with a long line of resolutions, and seriously proceeded to force them through the House. Nothing, one would think, could have given Mr. Gallatin keener entertainment than to see how his enemies acted under this first turn of the screw which they themselves had set in motion. It was a sign that government was again at work, and that the long period of chaos was coming to an end; but the struggle to escape was desperate, and it was partially successful. At first, indeed, Mr. Gallatin carried his point. On the 4th resolution, for a tax of twenty cents a bushel on salt, the House rebelled, and refused the rate by a vote of 60 to 57, but the next day the whip was freely applied, and Mr. Wright and his friends were overthrown by a vote of 66 to 54. This settled the matter for the time, and the House meekly swallowed the whole list of nauseous taxes, and ordered Mr. Bacon’s committee, on the 4th March, 1812, to prepare bills in conformity with the resolutions. This was done, but the bills could not be got before the House till June 26, when there remained but ten days of the session. As it was out of the question to get these taxes adopted by the House and Senate in that short time, Mr. Gallatin was obliged to consent to their going over till November. Congress, however, was quite ready to authorize loans, and promptly began with one of eleven millions, which, small as it was, Mr. Gallatin found difficulty in negotiating, even with the active and valuable assistance of Mr. John Jacob Astor, who now became a considerable power in the state.

The attitude of the Administration towards the war during the winter of 1811-12 seems to have been one of passive acquiescence. Nothing has yet been brought to light, nor do the papers left by Mr. Gallatin contain the smallest evidence, tending to show that Mr. Madison or any of his Cabinet tried to place any obstacle in the way of the war party. That they did not wish for war is a matter of course. Their administrative difficulties even in peace were so great as to paralyze all their efforts, and from war they had nothing to expect but an infinite addition to them. The burden would fall chiefly upon Mr. Gallatin, who knew that the Treasury must break down, and upon the Secretary of War, Eustis, who was notoriously incompetent. Yet even Mr. Gallatin accepted war as inevitable, and wrote in that sense to Mr. Jefferson.

GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.

Washington, 10th March, 1812.

Dear Sir,—...You have seen from your retreat that our hopes and endeavors to preserve peace during the present European contest have at last been frustrated. I am satisfied that domestic faction has prevented that happy result. But I hope, nevertheless, that our internal enemies and the ambitious intriguers who still attempt to disunite will ultimately be equally disappointed. I rely with great confidence on the good sense of the mass of the people to support their own government in an unavoidable war, and to check the disordinate ambition of individuals. The discoveries made by Henry will have a salutary effect in annihilating the spirit of the Essex junto, and even on the new focus of opposition at Albany. Pennsylvania never was more firm or united. The South and the West cannot be shaken. With respect to the war, it is my wish, and it will be my endeavor, so far as I may have any agency, that the evils inseparable from it should, as far as practicable, be limited to its duration, and that at its end the United States may be burthened with the smallest possible quantity of debt, perpetual taxation, military establishments, and other corrupting or anti-republican habits or institutions.

Accept the assurances of my sincere and unalterable attachment and respect.

Nevertheless there has always been something mysterious about Mr. Madison’s share in causing the final declaration. This letter of Mr. Gallatin, dated March 10, shows that he already considered war to be unavoidable. On the 3d April, only three weeks later, Mr. Madison wrote to Mr. Jefferson that the action of the British government in refusing to repeal the orders in council left us nothing to do but to prepare for war, and that an embargo for sixty days had been recommended. The embargo was accordingly imposed, and on June 1 Mr. Madison finally sent in his message recommending a declaration of war against Great Britain, which took place on June 18.

The Federalist party, however, always maintained that Mr. Madison was dragooned into the war by a committee of Congress. The assertion is that the President, though willing to accept and sign a bill declaring war, was very far from wishing to recommend it, and that to overcome his reluctance a committee headed by Clay waited upon him to announce that he must either recommend the declaration or lose the nomination for the Presidency which was then pending; that he yielded; received the nomination on May 18, and sent in his message on June 1.

This story, openly told in Congress soon afterwards, and as openly and positively denied by Mr. Clay and his friends, has crept into all the principal histories, and in spite of contradiction has acquired much of the force of established fact. It has even been supported by an avowal of James Fisk, a prominent member from Vermont, that he was himself a member of the committee. The charge, such as it is, has been the principal stain on the political history of Mr. Madison, and also by consequence upon that of Mr. Gallatin, who, according to Mr. Hildreth,[112] “clung with tenacity to office” and “did not choose to risk his place by openly opposing what he labored in vain by indirect means to prevent,” at a time when Mr. Gallatin would probably have been only too happy to find any honorable way of escaping from office.

The papers of Mr. Gallatin, like those of Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, are quite silent upon this subject. On the other hand, the papers of Timothy Pickering supply at least the authority on which the charge was made. The two following letters tell their own story, and, although they affect Mr. Gallatin’s reputation only indirectly, they have a considerable negative value even for him.

TIMOTHY PICKERING TO ABRAHAM SHEPHERD.

City of Washington, February 12, 1814.

Dear Sir,—At the last autumn session, Mr. Hanson, noticing the manner in which the war was produced, in addressing Clay, the Speaker, spoke to this effect: “You know, sir, that the President was coerced into the measure; that a committee called upon him and told him that if he did not recommend a declaration of war, he would lose his election. And then he sent his message recommending the declaration.”

Now, my dear sir, I learn from Mr. Hanson that Colonel Thomas Worthington, Senator, on his way home to Ohio, gave you the above information, and mentioned the names of Henry Clay, Felix Grundy, and some other or others who composed the committee. This is a very important fact, and I pray you will do me the favor to recollect and state to me all the information you possess on the subject; at what time and from whom you received it.

ABRAHAM SHEPHERD TO TIMOTHY PICKERING.

Near Shepherdstown, February 20, 1814.

Dear Sir,—I received your favor of the 12th instant, and observed the contents. Some time in the beginning of April, 1812, General Worthington came to my house from the city to see Mrs. Worthington and children set out for Ohio; he continued part of two days at my house, within which time we had considerable conversation on the prospect of war. He insisted war was inevitable. I condemned the folly and madness of such a measure. He then told me that Mr. Bayard would first be sent to England to make one effort more to prevent the war; that Mr. Madison had consented to do so; and that Mr. Bayard had agreed to go; that he had used every means in his power with some more of the moderate men of their party to effect this object, and that he had frequent conversations with Mr. Madison and Bayard on this subject before it was effected, and that I might rely upon it that such measures would be adopted. He left my house and returned to the city. After the declaration of war and rising of Congress, General Worthington, on his way home to the State of Ohio, called at my house and stayed a night. I then asked him what had prevented the President from carrying into effect this intended mission to England, and observed I was very sorry it had not been put in execution. He answered he was as sorry as I possibly could be, and that he had never met with any occurrence in his life that had mortified him so much. He said as soon as he returned to the city from my house he was informed of what had taken place by a set of hot-headed, violent men, and he immediately waited on Mr. Madison to know the cause. Mr. Madison told him that his friends had waited upon him and said, if he did send Mr. Bayard to England they would forsake him and be opposed to him, and he was compelled to comply, or bound to comply, with their wishes. I then asked General Worthington who those hot-headed, violent men were. He said Mr. Clay was the principal. I cannot positively say, but think Grundy was mentioned with Clay.

I clearly understood that Clay and Grundy were two of the number that waited on the President. I did not ask him how he got his information. As I understood the business, a caucus was held and Mr. Clay and others appointed, and waited on the President in the absence of Worthington, which will ascertain when this business took place.

Mr. Pickering seems to have thought that this explanation hardly supported the charge, and he discreetly allowed the subject to drop. So far, indeed, as the original charge was concerned, the letter of Mr. Shepherd entirely disposed of it, and proved that Mr. Hanson and Mr. Pickering had no authority for asserting that the President was coerced into sending the message of June 1, or that this message was the price of his re-nomination. On the other hand, Mr. Shepherd’s statement raises a new charge against Mr. Madison. In his letter of 24th April, 1812, to Mr. Jefferson, the President said: “You will have noticed that the embargo, as recommended to Congress, was limited to sixty days. Its extension to ninety proceeded from the united votes of those who wished to make it a negotiating instead of a war measure,” &c., &c. Of these Senator Worthington was doubtless one, for the substitution of “90” for “60” was made by the Senate on April 3, on motion of Dr. Leib, and Worthington voted for it. There was, then, a party in Congress which wished to use the embargo as a weapon of negotiation. It is not improbable that this party may have wished Mr. Madison to send a special mission to England, and that they may have pressed Mr. Bayard for the place. It is possible that Clay and his friends may have told Mr. Madison that in such a step he must not expect their support. This is all that can be now affirmed in regard to the celebrated charge that Mr. Madison made war in order to obtain a re-election.

Mr. Madison’s Administration wanted energy and force. No one who is at all familiar with the private history of this party can escape the confession that the President commanded personal love and esteem in a far higher degree than obedience. Whether Senator Worthington counted Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin among the active supporters of his proposed peace mission does not appear, nor is there any clue to the other friends of that policy; but there can be little doubt that this was merely one of many suggestions with which the remnant of the old Jeffersonian democracy struggled in a helpless way to stem the current of the times. Mr. Gallatin’s ears were wearied with the complaints and remonstrances of his friends, the Macons, the Worthingtons, the Dallases, the Nicholsons; and the strident tones of John Randolph echoed their complaints to the public. The President heard, but, both by temperament and conviction, followed the path which seemed nearest the general popular movement, without a serious effort to direct it or to provide for its consequences. Even Mr. Worthington believed war to be inevitable. Yet had they known that only the utter disorganization of the British government now prevented a repeal of the orders in council; had there been an American minister in London capable of seeing through the outer shell of politics and of measuring the force of social movements, war might even yet have been avoided. Nay, had Mr. Madison thrown himself at this decisive moment into the arms of the peace party; had he, on the 1st April, 1812, sent to the Senate, together with his embargo message, the nominations of Mr. Bayard and Mr. Monroe or Mr. Gallatin as special commissioners to England, the war could hardly have happened, for the commissioners would have found the orders in council revoked before negotiations could have been seriously begun.

This, however, Mr. Madison did not know, and, perhaps, even had he known it, the fate of John Adams might have seemed to his gentler spirit a warning not to thwart a party policy. His action was founded on the official utterances of the British government and the temper of our own people; it was perfectly consistent from beginning to end, and there was no disagreement in the Cabinet on the subject. It is true that until Congress met he was in doubt what course was best to pursue; his message did not directly recommend war; but from the moment Congress assembled and showed a disposition to support the national dignity, Mr. Madison and his Cabinet accepted the situation and needed no outside compulsion. To use his own words, as written down by a celebrated visitor in the year 1836, “he knew the unprepared state of the country, but he esteemed it necessary to throw forward the flag of the country, sure that the people would press onward and defend it.”[113] He had been ready to do this in the winter of 1808-09. He had urged measures almost equivalent to war in every following session, so far as Congress would allow him to do so. He had wished to maintain peace, but he had been quite aware that government must have the moral courage to resist outrage, as a condition of maintaining peace. It is not to be denied that his party was far behind him, and that, as a consequence, the whole foreign policy from February, 1809, to June, 1812, was one long series of blunders and misfortunes. France made a dupe of him and betrayed him into a diplomatic position which was, as regarded England, untenable. To use his own words in a letter to Joel Barlow, his minister at Paris, dated August 11, 1812: “The conduct of the French government ... will be an everlasting reproach to it.... In the event of a pacification with Great Britain, the full tide of indignation with which the public mind here is boiling, will be directed against France, if not obviated by a due reparation of her wrongs. War will be called for by the nation almost una voce.” But the diplomatic mistake did not affect the essential merits of the case, and the factiousness of Congress merely prevented the possibility of a peaceable solution. Neither the one nor the other offers the smallest evidence of inconsistency in Mr. Madison or in his Cabinet. Even Mr. Gallatin, to whose success peace was essential, had never wished and did not now wish to obtain it by deprecating war.

The real trouble which weighed upon the mind of Mr. Gallatin was not the war; he accepted this as inevitable. His difficulty was that the government wanted the faculties necessary for carrying on a war with success, and that Mr. Madison was not the person to supply, by his own energy and will, the deficiencies of the system. Mr. Gallatin knew, what was known to every member of Congress and every newspaper editor in the land, that both the Navy and Army Departments were wholly unequal to the war. With regard to the navy, this was of the less consequence, because the subordinate material was excellent, and our naval officers were sure to supply the lack of energy in their official head; yet even here the mere fact that Governor Hamilton wanted the qualities necessary to a Secretary of the Navy in war times diminished the confidence of the public and the vigor of the Cabinet. In regard to Dr. Eustis and the War Department the situation was far worse; this had always been the weak branch of our system, for the army was wanting in very nearly every element of success derived from efficient organization. Complete collapse was inevitable if the situation were prolonged.

The weight of government now fell almost wholly upon Mr. Monroe and Mr. Gallatin; it is believed that even the Act for the organization of the army at the beginning of the war was drawn up by Mr. Gallatin. The Cabinet broke down first of all, and this helplessness of the War Secretaries, as they were called, has led to a strange mystification of history in regard to the first achievements of our navy in 1812. Long afterwards, in the year 1845, Mr. C. J. Ingersoll published a history of the war, in which he dealt his blows very freely upon Mr. Madison and Mr. Gallatin, and charged them, among other things, with having meant to dismantle our frigates and convert them into harbor defences. This attack drew a paper from Commodore Stewart, who gave another account of the affair. His statement was that he and Commodore Bainbridge arrived at Washington on the 20th June; that on the 21st they were shown by Mr. Goldsborough, chief clerk of the Navy Department, a paper containing the orders, which had just been drawn, for Commodore Rodgers not to leave the waters of New York with his naval force; that on the same day the Secretary of the Navy informed them that it had been decided by the President and the Cabinet, to lay up our vessels of war in the harbor of New York; that they had an interview with the President on the same day, in which the President confirmed this decision; that on the 22d the two commodores presented a joint remonstrance; and that the subsequent orders, under which the vessels went to sea, were the result of this remonstrance. A letter of Mr. Goldsborough to Commodore Bainbridge, dated May 4, 1825, confirmed the fact of the joint remonstrance, and added some details in regard to the transaction.

This statement of Commodore Stewart drew from Mr. Gallatin a reply, which will be found in his printed Writings.[114] He asserted that he had no recollection of any such scheme for laying up the frigates; that he was confident no such Cabinet council was ever held as was referred to by Commodore Stewart; that the President, under the laws, had no power to make such a disposition of the navy; that Congress had never contemplated anything of the sort; and that the orders previously or simultaneously given contradicted such an idea.

His remarks upon the Secretary of the Navy, however, show the situation as it then existed: “Owing to circumstances irrelevant to any question now at issue, my intercourse with Mr. Hamilton was very limited. He may have been inefficient; he certainly was an amiable, kind-hearted, and honorable gentleman. From his official reports he appears to have been devoted to the cause of the navy, and I never heard him express opinions such as he is stated to have entertained on that subject. Yet his official instructions of 18th June and 3d July, 1812, to Commodore Hull, which I saw for the first time in Mr. Ingersoll’s work, evince an anxiety bordering on timidity, a fear to assume any responsibility, and a wish, if any misfortune should happen, to make the officer solely responsible for it.”

Mr. Ingersoll and Commodore Stewart, though in different ways, both in effect charged upon Mr. Gallatin this scheme of laying up the navy; it was, according to them, his influence in the Cabinet which had almost deprived the nation of its maritime glories. This is one of those curious echoes of popular notions which so often bias historians, and was founded partly on his old hostility to the navy, partly on his known indisposition towards the war. There was, in fact, no truth in it. Mr. Gallatin has himself, in the paper quoted above, recorded his feelings about the navy at this time:

“For myself I have no reason to complain. Commodore Stewart, in mentioning my name, only repeats what he heard another say, and he ascribes to me none but honorable motives and opinions, which, as he believed, were generally those of the public at large. He says, indeed, that out of the navy he knew at Philadelphia but one man who thought otherwise. My associations were, however, more fortunate. From my numerous connections and friends in the navy, and particularly from conversations with Commodore Decatur, who had explained to me the various improvements introduced in our public ships, I had become satisfied that our navy would, on equal terms, prove equal to that of Great Britain, and I may aver that this was the opinion not only of Mr. Madison, but of the majority of those in and out of Congress with whom I conversed. The apprehension, as far as I knew, was not on that account, but that by reason of the prodigious numerical superiority of the British there would be little chance for engagements on equal terms, and that within a short time our public ships could afford no protection to our commerce. But this did not apply to the short period immediately subsequent to the declaration of war, when the British naval force in this quarter was hardly superior to that of the United States. The expectation was general, and nowhere more so than in New York, where the immediate capture of the Belvidere was anticipated, that our public ships would sail the moment that war was declared. In keeping them in port at that time the Administration would have acted in direct opposition to the intentions of Congress and to public opinion.”

Commodore Stewart replied in rather indifferent temper to Mr. Gallatin’s very mild statement,[115] but in doing so he printed the sailing orders of June 22, 1812. An examination of the Madison papers in the State Department at Washington also brings to light the following note, and by placing the note of Mr. Gallatin side by side with the sailing orders sent by the Secretary of the Navy to Commodore Rodgers, it will be easily seen who was responsible for sending Rodgers to sea.

GALLATIN TO MADISON.

[No date. June 20 or 21, 1812.]

Dear Sir,—I believe the weekly arrivals from foreign ports will for the coming four weeks average from one to one and a half million dollars a week. To protect these and our coasting vessels whilst the British have still an inferior force on our coasts, appears to me of primary importance. I think that orders to that effect ordering them to cruise accordingly ought to have been sent yesterday, and that at all events not one day longer ought to be lost.

Respectfully.

SECRETARY HAMILTON TO COMMODORE RODGERS.

Navy Department, 22d June, 1812.

... For the present it has been judged expedient so to employ our public armed vessels as to afford to our returning commerce all possible protection. Nationally and individually the safe return of our commercial vessels is obviously of the highest importance, and, to accomplish this object as far as may be in your power, you will without doubt exert your utmost means and consult your best judgment.... Your general cruising ground for the present will be from the Capes of the Chesapeake eastwardly. Commodore Decatur, ... having the same object in view, will, for the present, cruise from New York southwardly.... You are now in possession of the present views of the government in relation to the employment of our vessels of war....

These two documents establish beyond question the curious fact that it was Mr. Gallatin who fixed the policy of the Administration in regard to the navy in 1812; that it was he who urged the President and the Navy Department up to their work; and that it was he who should have had the credit, whatever it may be, of sending Rodgers and Decatur to sea. These orders of June 22 were the actual cruising orders which settled the policy of the navy for the time, and took the place of temporary orders issued to Rodgers on June 18, in which he was directed to make a dash at the British cruisers off Sandy Hook and return immediately to New York.

In the face of these incontrovertible pieces of evidence, one is left to wonder what can have been the foundation for the circumstantial story told by Stewart and Bainbridge that they read on June 21, 1812, in the chief clerk’s room at the Navy Department in Washington, orders which had just been drawn at the instance of Mr. Gallatin for Commodore Rodgers not to leave the waters of New York with his naval force; orders issued, as the Secretary of the Navy then and there explained, because it had been decided by the President and Cabinet, also at Mr. Gallatin’s suggestion, to dismantle the ships and use them as floating batteries to defend New York harbor; and that the cancelling of these orders and the reversal of this policy were due to the vehement remonstrances of these two gallant naval officers, who won a victory in the President’s mind over the blasting and fatal influence of Mr. Gallatin. It is a new illustration of the old jealousy between arms and gowns.

GALLATIN TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.

Washington, 26th June, 1812.

Dear Sir,—I am just informed that you are in Baltimore. If it be true that your Legislature has authorized the banks to lend a portion of their capital to the United States, can you ascertain what amount may be obtained from them all either by taking stock or by way of temporary loans reimbursable at the expiration of one or more years? We have not money enough to last till 1st January next, and General Smith is using every endeavor to run us aground by opposing everything, Treasury notes, double duties, &c. The Senate is so nearly divided and the divisions so increased by that on the war question that we can hardly rely on carrying anything....

War being now declared, Mr. Gallatin was condemned to do that which, of all financial work, he most abhorred; to pile debt upon debt; “to act the part of a mere financier; to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans,” and, in the inevitable waste of war, to be the helpless abettor of extravagance and mismanagement. These were not the objects for which he had taken office; they were, in fact, precisely the acts for which he had attacked his predecessors, had driven them from power, and appropriated their offices and honors, and no one felt this inconsistency more severely than Mr. Gallatin himself, although five years of painful effort and constant failure had taught him how feeble were party principles and private convictions in the face of facts. He was compelled to go on and to see worse things still. Every part of the administrative system, except one, collapsed. The war was miserably disastrous. The Act for raising 25,000 men had not become law until the 11th January, 1812; the selection of officers was not completed until the close of the year; the recruiting service was not organized in time; the enlistments fell short of the most moderate calculation, and the total number of recruits was so small as to make impossible any decisive movement on the line of Lake Champlain, although Montreal was almost unprotected. No sufficient naval force was provided on the Lakes, and in consequence an American army at Detroit was surrounded and captured by a mere mob of Canadians and Indians, who, inferior in every other respect to their opponents, had the inestimable advantage of a brave, energetic, and capable leader. Bad as this experience was, it hardly equalled the military performances at Niagara, where the commanding generals showed a degree of incompetence that descended at last to sheer buffoonery. The War Department in all its branches completely broke down, and if it had not been for the exploits of those half-dozen frigates whose construction had been so vehemently resisted by the Republican party under Mr. Gallatin’s lead, the Navy Department would have appeared equally poorly. The control of the Lakes was in fact lost, and only partially regained in 1813; the whole gun-boat system, on which millions had been wasted, went to pieces; even the frigates were mostly soon captured or blockaded, and, but for the privateers, England, at the end of the war, had little to fear on the ocean. Amid this general collapse of administration, Mr. Gallatin might have found hope and comfort had Congress shown capacity, but Congress was at least as inefficient as the Executive. Nothing could induce it to face the situation; with the exception of an Act for doubling the duties on importations, it passed no tax law until more than a year after the declaration of war, and it was not till the public credit was ruined and the Treasury notes were dishonored that Mr. Dallas, then Secretary of the Treasury, succeeded in bringing the Legislature to double the direct tax, to increase the rate of the internal duties and add new ones, immediately before the peace.[116]

A thorough reorganization of the Executive Departments was necessary, and should have been undertaken by the President before the war was even declared, but energy in administration was not a characteristic of Mr. Madison. He hesitated, delayed, postponed, and at length, as in the case of Robert Smith, he was dragged at the heels of men and events. Hardly a month had passed since the declaration of war, and Congress had adjourned on July 6 to meet again on the 3d November; Mr. Gallatin had just started for New York to seek for money, and the President had set out for his farm at Montpelier, when an express arrived with the news that General Hull had surrendered Detroit. What Mr. Gallatin thought of this affair may be inferred from the following extract of a letter to his wife:

GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.

Washington, 31st August, 1812.

... Hull has in unaccountable manner surrendered all his troops (about 1800) prisoners of war to an inferior force. We have no direct accounts from him, but the fear of Indians for himself and the inhabitants is the probable cause of his not having extricated himself by retiring and abandoning the country. Proper measures for repairing the loss will be adopted; but how they will be executed by Eustis, no one can say....

The disaster at Detroit made a change in the War Department inevitable, but the change was not yet made. Mr. Gallatin pressed it as necessary from a financial point of view. When he found that the army and navy estimates would require a loan of $21,000,000 for the year 1813, he wrote to the President as follows: “I think a loan to that amount to be altogether unattainable. From banks we can expect little or nothing, as they have already lent nearly to the full extent of their faculties. All that I could obtain this year from individual subscriptions does not exceed $3,200,000. There are but two practicable ways of diminishing the expenditure: 1, by confining it to necessary objects; 2, by introducing perfect system and suppressing abuses in the necessary branches. 1. In the War Department, to reduce the calls for militia, and, above all, to keep the control over those calls and other contingent expenses; in the Navy, to diminish greatly the number of gun-boats, and to strike off all supernumerary midshipmen, pursers, sailing-masters, and other unnecessary officers. 2. System requires skill in forming and decision in executing. But the preparing and executing such plans must rest almost exclusively with the heads of the Departments. I have no doubt that knowledge and talents would save several millions, and the necessary business be better done.”

This letter was written towards the end of October, 1812. Already on the 11th of that month, as appears from a brief note written by Mr. Gallatin to the President,[117] some exchange of places had been suggested by Mr. Madison, perhaps between Eustis and Monroe, but the suggestion was condemned by Gallatin as more open to criticism than almost any other course that could be adopted. So far as can now be guessed, it is probable that Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Monroe wished to reorganize the Cabinet throughout; Mr. Monroe would then have become Secretary of War, Mr. Gallatin would have succeeded him as Secretary of State, and possibly William H. Crawford would have taken the Treasury; an arrangement which would have given great strength to the government and eliminated many causes of weakness. To this, however, Mr. Madison would not consent, probably from the belief that it would infallibly be defeated in the Senate. In this state of suspense the Administration stumbled on until the end of the year; then Dr. Eustis resigned of his own accord, and Mr. Monroe assumed temporarily the duties of his office, as he easily might, since the war had made the Department of State a sinecure. Governor Hamilton also resigned of his own accord, and immediate action by the President thus became necessary.

GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.

Washington, 18th December, 1812.

... The series of misfortunes experienced this year in our military land operations exceeds all anticipations made even by those who had least confidence in our inexperienced officers and undisciplined men. I believe that General Dearborn has done all that was in his power. The conduct of Hull, Rensselaer, and Smyth cannot be accounted for on any rational principle. It is to be hoped that Mr. Eustis’s resignation will open brighter prospects. For, although those three disasters cannot with justice be ascribed to him, yet his incapacity and the total want of confidence in him were felt through every ramification of the public service. To find a successor qualified, popular, and willing to accept, is extremely difficult.

It was just this moment that Mr. Josiah Quincy, hottest of all Federalists, chose for his once celebrated attack on the Administration: “It is a curious fact,” he said, in his speech of 5th January, 1813, “but no less true than curious, that for these twelve years past the whole affairs of this country have been managed, and its fortunes reversed, under the influence of a Cabinet little less than despotic, composed, to all efficient purposes, of two Virginians and a foreigner.... I might have said, perhaps with more strict propriety, that it was a Cabinet composed of three Virginians and a foreigner, because once in the course of the twelve years there has been a change in one of the characters.... I said that these three men constituted to all efficient purposes the whole Cabinet. This also is notorious. It is true that during this period other individuals have been called into the Cabinet; but they were all of them comparatively minor men, such as had no great weight either of personal talents or of personal influence to support them. They were kept as instruments of the master spirits; and when they failed to answer the purpose, or became restive, they were sacrificed and provided for; the shades were made to play upon the curtain; they entered; they bowed to the audience; they did what they were bidden; they said what was set down for them; when those who pulled the wires saw fit, they passed away. No man knew why they entered; no man knew why they departed; no man could tell whence they came; no man asked whither they were gone.”

In this description there was truth as well as oratory; but Mr. Quincy did not add that this despotism had been tempered by faction to an extent which had left in it very little of the despotic. Even while Mr. Quincy was charging the mysterious three with the design of making Mr. Monroe “generalissimo” in order to perpetuate their power, the three were in a quandary, as much perplexed as any of their neighbors, and actually deciding to accept General Armstrong as the least of their evils. Not one of them had any confidence in General Armstrong; they knew him to be no friend of theirs; to belong to a family—the Clintons—which had for twenty years or thereabouts acted without reference to them; one of whose chiefs, George Clinton, had, as Vice-President, given infinite annoyance to the Administration, while another, De Witt Clinton, had, within three months, run a mad race to get himself elected President by the Federalists in opposition to Mr. Madison; they knew that Armstrong had been through life a master of intrigue, and that his ambition was only checked by his indolence; but they knew that he had ability and that he had loyally supported the government. General Armstrong, therefore, became Secretary of War, while the Navy Department was given to William Jones, of Philadelphia, an active merchant and politician, who, in other days, had served as lieutenant under Commodore Truxton.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gallatin had in his own department cares enough to occupy all his energies. When Congress met in November, 1812, the House was still less disposed to support the Secretary than it had been in the spring. Langdon Cheves, of South Carolina, was now chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means. The Presidential election was over and Mr. Madison was secure in his seat, but the House had less appetite for taxation than before; it refused even to support the Secretary in other money measures. The first trial of strength, in which Mr. Gallatin was worsted, came in an embarrassing form. When the British government on June 23, 1812, revoked its orders in council, the declaration of war being then unknown in England, great quantities of British merchandise were at once shipped to America on the faith of the Act of Congress of March 2, 1811, which promised a renewal of intercourse whenever the British orders should be revoked. Even after the declaration of war became known, these shipments continued, protected by British licenses from British cruisers. All these vessels and cargoes were of course seized on arriving in American ports. The next step was to release such property as was owned in good faith by Americans, the Treasury taking bonds to the value of the cargoes, and, owing to the great rise in prices consequent on the war, the owners made very large profits, in some cases even to the whole amount of the bonds. Mr. Gallatin, unwilling to assume the responsibility of remitting or exacting the forfeitures, referred the subject to Congress, and in doing so expressed the opinion that in the peculiar circumstances of the case a reasonable compromise would authorize the remission of one-half the forfeitures, due to the collectors, and the exaction of the other half, or its equivalent, due to the government. The amount of property involved was about $40,000,000, including the importers’ profit. Mr. Gallatin’s proposition would have assumed a forfeiture to the amount of about $9,000,000. The regular duties, if the forfeitures were wholly remitted, would amount to about $5,000,000.

On this question there arose a sharp battle in the House, and Mr. Cheves led the Federalists in a vigorous assault upon the Secretary. Perhaps this attack was more honest and less spiteful than the attacks of Mr. Giles, but it was hardly less mischievous: “I would rather see the objects of the war fail; I would rather see the seamen of the country impressed on the ocean and our commerce swept from its bosom, than see the long arm of the Treasury indirectly thrust into the pocket of the citizen through the medium of a penal law. We might suffer all these disasters and our civil liberties would yet be safe. That principle of our government would still be preserved which subjects the purse of the citizen to no authority but a law so plain that he who runs may read. How are the exigencies of the government for the next year to be supplied? That portion of them which is provided is rather the result of accident than forecast. Is the deficiency to be derived from taxes? No! I will tell gentlemen who are opposed to them, for their comfort, that there will be no taxes imposed for the next year. It was said last session that you would have time to lay them at this session, but I then said it was a mistake. You now find this to be the fact. By your indecision then, when the country was convinced they were necessary, you have set the minds of the people against taxes. But were it otherwise, you have not time now to lay them for the next year.”

Jonathan Roberts, of Pennsylvania, a member of the Committee of Ways and Means, led the debate in defence of Mr. Gallatin, but in the end Mr. Cheves, aided by the Federalists and by Calhoun, Lowndes, Macon, and other very honest men, carried his point, and the forfeitures were entirely remitted, by a very close vote of 63 to 61. Mr. Gallatin’s hold even on the Committee of Ways and Means was now lost.

At this point of the war, within four months of its declaration, the Treasury was threatened with a collapse more fatal than that which had overwhelmed the War Department. The circulating capital of the United States was concentrated in the large cities chiefly north of the Potomac, and more than one-fourth of this capital belonged to New England. Not only did New England lend no aid to the Treasury, but her whole influence was thrown to embarrass it. Of loans to the amount of $41,000,000 paid into the Treasury during the war, she contributed less than three millions. This was not all. A large importation of foreign goods into the Eastern States, and an extensive trade in British government bills of exchange, caused a drain of specie through New England to Great Britain. The specie in the vaults of the Massachusetts banks rose from $1,700,000 in June, 1811, to $3,900,000 in June, 1812, and to $7,300,000 in June, 1814, all of which was lost to the government and the Treasury. Even the most prejudiced and meanest intelligence could now understand why the destruction of the United States Bank threatened to decide the fate of the war and of the Union itself. The mere property in the bank, important as this was, counted for comparatively little in the calculation, although seven millions of foreign capital, invested in its stock, were lost to the country by its dissolution and had been remitted to Europe shortly before the war. This was the “British gold” of which Mr. Giles and Mr. Duane were so jealous, and which, had it been allowed to remain, would have probably doubled the resources of the government in fighting British armies and navies, for, setting aside the useless wealth of New England, it is doubtful whether the country contained $7,000,000 in specie in 1812 as the basis of its entire currency system. This, however, was not the most serious loss. The State banks, with a capital of something more than $40,000,000, took up the paper previously discounted by the United States Bank, to the amount of more than $15,000,000. Then came the war, and Mr. Gallatin applied every possible inducement to borrow for government the means of the State banks. Those of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore responded to the call; they subscribed directly to the loans, and they enlarged their discounts to such of their customers as subscribed; in doing so they necessarily exceeded their resources and were obliged to enlarge their issues of bank paper. Meanwhile, in order to fill the chasm made by the dissolution of the United States Bank, new banks were created in the States; a bank mania broke out; in four years one hundred and twenty new banks were chartered, doubling the banking capital at a time when commerce was annihilated and banks were less needed than ever. They created no new capital and withdrew what would otherwise have been lent to the government. Governor Snyder, in Pennsylvania, was forced to veto a bill making a wholesale creation of new banks. Finally, since, in the absence of a national bank, the government had no means of controlling the issues, these rapidly increased to an amount greatly in excess of the requirements, until a suspension of specie payments and hopeless confusion of the currency became inevitable. This took place in 1814, and it was Mr. Gallatin’s opinion, as it must be the opinion of every financier, that if the United States Bank had been in existence the suspension might have been delayed for a considerable time, while the terrible disorganization of the whole system of internal exchanges, by which the government was very nearly brought to a stand-still, need not have taken place at all.[118]

Had Congress been more tractable, something might perhaps have been done to alleviate the situation; but the Senate was utterly beyond control, and the House was becoming almost equally perverse. The expedient adopted by government fifty years later in the face of similar difficulties, even had it been now thought of, would have had little chance of general acceptance. Mr. Gallatin could get no action from Congress. His tax bills of the preceding session had been postponed on the understanding that they should be adopted before the 1st January, 1813; but, meanwhile, experience proved that these bills, violent as they had at first been thought, were quite unequal to the occasion, and that much stronger measures were needed. The five millions which had luckily fallen in, owing to the enormous British shipments after war was declared, helped to tide the Treasury over its immediate difficulties, but it helped also to encourage the inaction of Congress. Mr. Cheves did not contribute to smooth the path of the Treasury. He wished to force Congress to raise revenue by abandoning the non-importation system, which was still maintained as a coercive measure against Great Britain; this was also Mr. Gallatin’s wish, but Congress refused its consent. Meanwhile, the tax bills were untouched. Month after month passed, and still nothing was done until the session closed on March 3, 1813, when, since it was universally conceded that these bills must be taken up, an extra session in May for this express purpose became necessary. All Congress would do, meanwhile, was to authorize loans, the favorite resource of incompetent financiers.

Many years later, Mr. Jonathan Roberts, who had been a member of this Congress, writing to Mr. Gallatin in the garrulity of age, recalled his recollections of the war. The letter is dated December 17, 1847, and seems to have been merely a spontaneous expression of old feelings. “When it was first my fortune to have met you,” he wrote, “I found you to be a ripe and experienced statesman, possessed of the affectionate confidence of the most eminent and wisest among your compeers. You were only about ten years my senior, but immeasurably advanced above me in capacity for usefulness for that small disparity in years. In a very early period of our intercourse you gave me proofs of your confidence, of which I felt myself not unworthy, but which I had not been taught to look for from one who had so long mixed in state affairs.... While I witnessed an admiration of your character among enlightened and liberal minds, abundant evidences were not wanting of envy, jealousy, and even hatred. My sympathies were enlisted in your favor, and my indignation was roused in witnessing ebullitions of these detestable passions. You stood the friend of peace in the crisis pending the last war,—an attitude that called for the exercise of higher moral nerve than the opposite position; while our friends Madison and Macon, feeling with you, each in your places, fulfilled every duty with the honest purpose to seek for peace as the object they most desired.

“You can hardly fail to remember how Mr. Cheves acted towards you as chairman of Ways and Means, and how Colonel Johnson baffled every effort to report the tax bills. These men, too, gave their votes for an extravagant loan bill, which probably [no] man could have raised, even on the predicate of adequate taxes. At your suggestion I hastened to visit Governor Snyder, to give him your views of what would be the effect of the measure of the forty-one new banks on the prospects of raising loans. On meeting him I found he had negatived the bank bill, and it only remained for me to leave with him the views you had charged me with.”

1813.

Mr. Gallatin’s annual report in November, 1812, had been reticent in tone, perhaps because he was unwilling to discourage, and yet had nothing encouraging to say. He simply gave the condition of the Treasury and announced that a loan of twenty millions would be required. Congress authorized a loan of sixteen millions and the issue of five millions in Treasury notes; it would do no more; every other plan or suggestion of Mr. Gallatin or of the President was defeated or ignored.

Such was the situation when Congress adjourned on the 4th March, 1813. Mr. Gallatin then opened his loan. The Treasury was nearly exhausted; so nearly that on the 1st April it was absolutely empty, and must have ceased to meet the requisitions of the War and Navy Departments; the Federalists were in high hope that the loan would fail and government fall to pieces, and they made the most active efforts to force this result. The crisis was serious, and it was in this emergency that Mr. John Jacob Astor rendered to Mr. Gallatin and to the country essential aid; by his assistance Mr. Gallatin was enabled to make his terms with Mr. Parish and Mr. Girard, and thus three foreigners by birth, Mr. Gallatin himself being of foreign birth, saved the United States government for the time from bankruptcy, and perhaps from evils far more fatal; so, at least, the Federalists thought, and they long vented their wrath against these foreigners, as they called them, for an act which was certainly a somewhat bitter satire upon American patriotism.

Just at this moment the Russian minister, Daschkoff, communicated to the Secretary of State an offer of mediation on the part of the Emperor. His note bore date the 8th March, and in the situation of our government not only towards that of Russia, but towards the peace party at home, it had the gravest significance. There could be no hesitation in accepting the offered mediation, but there might be a question whether it were best to accept it before hearing from England. To show over-eagerness for peace would weaken our position abroad; but the position abroad was of less consequence than union at home, and sluggishness in meeting peace propositions would stimulate every domestic faction. The President decided not to wait, but to send commissioners at once. Mr. Gallatin had now, by the end of March, disposed of his loan; he could easily arrange the affairs of his Department so as to admit of his absence, and he requested the President to let him go to Russia.

So many and so complicated are the influences which must have acted upon Mr. Gallatin’s mind to produce this decision, that they are hardly to be set forth with any certainty of measuring their precise relative weight; yet there can be little possibility of error in assuming, as the most powerful, the conviction which had long weighed upon his mind that his usefulness in his present position was exhausted, and that Congress would do better, at least for a time, without him. So accustomed had Congress become to throwing upon him the burden and the blame of every measure, that nothing short of his retirement would break the spell which bound them, and so ineradicable were the enmities which neutralized all his efforts, that only his self-effacement could extinguish them. This he had long known, but the President’s wishes had tied his hands. He could not desert the President or the country if his services were needed; but the situation had now become such as to create a serious doubt whether his services were not really more necessary abroad than at home. A year not yet quite elapsed had already brought the country into a position grave in the extreme; financial collapse and domestic treason were becoming mere questions of time; another campaign was inevitable, and it might fairly be reckoned that, if this were not successful, success was out of our power; diplomacy, therefore, had become the most important point of action next to service in the field, and in diplomacy Mr. Gallatin naturally felt that he had a brilliant future before him. Here he would escape from all his old difficulties and enmities; to Europe the Smiths, Duanes, Gileses, and Leibs would hardly care to follow him. The past was a failure; he might fling it away, and still rescue his country and himself by this change of career.

Mr. Gallatin grew more and more silent with age and experience; he never complained, and never said what was calculated to wound; but he had now stood for five years in a position inconsistent with his principles and grating to his feelings. In deciding to go to St. Petersburg he was well aware that he would be charged with having deserted his post, and charged by the same men who for four years had made it impossible for him to perform the duties of that post, and who still presented an impenetrable barrier to every attempt on his part at efficient administration. It is probably true that Mr. Gallatin himself hoped not to return to the Treasury; if he returned at all, he would have preferred the dignified ease of the State Department; but these points he did not and would not attempt to settle in advance; he left it absolutely in the hands of Mr. Madison to decide for the public interest what disposition to make of his services. There were two obvious contingencies; the one, in case the Senate should insist upon his resignation as Secretary, and, to obtain this, reject his nomination as commissioner; the other, the case of diplomatic delays that might prevent his return and compel the President to fill his vacant place: “Mr. Bayard asked me,” wrote Mr. Dallas in the following February, “whether you had reflected upon the first event as a probable one, and you merely smiled when I repeated his question to you.” Mr. Dallas seems to have felt a little irritation at this reticence, but a sadder smile than Gallatin’s can hardly be imagined even among the Administration in these trying times, although it may have been brightened by a touch of humor at the thought how readily the Senate would fall into that agreeable occupation, and how willingly he would throw upon them that responsibility. In any case it was not for him to direct the President’s action; Mr. Madison himself could alone be the judge of what the occasion required.

Of course it was fully in Mr. Madison’s power to retain Mr. Gallatin at his post. He too seems, however, to have been impressed with the advantages of sending him to Russia, and the act was carefully considered and was his own. In the case of negotiations taking place, America afforded no negotiator comparable to Gallatin; if he were willing to go, his presence would be invaluable.

With Mr. Gallatin it was at last decided to associate Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, so that the mission finally consisted of Gallatin, J. Q. Adams, then Minister to St. Petersburg, and James A. Bayard. Of course the most rapid action was necessary; Mr. Bayard’s appointment was only decided on the 5th April, and Mr. Monroe then expected the vessel to sail with Mr. Gallatin within a fortnight. Fortunately, the necessary business of the Treasury was well in hand. On the 17th April, Mr. Gallatin wrote a letter to the Secretaries of War and of the Navy, giving a general view of the fiscal situation for the year and regulating the drafts which these two Departments might make upon the Treasury, to the amount, namely, of $17,820,000, to January 1, 1814. The tax bills were ready for Congress to act upon; a draft for a new bank charter was prepared and left behind; every contingency, as far as possible, was provided for. Mrs. Gallatin and the younger children were to pass their summer as usual in New York, while the eldest son, James, accompanied his father as private secretary.

Before closing this part of Mr. Gallatin’s history and turning to the new career which was to occupy nearly all his thoughts for sixteen years to come, the results of his sudden departure upon Congress and upon the Treasury shall be briefly told. Another extract from the letter of Jonathan Roberts already quoted will furnish an idea of the immediate effect of Mr. Gallatin’s absence. He sailed on May 9, and Congress met on May 23. Mr. Roberts proceeds:

“At the called session in May following you had left the seat of government on the mission of peace. I soon found, however, that you left nothing undone that made your presence necessary to forward the vital measure of adequate taxation. You promptly responded to a call early made for a scheme of revenue that you deemed to embrace every item that could justify a levy and collection. This was abundantly confirmed by Mr. Eppes’s subsequent trial of watch-tax, &c. Mr. E. was now made chairman of Ways and Means, but could not attend the committee from ill health, which both Dr. Bibb and myself thought fortunate for the early attainment of the object of the session. To almost every item in your reported list objections were felt in the committee. Bibb himself disrelished a direct tax, but could not deny its indispensable necessity. It was soon found there was no alternative. No new project could be devised, and you were not present to be worried by calls for a modification. The bills were reported; no opening speech was made, and no debate provoked. Dr. Bibb conducted the deliberations with successful address, but I then felt that your absence placed the tourniquet on Congress. Having finished your duties at home, you accepted the place in which you hoped to be most useful.... Your real friends felt the vacancy made by your absence, and hoped for and would have hailed your return to our home councils as a joyful event. Your place never has been, nor, I believe, never will be filled.”

Before his departure Mr. Gallatin wrote three or four letters, which contain parting suggestions that, for his calm temper, express unusual feeling. One of these was to Mr. Monroe, dated the day before he sailed, to dissuade him from pushing the military occupation of Florida, for fear of a war with Spain, that would still more exasperate the Northern States. “You will pardon the freedom with which, on the eve of parting with you, I speak on this subject. It is intended as a general caution which I think important, because I know and see every day the extent of geographical feeling and the necessity of prudence, if we mean to preserve and invigorate the Union.”

The letter to his brother-in-law, James W. Nicholson, explains the motives that influenced him, at least in part. General Armstrong had been at his old practices during the short three months he had controlled the War Department. The National Intelligencer for April 16 had contained the announcement that William Duane was appointed Adjutant-General in the United States army. All the love and esteem which Mr. Gallatin felt then and ever continued to feel for Mr. Madison could not overcome the disgust with which this last blow was received.

GALLATIN TO BADOLLET.

Philadelphia, May 5, 1813.

Dear Friend,—...The newspapers will have informed you of my mission to Russia. Whether we will succeed or not depends on circumstances not under any man’s control. But on mature reflection, having provided all the funds for the service of this year, and having nothing to do but current business during the remainder, I have believed that I could be nowhere more usefully employed than in this negotiation. I hope that my absence will be very short, and leave all my family behind, James excepted.

Ever yours.

GALLATIN TO JAMES W. NICHOLSON

Philadelphia, 5th May, 1818.

Dear Sir,—You have heard by the papers of my intended mission to Russia; but I have delayed to the last moment writing to you. Having provided all the funds for this year’s service, and none but current business to attend to during its remainder, I have made up my mind that I could in no other manner be more usefully employed for the present than on the negotiation of a peace. Peace, at all times desirable, is much more so for two reasons: 1. The great incapacity for conducting the war, which is thereby much less efficient and infinitely more expensive than it ought to have been. 2. The want of union, or rather open hostility to the war and to the Union, which, however disgraceful to the parties concerned, and to the national character, is not less formidable and in its consequences of the most dangerous tendency. But in addition to those considerations I believe that the present opportunity affords a better chance to make an honorable peace than we have any right hereafter to expect. England must be desirous at this critical moment to have it in her power to apply her whole force on the Continent of Europe, and the mediation of Russia saves her pride; whilst both the personal feelings of the sovereign, a common interest on all neutral questions, and other considerations of general policy, give us the best pledge that a nation can obtain that the mediator will support the cause of justice and of the law of nations. Finally, provided we can obtain security with respect to impressments, peace will give us everything we want. Taught by experience, we will apply a part of our resources to such naval preparations and organization of the public force as will within less than five years place us in a commanding situation. This we cannot effect pending the war, and if this continues any length of time it will leave the United States so exhausted that they will not effect the same objects within the same period nor without oppressive taxation. To keep down the Tory faction at home and ultimately to secure in an effectual manner our national rights against England, peace is equally necessary. The Essex-Junto men and other high-toned Federalists of course fear it more than any other event, as they are well aware that a continuation of the war must necessarily place government in their hands before the end of four years.

Whether, however, we will succeed in making peace is another question, which depends on events not under our control. So far as relates to myself, I am well aware that my going to Russia will most probably terminate in the appointment of another Secretary of the Treasury, and in my returning to private life. If I shall have succeeded in making peace, I will be perfectly satisfied; and, at all events, I will acknowledge to you that Duane’s last appointment has disgusted me so far as to make me desirous of not being any longer associated with those who have appointed him....

The departure of Mr. Gallatin to Europe did not, however, at once close his career as Secretary of the Treasury, and it was not until a year later, on the 9th February, 1814, that he ceased to hold that office. Meanwhile, the Senate had exercised in its full extent that unrestrained liberty of personal attack which Mr. Gallatin had so contemptuously left to them. By a vote of 20 to 14 they rejected his nomination to Russia, on the ground that it was inconsistent with his station in the Treasury. Their true motive is not a matter of much importance; the oldest and wisest politicians are most apt to warn their younger associates not to search for the motives of public men, and this Christian precept rests on the general fact that human nature often, and nowhere oftener than in politics, opens into abysses of baseness only to be measured by baseness equally profound. The doctrine that the post of Secretary was incompatible with that of treaty commissioner was certainly new and astonishing as coming from a body which had twice confirmed the nomination of the Chief Justice to an identical situation; but, apart from its inconsistency, the new rule was wise and the result good. Perhaps, however, Senators would have shown more dignity in not proclaiming quite so loudly their eagerness to confirm Mr. Gallatin if he could be forced to leave the Treasury.

The following letters tell the story in all its nakedness:

MONROE TO JEFFERSON.

Washington, June 28, 1813.

Dear Sir,—From the date of my last letter to you, the President has been ill of a bilious fever, of that kind called the remittent. It has perhaps never left him, even for an hour, and occasionally the symptoms have been unfavorable. This is, I think, the fifteenth day. Elgey, of this place, and Shoaff, of Annapolis, with Dr. Tucker, attend him. They think he will recover. The first mentioned I have just seen, who reports that he had a good night, and is in a state to take the bark, which, indeed, he has done on his best day for nearly a week. I shall see him before I seal this, and note any change, should there be any, from the above statement.

The Federalists, aided by the malcontents, have done and are doing all the mischief they can. The nominations to Russia and Sweden (the latter made on an intimation that the Crown Prince would contribute his good offices to promote peace on fair conditions) they have embarrassed to the utmost of their power. The active partisans are King, Giles, and (as respects the first nomination) Smith. Leib, German, and Gilman are habitually in that interest, active, but useful to their party by their votes only. The two members from Louisiana, Gailliard, Stone, Anderson, and Bledsoe are added to that corps on these questions. They have carried a vote, 20 to 14, that the appointment of Mr. Gallatin to the Russian mission is incompatible with his station in the Treasury, and appointed a committee to communicate the resolution to the President. They have appointed another committee to confer with him on the nomination to Sweden. The object is to usurp the executive power in the hands of a faction in the Senate. To this several mentioned are not parties, particularly the four last. A committee of the Senate ought to confer with a committee of the President through a head of a Department, and not with the Chief Magistrate; for in the latter case a committee of that House is equal to the Executive. To break this measure, and relieve the President from the pressure, at a time when so little able to bear it, indeed when no pressure whatever should be made on him, I wrote the committee on the nomination to Sweden, that I was instructed by him to meet them, to yield all the information they might desire of the Executive. They declined the interview. I had intended to pursue the same course respecting the other nomination had I succeeded in this. Failing, I have declined. The result is withheld from the President. These men have begun to make calculations and plans founded on the presumed death of the President and Vice-President, and it has been suggested to me that Giles is thought of to take the place of President of the Senate as soon as the Vice-President withdraws.