The Life of Albert Gallatin

The negotiation did not close without its inevitable accompaniment of discord.154 Mr. Adams, who commonly recorded all his own sins of temper with conscientious self-reproach, seems in this case to have thought Mr. Gallatin at fault, and accuses him of speaking in a peremptory and somewhat petulant manner against a point of form in which Mr. Adams was undoubtedly right. The charge may very possibly be in this instance correct. The whole matter was trivial, so far as the dispute was concerned, and, like all these diplomatic irritations, had no lasting effect except to associate in Mr. Gallatin’s mind the recollection of Mr. Adams with ideas of deplorable wrong-headedness. This was not necessarily a correct conclusion, and Mr. Adams was naturally led to retaliate by thinking Mr. Gallatin tortuous. In point of fact, Mr. Adams was but one representative of a common New England type, little understood beyond the borders of that province; a type which, with an indurated exterior, was sinewy and supple to the core. The true Yankee wrested from man and from nature all he could get by force, but when force was exhausted he could be as pliable as his neighbors. In the present case, Mr. Adams attempted an experiment of this kind at the risk of some personal inconvenience to Mr. Gallatin. The nearly futile negotiation had detained Gallatin and Clay in England much beyond their intention; meanwhile, Bayard and Crawford, on June 18, had sailed in the Neptune, leaving their two companions to get home as they best could. It was now the 2d of July, and the treaty was waiting to be signed, when Mr. Adams made in the final draft some changes of form, which were certainly proper as a matter of national dignity, but which threatened to create further delay. This appears for a moment to have disturbed Gallatin’s equanimity; but Mr. Adams carried his point, Mr. Robinson made no difficulty, and the disagreement ended by Gallatin saying to Adams: “Well, they got over the transpositions very easily; but you would not have found it so if Dr. Adams had had the reading of your copy instead of Robinson.” “I said, that might be,” was Mr. Adams’s final entry.

That evening Mr. Gallatin dined for the last time during these negotiations with Mr. Alexander Baring, now and ever afterwards his warm friend, who had done more than any other man in England, or perhaps, with one exception, even in America, to hasten the peace, and who had, with the knowledge and consent of his own government, rendered very important financial assistance even while the war was going on. There had been much social entertainment in London, part of which is recorded in Mr. Adams’s Diary; but the only English friend Mr. Gallatin ever made whose society he greatly enjoyed, and whose character he deeply respected, was Mr. Baring.

On July 4, Mr. Gallatin began his homeward journey, and, after the usual delays, he reached America early in September. On the 4th of that month he wrote from New York to President Madison: “I received the account of my appointment to France with pleasure and gratitude, as an evidence of your undiminished friendship and of public satisfaction for my services. Whether I can or will accept, I have not yet determined. The season will be far advanced for taking Mrs. Gallatin across the Atlantic, and I have had no time to ascertain what arrangements, if any, I can make for my children and private business during a second absence. The delay has been rather advantageous to the public, as it was best to have no minister at Paris during the late events.”

GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON6th September, 1815.

I was much gratified by the receipt of your kind letter of March last, brought by Mr. Ticknor. Your usual partiality to me is evinced by the belief that our finances might have been better directed if I had remained in the Treasury. But I always thought that our war expenses were so great; perhaps necessarily so in proportion to the ordinary resources of the country; and the opposition of the moneyed men so inveterate, that it was impossible to avoid falling into a paper system if the war should be much longer protracted. I only regret that specie payments were not resumed on the return of peace. Whatever difficulties may be in the way, they cannot be insuperable, provided the subject be immediately attended to. If delayed, private interest will operate here as in England, and lay us under the curse of a depreciated and fluctuating currency. In every other respect I must acknowledge that the war has been useful. The character of America stands now as high as ever on the European Continent, and higher than ever it did in Great Britain. I may say that we are favorites everywhere except at courts, and even there, although the Emperor of Russia is perhaps the only sovereign who likes us, we are generally respected and considered as the nation designed to check the naval despotism of England. France, which alone can have a navy, will, under her present dynasty, be for some years a vassal of her great rival, and the mission with which I have been honored is in a political view unimportant. The revolution has not, however, been altogether useless. There is a visible improvement in the agriculture of the country and the situation of the peasantry. The new generation belonging to that class, freed from the petty despotism of nobles and priests, and made more easy in their circumstances by the abolition of tithes and by the equalization of taxes, have acquired an independent spirit, and are far superior to their fathers in intellect and information. They are not republicans, and are still too much dazzled by military glory, but I think that no monarch or ex-nobles can hereafter oppress them long with impunity.

The first question that pressed for an answer regarded the mission to France, but behind this a more serious subject presented itself; Mr. Gallatin must now decide what provision he could make for his children. This anxiety weighed upon his mind and caused much anxious thought and much hesitation in his conclusions. Fortunately, he had but the trouble of choice. In the course of a few months, one by one, the doors of every avenue to distinction or wealth were thrown open to him. The mission to France came first, and this, on the 23d November, he declined, alleging as his reason the private duties which required his attention to the interests of his children. Meanwhile, on the 23d September, 1815, Richard Bache wrote to him from Philadelphia, as follows: “A number of the conferees appointed to nominate a Democratic candidate to represent this district in the next Congress having met together last evening, it was unanimously agreed to nominate you, should you consent to serve… We all anxiously hope that it will be consistent with your views to stand as a candidate, and we assure you that we are confident of success.”

If ambition were his object, this invitation opened to Mr. Gallatin the path to Congress, and a seat in the Senate might reasonably be assumed as standing not far in the distance. Mr. Gallatin’s reply was written the next day: “I am more gratified by the mark of confidence given me by the Republican conferees of the Philadelphia district than I can express. But I cannot serve them in the station with which they would honor me. My property is not half sufficient to support me anywhere but in the western country. To my private business and to making arrangements for entering into some active business I must necessarily and immediately attend. It is a duty I owe to my family.”

A few days later, on the 9th October, his friend Mr. John Jacob Astor wrote him a long letter proposing that he should become a partner in Mr. Astor’s commercial house. He had, he said, at that time a capital of about $800,000 engaged in trade. He estimated his probable profits at from $50,000 to $100,000 per annum, interest and all expenses deducted. “I propose to give you an interest of one-fifth, on which I mean to charge you the legal interest; if you put any funds to the stock, interest will be allowed to you of course.”

On the 4th December, Mr. Monroe wrote to him: “To your other letter I have felt a repugnance to give a reply. We have been long in the public service together, engaged in support of the same great cause, have acted in harmony, and it is distressing to me to see you withdraw. I will write you again on this subject soon.” He did write again, on the 16th, urging new reasons why Mr. Gallatin should accept the French mission. To this letter Mr. Gallatin made the following reply:

GALLATIN TO MONROENew York, 26th December, 1815.1816.

Dear Sir, – I have received your friendly letters of 4th and 16th instant, and have a grateful sense of the motives which dictated them. I can assure you that I feel a great reluctance to part with my personal and political friends, and that every consideration merely personal to myself and detached from my family urges a continuance in public life. My habits are formed and cannot be altered. I feel alive to everything connected with the interest, happiness, and reputation of the United States. Whatever affects unfavorably either of them makes me more unhappy than any private loss or inconvenience. Although I have nothing to do with it, the continued suspension of specie payments, which I consider as a continued unnecessary violation of the public faith, occupies my thoughts more than any other subject. I feel as a passenger in a storm, – vexed that I cannot assist. This I understand to be very generally the feeling of every statesman out of place. Be this as it may, although I did and do believe that for the present at least I could not be of much public utility in France, I did in my private letter to the President place my declining on the ground of private considerations. In that respect my views are limited to the mere means of existence without falling in debt I do not wish to accumulate any property. I will not do my family the injury of impairing the little I have. My health is frail; they may soon lose me, and I will not leave them dependent on the bounty of others. Was I to go to France, and my compensation and private income (this last does not exceed $2500 a year) did not enable me to live as I ought, I must live as I can. I ask your forgiveness for entering in those details, but you have treated me as a friend, and I write to you as such. You have from friendship wished that I would reconsider my first decision, and I will avail myself of the permission. It will be understood that in the mean while, if the delay is attended with any public inconvenience, a new appointment may immediately take place. My motive for writing when I did was a fear that, specially with respect to other missions, the belief that I would go to France might induce the President to make different arrangements from those he would have adopted on a contrary supposition.

On the 27th January, 1816, Mr. Monroe replied by again urging Mr. Gallatin to accept, and pressing for a quick decision. On the 2d February Mr. Gallatin wrote his final acceptance.

GALLATIN TO JEFFERSONWashington, 1st April, 1816.

… After what I had written to you you could hardly have expected that I would have accepted the French mission. It was again offered to me in so friendly a manner and from so friendly motives that I was induced to accept. Nor will I conceal that I did not feel yet old enough, or had I philosophy enough, to go into retirement and abstract myself altogether from public affairs. I have no expectation, however, that in the present state of France I can be of any utility there, and hope that I will not make a long stay in that country…

Mr. Gallatin, like most men, had the faculty of deceiving himself. In writing these lines, he was so inconsistent as to ignore the fact that he had already refused to return to public life on the ground that he must provide for his family. He was driven into still greater inconsistencies a few days later.

MADISON TO GALLATINWashington, April 12, 1816.

Dear Sir, – Mr. Dallas has signified to me that, it being his intention not to pass another winter in Washington, he has thought it his duty to give me an opportunity of selecting a successor during the present session of Congress; intimating a willingness, however, to remain, if desired, in order to put the National Bank in motion.

Will it be most agreeable to you to proceed on your mission to France, or are you willing again to take charge of a department heretofore conducted by you with so much reputation and usefulness, on the resignation of Mr. Dallas, which will, it is presumed, take effect about the 1st of October? In the latter case it will be proper that a nomination be forthwith made for the foreign appointment. Favor me with your determination as soon as you can make it convenient, accepting in the mean time my affectionate respects.

There could be no possible doubt that in this case ambition and public duty went hand in hand. If Mr. Gallatin still felt a passion for power, or still thought himself able to do good, this was his opportunity. His warm friend Joseph H. Nicholson wrote at once with all his old impetuosity to urge his acceptance.

JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO GALLATIN13th April, 1816.

My dear Sir, – I have this moment learned that Dallas is certainly going out. For God’s sake come into the Treasury again. I think you must be satisfied that you can if you will; and I am satisfied, and so is all the world, that you can be infinitely more useful there than in France, where you have nothing to gain and may lose. I think you will be looked to for the Treasury by all parties except Duane’s.

GALLATIN TO MADISONNew York, April 18, 1816.

Dear Sir, – Your letter of the 12th reached me only the day before yesterday, and, not willing to make a hasty decision, I have delayed an answer till to-day. I feel very grateful for your kind offer, which I know to have been equally owing to your friendship for me and to your views of public utility. I decline it with some reluctance, because I think I would be more useful at home than abroad, and I had much rather be in America than in Europe. The reasons which induce me nevertheless to decline, under existing circumstances, preponderate. With these I do not mean to trouble you, and will only mention that, although competent as I think to the higher duties of office, there is for what I conceive a proper management of the Treasury a necessity for a mass of mechanical labor connected with details, forms, calculations, &c., which, having now lost sight of the thread and routine, I cannot think of again learning and going through. I know that in that respect there is now much confusion due to the changes of office and the state of the currency, and I believe that an active young man can alone reinstate and direct properly that department. I may add that I have made a number of arrangements founded on the expectation of the French mission, of a short residence there, and of a last visit to my Geneva relations, which could not be undone without causing inconvenience to me and disappointment to others. Accept my grateful thanks and the assurance of my constant and sincere attachment and respect.

Your obedient servant.

This letter shows rather a wish to find excuses than a faith in the weight of those alleged. There was clearly no weight in them such as could justify Mr. Gallatin’s refusal; had he accepted the Treasury he would probably have held it twelve years, unless he had himself chosen to retire, for although he appears rather to have favored the candidacy of Mr. Tompkins, of New York, than of Mr. Monroe, for the succession to President Madison, this probably indicated merely his unwillingness to exhaust public patience with indefinite Virginia supremacy, and did not imply hostility to Monroe, who would doubtless have retained him in the Cabinet, and to whom he would have been far more acceptable than the actual Secretary, William H. Crawford. Gallatin, too, would have made a much better Secretary than Crawford, and Mr. Monroe would have been spared most of the political intrigue in his Cabinet that caused him such incessant vexation; the national finances would have been better managed, and Mr. Gallatin would have enjoyed the triumph of restoring specie payments, practically extinguishing the national debt, and possibly carrying out his schemes for internal improvement.

On the other hand, one evident fact sufficiently explains why he was unwilling to resume his old post. The signature of the treaty of Ghent, on the 25th December, 1814, had closed one great epoch in his life, and, looking back from that stand-point upon the events of his political career, he could not avoid some very unpleasant conclusions. Riper, wiser, and infinitely more experienced than in 1800, Gallatin had still lost qualities which, to a politician, were more important than either experience, wisdom, or maturity. He had outgrown the convictions which had made his strength; he had not, indeed, lost confidence in himself, for, throughout all his trials and disappointments, the tone of his mind had remained as pure as when he began life, and he had never forfeited his self-respect; but he had lost something which, to his political success, was even more necessary; that sublime confidence in human nature which had given to Mr. Jefferson and his party their single irresistible claim to popular devotion. His statesmanship had become, what practical statesmanship always has and must become, a mere struggle to deal with concrete facts at the cost of philosophic and a priori principles. Gallatin, like Madison and Monroe, like Clay and Calhoun, had outgrown the Jeffersonian dogmas. There was no longer any great unrealized conviction on which to build enthusiasm; and even on those questions which were likely to arise, Mr. Gallatin was rather in sympathy with his old opponents than with his old friends or his old self. The following letter could hardly have been written in 1801 by Mr. Gallatin or received by Matthew Lyon.

GALLATIN TO MATTHEW LYONNew York, May 7, 1816.

… The war has been productive of evil and good, but I think the good preponderates. Independent of the loss of lives and of the losses in property by individuals, the war has laid the foundation of permanent taxes and military establishments which the Republicans had deemed unfavorable to the happiness and free institutions of the country. But under our former system we were becoming too selfish, too much attached exclusively to the acquisition of wealth, above all, too much confined in our political feelings to local and State objects. The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessened. The people have now more general objects of attachment with which their pride and political opinions are connected. They are more Americans; they feel and act more as a nation, and I hope that the permanency of the Union is thereby better secured… I have lost three old friends: Mr. Savary, Thomas Clare, and Mr. Smilie.

He had come into office in 1801, with power more complete than he could ever hope to enjoy again; his aims and his methods had been pure, unselfish, and noble; yet he had been the sport of faction and the victim of bitter personal hatred. He had no fancy for repeating the experience. Moreover, there was no longer any essential disagreement among the people in regard to political dogmas. Federalists and Republicans had fused their theories into a curious compound, of which this letter to Matthew Lyon gives an idea, and upon the ground thus formed all parties were now glad to unite, at least for a time. There remained no sufficient force, perhaps no sufficient prejudice, to overbalance the natural tendency of Mr. Gallatin’s mind towards science and repose.

The seven years he passed in Paris were the most agreeable years of his life. Far the best diplomatist in the service, he was indispensable to his government, and was incessantly employed in all its most difficult negotiations, so far as they could be brought within his reach. Conscious of his peculiar fitness for diplomacy, weary of domestic intrigue, and indifferent to the possession of power, he dismissed his early ambitions and political projects not only without regret, but with positive relief.

GALLATIN TO MADISONNew York, 7th June, 1816.

… I am urging the captain of the Peacock, and still hope that he will be ready to sail the day after to-morrow. I almost envy you the happy time which you will spend this summer in Orange, and which will not, I hope, be disturbed by any untoward change in our affairs. I think that, upon the whole, we have nothing to apprehend at this time from any foreign quarter. You already know how thoroughly impressed I am with the necessity of restoring specie payments. This subject will not disturb you in the country, but the present state of the currency is the only evil of any magnitude entailed by the war, and which it seems incumbent on us (pardon the expression) to cure radically. Public credit, private convenience, the sanctity of contracts, the moral character of the country, appear all to be involved in that question, and I feel the most perfect conviction that nothing but the will of government is wanted to reinstate us in that respect. The choice of the Secretary of the Treasury is, under those circumstances, important, and I am sorry that Mr. Crawford, as I am informed, has declined the appointment. I wish it may fall on Mr. Lowndes or on Mr. Calhoun. Our Maryland and Pennsylvania politicians, without excepting some of the most virtuous and whom I count amongst my best friends, are paper-tainted. The disease extends, though more particularly to this State.

I beg you to forgive this digression on a subject which I had no intention to touch when I began this letter.

On the 9th July, Mr. Gallatin, now accompanied by all his family, arrived in Paris. There he remained until June, 1823. During these seven years his connection with American politics was almost absolutely severed. His only political correspondent was Mr. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, who wrote him long and confidential letters, little calculated to excite in Mr. Gallatin the slightest desire to share in the political game. Indeed, politics had now become so exclusively a game in the United States, all vestige of party principles and all trace of deep convictions had so entirely vanished, that a statesman of the old school had no longer a place in public life. Petty factions grouped themselves about Crawford, Clay, Adams, Calhoun, De Witt Clinton, and General Jackson, and political action was regulated by antipathies rather than by public interest. If any one of these leaders seemed to be gaining an advantage, the followers of all the others combined to pull him down. Mr. Crawford’s correspondence dealt largely in matters of this sort, and Mr. Gallatin was familiar enough with the style of intrigue to feel himself happy in escaping it.

1817.

If there was little to regret at Washington, there was much to enjoy in Paris. There Mr. Gallatin’s position was peculiarly enviable. The United States, though a republic, was, in the royalist jargon of the French Court, a “legitimate” government. Its minister held a position which in itself was neither good nor bad, but which was capable of becoming the one or the other, according to the character of the man. In Gallatin’s hands it was excellent. Not only was Mr. Gallatin a man of refinement in manners, tastes, and expression, a man of dignified and persuasive address, such as suited the highly exacting society of Paris under Louis XVIII.; he had a passport much more effective than this to the heart of French society. By family he was one of themselves. In Geneva, indeed, where republican institutions prevailed, there were no titles and no privileges attached to the name of Gallatin; but in France the family had been received as noble centuries since, and Mr. Gallatin had presumedly the right to appear before Louis XVIII. as the Comte de Gallatin, had he chosen to do so. His distant cousin, then minister of the King of Würtemberg at Paris, was, in fact, known as Comte de Gallatin, a royalist and conservative of the purest breed, but closely intimate with and attached to his democratic relative. This accident of noblesse was a matter of peculiar and exceptional importance at this Court, which was itself an accident and an anomaly, a curious fragment of the eighteenth century, floating, a mere wreck, on the turbulent ocean of French democracy. As one of an ancient family whom the Kings of France had from time immemorial recognized as noble, Mr. Gallatin was kindly received at Court; he was somewhat a favorite with the King and the royal family, and it is said that on one occasion Louis, in complimenting him upon his French, maliciously added, “but I think my English is better than yours;” a remark which must have called up in the minds of both a curious instantaneous retrospect and comparison of the circumstances under which they had learned that language, – a retrospect less agreeable to the King, one might suppose, than to Mr. Gallatin. There was another aristocratic tie between the minister and Parisian society. As already shown, Mme. de Staël had established relations with Mr. Gallatin on his first visit to Paris before the negotiations at Ghent. She had been very useful in bringing the Emperor Alexander in contact with American influences. She was herself by birth and residence a Genevan, and a distant relative of the Gallatins. Her daughter was married to the Duke de Broglie in February, 1816, and as a consequence Mr. Gallatin found a new intimacy ready to his hand. American readers of the Memoirs of George Ticknor will remember how much the Spanish historian owed to that intimacy with the Broglies, which he obtained through Mr. Gallatin’s introduction, among others, to Mme. de Staël.