The Life of Albert Gallatin

If I mistake not, the printing of the report of the sinking fund was considerably delayed. Be that as it may, when Mr. Griswold moved to commit it to the Ways and Means he specified no objection; he barely said that there were some parts which required explanation; but, as all documents of that sort are of course committed to that committee, there was no occasion for any reasoning to induce the House to agree to such a motion. The resolution which he afterwards drafted, and which he showed to me, was, I believe, couched in the very terms of that which was passed by the House, the words “in fact” excepted, which at my suggestion he expunged, since he declared that he had no intention to criminate the Treasury and doubted not that everything could and would be satisfactorily explained. I then proposed to him to reduce his objections to writing. They consisted of a denial of the soundness of the construction given by the Treasury to the law of 1802 making provision for the redemption of the whole public debt, which was the object embraced by the resolution; and an inquiry into the variance between the report of the Secretary of the Treasury of December, 1801, and the report of the sinking fund, in respect to the amount of interest of the public debt and the instalments of the Dutch debt due in 1802. There may have been some items which I do not recollect. But I perfectly remember what they did not contain. There was not a syllable about the unaccounted balance of 114,000 dollars, nor of the detailed accounts in relation to the remittances on account of the foreign debt, contained in the 4th, 7th, and part of the 3d queries in my official letter to you (A. 1). The first intelligence which I had of this unaccounted balance was from yourself. It made its appearance in a pamphlet ascribed to Stanley and addressed to his constituents. So careful were the friends of this little work that it should not get abroad, that by mere accident a single copy fell into the hands of Alston on the day before Mr. Griswold brought forward his motion. Huger, who let Alston have it, enjoined him not to let it go out of his hands. He on the contrary carried it to you, and during the short time that it was in your possession I accidentally stepped in whilst you were looking over it, and this was the first notice which I received of Mr. Griswold’s redoubtable attack on that point. It may be proper to add that when he put into my hands the paper containing the first objections to the report, I offered to transmit them to you, provided he would move it in committee; and the committee were actually convened for that purpose, but he did not attend. He declined also a proposition of waiting on you in person when I offered to accompany him. The committee taking no order on his objections, they were submitted to you by me, and so long a time elapsed that I really conceived he had abandoned his project. On our return home Alston told me that Huger was very much irritated against him, and those in his quarter of the House mortified and astonished, when I mentioned the coincidence between Griswold’s speech and Stanley’s letter.

And now, dismissing this miserable race of cavillers and equivocators, let me beg you to have a reverend care of your health, and to assure Mrs. G. (not Griswold) and her sisters of my best wishes for their health and happiness. Mr. Nym and the young secretary will participate my friendly inquiries. I do not ask you to continue to write to me, because I know the demands upon your time both by health and business. But a line of how and where you all are will always be acceptable to one who interests himself in everything relating to you.

My health is fluctuating; the weather is raw and the spring a month behindhand. Moreover, we have had but one rain, and that moderate, since the last snow on the 8th March. Of course I am vaporish and gouty. Adieu.

Yours truly.

P.S. – Smith should make a statement “by authority” in his paper conformably with the within.

At an election at Charlotte C. H. on Monday last, J. Randolph had 717 votes, C. Carrington 2.

JOHN RANDOLPH TO GALLATINBizarre, 4th June, 27th year [1803].

Dear Sir, – Having sustained an injury in my hand, I have been for some time debarred the use of my pen. The first exercise of my recovered right shall be to thank you for your last very friendly and acceptable letter.

Nothing can be more clear and satisfactory than Bayard’s answer to himself, according to your statement of it. But I cannot help suspecting a difference between the printed speech and the original, not at all to the advantage of the latter. I am unwilling to believe that he was guilty of so gross an absurdity (in debate), because I am unwilling to believe that we were guilty of yet grosser stupidity, even after making every allowance for being worried down with fatigue. Such a thing might have escaped me, and perhaps Nicholson; but that General Smith should fail to detect it appears incredible. So far, however, from overdosing me with the bank stock, as you seem to apprehend, it is evident you have not given me quantum suff.

You have seen the result of our elections. Federal exultation has, however, received a severe check in those of New York. Indeed, I do not conceive the event here to be indicative of any change in the public sentiment. The elections, with a single exception, have been conducted on personal rather than on party motives. Brent completely defeated himself, and, although I love the man, I cannot very heartily lament his ill success. By the way, I think you wise men at the seat of government have much to answer for in respect to the temper prevailing around you. By their fruit shall ye know them. Is there something more of system yet introduced among you? or are you still in chaos, without form and void? Should you have leisure, give me a hint of the first news from Mr. Monroe. After all the vaporing, I have no expectation of a serious war. Tant pis pour nous.

You ask if I have seen Rennell’s new map of North Africa? forgetting that I live out of the light of anything but the sun; and he has not condescended to shine, but at short intervals, for a fortnight. I suppose it is the map which he compiled from Parke’s Travels. Do you recollect my suggesting to you, soon after the work came out, a suspicion that the Niger was the true Nile? and your determining that he should be swallowed up in the sands of the desert, which we carried into instant execution.

Present me most sincerely, and permit me to add, affectionately, to Mrs. Gallatin, and believe me, dear sir, most truly yours.

P.S. – I address this to Washington, where it will be put in train to reach you. I sincerely hope it will find you much recruited by the wise step which you have taken.

1803.

The Louisiana treaty threw on Mr. Gallatin a new class of duties. He had to make all the arrangements not only for payment of the purchase-money to France, but for the modifications of his financial system which so large and so sudden an emergency required. Fortunately, Alexander Baring was the person with whom he had principally to deal in regard to payments, and his relations with Mr. Baring were very friendly; so friendly, indeed, as to have a decisive influence, some ten years later, in a most serious crisis of Mr. Gallatin’s life and of our national history. With Mr. Baring’s assistance the business details were successfully arranged, and it only remained to adjust the new burden of debt to the national resources.

Congress was called together in October on account of the Louisiana business. It is curious to notice how, in his comments on this year’s message, Mr. Gallatin gently held the President back from every appearance of hostility to England and of overwarm demonstrations towards Bonaparte, and how he still talked of economies in the Navy Department to supply some of his financial deficiencies, though this resource was already mentioned only as a desirable possibility. In fact, Congress was about to abandon the attempt at further economy in that Department, and in order to relieve the Treasury the Mediterranean fund was now created for naval expenses. Mr. Gallatin had to look for his resources elsewhere.

The financial problem was to provide for the new purchase and its consequent expenditure without imposing new taxes. The point was a delicate one, and was managed by Mr. Gallatin as follows:

The purchase-money for Louisiana was $15,000,000. Of this sum, $11,250,000 was paid in new six per cent. stock. There was specie enough in the Treasury to pay $2,000,000 more; and Mr. Gallatin requested authority to borrow the remaining $1,750,000 at six per cent.

The consequent increase of annual interest on the debt, including commissions and exchange, he estimated at $800,000. To provide this he counted on an increase of revenue from imposts and lands, as indicated by the returns for the past year, equal to $600,000, and an income of $200,000 from Louisiana.

An annual appropriation of $700,000 was to be set aside for the interest on the $11,250,000 new stock, and added to the permanent appropriation of $7,300,000; so that in future $8,000,000 should be annually applied to payment of interest and principal of the debt, thus preserving the ratio of reduction already established.

Perhaps as a matter of fact the success of Mr. Gallatin in avoiding new taxes was rather apparent than real. Had he been able to carry out his economies in the navy, he might indeed have avoided taxation, but this was fairly proved impossible, and the confession of a failure here was only evaded by the fiction of creating a temporary fund for extraordinary naval purposes, which allowed the supposed regular naval expenditure to be estimated at Mr. Gallatin’s figures. This was obviously in the nature of a compromise between the Treasury and the Navy, but it was not the less a real increase of taxation, and, as events proved, a permanent increase. The capture of the frigate Philadelphia by the Tripolitans was, it is true, the immediate occasion for this tax, but not its cause; this lay much deeper, and, as Mr. Gallatin’s letters clearly show, was the result of a failure in the attempt at economy in the navy.

Even at the last hour, however, the Administration was alarmed by the fear that Louisiana might after all be lost; the protest of Spain against the sale gave reason to doubt whether she would consent to surrender the province. Here again Mr. Gallatin of his own accord urged increased expenditure, and actively pressed the collection and movement of troops to take possession by force if the Spanish government should resist. Fortunately, the alarm proved to be unnecessary: Louisiana was promptly handed over to the French official appointed for the purpose, and by him to General Wilkinson and Governor Claiborne; the troops were stopped on their march from Tennessee and ordered home, and all that remained to be done was to incorporate the new territory in the old, and to settle its boundaries with Spain.

The process of incorporation, however, brought into prominence a very serious constitutional question, which had already been elaborately argued in the Cabinet. Had the Constitution given to the President and Congress the right to do an act of this transcendent importance, an act which could not but result in immense and incalculable changes in the relations between the States who were the original parties to the constitutional compact; an act which could only rest on a prodigious extension of the treaty-making power, such as would legalize the annexation of Mexico or of Europe itself? Mr. Jefferson was very strongly of opinion that an amendment to the Constitution could alone legalize the act, and this opinion seems to have been shared by Mr. Madison and by the Attorney-General. The tenor of Mr. Gallatin’s reasoning as a member of Congress in opposition certainly leads to the inference that he would take the same side. His speeches on the alien bill had carried the doctrine of strict construction to the verge of extravagance. Nevertheless, Mr. Gallatin did not properly belong to the Virginia school of strict constructionists, and although, as a member of Congress, he earnestly resisted the growth of Executive power, he assumed with difficulty and with a certain awkwardness the tone of States’ rights. In this Louisiana case he wrote on the 13th January, 1803, a letter to Mr. Jefferson, which might have been written, without a syllable of change, by Alexander Hamilton to General Washington ten years before:

“To me it would appear, 1st. That the United States as a nation have an inherent right to acquire territory.

“2d. That whenever that acquisition is by treaty, the same constituted authorities in whom the treaty-making power is vested have a constitutional right to sanction the acquisition.

“3d. That whenever the territory has been acquired, Congress have the power either of admitting into the Union as a new State, or of annexing to a State with the consent of that State, or of making regulations for the government of such territory.

“The only possible objection must be derived from the 12th amendment, which declares that powers not delegated to the United States nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States or to the people. As the States are expressly prohibited from making treaties, it is evident that if the power of acquiring territory by treaty is not considered within the meaning of the amendment as delegated to the United States, it must be reserved to the people. If that be the true construction of the Constitution, it substantially amounts to this, that the United States are precluded from and renounce altogether the enlargement of territory; a provision sufficiently important and singular to have deserved to be expressly enacted. Is it not a more natural construction to say that the power of acquiring territory is delegated to the United States by the several provisions which authorize the several branches of government to make war, to make treaties, and to govern the territory of the Union?”64

Mr. Jefferson, it is needless to say, was not convinced by this reasoning. He mildly replied: “I think it will be safer not to permit the enlargement of the Union but by amendment of the Constitution.”65 But the heresy spread into his own Virginia church, and his friend and confidant Wilson Cary Nicholas became infected by it. In reply to him Mr. Jefferson wrote a passionate appeal: “Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution; let us not make it a blank paper by construction.” For a time he adhered to this view, and framed an amendment to answer his purpose, but at length he resigned himself to committing the whole responsibility to Congress, and held his peace. Mr. Gallatin’s opinion became the accepted principle of the party and the ground on which their legislation was made to rest.

1804.

The same fate attended Mr. Jefferson’s vehement remonstrances against the establishment of a branch bank of the United States at New Orleans, an object which Mr. Gallatin considered as of the highest importance and one which he was actively engaged in carrying into effect. Mr. Jefferson, however, wrote to him on the 13th December, 1803, in the strongest language against this plan: “This institution is one of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution… What an obstruction could not this bank of the United States, with all its branch banks, be in time of war? It might dictate to us the peace we should accept, or withdraw its aids. Ought we then to give further growth to an institution so powerful, so hostile?” And he went on to give his own views as to the proper course for government to follow, which was in fact very nearly the plan ultimately realized in the form of a sub-treasury. Mr. Gallatin, however, attached no great weight to these arguments; he wrote back on the same day: “I am extremely anxious to see a bank at New Orleans; considering the distance of that place, our own security and even that of the collector will be eminently promoted, and the transmission of moneys arising both from the impost and sales of lands in the Mississippi Territory would without it be a very difficult and sometimes dangerous operation. Against this there are none but political objections, and those will lose much of their force when the little injury they can do us and the dependence in which they are on government are duly estimated. They may vote as they please and take their own papers, but they are formidable only as individuals and not as bankers. Whenever they shall appear to be really dangerous, they are completely in our power and may be crushed.”

Mr. Jefferson again yielded, and Mr. Gallatin procured the passage of an Act of Congress authorizing the establishment of a branch bank at New Orleans. Meanwhile Governor Claiborne had undertaken to establish a bank there by his own authority. When the news of this proceeding reached Mr. Gallatin he was very angry, and wrote to Mr. Jefferson at once on April 12, 1804, sharply condemning Governor Claiborne for this unauthorized act, which, he added, “will probably defeat the establishment of a branch bank which we considered of great importance to the safety of the revenue and as a bond of union between the Atlantic and Mississippi interests.” Apparently, therefore, Mr. Gallatin believed that he had entirely converted his chief; in reality the conversion was only one more example of that capacity for yielding his own prejudices to the weight of his advisers, which made Mr. Jefferson so often disappoint his enemies and preserve the harmony of his party.

On the whole, this third year of the Administration closed not less satisfactorily than its predecessors, and Congress adjourned without anxiety after carrying into effect all the measures which Mr. Gallatin had at heart. So far as he was concerned, hardly a lisp of discontent was heard, except, perhaps, among the followers of Duane and Leib. By them he was accused of wishing to build up a third party by the patronage of the Treasury, a charge which meant only that he had refused to put his patronage at their disposal.

The summer again found Mr. Gallatin at Washington, alone, discontented, and occupied only with the details of Treasury work. One pleasure indeed he had, and as his acquaintance with Alexander Baring was destined to have no little value to him in future life, so his acquaintance of this summer with Alexander von Humboldt was turned to good account in after-years. In a letter to his wife he gave an amusing account of his first impressions of Humboldt. Among his correspondents of this year there are none whose letters seem to have any permanent value, unless one by John Randolph be an exception. In this there are curious suggestions of restlessness under the sense of political inferiority. It would be interesting to know what that opinion of Mr. Gallatin’s was which could induce Randolph to concur with it so far as to favor the creation of a navy to blow the British cruisers out of water.

GALLATIN TO HIS WIFEWashington, 6th June, 1804.

… I have received an exquisite intellectual treat from Baron Humboldt, the Prussian traveller, who is on his return from Peru and Mexico, where he travelled five years, and from which he has brought a mass of natural, philosophical, and political information which will render the geography, productions, and statistics of that country better known than those of most European countries. We all consider him as a very extraordinary man, and his travels, which he intends publishing on his return to Europe, will, I think, rank above any other production of the kind. I am not apt to be easily pleased, and he was not particularly prepossessing to my taste, for he speaks more than Lucas, Finley, and myself put together, and twice as fast as anybody I know, German, French, Spanish, and English, all together. But I was really delighted, and swallowed more information of various kinds in less than two hours than I had for two years past in all I had read or heard. He does not seem much above thirty, gives you no trouble in talking yourself, for he catches with perfect precision the idea you mean to convey before you have uttered the third word of your sentence, and, exclusively of his travelled acquirements, the extent of his reading and scientific knowledge is astonishing. I must acknowledge, in order to account for my enthusiasm, that he was surrounded with maps, statements, &c., all new to me, and several of which he has liberally permitted us to transcribe.

JOHN RANDOLPH TO GALLATINBizarre, 14th October, 1804. 29th Ind.

On my return from Fredericksburg after a racing campaign, I was very agreeably accosted by your truly welcome letter; to thank you for which, and not because I have anything (stable news excepted) to communicate, I now take up the pen. It is some satisfaction to me, who have been pestered with inquiries that I could not answer on the subject of public affairs, to find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Treasury is in as comfortable a state of ignorance as myself. Pope says of governments, that is best which is best administered. What idea, then, could he have of a government which was not administered at all? The longer I live, the more do I incline to somebody’s opinion, that there is in the affairs of this world a mechanism of which the very agents themselves are ignorant, and which, of course, they can neither calculate nor control. As much free will as you please in everything else, but in politics I must ever be a necessitarian. And this comfortable doctrine saves me a deal of trouble and many a twinge of conscience for my heedless indolence. I therefore leave Major Jackson and his Ex. of Casa Yrujo to give each other the lie in Anglo-American or Castilian fashions, just as it suits them, and when people resort to me for intelligence, instead of playing the owl and putting on a face of solemn nonsense, I very fairly tell them with perfect nonchalance that I know nothing of the matter, – from which, if they have any discernment, they may infer that I care as little about it, – and then change the subject as quickly as I can to horses, dogs, the plough, or some other upon which I feel myself competent to converse. In short, I like originality too well to be a second-hand politician when I can help it. It is enough to live upon the broken victuals and be tricked out in the cast-off finery of you first-rate statesmen all the winter. When I cross the Potomac, I leave behind me all the scraps, shreds, and patches of politics which I collect during the session, and put on the plain homespun, or (as we say) the “Virginia cloth,” of a planter, which is clean, whole, and comfortable, even if it be homely. Nevertheless, I have patriotism enough left to congratulate you on the fulness of the public purse, and cannot help wishing that its situation could be concealed from our Sangrados in politics, with whom depletion is the order of the day. On the subject of a navy you know my opinion concurs with yours. I really feel ashamed for my country, that, whilst she is hectoring before the petty corsairs of the coast of Barbary, she should truckle to the great pirate of the German Ocean; and I would freely vote a naval force that should blow the Cambrian and Leander out of water. Indeed, I wish Barron’s squadron had been employed on that service. I am perfectly aware of the importance of peace to us, particularly with Great Britain, but I know it to be equally necessary to her; and, in short, if we have any honor as a nation to lose, which is problematical, I am unwilling to surrender it.

On the subject of Louisiana you are also apprised that my sentiments coincide with your own; and it is principally because of that coincidence that I rely upon their correctness. But as we have the misfortune to differ from that great political luminary, Mr. Matthew Lyon, on this as well as on most other points, I doubt whether we shall not be overpowered. If Spain be “fallen from her old Castilian faith, candor, and dignity” it must be allowed that we have been judicious in our choice of a minister to negotiate with her; and Louisiana, it being presumable, partaking something of the character which distinguished her late sovereign when she acquired that territory, the selection of a pompous nothing for a governor will be admitted to have been happy. At least, if the appointment be not defensible upon this principle, I am at a loss to discover any other tenable point. In answer to your question I would advise the printing of … thousand copies of Tom Paine’s answer to their remonstrance and transmitting them by as many thousand troops, who can speak a language perfectly intelligible to the people of Louisiana, whatever that of their governor may be. It is, to be sure, a little awkward, except in addresses and answers where each party is previously well apprised of what the other has to say, that whilst the eyes and ears of the admiring Louisianians are filled with the majestic person and sonorous periods of their chief magistrate, their understandings should be utterly vacant. If, however, they were aware that, even if they understood English, it might be no better, they would perhaps be more reconciled to their situation. You really must send something better than this mere ape of greatness to those Hispano-Gaulo. He would make a portly figure delivering to “my lords and gentlemen” a speech which Pitt had previously taught him; but we want an automaton, and a puppet will not supply his place.