The Life of Albert Gallatin

Mr. Jefferson’s letter was obviously written not merely to encourage Mr. Gallatin, but to be shown to members of Congress. From it one would suppose that Mr. Gallatin had in the moment of departure merely suggested the possibility of his retirement; from Mr. Gallatin’s reply, which has no such semi-official reticence, the real import of the conversation, and the fact that it was addressed to Mr. Madison, are made evident.

“Those who thought they had injured were disposed to destroy, and were sufficiently skilful and formidable to effect their object.” Mr. Gallatin’s life for the next four years was little more than a commentary on this paragraph. There has, perhaps, never in our history been a personal contest more determined, more ferocious, more mischievous than this between Mr. Gallatin, with the Executive behind him, and the knot of his enemies who controlled the Senate; it is not too much to say that to this struggle, complicating itself with the rising spirit of young nationality, we owe the war of 1812, and some of the most imminent perils the nation ever incurred. It was not unlike the great contest of ten years before between John Adams and a similar group of Senators; it went through a similar phase, and in each case the result was dependent on the question of war or peace. There are few more interesting contrasts of character in our history than that between the New England President, with his intense personality and his overpowering bursts of passion, confronting his enemies with a will that could not control or even mask its features, and “the Genevan,” as the Aurora called him, calm, reticent, wary, never vehement, full of resource, ignoring enmity, hating strife. Perhaps a combination of two such characters, if they could have been made to work in harmony, might have proved too much even for the Senate; and, if so, a problem in American history might have been solved, for, as it was, the Senate succeeded in overthrowing both.

As Mr. Gallatin had predicted, the mission of Mr. Jackson proved to be merely one more insult, and our government very soon put an end to its relations with him and sent him away; but, in doing so, Mr. Madison expressly declared the undiminished desire of the United States to establish friendly relations with Great Britain, so that the only effect of this episode was to procure one year more of delay; precisely the object which Mr. Canning had in view. As the country now stood, Mr. Canning’s policy had been completely successful; he had taken away the neutral commerce of the United States, and the United States had submitted to his will; he had taken away her seamen, and she forced her seamen to go. Just at this moment Mr. Canning himself was thrown out of office; his dictatorial temper met more resistance from his colleagues than from America, and he found himself a private man, with a duel on his hands, at the instant when his administration of foreign affairs was most triumphant. His successor was the Marquess Wellesley, whose reputation for courtesy and liberality was high, and therefore inspired the United States with a hope of justice, for even Mr. Madison, as his letters show, could never quite persuade himself that the British government meant what its acts proclaimed.

The dismissal of Mr. Jackson immediately preceded the meeting of Congress; the interval was hardly sufficient to supply time for elaborating a new policy. The President’s message, sent in on the 29th November, 1809, was very non-committal on the subject of further legislation, and only expressed two opinions as to its character; he was confident that it would be worthy of the nation, and that it would be stamped with unanimity. What ground Mr. Madison had for this confidence, nowhere appears; and if he was honest in expressing this as an opinion rather than as a hope, he was very little aware of the condition of Congress; even Mr. Jefferson never was more mistaken.

As usual, the task of creating and carrying through Congress the Executive policy fell upon Mr. Gallatin, and as usual, bowing to the necessities of the situation, he set himself to invent some scheme that would have a chance of uniting a majority in its support and of giving government solid ground to stand upon. The task was more than difficult, it was impossible. Since the war-policy broke down and the embargo was abandoned, no solid ground was left; Mr. Gallatin, however, had this riddle to solve, and his solution was not wanting in ingenuity.

His report, sent in on December 8, 1809, for the first time announced a deficit. “The expenses of government, exclusively of the payments on account of the principal of the debt, have exceeded the actual receipts into the Treasury by a sum of near $1,300,000.” This was a part of the price of the embargo. For the next year authority for a loan of $4,000,000 would be required in case the military and naval expenditure were as large as in 1809; if Congress should resolve on a permanent increase in the military and naval establishments, additional duties would be requisite; if not, a continuation of the Mediterranean Fund would be sufficient.

But the essence of the report lay in its last paragraph. “Whatever may be the decision of Congress in other respects, there is a subject which seems to require immediate attention. The provisions adopted for the purpose of carrying into effect the non-intercourse with England and France, particularly as modified by the act of last session, under an expectation that the orders of council of Great Britain had been revoked, are inefficient and altogether inapplicable to existing circumstances. It will be sufficient to observe that exportation by land is not forbidden, and that no bonds being required from vessels ostensibly employed in the coasting-trade, nor any authority vested by law which will justify detention, those vessels daily sail for British ports without any other remedy but the precarious mode of instituting prosecutions against the apparent owners. It is unnecessary and it would be painful to dwell on all the effects of those violations of the laws. But without any allusion to the efficiency or political object of any system, and merely with a view to its execution, it is incumbent to state that from the experience of the last two years a perfect conviction arises that either the system of restriction, partially abandoned, must be reinstated in all its parts and with all the provisions necessary for its strict and complete execution, or that all the restrictions, so far at least as they affect the commerce and navigation of the citizens of the United States, ought to be removed.”

1810.

This report, as already said, was sent to Congress on the 8th December, 1809. On the 19th December, Mr. Macon, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, reported a bill which was understood to come from the Treasury Department, and which explained the somewhat obscure suggestion in the last lines of the report. This bill, commonly known as Macon’s bill, No. 1, contained twelve sections. The 1st and 2d excluded English and French ships of war from our harbors; the 3d excluded English and French merchant vessels from our harbors; the 4th restricted all importations of English and French goods to vessels owned wholly by United States citizens; the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th restricted these importations to such as came directly from England and France; the 9th authorized the President to remove these restrictions whenever either England or France should remove theirs; the 11th repealed the old non-intercourse, and the 12th limited the duration of the act to the 4th March, 1810.

The bill was in short a Navigation Act of the most severe kind, and met the orders in council and the French edicts on their own ground. The Federalists at once pointed out that the measure was a violent one; that it would be immediately met by Great Britain with retaliatory measures, and that the result must amount to a new embargo or to war. To this the supporters of the bill replied that government contemplated such retaliation; that it was intended to throw the burden upon England and compel her to carry it; that Congress had tried an embargo, the principle of which was non-exportation; that it had tried non-intercourse, the principle of which was non-importation; and now, since both these had failed, it must try a navigation law that could only be countervailed by restrictive measures to be carried out by England herself.

The fact soon appeared that this bill was a very difficult one for its opponents to deal with; it did in fact strike out the only policy, short of war, which was likely to bring England to terms, and which, according to Mr. Huskisson’s assertion some years later,99 she has always found herself powerless to meet. The opponents of the bill at once showed their embarrassment in a manner which is always proof of weakness; they adopted in the same breath two contradictory arguments; the bill was too strong, and it was too weak. For the Federalists it was too strong; they wished frankly to take sides with England. For Duane and Leib it was too weak, a mean submission, a futile and disgraceful measure; not that they wished war, for they did not as yet venture to take that ground; not that they suggested any practical measure that would stand a moment’s criticism; but that they were decidedly opposed to this special plan. So far as war was concerned, the President was still in advance of Congress, for not only was Macon’s bill a stronger measure than the majority relished, but the President was calling upon Congress to fill up the army and the navy, and Mr. Gallatin was steadily pressing for war taxes.

After more than a month of debate, Macon’s bill passed the House by 73 to 52, and went up to the Senate, where it was consigned to the tender mercies of General Smith and Mr. Giles. On the motion of General Smith, February 21, 1810, all the clauses except the 1st, 2d, and 12th were struck out by a vote of 16 to 11. The Senate debates are not reported, but General Smith subsequently made a speech on the bill, which he printed, and in which he took the ground that the measure was feeble, and that it was so strong as to justify England in confiscating all our trade. This was the ground also taken by the Aurora. General Smith proposed to arm our merchant vessels and furnish them convoy, a measure over and over again rejected. By a vote of 17 to 15 the Senate ultimately adhered to its amendments and killed the bill, Gallatin’s personal enemies deciding the result.

Throughout all this transaction the Secretary of State had acted a curious part. Silent or assenting in the Cabinet, where, notwithstanding rumors to the contrary, there was always apparent cordiality, Mr. Smith’s conversation out-of-doors, and especially with opponents of the Administration, was very free in condemnation of the whole policy which he officially represented.100 No one, indeed, either in or out of the Cabinet, pretended an enthusiastic admiration of Macon’s bill; Mr. Madison, Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Macon himself, only regarded it as “better than nothing,” and “nothing” was the alternative. Congress had put the country into a position equally humiliating, ridiculous, and unprofitable; it had for two sessions refused to follow the Administration and had refused to impose any policy of its own. The influence of General Smith, solitary and unsupported except by Leib and the Aurora faction, now barred the path of legislation and held Congress down to its contemptible and crouching attitude of impotent gesticulation and rant. The Secretary of State was a party to his brother’s acts, and although too dull a man to have any distinct scheme of his own or any depth of intrigue; although obliged to let the President write his official papers and Mr. Gallatin control both his foreign and his domestic policy, he nevertheless used the liberty thus obtained to talk with unreserved freedom both to Federalists and discontented Republicans about the characters of his associates and the contents of his despatches.

Thus the policy of a Navigation Act was defeated, and another year was lost. Only at the very close of the session, when it became apparent that something must be done, Mr. Macon got his bill No. 2 before the House. This was on April 7, and on the 10th he wrote to Nicholson: “I am at a loss to guess what we shall do on the subject of foreign relations. The bill in the enclosed paper, called Macon’s No. 2, is not really Macon’s, though he reports it as chairman. It is in truth Taylor’s. This I only mention to you because when it comes to be debated I shall not act the part of a father but of a step-father.” After a violent struggle between the two Houses, a bill was at length passed, on May 1, 1810, which has strong claims to be considered the most disgraceful act on the American statute-book. It surrendered all resistance to the British and French orders and edicts; it repealed the non-importation law; it left our shipping unprotected to the operation of foreign municipal laws; it offered not even a protest against violence and robbery such as few powerful nations had ever endured except at the edge of the sword; and its only proposition towards these two foreign nations, each of which had exhausted upon us every form of insult and robbery, was an offer that if either would repeal its edicts, the United States would prohibit trade with the other.

The imagination can scarcely conceive of any act more undignified, more cowardly, or, as it proved, more mischievous; but in the utter paralysis into which these party quarrels had now brought Congress, this was all the legislation that could be got, although, in justice to Congress, it is but fair to add that even this was universally contemned. The Administration had nothing to do but to execute it, and to make what it could of the policy it established.

In the contest upon Macon’s bill, Mr. Gallatin had the President’s full support and co-operation. But in another and to him a much more serious struggle he stood quite alone, and all he could obtain from the President was that the Executive influence should not be thrown against him. The charter of the United States Bank was about to expire. In the present condition of the country, with war always in prospect and public and private finances seriously disordered, the bank was an institution almost if not quite indispensable to the Treasury. To abolish it was to create artificially and unnecessarily a very serious financial embarrassment at the moment when the national existence might turn on financial steadiness. To create a new system that would answer the same purposes would be the work of years, and would require the most careful experiments. The subject had been referred to Mr. Gallatin by the Senate, and he had at the close of the last session sent in a report representing in strong language the advantages derived from the bank. He now drew up a bill by which the existing charter was to be considerably modified; the capital raised to thirty millions, three-fifths of which was to be lent to the government; branch banks to be established in each State, and half the directors appointed by the State; with various other provisions intended to secure the utmost possible advantage to the government. Parties at once divided on this question as on the foreign intercourse question, but with a change of sides. The Federalists favored, the old Republicans resisted, the bank, and General Smith resisted Mr. Gallatin. During this session, however, little more was done than to introduce the bills; the matter was then thrown aside until next year.

These subjects, and a hasty report on domestic manufactures, occupied the session almost exclusively, so far as Mr. Gallatin was concerned. When Congress rose, on the 1st May, 1810, every one was obliged to concede that a more futile session had never been held, and the Aurora fulminated against Mr. Gallatin as the cause of all its shortcomings. More and more the different elements of personal discontent made common cause against the Secretary of the Treasury, and before the end of the year 1810 the Aurora and its allies opened a determined assault upon him with the avowed intention of driving him from office.

It was in reference to these attacks, which incessantly recurred to the old stories of 1806, that Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Gallatin as follows:

JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN16 August, 1810.

I have seen with infinite grief the set which is made at you in the public papers, and with the more as my name has been so much used in it. I hope we both know one another too well to receive impression from circumstances of this kind. A twelve years’ intimate and friendly intercourse must be better evidence to each of the dispositions of the other than the letters of foreign ministers to their courts, or tortured inferences from facts true or false. I have too thorough a conviction of your cordial good-will towards me, and too strong a sense of the faithful and able assistance I received from you, to relinquish them on any evidence but of my own senses. With entire confidence in your assurance of these truths I shall add those only of my constant affection and high respect.

“The letters of foreign ministers to their courts” were Mr. Erskine’s despatches of December, 1808, to Mr. Canning, which had been printed in England, and, on reaching America, compelled Mr. Gallatin very reluctantly to make a public denial of their accuracy.101 They represented Mr. Gallatin as acquiescing in the belief that Mr. Jefferson was under French influence. Mr. Gallatin, with the aid of Mr. Madison, drew up a paper correcting Mr. Erskine’s errors, and of course stimulating the attacks of the Aurora. To Mr. Jefferson’s letter Gallatin replied:

GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON10th September, 1810.

I need not say how much shocked I was by Mr. Erskine’s despatch. However reluctant to a newspaper publication and to a denial on matters of fact, I could not permit my name to be ever hereafter quoted in support of the vile charges of foreign partialities ascribed to you, and I knew that in that respect my disavowal would be decisive, for, if my testimony was believed, they did not exist, and if disbelieved, no faith could be placed in whatever I might be supposed to have said to Erskine. Although I never for a moment supposed that either his letter or any newspaper attack could, after so long and intimate acquaintance, create a doubt in your mind of the sincerity and warmth of my sentiments towards you, or alter your friendship for me, the assurance was highly acceptable and gratefully received. The newspaper publications to which you allude, I have heard of, but not seen, having not received the papers south of this place [New York] during my stay here. But I had anticipated that from various quarters a combined and malignant attack would be made whenever a favorable opportunity offered itself. Of the true causes and real authors I will say nothing. And however painful the circumstance and injurious the effect, the esteem of those who know me and the consciousness of having exclusively devoted my faculties to the public good, and of having severely performed public duties without regard to personal consequences, will, I hope, support me against evils for which there is no other remedy. Yet that a diminution of public confidence should lessen my usefulness will be a subject of deep regret.

Meanwhile, the situation of affairs abroad was more and more becoming the measure of American politics, and the question of war or peace was more and more clearly defined as the turning-point of Mr. Gallatin’s life. The exhaustion of the Treasury was alone, for him, a sufficient argument against war. He began to believe, and he was right in believing, that the worst had now passed; that, as America could hardly suffer more humiliation than she had already borne, her objects could perhaps be attained by peaceful methods; and almost mechanically, as the government became impressed with this conviction, the opposition, so far as it was personal, tended to the opposite side, and advocated war. There was no other ground to stand upon, unless they went frankly over to the Federalists, which was rapidly becoming inevitable if they continued their old tactics.

Curiously enough, the feeble and disgraceful law of May 1, 1810, known as Macon’s law, had a more immediate effect on the situation abroad than any of the stronger measures which had been tried. Ever since the repeal of the embargo on March 4, 1809, England had been the favored nation; our people, in fact, gave her our commerce on her own terms, and were glad to do so. Macon’s law did away with even the pretence of resistance to her authority on the ocean. Disgraceful as such a result doubtless was to the honor and dignity of the United States, it was in its effects on France a very vigorous engine, for it was nothing more nor less than taking active part with England against her; and inasmuch as Bonaparte had within his limited range shown, if possible, somewhat more disposition to rob us, and a still greater latitude of personal insult, than had been displayed even by Mr. Canning, this result might fairly be viewed with indifference, or perhaps with some slight satisfaction, by the people of the United States. Upon the Emperor it acted, as with a man of his temper was not unnatural, in a most decided manner; he was furious; he seized all the American property he could get within his clutches; he stormed at the American minister, and heaped outrage upon insult; but the fatal arrow could not be shaken out; random as the shot had been, it struck a vital spot, and Bonaparte had to submit. The change which he was thus forced to make illustrates his character.

When the Act of May 1, 1810, commonly known as Macon’s Act, reached Paris, General Armstrong communicated it inofficially to the minister of foreign affairs, Champagny, Duke de Cadore, who laid it before the Emperor. According to all ordinary theories, the Act of May 1, by which the non-intercourse was repealed, would work against France and against France alone; by it America abandoned even the pretence of resisting the absolute domination of England on the seas, and accepted whatever commercial law she chose to impose. The Emperor, moreover, had no means of counteracting or punishing it. He had already resorted to the strongest measure at his command, and seized all the American vessels he could lay his hands on. These were now waiting condemnation. The next step was war, which would, of course, operate only to the advantage of England. For once Bonaparte was obliged to retrace his steps, or at least affect to do so.

On the 5th August, therefore, the Duke de Cadore wrote to General Armstrong a letter, in which, with the usual effrontery of the imperial government, he took the ground that the Act of May 1 was a concession to France, and that France recognized its obligations. “The Emperor loves the Americans;” the Emperor revoked his decrees of Berlin and Milan, which, after the 1st November next, would cease to have effect, it being understood that, in consequence of this declaration, the English should revoke their orders in council and renounce their new principles of blockade, or that America should carry out the terms of the Act and cause her rights to be respected.

This letter was curious in many ways, but it is to be observed more particularly that while Macon’s law required either belligerent to “so revoke or modify her edicts as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States,” the Emperor as a matter of fact revoked only the Berlin and Milan decrees, and said nothing of others still more offensive, especially the Rambouillet decree, then only four months old, under which he now held and meant to continue holding possession of all the American property in France, – a decree unknown to Congress when the law of May 1 was passed.

Then came the Emperor’s master-stroke, which was to punish the Americans for blundering into success. Long unknown to our government, it was only revealed by accident to Mr. Gallatin when minister to France in 1821, after Napoleon and his decrees had been forgotten by all but the unhappy merchants whom he had plundered. At that time the Duke de Bassano, Napoleon’s Minister of State, had been allowed by the government of Louis XVIII. to return to Paris. He had preserved a register of the various acts and decrees of Napoleon, and was more intimate with their nature and bearing than any one even in the government of that time. To him the claimants sometimes applied for copies of documents to support their memorials, and he furnished them. On one occasion they sought the text of an order by which the proceeds of certain cargoes sequestered at Antwerp were transferred to the Treasury. The Duke furnished what he supposed to be the paper, and it was brought to Mr. Gallatin. The following extract from his despatch of 15th September, 1821, to the Department of State explains what this paper was, and what his sensations were in regard to it.