BOOK IV. DIPLOMACY. 1813-1829. (continued 3)

Had he wished to return to Congress or to political life, there might have been reason in his course; but the only political position he cared to hold was that of minister in Paris, and this he relinquished in order to live on the banks of the Monongahela. The following letters will show what his friends wished and expected him to do, and what he did. His own letters from Paris, in reply to Mr. Crawford and Mr. Astor, are lost or destroyed; but it is clear that he paid very little attention to their suggestions. His own preference would have been to take only a leave of absence in 1823, to arrange his affairs and settle his sons in business; then to return himself to Paris.

CRAWFORD TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 13th May, 1822.

My dear Sir,—It is now nearly two years since I have received a letter from you. Your last was dated about the 30th August, 1820.

The negotiation between France and the United States which has been carried on here for two years past, concerning our commercial relations, is likely to terminate successfully. I know of nothing which will probably prevent it, unless our determination to support every officer of the government in violating the orders, laws, and Constitution of the government and nation should oppose an insurmountable obstacle to it. Captain Stockton, of the Alligator, has seized a number of French vessels under the French flag, with French papers and French officers, and crews at least not composed of American citizens; yet we have tendered no satisfaction to the French government for this outrage upon their flag and upon the principles which we stoutly defend against England. A disposition to discuss has always characterized our government, but until recently an appearance of moderation has marked our discussions. Now our disposition to discuss seems to have augmented, and the spirit of conciliation has manifestly been abandoned by our councils. We are determined to say harsher things than are said to us, and to have the last word. Where this temper will lead us cannot be distinctly foreseen. We are now upon bad terms with the principal maritime states, and perhaps on the brink of a rupture with Russia on account of the prohibition to trade with the north-west coast beyond the 51st degree of north latitude and to approach within 100 Italian miles of the islands on the Asiatic side. I have labored to restrain this predominant disposition of the government, but have succeeded only partially in softening the asperities which invariably predominate in the official notes of the State Department. If these notes had been permitted to remain as originally drafted, we should, I believe, have before this time been unembarrassed by diplomatic relations with more than one power. The tendency to estrange us from all foreign powers, which the style of the notes of the State Department has uniformly had, has been so often demonstrated, yet so often permitted, that I have almost given up the idea of maintaining friendly relations with those powers; but of late another embarrassment no less perplexing in its tendency has arisen. Our Mars[156] has intuitive perceptions not only upon military organization, but upon fortifications and other military subjects. These intuitions of his have involved the President in contests with both Houses of Congress. He has contrived to make them those of the President instead of his own. A state of irritation prevails which greatly exceeds anything which has occurred in the history of this government. The Secretary of War is now, in the estimation of the public, lord of the ascendant. Certain it is that every appointment in Florida was made without my knowledge, and even the appointments connected with my own Department have been made without regard to my wishes, or rather without ascertaining what they were.

It is understood that an impression has been made on the mind of the President that the rejection of the military nominations by the Senate has been effected by my influence.

I have known this for nearly two months, but have taken no step to counteract it, and shall take none, because I think it will not be injurious to me to remain in this state or even to be removed from office.

The latter, however, is an honor which I shall not solicit, although I do not believe it would be injurious to me in a political point of view.

You will perceive by the newspapers that much agitation has already prevailed as to the election of the next President. The war candidate, as Mr. Randolph calls him, is understood to be extremely active in his operations, and, as it has been said by religious zealots, appears to be determined to take the citadel by storm.

An impression prevails that Mr. Adams’s friends, in despair of his success, have thrown themselves into the scale of his more youthful friend, lately converted into a competitor. You will have seen that Mr. Lowndes has been nominated by the South Carolina Legislature, or rather by a portion of it. This event, as well as the present course of the Secretary of War, it is believed may be traced to the election of Governor Clark, of Georgia. This gentleman is personally my enemy. He was elected in 1819 in opposition to Colonel Troup by a majority of 13 votes. In 1821 he was opposed by the same gentleman. Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Lowndes had conceived the idea that, if he should be re-elected, the electoral vote of Georgia would be against me. He was re-elected by a majority of 2 votes. Calhoun and Lowndes had through the year favored Mr. Adams’s pretensions; they found, however, that it was an up-hill work. Considering me hors du combat, and finding Mr. A. unacceptable to the South, each of them supposed that the Southern interest would become the property of the first adventurer. Mr. C. had made a tour of observation in Pennsylvania, whilst Mr. L. kept watch at home. When the result of the Georgia election was known, Mr. C. threw himself upon Pennsylvania, and Mr. L., who had remained in South Carolina until after the meeting of its Legislature, was nominated by a portion of it to the Presidency.

A conference took place between them, but no adjustment was effected, as each determined to hold the vantage-ground which he was supposed to have gained. The delusion as to Georgia has passed away, but Mr. C. cannot now recede, and entertains confident hopes of success. Pennsylvania he calculates upon, as well as upon many other States. Mr. Clay is held up by his friends, but has not taken any decided measure. I consider everything that has passed as deciding nothing. Everything will depend on the election of Congress, which takes place this year in all the States except Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. My own impression is that Mr. C. will be the Federal candidate if his name is kept up. If he should be put down, and I think he will be, especially if Pennsylvania should declare against him, Mr. Adams will be the Federal candidate. Mr. Clay will be up if Pennsylvania, Virginia, or New York will declare for him. At present there is not much prospect of either.

The stockholders of the Bank of the United States are becoming restive under the low dividends which they receive. A decided opposition to Mr. Cheves will be made the next year. I understand that many of the stockholders are for placing you at the head of that institution. I know not whether you wish such an appointment. The election of governor comes on next year. Many persons are spoken of for that office. Bryan, Ingham, Lowrie, and Lacock are among the number, and some intimations have reached me that, if you were here, you might be selected. Ingham is connected with Mr. Calhoun. The others are unfavorable to his views.

Present my respects to Mrs. Gallatin and every member of your family.

I remain, dear sir, your sincere friend.

CRAWFORD TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 26th June, 1822.

My dear Sir,—On the 24th inst. a commercial convention was signed by Mr. Adams and Mr. De Neuville. It is published in the Intelligencer of this day. If it is permitted to operate a few years, all discriminating duties will cease. I am, however, apprehensive that it will not be permitted to produce this effect....

In my last letter I suggested the probability that the presidency of the Bank of the United States might be offered to you if you were in the United States at the time of the next election. Mr. Cheves has informed me confidentially that he will resign his office about the latter end of this year. He will declare this intention when the next dividend shall be declared.

As the commercial convention with France has been agreed upon, and as I understand that all the indemnity which will probably ever be obtained will have been obtained before you receive this letter, all inducement to a longer residence in France is at an end. Independent of the office to which I have referred, that of Governor of Pennsylvania will be disposed of next year. If you intend to engage in any way whatever in the concerns of this country after your return, I think you ought to be here during the next autumn. I believe there is no disposition in any party to re-elect Heister. The schismatics, who, with Binns, opposed Finley at the last election, are desirous of uniting with their former friends in the next election. It is understood that they are desirous of bringing you forward, and I presume the great body of the party will meet them upon this subject. Ingham will be supported in caucus by those devoted to F., but that, I believe, is only a small part of those who supported him in his last effort. Bryan, the late auditor, Lowrie, and Lacock are spoken of, but no commitment has taken place except by Ingham and his friends, who, it is understood, wish to connect that question with the election of Mr. Calhoun as President. The other gentlemen are understood to be decidedly opposed to the pretensions of the latter gentleman.

Mr. De Neuville will be able to give you many details upon our local politics, with which he is pretty well acquainted.

The collision between the President and Senate upon certain military nominations has very much soured his mind and given a direction to his actions which I conceive to be unfortunate for the nation as well as for himself. I hope, however, that a better state of feeling will, after the first irritation has passed off, be restored and cherished on both sides. The public seems to have taken less interest in this affair than I had expected. Two or three criticisms have appeared in the Intelligencer upon the conduct of the Senate, but they have attracted but little attention in any part of the Union.

The controversy which is going on between Mr. Adams and Mr. Russell, in which you are made a party, has attracted considerable notice, and will probably continue to command attention. You will readily perceive that the object of the party was less to injure Mr. Adams than to benefit another by placing him in a conspicuous point of view, and especially by showing that Western interests could not be safely trusted to persons residing in the Atlantic States....

J. J. ASTOR TO GALLATIN.

New York, 18th October, 1822.

... Your leaving Paris will be a great loss to me, if I go, as I expect to. I really think you will not like it so much in this country as you did, and I believe you had better remain where you are. For the interest of the United States Bank I am sorry that you will not take it. For your own sake I am glad. It is, as you say, a troublesome situation, and I doubt if much credit is to be got by it. I have been to-day spoken to about your taking the situation, but I stated that you decline it, and I think you are right. Matters here go on irregular enough. It’s all the while up and down. So soon as people have a little money they run into extravagancy, get in debt, and down it goes. Exchange is again 12½ to 13, and people will again ship specie, the banks again curtail discounts, bankruptcy ensues, exchange will fall for a short time, and then we have the same scene over again. You know so well this country and character of the people that I need say no more. We have plenty candidates for President; Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and Crawford are the most prominent. Mr. Crawford, I think, will get it....

GALLATIN TO MONROE.

Paris, 13th November, 1822.

1823.

With respect to my longer stay here I entertain a just sense of your partiality and kind feelings towards me; and I may add that, so far as I am personally concerned, the station is not only highly honorable, but more agreeable than any other public employment which [I] might fill. But considerations connected with my children and with my private affairs imperiously require my presence in America, at least for some months. Under those circumstances I will, with your permission, return next spring, but take leave here as only going with leave of absence. I would probably be ready to return here in the autumn, and take care that the public interest should not in the mean while suffer. Mr. Sheldon is indeed fully equal to the task of managing all the current affairs of the mission; and France has given us the example of leaving a chargé for a short time. But this must not by any means prevent you from filling the place at once on my return, if you think it proper. I will only thank you to let me know your intention in that respect as soon as possible after the receipt of this letter.

GALLATIN TO J. Q. ADAMS.

Paris, 28th February, 1823.

Dear Sir,—There not being at this time the least prospect of a settlement of our claims, I do not perceive any reason connected with the public service for protracting my stay in this country. I will terminate, as far as this government will allow, what relates to the fisheries, although I would have wished to hear from you on the subject; and some heavy losses I have experienced at home, as well as certain family circumstances, imperiously requiring my presence there, it is my intention, if nothing new and important of a public nature shall take place, to take my departure in the course of the spring. I had already written a private letter on that subject to the President, to which I had hoped to have received an answer before this time, and in which I had asked only for leave of absence. But, this being an unusual course, it may be better at once to appoint a successor, and I wish it to be done. If the President shall think it more eligible to wait for the meeting of the Senate, you know that Mr. Sheldon is fully competent to carry on the current business; and I believe him equally so to act on any incident that may arise. As to the still uncertain war with Spain, nothing can possibly be necessary here on our part than perhaps some remonstrance in case of infractions of our neutral rights. There is no disposition on the part of France to commit acts of that kind, and that subject is also quite familiar to Mr. Sheldon.

GALLATIN TO J. Q. ADAMS.

Paris, 18th April, 1823.

Sir,—I had the honor to receive your despatch No. 55, and intend to avail myself of the leave of absence granted by the President, and to take my departure in about a month, leaving Mr. Sheldon as chargé d’affaires.

I beg you to express my thanks to the President, but to repeat that it is not my wish that another appointment should be delayed on my account, if deemed useful.

Mr. Gallatin accordingly left Paris with his family about the middle of May, 1823, and arrived in New York on the 24th June. The following letter, the last which Mr. Crawford wrote him, was not received by Mr. Gallatin in Europe. Whether the intensity of that struggle for the Presidency in which Mr. Crawford was now engaged had embittered his mind, or whether the paralysis which struck him down only a short time afterwards was casting its shadow before it, this letter shows a peculiar irritation which seems almost ready to make Mr. Gallatin himself its victim.

CRAWFORD TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 26th May, 1823.

My dear Sir,—Your letter of the 27th of September last was received some time in December thereafter, and is the last letter I have had from you.

Some time in December I understood you had applied for leave of absence, and shortly after was informed that it had been granted.

In the latter end of April the President showed me a private letter from you dated in the early part of March, in which you declare your determination to leave France the 10th of this month, and a few days afterwards I was informed that Mr. Adams had requested you to remain. I understand that this request had been made in consequence of the expected rupture between France and Spain. It would therefore appear that the reasons you assigned for believing your presence at Paris would be useless have not been considered good by the Secretary of State. To me they appeared conclusive when I read the letter, and reflection has only confirmed my first impressions. It is not pretended that the war with Spain will favor the efforts which have for twelve years past been made without success to procure indemnity for unjust spoliations committed upon our merchants. Infractions of our neutral rights must then be apprehended before a successor could be sent. The interest of France to strip Great Britain of an excuse to interfere in the war is the best guaranty that can be offered for her scrupulous respect for neutral rights. All that an American minister can do during the present year at Paris will be to give information of what is going on and speculate upon what may possibly be done in the progress of the war. If the Secretary was at Paris, or if his protégé, Mr. [Alexander] Everett, was there, the curiosity of the government to grasp at future events would have ample gratification. I do not know Mr. Sheldon well enough to form an opinion of his capacity to minister to this propensity of man, but I presume he would supply it with as much, if not as delicate, food as it would receive from you.

Some of the little people who buzz about the government have, I understand, been very busy in the expression of their opinions that the change of relations between France and Spain renders highly important that you should remain. The people have had their cue, and repeat their lesson by rote, for if they were capable of reasoning themselves they would see the folly of their declarations. It is impossible that reflecting men whose judgments are not led astray by some strong impression resulting from selfish purposes, can believe that it is of any importance to have a minister at Paris at this moment.

The reason then assigned for this request is not the true one. That must be sought not in Paris but in the United States. You will understand it as well as I do upon a moment’s reflection. Your presence in the United States during the present year may not suit the views and projects of certain gentlemen; it is, therefore, necessary to devise some cause for keeping you at Paris. It is possible that if Mr. Rush was disposed to return, some cause connected with the rupture between France and Spain would be discovered to render his stay in London necessary. As that gentleman, however, has written a number of letters to his friends in Pennsylvania which may have an effect somewhat similar to that which was apprehended from your return, it is possible that it may facilitate his return.

I have written this letter under an impression that the request of Mr. Adams may arrive at Paris before you leave it. Your friends are desirous of your return, and will be disappointed if you do not. I have understood that Mr. Astor has received a letter from you as late as the 17th ult. which is indicative of your intention to return, but Mr. Astor thinks that you will not, and that you ought not. He is probably governed in this opinion by his interests and wishes. If you do not return in the Montano, which it is now said will not sail before the 20th of this month, he will see you before this letter reaches you, as I shall confide it to the care of Mr. Erving, who, it is understood, will not sail until the arrival of the Montano.

Your friends Lacock and Roberts are very decided on the question which now attracts the attention of the nation. Indeed, there are but few exceptions among your old political associates. Many of them, unfortunately, are no more, and new men have filled their places; the new-comers, however, have a high respect for your character, talents, and opinions, and wish to see and converse with you upon this question....

Mr. Crawford had his wish. Gallatin returned, and was drawn reluctantly but inevitably into the Presidential contest. No true friend of his could have desired it, for he had nothing to gain by returning into public life at a moment when there was not a single element of principle or dignity involved in the election. Never in the whole course of our history has any Presidential election turned so exclusively on purely personal considerations; never has there been one in which all parties were so helpless. Old association, the prestige of high reputation, and the long control of Treasury patronage combined to make Mr. Crawford the first candidate; he had been the selected favorite of the old triumvirate for many years, and by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison he was regarded as the best representative of the Republican party. The same view was held by Mr. Gallatin, and, on the other hand, Mr. Crawford needed Mr. Gallatin’s active support; thus it was that Mr. Gallatin became in a manner compelled to allow his supposed influence to be used for the election of Mr. Crawford as President, and was buffeted about upon the waves of this stormy and unclean ocean until at length he was glad to find even a mortifying means of escape.

His first step was to visit Washington, and thence he went to inspect his new house at Friendship Hill.

GALLATIN TO HIS DAUGHTER.

New Geneva, 17th September, 1823.

... Notwithstanding all my exertions, you will find it hard enough when you come next spring to accommodate yourself to the privations and wildness of the country. Our house has been built by a new Irish carpenter, who was always head over heels and added much to the disorder inseparable from building. Being unacquainted with the Grecian architecture, he adopted an Hyberno-teutonic style, so that the outside of the house, with its port-hole-looking windows, has the appearance of Irish barracks, whilst the inside ornaments are similar to those of a Dutch tavern, and I must acknowledge that these form a singular contrast with the French marble chimney-pieces, paper, and mirrors. On one side of that mass of stones which Lucien calls “le château,” and in full view as you approach it, is a wing consisting of the gable-end of a log house, with its chimney in front, and I could not pull it down, as it is the kitchen and dining-room where are daily fed two masons and plasterers, two attendants, two stone-quarriers, two painters, a carpenter (besides three who board themselves), Lucien, Albert’s black Peter, and M^r, Mad^e, Mesd^lles et les petits Buffle. The grounds are overgrown with elders, iron-weeds, stinking weeds, laurel, several varieties of briers, impenetrable thickets of brush, vines, and underwood, amongst which are discovered vestiges of old asparagus and new artichoke-beds, and now and then a spontaneous apple or peach tree. As to Albert, he has four guns, a pointer, three boats, two riding-horses, and a pet colt, smaller than a jackass, who feeds on the fragments of my old lilacs and althea frutex. His own clothes adorn our parlor and only sitting-room in the old brick house; for the frame house is partly occupied by the Buffle family and partly encumbered by various boxes and Albert’s billiard-table, the pockets of which are made with his stockings....

New Geneva, 15th October, 1823.

... Notwithstanding all my endeavors, more will remain to be done after our arrival next spring than I would have wished. It was impossible for me to attend to anything else for the improvement either of mills, farm, plantation, &c., all of which are in a most deplorable state.... Amidst those cares I have been disturbed by political struggles in which I felt but little interested; but the Federalists, by their repeated assertions in all the papers of the State that I supported their candidate, have compelled me, much against my inclination, to come out with a public declaration intended to show that notwithstanding the occasional aberrations of democracy and the abuse sometimes poured on me from that quarter, it was impossible that I should abandon a cause to the support of which my life has been devoted, and which I think inseparably connected with that of the liberty and amelioration of mankind in every quarter of the globe....

Private reasons led Mr. Gallatin to pass the winter in Baltimore. Here he again met his old enemies the Smiths, and resumed relations with them, not, perhaps, so cordial as in early days, but at least externally friendly. The main interest of the winter, however, turned on the Presidential election. Mr. Crawford had been dangerously affected by a stroke of paralysis, and his friends found themselves obliged to put by his side a candidate for the Vice-Presidency who would disarm opposition and command confidence in case of his chief’s death; they fixed upon Mr. Gallatin, who thus became, in the failure of Mr. Crawford, their leader. From the time this point was decided, Gallatin had no choice but to obey the wishes of his party in other respects; and, as it happened that all Mr. Crawford’s chances turned upon the weight of a nomination by a Congressional caucus, Gallatin was called upon to take a direct share in urging his friends to the work. Thus he was in a manner forced to write a letter urging his old friend Macon to give his support to the caucus; he was also obliged to make a short stay in Washington.

JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN.

Monticello, October 29, 1823.

1824.

Dear Sir,—...You have seen in our papers how prematurely they are agitating the question of the next President. This proceeds from some uneasiness at the present state of things. There is considerable dissatisfaction with the increase of the public expenses, and especially with the necessity of borrowing money in time of peace. This was much arraigned at the last session of Congress, and will be more so at the next. The misfortune is that the persons looked to as successors in the government are of the President’s Cabinet, and their partisans in Congress are making a handle of these things to help or hurt those for or against whom they are. The candidates, ins and outs, seem at present to be many, but they will be reduced to two, a Northern and Southern one, as usual. To judge of the event, the state of parties must be understood. You are told, indeed, that there are no longer parties among us; that they are all now amalgamated; the lion and the lamb lie down together in peace. Do not believe a word of it. The same parties exist now as ever did; no longer, indeed, under the name of Republicans and Federalists; the latter name was extinguished in the battle of New Orleans; those who wore it, finding monarchism a desperate wish in this country, are rallying to what they deem the next best point, a consolidated government. Although this is not yet avowed (as that of monarchism, you know, never was), it exists decidedly, and is the true key to the debates in Congress, wherein you see many calling themselves Republicans and preaching the rankest doctrines of the old Federalists. One of the prominent candidates is presumed to be of this party; the other, a Republican of the old school, and a friend to the barrier of State rights as provided by the Constitution against the danger of consolidation, which danger was the principal ground of opposition to it at its birth. Pennsylvania and New York will decide this question. If the Missouri principle mixes itself in the question, it will go one way; if not, it may go the other. Among the smaller motives, hereditary fears may alarm on one side, and the long line of local nativities on the other. In this division of parties the judges are true to their ancient vocation of sappers and miners....

J. B. THOMAS[157] TO GALLATIN.

Washington City, 5th January, 1824.

Dear Sir,—Mr. Lowrie returned from Philadelphia three days ago with the pleasing intelligence that a large majority of both branches of the Pennsylvania Legislature are in favor of a Congressional caucus, and that the measure is daily becoming much more popular in Philadelphia.

... Mr. Ingham has lately returned from Pennsylvania, and, finding public opinion there averse to his wishes, he or some one of the party has prepared an address to the people of Pennsylvania, for the delegation from that State to sign, stating that a partial caucus only could be gotten up, and asking instructions from their constituents. I understand that the address is ingeniously written, and that it has been signed by eleven of the Democratic members of Congress. After this address was signed by all who would act without consulting Mr. Lowrie, a meeting of the delegation was called to deliberate upon the subject. Mr. L. attended, and after endeavoring to operate upon the fears of some who had signed the paper, had the meeting adjourned over till to-morrow (Monday). He will, if possible, procure a further postponement, in the hope that you will be here in a few days. Many of your friends are exceedingly anxious to see you here, and amongst the rest Mr. Lowrie and Mr. Van Buren, who are both efficient men.

Since my return to Washington I mentioned to those gentlemen the conversation I had with you in Baltimore, and had the satisfaction to learn that they approved of all I said.

They are impressed with a belief that your immediate presence here at the present crisis is all-important. I am convinced that nothing could be more gratifying to the prominent men of the Republican party than to receive a visit from you at this time. Mr. Crawford would be delighted to see you. His physicians, four or five in number, have had a consultation to-day, and have pronounced him quite out of danger.

... We have not yet been able to devise a plan by which Mr. Jefferson can be drawn out, nor is it probable that any could be adopted which would be as likely to succeed as that of your addressing him on the subject. If nothing more can be obtained, the letter he has already written you may be of great importance.

In haste, I am, etc.

NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 16th January, 1824.

Sir,—The enclosed has been handed to me by Mr. Cobb, a member of the House of Representatives from Georgia. It is sent to you as the best mode of communicating its contents. I know not to what it relates.

Tender my good-will to Mrs. Gallatin and to any of your children who may be with you.

Mr. Crawford is mending slowly; not yet in a condition to write.

God preserve you and all that are near and dear to you many years, is the sincere wish of

Your old friend.

[Enclosure.]

Mr. Macon,—Mr. Crawford requests me to say to you that he wished you would write to Mr. Gallatin and tell him that it was necessary he should come on to this city, for that his (Mr. Gallatin’s) interests, as well as those of others, were suffering in consequence of his absence.

Thos. W. Cobb.

GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.

Washington, 24th January, 1824.

... I have been working hard in order to be released as soon as possible; this morning I terminated the revision and selection of my correspondence, and hope that my final account will be settled on Monday.... The idea of sending a special mission to England, which is indeed quite unnecessary, has been given up.... I was on Wednesday evening at Mrs. Monroe’s evening, where she appeared for the first time this season. It was as crowded as any Paris rout, and there were several handsome ladies, but most faces of both sexes were new to me. Ten years is an age in Washington; the place seems dull to me.... I hear nothing but election politics, and you know how unpleasant the subject is to me.... Mr. Crawford is mending slowly. His friends are not perfectly easy about his final recovery, and Early adduced this to me as a reason why I should be made Vice-President. My answer was that I did not want the office, and would dislike to be proposed and not elected.

A. STEWART[158] TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 6th February, 1824.

Dear Sir,—A caucus will be held here on the 14th instant to recommend candidates for President and Vice-President.

About 100 Republican members, it is understood, will attend. Mr. Crawford and yourself will be unanimously nominated. I know of but one gentleman unfriendly to your nomination, and he will readily acquiesce in whatever is done.

The election of the Vice-President nominated is considered certain, be the fate of the President what it may.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant.

1824.

WALTER LOWRIE TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 10th February, 1824.

Dear Sir,—I have delayed writing till I could write with certainty on the point we had under discussion when we last parted. You will now be nominated for the situation contemplated, and with the information and facts in our possession it does not require the spirit of prophecy to predict that final success will be the result. In the other office more uncertainty prevails. We have a hard and arduous struggle to go through, involving the very existence of the Republican party.

It will be necessary that we should see you before long. At present let me call your attention to one point in which we want your assistance. We are very desirous that Mr. Macon should attend the caucus. He has hitherto resisted all our efforts. A personal interview with you, it is believed, would have been conclusive; that is now too late; but I submit to you whether you could not write him a letter. You will receive this letter to-morrow, Thursday, and on Friday he could receive yours. I know you have more influence with him than any other man except Mr. Jefferson. His long course of public life gives him an importance which he is not otherwise entitled to. The opposition papers boast that he will not attend. In the present crisis if he do not, he will lose the respect and esteem of his friends, and instead of doing his friends a service, he will do himself an injury.

With sincere esteem, yours.

NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 18th February, 1824.

Sir,—I have your letter of yesterday; it is received with as much good-will and kindness as it was written. The fatal night which you mention, and which produced in the end the divisions among the three Republicans who were so both in theory and practice, I stated to the meeting they had beaten me by having the cards packed, and that I never would attend another caucus, nor have I unto this day; and would you now, my old and much esteemed friend, have me to appear in a company when and where any person could tell the truth and say, you are not a man of your word? if I go to the caucus, it would be the first time that it could be said truly to me in my whole life.

No party, as I have often told you, and as I stated at the caucus at Marache’s, can last unless founded on pure principles; and the minute a party begins to intrigue within itself is the minute when the seed of division is sown and its purity begins to decline. There are not, I imagine, five members of Congress who entertain the opinions which those did who brought Mr. Jefferson into power, and they are yet mine. Principles can never change, and what has lately been called the law of circumstances is an abandonment of principle, and has been the ruin of all free governments, and if the Republican party fall in the United States, it is owing to the same cause.

I verily believe that I can render more service toward electing Crawford by not going to the caucus than by going, but I do not believe that I have the influence you suppose; but if you are right, what has produced it? the belief that I follow my own notions.

Two of my friends are here to advise me to attend, and have stopped my writing. I must conclude to you as I do to them; I cannot go.

I would much rather have talked with you on the subject. Remember me to Mrs. Gallatin and all your family, and believe me

Truly and sincerely your friend.

Written in great haste for the mail.

NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.

Washington, 14th February, 1824.

Sir,—- Your letter of the 12th instant was yesterday in great haste acknowledged. For some time past my situation has been unpleasant indeed; so much so that I have a thousand times or oftener wished myself at home. What situation can be more disagreeable than to have repeatedly to say no to the best friends, and that, too, to the same question! To me it has been painful in the extreme; no one who has not felt the sensation can imagine the distress it produces,—the day is tiresome, and the night tedious; in the morning I desire night, and at night am anxious for the morning,—and to-day is the most perplexing of all; a something, I know not what, oppresses my mind, and yet I am certain that my determination not to attend the caucus is right, and what I ought to do and must do. The great charge against Crawford is intrigue; add to what was written yesterday, that if I go the charge will be renewed, and he said to be the only man who had touched the cord which could move me; and probably the wicked and false adage applied, that every man has his price. Time, I know, would prove the application false as regards us both; but the election might be over first, and the injury done.

Every generation, like a single person, has opinions of its own; as much so in politics as anything else. This opinion is elegantly expressed in the book of Judges, 2d chapter. The opinions of Jefferson and those who were with him are forgot. On reading the chapter the proper and intended inference will be easily made; I hope, however, we shall not suffer as did the children of Israel after the death of Joshua.

Tender in your best manner my respects and regard to Mrs. Gallatin and your family, and believe me

Your unfeigned friend.

GALLATIN TO BADOLLET.

New Geneva, Pennsylvania, 29th July, 1824.

My dear and old Friend,—I have delayed much too long answering your letter of last year. I have ever since been on the wing, uncertain where I would fix myself. The habits of my wife and children, Albert’s excepted, render this a very ineligible place of residence to them; but the impossibility of subsisting on my scanty income in one of our cities, and the necessity of attending to a valuable but mismanaged and unproductive property, have left me no choice; and we are all now here, including James’s wife. My health and that of my daughter are delicate; the other members of the family are well. With the exception of James Nicholson, all my old friends are dead or confined by old age to their homes; there is not in this quarter the slightest improvement in the state of society, or indeed of any kind; but my children are good and very affectionate; neither of my sons, unfortunately, brought up to business. Albert, with considerable and varied talents and acquired knowledge, but as yet wanting perseverance and steadiness; James and Francis more fitted for a court than a wilderness; my wife just as she was twenty-four years ago.

The last seven years I spent in Europe, though not the most useful, were the most pleasant, of my life, both on account of my reception in Geneva, where I found many old and affectionate friends (Hentsch, Dumont, the Tronchins, Butiri, &c.), and from my standing with the first statesmen and men of merit in France and England. Where you do not stand in the way of anybody, instead of collision and envy, you meet with much indulgence if you can fill with credit the place you occupy; and this was a disposition to which I had not been accustomed towards me, and the want of which I now on that account feel, perhaps, more than formerly. These feelings would and ought naturally to have induced me, and you expressed the same wish, to withdraw altogether from public life; and my wife, irksome to her as is her residence here, was of the same opinion. I will briefly state what has brought my name before the people for the office of Vice-President.

During the twelve years I was in the Treasury, I was anxiously looking for some man that could fill my place there and in the general direction of the national concerns, for one indeed that could replace Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and myself. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, only appeared and died; the eccentricities and temper of J. Randolph soon destroyed his usefulness, and only one man at last appeared who filled my expectations. This was Mr. Crawford, who united to a powerful mind a most correct judgment and an inflexible integrity; which last quality, not sufficiently tempered by indulgence and civility, has prevented his acquiring general popularity; but, notwithstanding this defect (for it is one), I know so well his great superiority over the other candidates for the office of President, that I was anxious for his election and openly expressed my opinion. I would not even compare Jackson or Calhoun to him, the first an honest man and the idol of the worshippers of military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, altogether unfit for the office; the other a smart fellow, one of the first amongst second-rate men, but of lax political principles and a disordinate ambition not over-delicate in the means of satisfying itself. John Q. Adams is a virtuous man, whose temper, which is not the best, might be overlooked; he has very great and miscellaneous knowledge, and he is with his pen a powerful debater; but he wants to a deplorable degree that most essential quality, a sound and correct judgment. Of this I have had in my official connection and intercourse with him complete and repeated proofs, and, although he may be useful when controlled and checked by others, he ought never to be trusted with a place where unrestrained his errors might be fatal to the country. Mr. Clay has his faults, but splendid talents and a generous mind. I certainly prefer Mr. Crawford to him, although he is far more popular; and yet, notwithstanding that popularity, I believe that, particularly since the West is split between him and Jackson, it is impossible that he should be elected, and that the contest is in fact between Crawford and Adams. Almost all the old Republicans (Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison amongst them) think as I do; but they were aware that Mr. Crawford was not very popular, and that the bond of party, which had with great many produced the effect of patriotism and knowledge, being nearly dissolved, neither of the other candidates would withdraw, and they were at a loss whom to unite to him as Vice-President. I advised to nominate nobody for that office, or, if anybody, some person from New York or New England. The last was attached to Adams; there were contentions in New York. The friends of Mr. Crawford thought the persons proposed there too obscure, and that my name would serve as a banner and show their nomination to be that of the old Republican party. I thought and still think that they were mistaken; that as a foreigner, as residuary legatee of the Federal hatred, and as one whose old services were forgotten and more recent ones though more useful were but little known, my name could be of no service to the cause. They insisted, and, being nominated both by the members of Congress and by the Legislature of Virginia, I could not honorably withdraw, though my reluctance was much increased by the dead opposition of Pennsylvania, which is, and nowhere more than in this vicinity, Jackson mad. From all I can collect, I think Mr. Crawford’s election (notwithstanding this mistake) nearly certain, and mine improbable. So much for my apology, which I could not make shorter. I have now said everything, I believe, respecting me which could interest you; and I have only to entreat you not to disappoint the hope you gave me, and to come and spend these unhealthy summer and autumnal months with us, where at least fevers have not yet penetrated, although they prevailed last year everywhere east of Cumberland and west of Wheeling. In summer I must necessarily to preserve health be at rest, and if to effect an interview, probably the last, so dear to both, it is necessary that you should have the trouble and fatigue of the journey, it is but strict justice (if that was any object between us) that the expense should be defrayed by me. Let not that, therefore, stop you, and come once more to see your old friend and refresh your old age by recollections of ancient times. I will add to the stock much that is pleasing from Geneva. Seventeen years of French yoke have united the parties as far as union is practicable in a free country. If there are differences of opinion, they apply to details of administration; the old distinctions, so odious to the people, are done away. To the general council and to that of Two Hundred has been substituted a large elective representative council, where, as far as I could judge, virtue and talents are almost the only titles for admission, where the most obscure and newest names are mixed with the oldest of the Republic, where Dumont, Bellamy, and two Pictets are in opposition to Desarts, D’Yvernois, and most of the old wigs (which have been, however, set aside). But what kind of opposition? I have read many of their debates; and, independent of the interest I felt for questions to others of small and local importance, any one may admire the train of close and logical reasoning they display, and must be delighted with the candor and mutual forbearance which characterize them. They are like discussions conducted amicably but with perfect freedom by members of the same family respecting their common concerns. Nor are the ancient manners much altered. A few amongst the most ignorant and vicious, the remnant of those who disgraced Geneva in 1794, not above three or four hundred, hardly any of the old bourgeoisie, have, I am told, been corrupted by the French whilst in power and their morals have been affected; but those of the great bulk are better than before the revolutions, and they are as pure Genevans, as little Frenchified, as you could desire. Speaking of old bourgeoisie, the distinction does not exist; citoyens, bourgeois and natifs are in every respect, civil and political, on the same footing. And here let me observe how powerful is the moral effect of virtue and knowledge. Whilst Venice, Genoa, Belgium, &c., &c., have been bartered away without scruple or regard to the wishes of the people, not only have Holland and Switzerland escaped unhurt, because they had both a national character and were truly nations, but even little Geneva has been respected and restored to its independence, whilst more than forty imperial cities have been left in the possession of the princes who had usurped them with the permission of Bonaparte. I might say much more, but must reserve it for the time when we meet. In that hope, and with my love to all the members of your family, I remain ever yours.

My wife and James Nicholson send their best compliments. By the by, you owe me nothing. Your sister was too proud to permit me to join in the support of your father, and your brother’s return in 1818 relieved her difficulties. I have not heard from them since that time, and was not in Geneva subsequent to 1817.

Unfortunately for Mr. Gallatin’s candidacy, the rapid spread of General Jackson’s party overthrew all ordinary calculation. Mr. Calhoun’s friends, finding their candidate pressed out of the course, made terms with the Jackson managers, by which Mr. Calhoun received the combined support of both bodies for the Vice-Presidency. This suggested a brilliant stroke of political genius to the fertile brain of Martin Van Buren, who, in those days, was not one of Jackson’s followers. As Jackson’s chances were improved by coalescing with Calhoun, who reduced his claims accordingly, so Mr. Crawford’s chances might be improved by coalescing with Mr. Clay, provided the latter could also be persuaded to accept the position of candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Clay was sounded on this subject early in September, as appears from his private correspondence, and his reply, dated September 10,[159] seems to have been considered as not discouraging, for, on the 25th September, Mr. Van Buren approached Mr. Gallatin with a formal recommendation that he should withdraw. Mr. Gallatin felt relieved at being permitted to escape even in this manner. He withdrew from the canvass. The result was that Calhoun was elected Vice-President by the people; that Jackson, Adams, and Crawford went before the House of Representatives, and that Mr. Clay caused the election of Mr. Adams to the Presidency.

WALTER LOWRIE TO GALLATIN.

Butler, 25th September, 1824.

My dear Sir,—The subject of which this letter treats has given me the most severe pain of mind. The bearer, our mutual friend General Lacock, will inform you of the situation of my family which has prevented me from accompanying him to see you.

From the most authentic information communicated to me by your friends in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, the most serious fears are entertained that Mr. Calhoun will be elected by the electors. Or if he should not, his vote will be so great that his chance in the Senate will be almost conclusive in his favor. On this subject I have not a feeling I would not be desirous that you should know. No man can desire your success more than I do. Still, my dear sir, I believe your chance of success is now almost hopeless, and, assuming that as a fact, what is to be done? The question has been met by a number of our friends, and they have suggested the arrangement which Mr. Lacock will make known to you. This plan has the approbation of as many of our friends as it was possible to consult, all of them your most decided friends. They are, however, afraid of your success, and wish, if possible, to have an arrangement made with Mr. Clay, to which if he would consent, it would go far to secure the election of Mr. Crawford.

After the most deep and anxious reflection I have been able to bestow on the subject, I would advise you to withdraw from the contest. How that should be done, in case you approve of it, I do not know. Your feelings and views of the best manner of doing it would be conclusive with me. The arrangement submitted to Mr. Lacock and myself contemplated your remaining on the ticket till near the election, in case Mr. Clay would consent; and if he would not consent, then for you to remain on the ticket to the last. I confess I do not like this conditional arrangement, and the letter of Mr. Dickinson makes me dislike it more. These points are all open, and I was most desirous of seeing you and getting your views upon them. In case you approve of having your name withdrawn, it occurs to me that the best manner would be in a letter to Judge Ruggles, which might be published a few days after Mr. Lacock’s departure. In that case Clay would not be informed of it till Mr. Lacock would have seen him, and his decision might have been different than if he knew absolutely that you had withdrawn. If you prefer the other, however, that is, to place your withdrawing on the contingency of Mr. Clay’s co-operation, I am perfectly satisfied. Indeed, I feel quite at a loss how to advise in the case. Indeed, in this whole communication I write under the greatest pain and embarrassment. Every step I have taken in regard to your name being placed before the nation was dictated by the purest friendship to you and the clearest sense of duty to my country. To have had any agency in placing you in a situation at all calculated to wound your feelings or give pain to your mind, is to me a source of painful reflection. This, added to the perplexed state of public opinion and the uncertainty of the final result, brings with it a distress of mind I have never heretofore experienced.

I am, my dear sir, with sincere esteem, your friend.

GALLATIN TO MR. LOWRIE.

Fayette County, Pennsylvania, October 2, 1824.

Dear Sir,—Your letter of the 25th of September, received on the 29th, has caused me much perplexity, not from any hesitation as to the principles which should govern my conduct, but from want of sufficient knowledge of the facts.

It is evident that I ought not to decline from mere personal motives and in order to avoid the mortification of a defeat, especially if this should be in any degree injurious to the public cause. There is in a nomination a mutual though tacit pledge of support, on the part of those who nominate, of standing a candidate on the part of the person nominated.

But my withdrawing would be proper in case my continuing to stand should either appear injurious to the election of Mr. Crawford or prevent the election of a proper person to the office of Vice-President. On either the one or the other of those grounds I consider your communications decisive so far as relates to New Jersey and New York. There may be no difficulty with respect to Georgia and any other State where the choice of electors remains with the Legislature. The embarrassment is principally in relation to Virginia and North Carolina. I am sensible that my name is in itself of no weight anywhere; but it is not for me, consulting only my feelings, to decide whether, after the active exertions of committees and individuals in favor of the two candidates nominated at Washington, the withdrawing the name of one on the eve of a popular election and without substituting another in his place, may prove favorable or injurious to the success of the Republican tickets.

1824

With that view of the subject, my answer to Mr. Lacock was that I would leave the decision with the central committee of correspondence for the State of Virginia. To that State I am more particularly bound, as the only one where, to my knowledge, the nomination of Washington was confirmed in full by the Republican members of the Legislature. The committee is their legitimate organ; and from their local situation they also are best able to form an opinion concerning North Carolina, with which last State there was hardly time to consult, and whose arrangements on the subject of the election are not known to me. Our friends in those districts of Maryland which may be favorable to us might also be consulted.

I am still of the same opinion; but considering how little time remains and how much would be lost by corresponding with me, I enclose my declaration that I wish my name to be withdrawn, not directed to Mr. Ruggles, since he is not to judge whether and when it must be used, but intended for publication in the newspapers at the discretion of the committee for Virginia, who will of course consult, if necessary, with Mr. Van Buren on the subject.

There will be no necessity for that consultation if they think it advantageous in the Southern States that my name should be withdrawn prior to the election of electors. They may at once in that case publish my declaration, since it is ascertained that the effect will be favorable in the North. To me that course would be the most agreeable. The publication must at all events be made before the result of the election of electors is ascertained, and prior to their being elected by the Legislature of New York.

In order to avoid delays as far as depends on me, I will enclose copies of my declining and of the substance of this letter both to Mr. Van Buren at Albany and to Mr. Stephenson at Richmond, to be communicated by him to the committee of correspondence, as I do not know their names. But he may be absent, and it will be necessary for you to write not only to Mr. Van Buren, but also to Richmond, enclosing copy of my declining and of such parts of this letter as will put them in full possession of the subject.

The publication of my declining should be made, as far as practicable, simultaneously in the National Intelligencer and principal State papers.

I advised Mr. Lacock against negotiating in person with Mr. Clay, as I thought that it would only encourage him to advise his friends in New York to make no compromise that would not secure him a part, at least, of the votes of that State for President. The only way, it seemed to me, was to convince him, by the choice of the electors there, that he had no chance for that office. This, however, was an opinion on a subject in which I can have nothing more to say.

Of your friendship, sincerity, and patriotic motives I am most perfectly satisfied. My nomination has been a miscalculation, and however painful the results may be to our feelings, having nothing to reproach ourselves with throughout the whole transaction, there is nothing in it save the effect it may have on the public cause that can give us any permanent uneasiness.

I have but one observation to add. From my experience, both when Mr. Jefferson was made Vice-President and when, in 1808, Mr. Clinton was re-elected to the same office, I know that nothing can be more injurious to an Administration than to have in that office a man in hostility with that Administration, as he will always become the most formidable rallying-point for the opposition.

I remain, respectfully and sincerely, your friend and obedient servant.

This chapter of secret political history will hardly stand comparison with what were at least the earnest phases of party politics in the days when Mr. Gallatin was really a leader. Parties had no longer a principle, and it was clearly time for Mr. Gallatin to retire. On the 3d December, when it was certain that no choice had been made by the people, he wrote from New Geneva to his son: “The Republican party seems to me to be fairly defunct. Our principal misfortune was perhaps the want of a popular candidate. The great defect of our system is the monarchical principle admitted in our Constitution.”

1825.

The election of Mr. Adams took place on February 9, 1825. Rumors in regard to the new Cabinet were communicated by Mr. Stewart, the representative of Fayette County, to James Gallatin, at Baltimore, who wrote them to his father. Mr. Gallatin replied in a letter of February 19. Mr. James Gallatin, who, as a boy at Ghent, had been a favorite of Mr. Adams, enclosed this letter to the new President without his father’s knowledge. Mr. Adams replied at once, and the correspondence will serve to close this account of the election of 1824-25, disappointing and unsatisfactory to every one who shared in it.

ANDREW STEWART TO JAMES GALLATIN.

Washington, 15th February, 1825.

... Many rumors are afloat on the subject of the new Cabinet. The Treasury Department has been offered to Mr. Crawford in the most flattering terms, which he has, however, declined. It is confidently asserted that it has been or will be offered to your father. Whether he will be disposed to accept you know best. There is evidently a strong wish to conciliate the friends of Mr. Crawford to the new Administration....

ALBERT GALLATIN TO JAMES GALLATIN.

New Geneva, Pennsylvania, 19th February, 1825.

My dear James,—Young Ebert has brought me this evening your letter of the 16th. I have heard nothing on the subject either from Mr. Adams or from any other person. The Washington mail for this place, which may have arrived to-day at Union, will not reach New Geneva before Thursday.

I am sorry to find that you feel so much for me on account of the late political disappointments. There is much consolation in the reflection that, having served the country with entire devotion, perfect fidelity, and to the best of my abilities, the loss of my popularity is not owing to any improper conduct on my part. We must cheerfully submit to what we cannot prevent, enjoy with thanks the blessings within our reach, and not make ourselves unhappy by unavailing regrets. This I mean as advice to you; for I really do not want it for myself.

As to my accepting the Treasury Department, it is out of question. I refused it in 1816, when offered by Mr. Madison. To fill that office in the manner I did, and as it ought to be filled, is a most laborious task and labor of the most tedious kind. To fit myself for it, to be able to understand thoroughly, to embrace and to control all its details, took from me, during the two first years I held it, every hour of the day and many of the night, and had nearly brought a pulmonary complaint. I filled the office twelve years, and was fairly worn out. Having lost sight of the details during the last twelve years would require a new effort, which, at this time, it would be unjust and cruel to require of me.

But even with respect to the Department of State, for which I am better calculated than any other, and as fit as any other person, it appears to me, considering the situation in which I have been placed, that unless Mr. Crawford had remained in the Administration, it would not be proper for me to become a member of it. This is much strengthened by the surmises to which Mr. Clay’s conduct has given birth, and by the circumstance of his accepting one of the Departments. I must and will at all events remain above the reach of suspicion.

I do not wish to be understood as speaking or wishing to act in opposition to Mr. Adams or to his Administration. I wish, on the contrary, that it may redound to his honor and be beneficial to his country. I had always stated to Mr. Crawford himself and to our friends that, next to him, Mr. Adams was my choice among the other candidates. To receive our support he has only to act in conformity with our principles.

If you should write to Stewart, enter into no details, and only say that you are satisfied, from the general tenor of my correspondence, that I had not as late as this day received the offer of the Treasury Department, and that, if offered, I could not accept it.

25th February.

I received yours of 19th inst. The information given you by A. Stewart appears to have been erroneous, as I have received nothing from Mr. Adams. I am glad of it, as I like better not to be appointed than to have to decline the appointment....

J. Q. ADAMS TO JAMES GALLATIN.

Washington, 26th February, 1825.

Dear Sir,—Conformably to your desire, I return herewith your father’s letter, with my thanks for the perusal of it. I have always entertained a very high opinion of your father’s character and public services, and am much gratified with the sentiments personal towards me expressed in his letter. That he will support the Administration so far as its conduct shall be conformable to the principles which he approves is what I should have expected from his sense of justice.

My personal feelings towards your father, particularly since we were associated together in the negotiations for peace and commerce with Great Britain, have been eminently friendly. They are so still, and it would have been gratifying to me to have had the benefit of his assistance in the Administration about to commence. The reasons assigned in his letter for his declining the Treasury Department were chiefly those which deterred me from offering him a nomination to it; and those of them founded upon objections to oppressively laborious duties applying more forcibly still to the Department of State than to that of the Treasury contributed to my conclusion that neither of them would have been acceptable to him. Had I been aware that his acceptance of the Department of State would have been conditional either upon Mr. Crawford’s remaining in the Administration or upon Mr. Clay’s exclusion from it, or upon both, it would have been to me an additional motive to refrain from making the offer. Approving altogether of your father’s determination to remain above the reach of suspicion, I should never make him a proposal by the acceptance of which, even in his own imagination, a taint of suspicion could attach to his character. It is my earnest wish that he may to the end of his days remain above the reach of suspicion; but, as that does not always depend upon ourselves, if it should prove otherwise I can only hope that every suspicion which may befall him should be as unjust and groundless as the surmises to which Mr. Clay’s conduct has given birth.

The parental advice in your father’s letter is worthy of his firmness and conscious integrity. These are never-failing supports under the loss of public favor. This, however, has not been sustained by him to the extent which he appears to apprehend. The respect for his character and services continues unimpaired; in my mind at least it remains as strong as ever, unaffected even by the distrust which I regret to see entertained by him, of the error of which I have no doubt he will live to be convinced.

I am, with great regard and esteem, dear sir, &c.

GALLATIN TO BADOLLET.

New Geneva, Pennsylvania, 18th March, 1825.

Your good letter afforded me, my dear friend, great satisfaction, and would have been long ago answered had it not been for the uncertainty of my movements this spring. You had designated the month of April as the time of your intended visit here, and I had made arrangements to be absent during that and the ensuing month on a visit which I had believed indispensable to my lands in Ohio and on Kanawha. It has at last been agreed that James will go in my place, so that I will be here from this time to the month of October. I expect you, therefore, this spring, and hope that nothing will intervene to prevent the mutual pleasure of this meeting.

I see by your letter that you are not perfectly satisfied either with yourself or the world. As to the first, I may say with truth that you have less to reproach yourself with than any other person within my knowledge. But I believe emigration, when not compulsory, to be always an error, and you are the only person that I ever induced to take that step; so that even in that respect the blame must at least be shared between us. As to the world, I have been, like you, disappointed in the estimate I had formed of the virtue of mankind and of its influence over others. Every day’s experience convinces us that most unprincipled men are often most successful. In this country there is much more morality and less of integrity than on the continent of Europe. This we cannot help; and as to myself, taking everything into consideration, I have had so much greater share of all that appears desirable than I had any right to expect, that I have none to complain. Yours has been a harder lot, yet I doubt whether not as happy....

My general health is good, and I do not look older than I am; but I am weak and cannot bear any fatigue. This, indeed, is the reason why my family insisted that I should not take my intended journey.... My old friends in this country are almost all dead; the few survivors ... quite superannuated....

The experiment of living at Friendship Hill did not succeed. Not only was New Geneva an unsuitable place for the advancement of children, but it was beyond question intolerably dull for Mr. Gallatin himself. He made the experiment during one winter, and then abandoned it, as it proved, forever. The Governor of Pennsylvania offered him in May, 1825, the appointment of Canal Commissioner, a compliment to his well-known interest in internal improvements, which he declined. America was now convulsed by the visit of La Fayette, almost the first occasion on which the people of the United States showed their capacity for a genuine national enthusiasm. In his triumphal progress, La Fayette passed through Western Pennsylvania and was publicly welcomed by Mr. Gallatin in an address delivered before the court-house at Uniontown, in which he touched with much skill upon the subjects which were then most deeply interesting the liberals of all nations,—the emancipation of the Spanish colonies and of Greece. La Fayette was a propagandist of the Greek cause in America, and Mr. Gallatin had always sympathized with him on this point, even to the extent of meriting the thanks of the Greek government while he was minister in Paris. In the address to La Fayette at Uniontown he spoke with extraordinary earnestness of the critical situation of the Greeks:

“The cause is not yet won! An almost miraculous resistance may yet perhaps be overwhelmed by the tremendous superiority of numbers. And will the civilized, the Christian world,—for those words are synonymous,—will they look with apathy on the dreadful catastrophe that would ensue? A catastrophe which they, which even we alone could prevent with so much facility and almost without danger? I am carried beyond what I intended to say. It is due to your presence,—do I not know that wherever man, struggling for liberty, for existence, is most in danger, there is your heart?”

The address to La Fayette was a last revival of the old flame of eloquence and of republican feeling which had controlled and inspired the opposition to Washington and John Adams. It should be read after reading the great speech on foreign intercourse delivered in 1798, and taken in that connection it will offer a curious standard for comparing the movement of parties and of men.

La Fayette was received at Uniontown on the 26th May, 1825, and the next day he drove with Mr. Gallatin to Friendship Hill, where he passed the night and resumed his journey on the 28th. His mind was full of his triumphal progress, and of the fortunes of Greece, but he was allowed little rest even in the retirement of New Geneva. Crowds of people thronged Mr. Gallatin’s house, and there could be little sensible or connected conversation in the midst of such excitement.

On the 10th June, Mr. Gallatin wrote to a friend: “We are here very retired, which suits me and my sons, but is not so agreeable to the ladies.... The uniformity of our life has been enlivened by the visit of our friend La Fayette; but he was in great hurry, and the Nation’s Guest had but little time to give to his personal friends, that, too, encumbered even in my house with a prodigious crowd.”

After a summer on the Monongahela, Mr. Gallatin took his family to Baltimore for the winter. Early in November he received a letter from Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State, offering him the position of representative of the United States at the proposed Congress of American republics at Panama. When Mr. Gallatin declined the post, on account of the climate and the language, Mr. Clay wrote again urging reconsideration. He said: “I think the mission the most important ever sent from this country, those only excepted which related to its independence and the termination of the late war. It will have objects which cannot fail to redound to the lasting fame of our negotiators, if they should be accomplished, as I think there is much reason to believe they may be.” Mr. Gallatin thoroughly sympathized in the policy of strengthening the relations between the American republics, but persisted in declining the appointment. The opposition of his family seems to have been his principal difficulty.

1826.

Towards the spring of 1826, a new demand was made on his services. President Adams had on assuming office recalled Mr. Rush from England to take charge of the Treasury Department, and had sent Mr. Rufus King to London. Mr. King’s health gave way immediately after his arrival, and he was incapacitated for business. The Administration at once summoned Mr. Gallatin to Washington. The story is told in his own words, in a letter written on the 12th May, 1826:

“You will have seen by the newspapers that I was appointed minister to England. There are important negotiations now pending between that country and the United States, and the state of Mr. King’s health was such that he had requested that, for that purpose, an extraordinary minister might be united to him. Under those circumstances I was requested and agreed to go as special minister. Before my nomination was sent to the Senate, Mr. King resigned altogether his place, and his resignation arrived to this country and was accepted. The President, wishing to entrust me alone with the negotiation, and unwilling to nominate at once a special minister for that purpose and an ordinary minister as successor to Mr. King, requested that I should go in the latter character, but with powers to negotiate, and with the understanding that I should be at liberty to return as soon as the negotiation was terminated, in same manner as if I had been appointed on a special mission. With that express understanding I have accepted. But my nomination has been made merely as successor to Mr. King, and the circumstances above mentioned are not publicly known. I now mention them to you in confidence in order to remove your apprehension of another long absence. This cannot last longer than a twelve-month.”

The President appears to have intended that Mr. Gallatin should have ample discretionary power to act according to his best judgment in the negotiation; but when the instructions arrived, whether Mr. Clay was not inclined to allow such latitude, or whether Mr. Adams’s ideas of discretionary power were different from Mr. Gallatin’s, the latter found his position not satisfactory, and before sailing he wrote both to the President and to Mr. Clay letters of warm remonstrance, with suggestions of the changes needed to allow of freer action on his part. This done, he took his departure from New York, on July 1, 1826, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and arrived in London on the 7th August.

The negotiation now to take place was probably the most complicated and arduous ever trusted by the United States government in the hands of a single agent. It embraced not only those commercial questions which had been so often and so fruitlessly discussed, and which involved the whole system of British colonial and navigation laws, but also the troublesome disputes of boundary on our extreme north-eastern and north-western frontier, in Maine and Oregon; the settlement of a long outstanding claim for slaves carried away by British troops in contravention of the First Article of the Treaty of Ghent; and the continuance of the commercial convention negotiated by Mr. Gallatin in 1815 and extended in 1818 for ten years by him and Mr. Bush. All the principal notes and despatches which record from day to day the progress of the various negotiations have been published, and are to be found in the great collection of American State Papers; to them, students must refer for details, which belong to the region of history rather than to biography; here it is enough to describe some of the leading points of the situation and to give some slight idea of the manner in which Mr. Gallatin dealt with his difficulties.

Of these difficulties perhaps the greatest was that Lord Castlereagh was no longer head of the Foreign Office. Lord Castlereagh’s political sins may have been many and dark, but towards the United States he was a wise and fair man. No one asked or expected friendship from a British minister of that day; all that America wished was to be treated by the English government with some degree of respect. Lord Castlereagh humored this weakness; his manners and his temper were excellent; his commercial views were much in advance of his time; he conceded with grace, and his refusals left no sting. When in 1822 he put an end to his own career, he was succeeded in the Foreign Office by George Canning, doubtless a greater man, but one whose temper was not gentle towards opposition, and whose old triumphs over embargo and non-intercourse had not left upon his imagination any profound respect for American character. Mr. Canning liked brilliant and aggressive statesmanship. He was not inclined to admit the new doctrines which had been announced by President Monroe in regard to the future exclusion of Europe from America; he felt that the power of the United States was a danger and a threat to England, and he would have been glad to strike out some new path which should relieve the commerce of England from its increasing dependence on America. Unfortunately for Mr. Gallatin, the very moment which Mr. Canning chose for experimenting on this subject was the moment when Gallatin was on his way to England in the summer of 1826. The object which he selected for experiment was the West India trade.

As has been already shown, the British government both in 1815 and in 1818 had declined to accept the American propositions on this subject. The trade between the United States and the West Indies was therefore left to be regulated by legislation as suited the interests of the parties. In proportion as England opened her colonial ports to American vessels, Congress relaxed the severity of its navigation law, and, in spite of incessant dispute about details, this process went on with favorable results as fast as public opinion in England would allow. There was only one drawback to the policy. In the multiplication of restrictive and retaliatory laws the intercourse became so embarrassed that no man could pretend to say what was and what was not permitted or forbidden.

In 1825 Parliament had undertaken a general revision of the colonial and navigation system, and several laws were adopted by which considerable changes had been made and liberal privileges granted to foreign nations on certain conditions. So far as applied to the United States, the condition was that she should place British shipping on the footing of the most favored nation.

The laws were intricate and impossible to understand without authoritative explanation. Mr. Clay and the committees of Congress considered the subject with care. The result was a decision to attempt nothing by way of legislation, but to give Mr. Gallatin authority to make such concessions as would probably secure a satisfactory arrangement by treaty. With these powers in his hand, not doubting that at length this annoying contest would be closed, Mr. Gallatin landed in England, and was met by the announcement that the British government, in consequence of the failure of Congress to fulfil the conditions of the Act of Parliament of July 5, 1825, had withdrawn the privileges conferred by that act; had prohibited, by order in council, all intercourse in American vessels between the British West Indies and the United States; and refused even to discuss the subject further.

In a small way this proceeding was only a repetition of Mr. Canning’s abrupt rupture of negotiation in the case of Mr. Monroe’s unratified treaty twenty years before. Orders in council had a peculiarly irritating meaning to American ears, and any negotiator would have had some excuse for losing his temper in such a case, but it must be agreed that on this occasion the American government in all its branches appeared with dignity and composure. Mr. Gallatin’s notes were excellent in tone, forbearing in temper, and conclusive in argument; Mr. Clay was not less quiet and temperate. Between the two Mr. Canning did not appear equally well. He resorted to what was little better than hair-splitting on the meaning of the words “right” and “claim” as applied to the American trade with the colonies. “When it is contended,” said he in a note of November 13, 1826, “that the ‘right’ by which Great Britain prohibits foreign nations from trading with her colonies is the same ‘right’ with that by which she might (if she thought fit) prohibit them from trading with herself, this argument (which is employed by the United States alone) implies that the special prohibition is a grievance to the United States, if not of the same amount, of the same kind, as the general prohibition would be. This is a doctrine which Great Britain explicitly denies.”

In short, Mr. Canning was determined upon making one more effort to save the colonial system, and he preferred to do it in a way that would be remembered. Possibly his policy was sound; at all events he obtained by its means for England a very degrading apology from the next American Administration, although the number of his diplomatic triumphs over America was by that time no longer a matter of concern to him, and he and his ambition were then things of the past. His motives, in this instance, were not quite clear; what he avowed was the determination to ascertain by experiment whether the West Indies could be made independent of the United States by opening the colonial trade to all the rest of the world and prohibiting it to the United States alone. In the face of this attempt the American government had only one course to pursue: it must acquiesce and resume its retaliatory prohibition. This was accordingly done, without irritating language, and in excellent temper and taste. In regard to this branch of his negotiation, Mr. Gallatin’s task therefore became simple; he had merely to obtain from the British government a distinct avowal of its determination to maintain this new policy against a direct offer of negotiation. He reserved this step until the very close of his mission, and his last words to Earl Dudley on the subject are worth quoting:

“The right of Great Britain to regulate the intercourse with her colonies is not questioned, and it is not usual for nations to make any great sacrifice for the sake of asserting abstract principles which are not contested. She is undoubtedly the only proper judge of what should be her commercial policy. The undersigned has not been fortunate enough to be able to discover what actual advantages she derives from the measures in which she perseveres in regard to the colonial intercourse. He has apprehended that considerations foreign to the question might continue to oppose obstacles to a proper understanding. Nothing has been omitted to remove those which might have arisen from misconceptions of the views and proceedings of the American government. It is gratifying to have received assurances that the decision of Great Britain was not influenced by any unfriendly feelings towards the United States. Their sentiments for Great Britain are those of amity and good-will; and their government is animated by a sincere desire to improve and strengthen the friendly relations of the two countries.”

This sudden and unexpected blow, which instantly put an end to the most hopeful branch of Mr. Gallatin’s intended negotiation, had a very mischievous effect upon the negotiation as a whole; practically and for the moment it annulled all his instructions. He had to act for himself, and he was much perplexed to form any theory of British motives which would serve to guide his course. He attempted to look at the matter from the British point of view, and wrote his first impressions to Mr. Clay on the 22d September, 1826:

“On three points we were perhaps vulnerable. 1. The delay in renewing the negotiation. 2. The omission of having revoked the restriction on the indirect intercourse when that of Great Britain had ceased. 3. Too long an adherence to the opposition to her right of laying protecting duties. This might have been given up as soon as the Act of 1825 had passed. These are the causes assigned for the late measures adopted towards the United States on that subject, and they have undoubtedly had a decisive effect as far as relates to the order in council, assisted as they were by the belief that our object was to compel this country to regulate the trade upon our own terms. But even this will not account for the refusal to negotiate and the apparent determination to exclude us altogether hereafter from a participation in the trade of the colonies. There is certainly an alteration in the disposition of this government since the year 1818, when I was last here. Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Robinson had it more at heart to cherish friendly relations than Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson. The difference may, however, be in the times rather than in the men. Treated in general with considerable arrogance till the last war, with great attention, if not respect, during the years that followed it, the United States are now an object of jealousy; and a policy founded on that feeling has been avowed.”[160]

The first part of the above paragraph, down to the words “upon our own terms,” was afterwards paraphrased by Mr. Van Buren as the ground of his celebrated deprecation to Great Britain, when giving his instructions, as Secretary of State, to Mr. McLane, as Minister to England. This fact was discovered by Mr. Benton, who has, in his “Thirty Years’ View,”[161] printed that portion of the above despatch of 22d September, 1826, at the same time judiciously omitting the remainder, as had been done by Mr. Van Buren himself. This is not the place for making any comment either upon Mr. Van Buren’s statesmanship or Mr. Benton’s merits as a historian; but it is proper to point out that nothing in Mr. Gallatin’s despatch could honestly be made to support the credit of either the one or the other.[162]

But Mr. Gallatin’s remarks of September 22 were written before receiving the explanations of his own government, and they did not express a matured opinion. He was greatly perplexed to understand the real motives of Mr. Canning. On the 18th October, not one month after this despatch to Mr. Clay, he wrote a private letter to the President, giving some interesting information he had obtained on a short visit to Paris.[163] In this letter he mentioned having received information from a respectable quarter that “a few days before the publication of the order in council of July last, one of the King’s ministers had complained to a confidential friend of the general tone of the American diplomacy towards England, still more as respected manner than matter, and added that it was time to show that this was felt and resented.” Puzzled to know what could have caused such displeasure, Mr. Gallatin adds that he had looked through all the published correspondence and could find nothing with which the British government could have taken offence, unless it were Mr. Adams’s instructions to Mr. Rush, with which that government had no concern. Even in this supposition, however, it soon appeared that he was mistaken; for on the 27th November he wrote to Mr. Clay that he had further ascertained the name of the “King’s minister” before mentioned. It was no less a person than Mr. Canning himself; he had said that the language used by America was almost tantamount to a declaration of war; he had used the same language to Mr. Gallatin, and his grievance was not at all against the President or his officers, but against a certain Mr. Baylies, a member of Congress from Massachusetts, who, as chairman of a committee, had made a belligerent report to the House, which had never even been taken into consideration. “It is most undoubtedly that report which has given great offence, and I am apt to think that, though not the remote, or only, it was the immediate cause of the order in council.”

Feeling his way in this tentative manner, always the most difficult task of a new minister in critical times, Mr. Gallatin approached the other subjects of negotiation. At the close of the year he wrote to the President, sketching the state of each disputed point and earnestly pressing for instructions. This letter closes with the following unusually severe remarks:

1827.

“Although all my faculties are exerted, and it is far from being the first time, in trying to accommodate differences and to remove causes of rupture, it is impossible for me not to see and feel the temper that prevails here towards us. It is perceptible in every quarter and on every occasion, quite changed from what it was in 1815-1821; nearly as bad as before the last war, only they hate more and despise less, though they still affect to conceal hatred under the appearance of contempt. I would not say this to any but to you and your confidential advisers, and I say it not in order to excite corresponding feelings, but because I think that we must look forward and make those gradual preparations which will make us ready for any emergency, and which may be sufficient to preserve us from the apprehended danger.... I must say, after my remarks on the temper here, that I have been personally treated with great, by Mr. Canning with marked, civility.”

Thus difficulties thickened round him as he advanced. The West India negotiation could not take place; there was no hope for the navigation of the St. Lawrence; there was no chance of fixing a definitive boundary in Oregon; even to make the preliminary arrangements for compromising the dispute about the Maine boundary would be laborious and arduous; the only point settled was that of payment in a gross sum for captured slaves.

ALBERT GALLATIN TO JAMES GALLATIN.

London, 13th January, 1827.

... We continue all well, and I anticipate nothing that can prevent our taking our departure about the middle of June. All that I can possibly do here must be terminated by that time, provided the instructions I have asked on some points be such as not to render another reference to Washington necessary. I have written to the Department of State accordingly, and asked for leave to return by that time, to which I presume no objection will be made, as it was explicitly understood that I should remain no longer than the pending negotiations required, and Mr. Adams’s conjecture that they would occupy about twelve months is confirmed. I have written to him a private letter by the last packet, most earnestly entreating him both to direct the necessary instructions to be sent and to grant me leave to return. As you know him, and he has always shown kindness to you, I wish you would join your solicitations to mine, either in writing or by waiting in person on him. There are many things which you may say or explain showing the importance of my return to my family. As to myself, whether it is the result of age (you know that in a fortnight I will enter my sixty-seventh year) or increased anxiety about you and your brother, my mind is enervated, and I feel that a longer absence would have a most serious effect upon me. As it is, though my health is tolerable, I hardly dare to hope that I will see you again. Nor will my return be any public loss. The United States want here a man of considerable talent, but he must be younger than I am and capable of going through great labor with more facility than I now possess. This is at all times the most laborious foreign mission. It is at this time, owing to the negotiations, one of the most laborious public offices. I cannot work neither as long nor do as much work in the same time as formerly. To think and to write, to see the true state of the question, and to state it, not with eloquence, but with perspicuity, all that formerly was done instantaneously and with ease is now attended with labor, requires time, and is not performed to my satisfaction. I believe that Mr. Lawrence will prove a useful public servant. Yet I have missed and do miss your assistance every day. I did not like French diplomacy; I cannot say that I admire that of this country. Some of the French statesmen occasionally say what is not true (cordon sanitaire); here they conceal the truth. The temper also towards us is bad. After all, though it is necessary to argue well, you may argue forever in vain; strength and the opinion of your strength are the only efficient weapons. We must either shut ourselves in our shell, as was attempted during the Jefferson policy, and I might say mine, or we must support our rights and pretensions by assuming at home a different attitude. I think that we are now sufficiently numerous and rich for that purpose, and that with skill our resources would be found adequate. But that is a subject requiring more discussion than can be encompassed in a letter. I fear that you will find this written in a too desponding mood; and I do not wish you to despond as relates to yourself.... What you may, or rather ought to, do about our lands, it belongs to you to decide. They are yours and Albert’s, and you must consider them as such, keep or sacrifice, since there is no chance of a favorable sale at present, as you shall think best. It is a troublesome and unproductive property, which has plagued me all my life. I could not have vested my patrimony in a more unprofitable manner....