The Life of Albert Gallatin

ALBERT GALLATIN TO JAMES GALLATINLondon, 29th January, 1827.

… I do not understand [in your letter] what relates to Mr. Clay’s letter and mine on colonial intercourse, and why they should be brought in competition. They were written for different purposes, mine in defence of the general ground taken by America and of her claims on that subject, addressed, too, to Mr. Canning, and on that account more guarded and cautious; that of Mr. Clay principally in defence of the conduct of the Administration on the subject since he came in office, and written without apprehension that it might be answered. I was but indifferently satisfied with my own or with the cause I had to contend for; and that of Mr. Clay, though too long and too hastily written, was better than I had expected. He has great talent, and has vastly improved since 1814. His fault is that he is devoured with ambition, and in all his acts never can detach himself and their effect on his popularity from the subject on which he is called to act. But whilst serving in his Department it is unpleasant to be placed in opposition to him.

J. Q. ADAMS TO GALLATIN.164Washington, 20th March, 1827.

Dear Sir, – I have received from you several very kind and friendly letters, for which the unremitted pressure of public business during the session of Congress has not permitted me to make the due return of acknowledgment. The march of time, which stays not for the convenience or the humors of men, has closed the existence of that body for the present, and they have left our relations with Great Britain precisely where they were.

The sudden and unexpected determination of the British government to break off all negotiation concerning the colonial trade, and the contemporaneous measure of interdicting the vessels of the United States from all their ports in the West Indies, as well as many others, has taken us so much by surprise that a single short session of Congress has not been sufficient to mature the system by which we may most effectively meet this new position assumed by the colonial monopoly of Great Britain…

From the state of your negotiation upon the other subjects of interest in discussion between the two governments, as exhibited in your latest despatches and letters, there is little encouragement to expect a satisfactory result regarding them. There are difficulties in the questions themselves, – difficulties still more serious in the exorbitant pretensions of Great Britain upon every point, – difficulties, to all appearances, insuperable in the temper which Great Britain now brings into the management of the controversy. For the causes of this present soreness of feeling we must doubtless look deeper than to the report of a committee of our House of Representatives or to the assertion by the late President that the American continents were no more subject to future colonization from Europe. As the assertion of this principle is an attitude which the American hemisphere must assume, it is one which no European has the right to question; and if the inference drawn from it of danger to existing colonies has any foundation, it can only be on the contingency of a war, which we shall by all possible means avoid. As to the report of Mr. Baylies, if Mr. Canning has not enough upon his hands to soothe the feelings of foreign nations for what he says in Parliament himself, he would think it passing strange to be called to account for offences of that character committed by Mr. Brougham or Mr. Hume. He surely cannot be so ill informed of the state of things existing here as not to know that Mr. Baylies is not the man by whom the sentiments or opinions of this or of the last Administration of the government of the United States were or are wont to be expressed. The origin, rise, and progress of this “Oregon Territory Committee,” of which Mr. Baylies became at last the chairman, is perhaps not known even to you; but you may remember it was the engine by means of which Mr. Jonathan Russell’s famous duplicate letter was brought before the House of Representatives and the nation, and that incident will give you a clue to the real purposes for which that committee was raised and to the spirit manifested in the report of Mr. Baylies.

Upon the whole, if the same inflexible disposition which you have found prevailing upon the subject of the colonial trade, and of which indications so distinct have been given upon the boundary questions and the navigation of the St. Lawrence, should continue unabated, our last resource must be to agree upon the renewal for ten years of the Convention of 1818. This would probably now obtain the advice and consent of the Senate for ratification. On the colonial trade question the opposition here have taken the British side, and their bill in the Senate was concession unqualified but by a deceptive show of future resistance. But you must not conclude that the same spirit would be extended to anything in the shape of concession which you might send to us in a treaty. One inch of ground yielded on the northwest coast, – one step backward from the claim to the navigation of the St. Lawrence, – one hair’s-breadth of compromise upon the article of impressment, would be certain to meet the reprobation of the Senate. In this temper of the parties, all we can hope to accomplish will be to adjourn controversies which we cannot adjust, and say to Britain, as the Abbé Bernis said to Cardinal Fleuri: Monseigneur, j’attendrai.

Your instructions will be forwarded in season that you may be subjected to no delay in bringing the negotiation to an issue; but I regret exceedingly the loss to the public of your continued services. The political and commercial system of Great Britain is undergoing great changes. It will certainly not stop at the stage where it now stands. The interdicting order in council of last July itself has the air of a start backwards by Mr. Huskisson from his own system to the old navigation laws. His whole system is experimental against deep-rooted prejudice and a delusion of past experience. I could earnestly have wished that it might have been consistent with your views to remain a year or two longer in England, and I should have indulged a hope that in the course of that time some turn in the tide of affairs might have occurred which would have enabled us, with your conciliatory management of debatable concerns, to place our relations with Great Britain upon a more stable and friendly foundation.

As though to annoy Mr. Gallatin with indefinite difficulties and delays, a prolonged Cabinet crisis now occurred. Lord Liverpool died suddenly in February, 1827, and the King had to decide whether his authority was sufficient to sustain Mr. Canning as Prime Minister against the personal isolation in which the temper, rather than the social position, of that remarkable man placed him. On the 28th April, Mr. Gallatin wrote to Mr. Clay: “At the dinner of the 23d, Mr. Canning came near Baron Humboldt and me, and told us, ‘You see that the opinion universally entertained abroad, and very generally indeed in England, that this government is an Aristocracy, is not true. It is’ said he, emphatically, ‘a Monarchy. The Whigs had found it out in 1784, when they tried to oppose the King’s prerogative of choosing his Prime Minister. The Tories have now repeated the same experiment, and with no greater success.’ He appears certainly very confident, and speaks of any intended opposition in Parliament as if he had no fear of it.” Then Mr. Huskisson, who was the chief commissioner on the English side, was forced to go abroad for his health. Mr. Grant took Mr. Huskisson’s place. Under the steady influence of Mr. Gallatin’s conciliatory course and of his strong arguments, the British Ministry, pressed as they were by absorbing contests at home, tended towards a better disposition, and, although they still adhered with determination to those points upon which they had committed themselves, they proved more compliant upon others. This tendency was rather hastened than retarded by the death of Mr. Canning in August, and the elevation of Lord Goderich to the post of Prime Minister. The tone of Mr. Gallatin’s letters to Mr. Clay became more cheerful. On the 6th August, after much discussion, a treaty was signed which continued the commercial convention of 1815 indefinitely, leaving either party at liberty to abrogate it at twelve months’ notice. On the same day another convention was signed by which the joint use of the disputed Oregon territory, as defined in the 3d Article of the convention of 1818, was also indefinitely continued, subject likewise to abrogation at twelve months’ notice. Finally, on the 29th September, a new convention was signed providing for the reference of the disputed Maine boundary to a friendly sovereign.

This accomplished, Mr. Gallatin hastened homewards, and, after a passage of fifty-two days, arrived in New York on the 30th November.

J. Q. ADAMS TO GALLATINWashington, December 12, 1827.

Dear Sir, – I have received your obliging letter from New York, and, although it would give me great pleasure to see you here, I know not that any material public interest will require your presence. Your three conventions were sent yesterday to the Senate for their consideration. In what light they will view them I cannot yet foresee. I wish they may prove as satisfactory to them as they are to me.

I regret exceedingly for the public interest that you found yourself under the necessity of coming home. At the time of your arrival in England, although I do not believe they had a deliberate purpose of coming to a rupture with us, they were undoubtedly in a waspish temper, and Mr. Canning had determined to play off upon us one of his flourishes for effect. He had been laying up a stock of resentments, for which he was hoping to expose us to public and open humiliation. I believe that which most rankled in his mind was the disappointment of the slave-trade convention, though he said perhaps not a word to you about it.

But, whatever it was, your convention upon the slave indemnities first turned the tide of feeling and soothed irritations on both sides. You gained an ascendency over him by suffering him to fancy himself victorious on some points, by the forbearance to expose too glaringly his absurdities, and his position, from the time of Lord Liverpool’s political demise, warned him that he had enemies enough upon his hands without seeking this querelle d’Allemand with us.

Nothing can be more preposterous than their obstinacy upon this colonial trade squabble; and you had not set your foot on board ship before they began to grow sick of it. A hurricane had already burst upon the island of St. Kitts and the Virgin Isles. They have now by proclamation opened the Bahama Islands, for vessels in ballast to go and take salt and fruit, and on the 31st of October Mr. Grant told Mr. Lawrence that he regretted you had not settled this affair as satisfactorily as the others. Lord Dudley also admires the great ability of your last note on the subject. These are among the indications not only that their experiment of supplying their islands without us is failing, but that they begin to feel it. I believe had you stayed over the winter, they would have come to our terms upon this affair before another summer. Whether they would promote our own interest so well as the present condition of things, remains, as it always has been, a more doubtful point to me.

The North-Eastern boundary question is far otherwise important to us than that of the colonial trade, – so important as to give me the deepest concern. I hope your convention will have the approbation of the Senate, and that the sequel will be satisfactory to us. We shall want the benefit of your information and of your advice.

There are so many of these breakers close aboard of us that I have lost some of my concern for the distant danger of impressment. Mr. Canning was so fond of creating worlds that, under his administration, the turn of a straw would have plunged Great Britain into a war with any nation upon earth. His successors will be more prudent, and I hope more pacific. If they should engage in a war to which we shall be in the first instance neutral, I doubt whether they will authorize their officers to impress beyond their own territorial jurisdiction. I would not lose any opportunity of coming to an arrangement with them to abolish this odious practice, but I am weary of renewing with them desperate discussions upon it.

1828.

Altogether, if your conventions are ratified, I shall indulge a strong hope that our relations with Great Britain generally will become more friendly than they have lately been. But I know only that I shall feel most sensibly the loss of your presence at London, and can form no more earnest wish than that your successor may acquire the same influence of reason and good temper which you did exercise, and that it may be applied with as salutary effect to the future discussions between the two governments.

I remain, with great respect and attachment, your friend.

With this letter of President Adams the story of Mr. Gallatin’s diplomatic career may fitly close. Such evidence leaves nothing to be said in regard to his qualities as a diplomate. In that career he stood first among the men of his time. He never again returned to Europe, and henceforward his public life may be considered as ended.

He had, however, still one duty to perform. The President, unable to persuade him to remain in London, requested him to prepare on the part of the United States government the argument in regard to the North-Eastern boundary, which was to be submitted to the King of the Netherlands as arbitrator. This excessively tedious and laborious duty occupied all his time for the next two years, and resulted in a bulky volume, which may be found among our public documents. While preparing it he was obliged to pass a portion of his time in Washington, where he found politics less and less to his taste. The election of 1828 terminated the long sway of the old Republican party, and if what he saw about him had not convinced Mr. Gallatin that his opinions and methods belonged to a past era, instinct must have taught him that his career and that of his party had best close together.

GALLATIN TO HIS WIFEWashington, 16th December, 1828.1829.

… I have used every possible endeavor to terminate our business earlier than the day on which it must necessarily be concluded; I have attended to nothing else, and owe now thirty and more visits, yet I do not expect to have done before the 1st of January. I cannot rise early, the days are short, the details very complex, new materials coming in to the last moment, a great mass of papers to read, selections to make, several transcribers and draughtsmen to direct, and, independent of age, the whole much retarded by my being obliged to abstain from writing. Yet, though I have not worked so hard, the use of the pen excepted, since I was in the Treasury, I continue to enjoy perfect health… Notwithstanding their triumphant majority, the prospect of the conquering party is not very flattering. The object which alone united them is accomplished, and they dare not now approach the tariff or any other measure of importance on which they would immediately divide and break off. Nor is there any man around whom they can rally, the pretensions being numerous and discordant. The state of politics is better in reference to the external relations of the country than during the existence of the Federal and Republican parties; but it is truly deplorable with respect to the internal concerns of the nation…

GALLATIN TO BADOLLETNew York, March 26, 1829.

I duly received, my dear friend, your letter of 10th January last, and it would have been immediately answered had not an accident deprived me of the use of my right hand. Rest has now partly restored it; but I am compelled to employ generally an amanuensis, and to write myself only on special occasions…

I hope that, with your moderate wants, you find yourself now comparatively at ease. After much anxiety, I find that our children must be left to cut their own way and to provide for themselves; and I have no other uneasiness respecting them than so far as concerns their health, that of Albert and Frances being extremely delicate, so much so, indeed, as may perhaps compel me to change once more my place of residence for one more southerly and favorable to their lungs. With great indolence and an anxious wish to be rooted somewhere, I was destined to be always on the wing. It was an ill-contrived plan to think that the banks of the Monongahela, where I was perfectly satisfied to live and die in retirement, could be borne by the female part of my family or by children brought up at Washington and Paris, and, unfortunately for them, in an artificial situation which has produced expectations that can never be realized. Albert was the only one who was happy, and I was obliged to break up a comfortable establishment and to attempt a new one in one of our seaports with means inadequate to our support. Particular circumstances have made Baltimore, which was my choice, objectionable in some respects; and on my return from England, in conformity with the natural wishes of my wife, whose respectable mother, aged eighty-five, is still alive, I settled here. What I may now do is quite uncertain. To Washington I must proceed in a few days on the business of the North-East boundary, which is committed to my care, and will be detained there till the 1st of July. I must add that my public engagements in relation to that important question will cease with the end of this year.

I am not pleased with the present aspect of public affairs, still less with that of the public mind. Perhaps old age makes me querulous. I care little what party and who is in power; but it seems to me that now and for the last eight years people and leaders have been much less anxious about the public service and the manner in which it should be performed than by whom the country should be governed. This feeling appears to me to be growing; and at this moment every movement seems already to be directed towards the next Presidential election, and that not on account of any preference of a system of public measures over another, but solely in relation to persons, or at best to sectional feelings. Amongst other symptoms displeasing to me, I may count the attempt of the West, and particularly of your State, to claim the sovereignty and exclusive right to the public lands. I wish they did of right belong to the several States and not to the United States. But the claim is contrary to positive compact and to common justice, any departure from which, either in our domestic or external policy, is the most fatal injury that can be inflicted on our political institutions, on the reputation of the country, and indeed on the preservation of the Union. But we are going off the scene; I think that we have discharged our duties honestly, and the next generation must provide for itself…

For one moment, however, it seemed possible that Mr. Gallatin might again be employed abroad. The King of the Netherlands could not be expected to arbitrate without assistance and advice, and it was peculiarly important that Mr. Gallatin should be at hand for that purpose. Mr. Van Buren’s conscience appears to have been somewhat tender on the subject of Mr. Gallatin since the secret manipulation of the Vice-Presidency in 1824; and after General Jackson had been chosen President in November, 1828, and events had marked out Mr. Van Buren as highly influential with him, that gentleman seems to have intimated that he considered Mr. Gallatin to have claims upon his good-will. Mr. Gallatin’s eldest son was then eager for a diplomatic position, and his father authorized him to tell Mr. Van Buren, and later wrote himself to say, that he would accept the mission to France, if offered to him, although he was not willing to return to England or even to be Secretary of State. Unfortunately, Mr. Van Buren soon found that he had no power to dispose of his patronage as Secretary, and in the frightful chaos which followed the inauguration of General Jackson the old servants of the government instantly saw that new principles and new practices left no place for them in the national service.

GALLATIN TO HIS WIFEWashington, 2d May, 1829.

… I have made more progress this week than all the time since my arrival. I was not very well, and felt dispirited. My cold has now entirely left me, and I can see as through a vista the end of my labors… After next week most of the writing will be over and my hand may rest; but there will be correcting, altering, collating maps and evidence, &c. You call me a pack-horse, but I am used to it, and might, as relates to the public, have taken for my motto, Sic vos non vobis… I will be more than delighted to see Frances, if she can come… As to beaux, I know of none but Van Buren, and he is, I think, a little crestfallen…

16th May, 1829.

… I have this day finished dictating to Albert our argument, – two hundred pages of his writing. Mr. Preble promises to return the whole to me on Monday with his proposed emendations, which will not be either long or important; and I hope to have it ready for the President’s inspection by Tuesday… In giving my love to Maria, tell her that she and Miss Harrison must be out of their senses to think that I can have any influence in placing a clerk or do anything else here; but … upon every occasion I have freely expressed my entire disapprobation of the system of removal for political opinions, particularly as applied to clerks, inspectors, &c., of which there had been no instance since the commencement of this government…

23d May, 1829.

… Our argument is in the press, and I have every reason to believe that we will have terminated all that remains to be done for the present by the 1st of next month. I am well, though weak, and you need not fear for me the effect of the Washington climate either physically or politically. There are some things to which I am used, and which do not affect me much or long. Was I not postponed to make room for Robert Smith, even when in my prime and with Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison to sustain me? And most certainly, whatever may be the claims of age and services, I had none whatever on the present Administration. Age, also, so advanced as mine, is not a recommendation; and we must make room for younger men…

Washington, 8th November, 1829.

… We came here without accident… I work as much as, but not more than, I can well go through, but my progress is slow; our statement will be nearly as long as one volume of Frances’s novels, and it is no trifling task to execute a piece of close reasoning and condensed facts of that length, which is ultimately intended for the public eye and will be a national and perhaps a public European paper. I do not mean to let it go to the press till corrected and made as faultless as I can, and am more afraid of a failure in the style than in the matter… We dined yesterday at the President’s. He is very cordial, and did unbend himself entirely. I have avoided every allusion to myself, his Cabinet, and the removals. I am told, by one who ought to know, that the Cabinet is divided, Ingham, Branch, and Berrien being the moderate party. I suppose that the division at present is only as to removals, but with an eye to the next Presidential election; and I do not know whether we must not become Jacksonites in preference to intended successors. Van Buren is gone to Richmond to court Virginia…

29th November, 1829.

… I got a cold last Tuesday… The weather was so bad that I thought it best to keep in the house… I have lost two dinners by my confinement, one at Mr. – and the other at the President’s, where Albert went. This was a splendid affair; the East room, which, notwithstanding the abuse of Mr. Adams, was but an unfurnished barn, is, under our more Republican Administration, besides the Brussels carpeting and silk curtains, &c., adorned with four immense French looking-glasses, the largest Albert ever saw, and, by the by, not necessary in a dining-room; three splendid English crystal chandeliers, &c. Fifty guests sitting at dinner, one hundred candles and lamps, silver plate of every description, &c., and for a queen, Peggy O’Neal,165 led in by Mr. Vaughan as the head of the Diplomatic Corps, and sitting between him and the President. All which I mention that, having had with me your share of the vanities and grandeurs of this world, you may be quite satisfied that we were not indebted for them to any particular merit of ours; and that the loss of popularity, which we perhaps regret too much (for as to the vanities I know that you care no more about them than I do), is no more an object of astonishment than the manner in which it is acquired…