Albert Gallatin
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Title: Albert Gallatin
Author: John Austin Stevens
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Standard Library Edition
AMERICAN STATESMEN
EDITED BY
JOHN T. MORSE, JR.
IN THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES VOL. XIII.
THE JEFFERSONIAN DEMOCRACY
ALBERT GALLATIN
[Illustration: Albert Gallatin]
American Statesmen
STANDARD LIBRARY EDITION
[Illustration: The Home of Albert Gallatin]
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
American Statesmen
ALBERT GALLATIN
BY
JOHN AUSTIN STEVENS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
Copyright, 1883 and 1898,
BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
_All rights reserved._
PREFACE
Every generation demands that history shall be rewritten. This is not
alone because it requires that the work should be adapted to its own
point of view, but because it is instinctively seeking those lines which
connect the problems and lessons of the past with its own questions and
circumstances. If it were not for the existence of lines of this kind,
history might be entertaining, but would have little real value. The
more numerous they are between the present and any earlier period, the
more valuable is, for us, the history of that period. Such
considerations establish an especial interest just at present in the
life of Gallatin.
The Monroe Doctrine has recently been the pivot of American
statesmanship. With that doctrine Mr. Gallatin had much to do, both as
minister to France and envoy to Great Britain. Indeed, in 1818, some
years before the declaration of that doctrine, when the Spanish colonies
of South America were in revolt, he declared that the United States
would not even aid France in a mediation. Later, in May, 1823, six
months before the famous message of President Monroe, Mr. Gallatin had
already uttered its idea; when about leaving Paris, on his return from
the French mission, he said to Chateaubriand, the French minister of
foreign affairs (May 13, 1823): "The United States would undoubtedly
preserve their neutrality, provided it were respected, and avoid any
interference with the politics of Europe.... On the other hand, they
would not suffer others to interfere against the emancipation of
America." With characteristic vanity Canning said that it was he himself
who "called the new world into existence to redress the balance of the
old." Yet precisely this had already for a long while been a cardinal
point of the policy of the United States. So early as 1808, Jefferson,
alluding to the disturbed condition of the Spanish colonies, said: "We
consider their interest and ours as the same, and that the object of
both must be to exclude all European influence in this hemisphere."
Matters of equal interest are involved in the study of Mr. Gallatin's
actions and opinions in matters of finance. Every one knows that he
ranks among the distinguished financiers of the world, and problems
which he had to consider are still agitating the present generation. He
was opposed alike to a national debt and to paper money. Had the
metallic basis of the United States been adequate, he would have
accepted no other circulating medium, and would have consented to the
use of paper money only for purposes of exchange and remittance. In 1830
he urged the restriction of paper money to notes of one hundred dollars
each, which were to be issued by the government. Obviously these must be
used chiefly for transmitting funds, and would be of little use for the
daily transactions of the people. Yet even this concession was due to
the fact that the United States was then a debtor country, and so late
as 1839, as Mr. Gallatin said, "specie was a foreign product." For
subsidiary money he favored silver coins at eighty-five per cent. of the
dollar value, a sufficient alloy to hold them in the country. Silver was
then the circulating medium of the world, the people's pocket money, and
gold was the basis and the solvent of foreign exchanges.
Great interest attaches to the application of some other of Gallatin's
financial principles to more modern problems; and a careful study of his
papers may fairly enable us to form a few conclusions. It may be safely
said that he would not have favored a national bank currency based on
government bonds. This, however, would not have been because of any
objection to the currency itself, but because the scheme would insure
the continuance of a national debt. He was too practical, also, not to
see that the ultimate security is the faith of the government, and that
no filtering of that responsibility through private banks could do
otherwise than injure it. Further, it is reasonably safe to say that he
would favor the withdrawal both of national bank notes and of United
States notes, the greenbacks so-called; and that he would consent to the
use of paper only in the form of certificates directly representing the
precious metals, gold and silver; also that he would limit the use of
silver to its actual handling by the people in daily transactions. He
would feel safe to disregard the fluctuations of the intrinsic value of
silver, when used in this limited way as a subordinate currency, on the
ground that the stamp of the United States was sufficient for conferring
the needed value, when the obligation was only to maintain the parity,
not of the silver, but of the coin, with gold. He understood that, in
the case of a currency which is merely subordinate, parity arises from
the guaranty of the government, and not from the quality of the coin;
and that only such excess of any subordinate currency as is not needed
for use in daily affairs can be presented for redemption. This
principle, well understood by him, is recognized in European systems,
wherein the minimum of circulation is recognized as a maximum limit of
uncovered issues of paper. The circulation of silver, or of
certificates based upon it, comes within the same rule.
At the time of the publication of this volume objection was taken to the
author's statement that, until the publication of Gallatin's writings,
his fame as a statesman and political leader was a mere tradition. Yet
in point of fact, not only is his name hardly mentioned by the early
biographers of Jefferson, Madison, and J. Q. Adams, but even by the
later writers in this very Series, his work, varied and important as it
was, has been given but scant notice. The historians of the United
States, and those who have made a specialty of the study of political
parties, have been alike indifferent or derelict in their investigations
to such a degree that it required months of original research in the
annals of Congress to ascertain Gallatin's actual relations towards the
Federalist party which he helped to overthrow, and towards the
Republican party which he did so much to found, and of which he became
the ablest champion, in Congress by debate, and in the cabinet by
administration.
Invited by the publishers of the Statesmen Series to bring this study
"up to date," the author has found no important changes to make in his
work as he first prepared it. In the original investigation every source
of information was carefully explored, and no new sources have since
then been discovered. Mr. Gallatin's writings, carefully preserved in
originals and copies, and well arranged, supplied the details; while the
family traditions, with which the author was familiar, indicated the
objects to be obtained. But so wide was the general field of Mr.
Gallatin's career, so varied were his interests in all that pertained to
humanity, philanthropy, and science, and so extensive were his relations
with the leaders of European and American thought and action, that the
subject could only be treated on the broadest basis. With this apology
this study of one of the most interesting characters of American life is
again commended to the indulgence of the American people.
NEWPORT, April, 1898.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. EARLY LIFE 1
II. PENNSYLVANIA Legislature 32
III. UNITED STATES SENATE 56
IV. THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION 67
V. MEMBER OF CONGRESS 97
VI. SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY 170
VII. IN THE CABINET 279
VIII. IN DIPLOMACY 301
IX. CANDIDATE FOR THE VICE-PRESIDENCY 355
X. SOCIETY--LITERATURE--SCIENCE 361
INDEX 391
ILLUSTRATIONS
ALBERT GALLATIN _Frontispiece_
From the original painting by Gilbert Stuart, in the
possession of Frederic W. Stevens, Esq., New York, N. Y.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston
Public Library.
The vignette of "Friendship Hill," Mr. Gallatin's
home at New Geneva, Pa., is from a photograph.
Page
ROBERT GOODLOE HARPER _facing_ 98
From a painting by St. Mémin, in the possession of
Harper's granddaughter, Mrs. William C. Pennington,
Baltimore, Md.
Autograph from a MS. in the New York Public
Library, Lenox Building.
ALEXANDER J. DALLAS _facing_ 236
From the original painting by Gilbert Stuart, in the
possession of Mrs. W. H. Emory, Washington, D. C.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston
Public Library.
JAMES A. BAYARD _facing_ 312
From a painting by Wertmüller, owned by the late
Thomas F. Bayard, Wilmington, Del.
Autograph from the Chamberlain collection, Boston
Public Library.
ALBERT GALLATIN
CHAPTER I
EARLY LIFE
Of all European-born citizens who have risen to fame in the political
service of the United States, Albert Gallatin is the most distinguished.
His merit in legislation, administration, and diplomacy is generally
recognized, and he is venerated by men of science on both continents.
Not, however, until the publication of his writings was the extent of
his influence upon the political life and growth of the country other
than a vague tradition. Independence and nationality were achieved by
the Revolution, in which he bore a slight and unimportant part; his
place in history is not, therefore, among the founders of the Republic,
but foremost in the rank of those early American statesmen, to whom it
fell to interpret and administer the organic laws which the founders
declared and the people ratified in the Constitution of the United
States. A study of his life shows that, from the time of the peace until
his death, his influence, either by direct action or indirect counsel,
may be traced through the history of the country.
The son of Jean Gallatin and his wife, Sophie Albertine Rollaz, he was
born in the city of Geneva on January 29, 1761, and was baptized by the
name of Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin. The name Abraham he received
from his grandfather, but it was early dropped, and he was always known
by his matronymic Albert. The Gallatin family held great influence in
the Swiss Republic, and from the organization of the State contributed
numerous members to its magistracy; others adopted the military
profession, and served after the manner of their country in the Swiss
contingents of foreign armies. The immediate relatives of Albert
Gallatin were concerned in trade. Abraham, his grandfather, and Jean,
his father, were partners. The latter dying in 1765, his widow assumed
his share in the business. She died in March, 1770, leaving two
children,--Albert, then nine years of age, and an invalid daughter who
died a few years later. The loss to the orphan boy was lessened, if not
compensated, by the care of a maiden lady--Mademoiselle Pictet--who had
taken him into her charge at his father's death. This lady, whose
affection never failed him, was the intimate friend of his mother as
well as a distant relative of his father. Young Gallatin remained in
this kind care until January, 1773, when he was sent to a
boarding-school, and in August, 1775, to the academy of Geneva, from
which he was graduated in May, 1779. The expenses of his education were
in great part met by the trustees of the Bourse Gallatin,--a sum left in
1699 by a member of the family, of which the income was to be applied to
its necessities. The course of study at the academy was confined to
Latin and Greek. These were taught, to use the words of Mr. Gallatin,
"Latin thoroughly, Greek much neglected." Fortunately his preliminary
home training had been careful, and he left the academy the first in his
class in mathematics, natural philosophy, and Latin translation. French,
a language in general use at Geneva, was of course familiar to him.
English he also studied. He is not credited with special proficiency in
history, but his teacher in this branch was Muller, the distinguished
historian, and the groundwork of his information was solid. No American
statesman has shown more accurate knowledge of the facts of history, or
a more profound insight into its philosophy, than Mr. Gallatin.
Education, however, is not confined to instruction, nor is the influence
of an academy to be measured by the extent of its curriculum, or the
proficiency of its students, but rather by its general tone, moral and
intellectual. The Calvinism of Geneva, narrow in its religious sense,
was friendly to the spread of knowledge; and had this not been the case,
the side influences of Roman Catholicism on the one hand, and the
liberal spirit of the age on the other, would have tempered its
exclusive tendency.
While the academy seems to have sent out few men of extraordinary
eminence, its influence upon society was happy. Geneva was the resort of
distinguished foreigners. Princes and nobles from Germany and the north
of Europe, lords and gentlemen from England, and numerous Americans went
thither to finish their education. Of these Mr. Gallatin has left
mention of Francis Kinloch and William Smith, who later represented
South Carolina in the Congress of the United States; Smith was
afterwards minister to Portugal; Colonel Laurens, son of the president
of Congress, and special envoy to France during the war of the American
Revolution; the two Penns, proprietors of Pennsylvania; Franklin Bache,
grandson of Dr. Franklin; and young Johannot, grandson of Dr. Cooper of
Boston. Yet no one of these followed the academic course. To use again
the words of Mr. Gallatin, "It was the Geneva society which they
cultivated, aided by private teachers in every branch, with whom Geneva
was abundantly supplied." "By that influence," he says, he was himself
"surrounded, and derived more benefit from that source than from
attendance on academical lectures." Considered in its broader sense,
education is quite as much a matter of association as of scholarly
acquirement. The influence of the companion is as strong and enduring as
that of the master. Of this truth the career of young Gallatin is a
notable example. During his academic course he formed ties of intimate
friendship with three of his associates. These were Henri Serre, Jean
Badollet, and Etienne Dumont. This attachment was maintained unimpaired
throughout their lives, notwithstanding the widely different stations
which they subsequently filled. Serre and Badollet are only remembered
from their connection with Gallatin. Dumont was of different mould. He
was the friend of Mirabeau, the disciple and translator of Bentham,--a
man of elegant acquirement, but, in the judgment of Gallatin, "without
original genius." De Lolme was in the class above Gallatin. He had such
facility in the acquisition of languages that he was able to write his
famous work on the English Constitution after the residence of a single
year in England. Pictet, Gallatin's relative, afterwards celebrated as a
naturalist, excelled all his fellows in physical science.
During his last year at the academy Gallatin was engaged in the tuition
of a nephew of Mademoiselle Pictet, but the time soon arrived when he
felt called upon to choose a career. His state was one of comparative
dependence, and the small patrimony which he inherited would not pass to
his control until he should reach his twenty-fifth year,--the period
assigned for his majority. It would be hardly just to say that he was
ambitious. Personal distinction was never an active motor in his life.
Even his later honors, thick and fast though they fell, were rather
thrust upon than sought by him. But his nature was proud and sensitive,
and he chafed under personal control. The age was restless. The spirit
of philosophic inquiry, no longer confined within scholastic limits, was
spreading far and wide. From the banks of the Neva to the shores of the
Mediterranean, the people of Europe were uneasy and expectant. Men
everywhere felt that the social system was threatened with a cataclysm.
What would emerge from the general deluge none could foresee. Certainly,
the last remains of the old feudality would be engulfed forever. Nowhere
was this more thoroughly believed than at the home of Rousseau. Under
the shadow of the Alps, every breeze from which was free, the Genevese
philosopher had written his "Contrat social," and invited the rulers and
the ruled to a reorganization of their relations to each other and to
the world. But nowhere, also, was the conservative opposition to the new
theories more intense than here.
The mind of young Gallatin was essentially philosophic. The studies in
which he excelled in early life were in this direction, and at no time
in his career did he display any emotional enthusiasm on subjects of
general concern. But, on the other hand, he was unflinching in his
adherence to abstract principle. Though not carried away by the
extravagance of Rousseau, he was thoroughly discontented with the
political state of Geneva. He was by early conviction a Democrat in the
broadest sense of the term. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a more
perfect example of what it was then the fashion to call a _citoyen du
monde_. His family seem, on the contrary, to have been always
conservative, and attached to the aristocratic and oligarchic system to
which they had, for centuries, owed their position and advancement.
Abraham Gallatin, his grandfather, lived at Pregny on the northern shore
of the lake, in close neighborhood to Ferney, the retreat of Voltaire.
Susanne Vaudenet Gallatin, his grandmother, was a woman of the world, a
lady of strong character, and the period was one when the influence of
women was paramount in the affairs of men; among her friends she counted
Voltaire, with whom her husband and herself were on intimate relations,
and Frederick, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, with whom she corresponded. So
sincere was this latter attachment that the sovereign sent his portrait
to her in 1776, an honor which, at her instance, Voltaire acknowledged
in a verse characteristic of himself and of the time:--
"J'ai baisé ce portrait charmant,
Je vous l'avoûrai sans mystère,
Mes filles en out fait autant,
Mais c'est un secret qu'il faut taire.
Vous trouverez bon qu'une mère
Vous parle un peu plus hardiment,
Et vous verrez qu'également,
En tous les temps vous savez plaire."
At Pregny young Gallatin was the constant guest of his nearest relatives
on his father's side, and he was a frequent visitor at Ferney. Those
whose fortune it has been to sit at the feet of Mr. Gallatin himself,
in the serene atmosphere of his study, after his retirement from active
participation in public concerns, may well imagine the influence which
the rays of the prismatic character of Voltaire must have had upon the
philosophic and receptive mind of the young student.
There was and still is a solidarity in European families which can
scarcely be said to have ever had a counterpart in those of England, and
of which hardly a vestige remains in American social life. The fate of
each member was a matter of interest to all, and the honor of the name
was of common concern. Among the Gallatins, the grandmother, Madame
Gallatin-Vaudenet, as she was called, appears to have been the
controlling spirit. To her the profession of the youthful scion of the
stock was a matter of family consequence, and she had already marked out
his future course. The Gallatins, as has been already stated, had
acquired honor in the military service of foreign princes. Her friend,
the Landgrave of Hesse, was engaged in supporting the uncertain fortunes
of the British army in America with a large military contingent, and she
had only to ask to obtain for her grandson the high commission of
lieutenant-colonel of one of the regiments of Hessian mercenaries. To
the offer made to young Gallatin, and urged with due authority, he
replied, that "he would never serve a tyrant;" a want of respect which
was answered by a cuff on the ear. This incident determined his career.
Whether it crystallized long-cherished fancies into sudden action, or
whether it was of itself the initial cause of his resolve, is now mere
matter of conjecture; probably the former. The three friends, Gallatin,
Badollet, and Serre seem to have amused their leisure in planning an
ideal existence in some wilderness. America offered a boundless field
for the realization of such dreams, and the spice of adventure could be
had for the seeking. Here was the forest primeval in its original
grandeur. Here the Indian roamed undisputed master; not the tutored
Huron of Voltaire's tale, but the savage of torch and tomahawk. The
continent was as yet unexplored. In uncertainty as to motives for man's
action the French magistrate always searches for the woman,--"cherchez
la femme!" One single allusion in a letter written to Badollet, in 1783,
shows that there was a woman in Gallatin's horoscope. Who she was, what
her relation to him, or what influence she had upon his actions, nowhere
appears. He only says that besides Mademoiselle Pictet there was one
friend, "une amie," at Geneva, from whom a permanent separation would be
hard.
Confiding his purpose to his friend Serre, Gallatin easily persuaded
this ardent youth to join him in his venturesome journey, and on April
1, 1780, the two secretly left Geneva. It certainly was no burning
desire to aid the Americans in their struggle for independence, such as
had stirred the generous soul of Lafayette, that prompted this act. In
later life he repeatedly disclaimed any such motive. It was rather a
longing for personal independence, for freedom from the trammels of a
society in which he had little faith or interest. Nor were his political
opinions at this time matured. He had a just pride in the Swiss Republic
as a free State (Etat libre), and his personal bias was towards the
"Négatif" party, as those were called who maintained the authority of
the Upper Council (Petit Conseil) to reject the demands of the people.
To this oligarchic party his family belonged. In a letter written three
years later, he confesses that he was "Négatif" when he abandoned his
home, and conveys the idea that his emigration was an experiment, a
search for a system of government in accordance with his abstract
notions of natural justice and political right. To use his own words, he
came to America to "drink in a love for independence in the freest
country of the universe." But there was some method in this madness. The
rash scheme of emigration had a practical side; land speculation and
commerce were to be the foundation and support of the settlement in the
wilderness where they would realize their political Utopia.
From Geneva the young adventurers hurried to Nantes, on the coast of
France, where Gallatin soon received letters from his family, who seem
to have neglected nothing that could contribute to their comfort or
advantage. Monsieur P. M. Gallatin, the guardian of Albert, a distant
relative in an elder branch of the family, addressed him a letter
which, in its moderation, dignity, and kindness, is a model of
well-tempered severity and reproach. It expressed the pain Mademoiselle
Pictet had felt at his unceremonious departure, and his own affliction
at the ingratitude of one to whom he had never refused a request.
Finally, as the trustee of his estate till his majority, the guardian
assures the errant youth that he will aid him with pecuniary resources
as far as possible, without infringing upon the capital, and within the
sworn obligation of his trust. Letters of recommendation to
distinguished Americans were also forwarded, and in these it is found,
to the high credit of the family, that no distinction was made between
the two young men, although Serre seems to have been considered as the
originator of the bold move. The intervention of the Duke de la
Rochefoucauld d'Enville was solicited, and a letter was obtained by him
from Benjamin Franklin--then American minister at the Court of
Versailles--to his son-in-law, Richard Bache. Lady Juliana Penn wrote in
their behalf to John Penn at Philadelphia, and Mademoiselle Pictet to
Colonel Kinloch, member of the Continental Congress from South Carolina.
Thus supported in their undertaking the youthful travelers sailed from
L'Orient on May 27, in an American vessel, the Kattie, Captain Loring.
Of the sum which Gallatin, who supplied the capital for the expedition,
brought from Geneva, one half had been expended in their land journey
and the payment of the passages to Boston; one half, eighty louis
d'or--the equivalent of four hundred silver dollars--remained, part of
which they invested in tea. Reaching the American coast in a fog, or bad
weather, they were landed at Cape Ann on July 14. From Gloucester they
rode the next day to Boston on horseback, a distance of thirty miles.
Here they put up at a French café, "The Sign of the Alliance," in Fore
Street, kept by one Tahon, and began to consider what step they should
next take in the new world.
The prospects were not encouraging; the military fortunes of the
struggling nation were never at a lower ebb than during the summer which
intervened between the disaster of Camden and the discovery of Arnold's
treason. Washington's army lay at New Windsor in enforced inactivity;
enlistments were few, and the currency was almost worthless. Such was
the stagnation in trade, that the young strangers found it extremely
difficult to dispose of their little venture in tea. Two months were
passed at the café, in waiting for an opportunity to go to Philadelphia,
where Congress was in session, and where they expected to find the
influential persons to whom they were accredited; also letters from
Geneva. But this journey was no easy matter. The usual routes of travel
were interrupted. New York was the fortified headquarters of the British
army, and the Middle States were only to be reached by a détour through
the American lines above the Highlands and behind the Jersey Hills.
The homesick youths found little to amuse or interest them in Boston,
and grew very weary of its monotonous life and Puritanic tone. They
missed the public amusements to which they were accustomed in their own
country, and complained of the superstitious observance of Sunday, when
"singing, fiddling, card-playing and bowling were forbidden." Foreigners
were not welcome guests in this town of prejudice. The sailors of the
French fleet had already been the cause of one riot. Gallatin's letters
show that this aversion was fully reciprocated by him.
The neighboring country had some points of interest. No Swiss ever saw a
hill without an intense desire to get to its top. They soon felt the
magnetic attraction of the Blue Hills of Milton, and, descrying from
their summit the distant mountains north of Worcester, made a pedestrian
excursion thither the following day. Mr. Gallatin was wont to relate
with glee an incident of this trip, which Mr. John Russell Bartlett
repeats in his "Reminiscences."
"The tavern at which he stopped on his journey was kept by a man
who partook in a considerable degree of the curiosity even
now-a-days manifested by some landlords in the back parts of New
England to know the whole history of their guests. Noticing Mr.
Gallatin's French accent he said, 'Just from France, eh! You are a
Frenchman, I suppose.' 'No!' said Mr. Gallatin, 'I am not from
France.' 'You can't be from England, I am sure?' 'No!' was the
reply. 'From Spain?' 'No!' 'From Germany?' 'No!' 'Well, where on
earth are you from then, or what are you?' eagerly asked the
inquisitive landlord. 'I am a Swiss,' replied Mr. Gallatin. 'Swiss,
Swiss, Swiss!' exclaimed the landlord, in astonishment. 'Which of
the ten tribes are the Swiss?'"
Nor was this an unnatural remark. At this time Mr. Gallatin did not
speak English with facility, and indeed was never free from a foreign
accent.
At the little café they met a Swiss woman, the wife of a Genevan, one De
Lesdernier, who had been for thirty years established in Nova Scotia,
but, becoming compromised in the attempt to revolutionize the colony,
was compelled to fly to New England, and had settled at Machias, on the
northeastern extremity of the Maine frontier. Tempted by her account of
this region, and perhaps making a virtue of necessity, Gallatin and
Serre bartered their tea for rum, sugar, and tobacco, and, investing the
remainder of their petty capital in similar merchandise, they embarked
October 1, 1780, upon a small coasting vessel, which, after a long and
somewhat perilous passage, reached the mouth of the Machias River on the
15th of the same month. Machias was then a little settlement five miles
from the mouth of the stream of the same name. It consisted of about
twenty houses and a small fortification, mounting seven guns and
garrisoned by fifteen or twenty men. The young travelers were warmly
received by the son of Lesdernier, and made their home under his roof.
This seems to have been one of the four or five log houses in a large
clearing near the fort. Gallatin attempted to settle a lot of land, and
the meadow where he cut the hay with his own hands is still pointed out.
This is Frost's meadow in Perry, not far from the site of the Indian
village. A single cow was the beginning of a farm, but the main
occupation of the young men was woodcutting. No record remains of the
result of the merchandise venture. The trade of Machias was wholly in
fish, lumber, and furs, which, there being no money, the settlers were
ready enough to barter for West India goods. But the outlet for the
product of the country was, in its unsettled condition, uncertain and
precarious, and the young traders were no better off than before. One
transaction only is remembered, the advance by Gallatin to the garrison
of supplies to the value of four hundred dollars; for this he took a
draft on the state treasury of Massachusetts, which, there being no
funds for its payment, he sold at one fourth of its face value.
The life, rude as it was, was not without its charms. Serre seems to
have abandoned himself to its fascination without a regret. His
descriptive letters to Badollet read like the "Idylls of a Faun." Those
of Gallatin, though more tempered in tone, reveal quiet content with the
simple life and a thorough enjoyment of nature in its original wildness.
In the summer they followed the tracks of the moose and deer through the
primitive forests, and explored the streams and lakes in the light
birch canoe, with a woodsman or savage for their guide. In the winter
they made long journeys over land and water on snowshoes or on skates,
occasionally visiting the villages of the Indians, with whom the
Lesderniers were on the best of terms, studying their habits and
witnessing their feasts. Occasional expeditions of a different nature
gave zest and excitement to this rustic life. These occurred when alarms
of English invasion reached the settlement, and volunteers marched to
the defence of the frontier. Twice Gallatin accompanied such parties to
Passamaquoddy, and once, in November, 1780, was left for a time in
command of a small earthwork and a temporary garrison of whites and
Indians at that place. At Machias Gallatin made one acquaintance which
greatly interested him, that of La Pérouse, the famous navigator. He was
then in command of the Amazone frigate, one of the French squadron on
the American coast, and had in convoy a fleet of fishing vessels on
their way to the Newfoundland banks. Gallatin had an intense fondness
for geography, and was delighted with La Pérouse's narrative of his
visit to Hudson's Bay, and of his discovery there (at Fort Albany, which
he captured) of the manuscript journal of Samuel Hearne, who some years
before had made a voyage to the Arctic regions in search of a northwest
passage. Gallatin and La Pérouse met subsequently in Boston.
The winter of 1780-81 was passed in the cabin of the Lesderniers. The
excessive cold does not seem to have chilled Serre's enthusiasm. Like
the faun of Hawthorne's mythical tale, he loved Nature in all her moods;
but Gallatin appears to have wearied of the confinement and of his
uncongenial companions. The trading experiment was abandoned in the
autumn, and with some experience, but a reduced purse, the friends
returned in October to Boston, where Gallatin set to work to support
himself by giving lessons in the French language. What success he met
with at first is not known, though the visits of the French fleet and
the presence of its officers may have awakened some interest in their
language. However this may be, in December Gallatin wrote to his good
friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, a frank account of his embarrassments.
Before it reached her, she had already, with her wonted forethought,
anticipated his difficulties by providing for a payment of money to him
wherever he might be, and had also secured for him the interest of Dr.
Samuel Cooper, whose grandson, young Johannot, was then at school in
Geneva. Dr. Cooper was one of the most distinguished of the patriots in
Boston, and no better influence could have been invoked than his. In
July, 1782, by a formal vote of the President and Fellows of Harvard
College, Mr. Gallatin was permitted to teach the French language. About
seventy of the students availed themselves of the privilege. Mr.
Gallatin received about three hundred dollars in compensation. In this
occupation he remained at Cambridge for about a year, at the expiration
of which he took advantage of the close of the academic course to
withdraw from his charge, receiving at his departure a certificate from
the Faculty that he had acquitted himself in his department with great
reputation.
The war was over, the army of the United States was disbanded, and the
country was preparing for the new order which the peace would introduce
into the habits and occupations of the people. The long-sought
opportunity at last presented itself, and Mr. Gallatin at once embraced
it. He left Boston without regret. He had done his duty faithfully, and
secured the approbation and esteem of all with whom he had come in
contact, but there is no evidence that he cared for or sought social
relations either in the city or at the college. Journeying southward he
passed through Providence, where he took sail for New York. Stopping for
an hour at Newport for dinner, he reached New York on July 21, 1783. The
same day the frigate Mercury arrived from England with news of the
signature of the definitive treaty of peace. He was delighted with the
beauty of the country-seats above the city, the vast port with its
abundant shipping, and with the prospect of a theatrical entertainment.
The British soldiers and sailors, who were still in possession, he found
rude and insolent, but the returning refugees civil and honest people.
At Boston Gallatin made the acquaintance of a French gentleman, one
Savary de Valcoulon, who had crossed the Atlantic to prosecute in person
certain claims against the State of Virginia for advances made by his
house in Lyons during the war. He accompanied Gallatin to New York, and
together they traveled to Philadelphia; Savary, who spoke no English,
gladly attaching to himself as his companion a young man of the ability
and character of Gallatin.
At Philadelphia Gallatin was soon after joined by Serre, who had
remained behind, engaged also in giving instruction. The meeting at
Philadelphia seems to have been the occasion for the dissolution of a
partnership in which Gallatin had placed his money, and Serre his
enthusiasm and personal charm. A settlement was made; Serre giving his
note to Gallatin for the sum of six hundred dollars,--one half of their
joint expenses for three years,--an obligation which was repaid more
than half a century later by his sister. Serre then joined a
fellow-countryman and went to Jamaica, where he died in 1784. At
Philadelphia Gallatin and Savary lodged in a house kept by one Mary
Lynn. Pelatiah Webster, the political economist, who owned the house,
was also a boarder. Later he said of his fellow-lodgers that "they were
well-bred gentlemen who passed their time conversing in French."
Gallatin, at the end of his resources, gladly acceded to Savary's
request to accompany him to Richmond.
Whatever hesitation Gallatin may have entertained as to his definitive
expatriation was entirely set at rest by the news of strife between the
rival factions in Geneva and the interposition of armed force by the
neighboring governments. This interference turned the scale against the
liberal party. Mademoiselle Pictet was the only link which bound him to
his family. For his ingratitude to her he constantly reproached himself.
He still styled himself a citizen of Geneva, but this was only as a
matter of convenience and security to his correspondence. His
determination to make America his home was now fixed. The lands on the
banks of the Ohio were then considered the most fertile in America,--the
best for farming purposes, the cultivation of grain, and the raising of
cattle. The first settlement in this region was made by the Ohio
Company, an association formed in Virginia and London, about the middle
of the century, by Thomas Lee, together with Lawrence and Augustine,
brothers of George Washington. The lands lay on the south side of the
Ohio, between the Monongahela and Kanawha rivers. These lands were known
as "Washington's bottom lands." In this neighborhood Gallatin determined
to purchase two or three thousand acres, and prepare for that ideal
country home which had been the dream of his college days. Land here was
worth from thirty cents to four dollars an acre. His first purchase was
about one thousand acres, for which he paid one hundred pounds,
Virginia currency. Land speculation was the fever of the time. Savary
was early affected by it, and before the new friends left Philadelphia
for Richmond he bought warrants for one hundred and twenty thousand
acres in Virginia, in Monongalia County, between the Great and Little
Kanawha rivers, and interested Gallatin to the extent of one quarter in
the purchase. Soon after the completion of this transaction the sale of
some small portions reimbursed them for three fourths of the original
cost. This was the first time when, and Savary was the first person to
whom, Gallatin was willing to incur a pecuniary obligation. Throughout
his life he had an aversion to debt; small or large, private or public.
It was arranged that Gallatin's part of the purchase money was not to be
paid until his majority,--January 29, 1786,--but in the meanwhile he
was, in lieu of interest money, to give his services in personal
superintendence. Later Savary increased Gallatin's interest to one half.
Soon after these plans were completed, Savary and Gallatin moved to
Richmond, where they made their residence.
In February, 1784, Gallatin returned to Philadelphia, perfected the
arrangements for his expedition, and in March crossed the mountains,
and, with his exploring party, passed down the Ohio River to Monongalia
County in Virginia. The superior advantages of the country north of the
Virginia line determined him to establish his headquarters there. He
selected the farm of Thomas Clare, at the junction of the Monongahela
River and George's Creek. This was in Fayette County, Pennsylvania,
about four miles north of the Virginia line. Here he built a log hut,
opened a country store, and remained till the close of the year. It was
while thus engaged at George's Creek, in September of the year 1784,
that Gallatin first met General Washington, who was examining the
country, in which he had large landed interests, to select a route for a
road across the Alleghanies. The story of the interview was first made
public by Mr. John Russell Bartlett, who had it from the lips of Mr.
Gallatin. The version of the late Hon. William Beach Lawrence, in a
paper prepared for the New York Historical Society, differs slightly in
immaterial points. Mr. Lawrence says:--
"Among the incidents connected with his (Mr. Gallatin's) earliest
explorations was an interview with General Washington, which he
repeatedly recounted to me. He had previously observed that of all
the inaccessible men he had ever seen, General Washington was the
most so. And this remark he made late in life, after having been
conversant with most of the sovereigns of Europe and their prime
ministers. He said, in connection with his office, he had a cot-bed
in the office of the surveyor of the district when Washington, who
had lands in the neighborhood, and was desirous of effecting
communication between the rivers, came there. Mr. Gallatin's bed
was given up to him,--Gallatin lying on the floor, immediately
below the table at which Washington was writing. Washington was
endeavoring to reduce to paper the calculations of the day.
Gallatin, hearing the statement, came at once to the conclusion,
and, after waiting some time, he himself gave the answer, which
drew from Washington such a look as he never experienced before or
since. On arriving by a slow process at his conclusion, Washington
turned to Gallatin and said, 'You are right, young man.'"
The points of difference between the two accounts of this interview are
of little importance. The look which Washington is said to have given
Mr. Gallatin has its counterpart in that with which he is also said to
have turned upon Gouverneur Morris, when accosted by him familiarly with
a touch on the shoulder. Bartlett, in his recollection of the anecdote,
adds that Washington, about this period, inquired after the forward
young man, and urged him to become his land agent,--an offer which
Gallatin declined.
The winter of 1784-85 was passed in Richmond, in the society of which
town Mr. Gallatin began to find a relief and pleasure he had not yet
experienced in America. At this period the Virginia capital was the
gayest city in the Union, and famous for its abundant hospitality,
rather facile manners, and the liberal tendency of its religious
thought. Gallatin brought no prudishness and no orthodoxy in his
Genevese baggage. One of the last acts of his life was to recognize in
graceful and touching words the kindness he then met with:--
"I was received with that old proverbial Virginia hospitality to
which I know no parallel anywhere within the circle of my travels.
It was not hospitality only that was shown to me. I do not know how
it came to pass, but every one with whom I became acquainted
appeared to take an interest in the young stranger. I was only the
interpreter of a gentleman, the agent of a foreign house, that had
a large claim for advances to the State, and this made me known to
all the officers of government, and some of the most prominent
members of the Legislature. It gave me the first opportunity of
showing some symptoms of talent, even as a speaker, of which I was
not myself aware. Every one encouraged me, and was disposed to
promote my success in life. To name all those from whom I received
offers of service would be to name all the most distinguished
residents at that time in Richmond."
In the spring of 1785, fortified with a certificate from Governor
Patrick Henry, commending him to the county surveyor, and intrusted by
Henry with the duty of locating two thousand acres of lands in the
western country for a third party, he set out from Richmond, on March
31, alone, on horseback. Following the course of the James River he
crossed the Blue Ridge at the Peaks of Otter, and reached Greenbrier
Court House on April 18. On the 29th he arrived at Clare's, on George's
Creek, where he was joined by Savary. Their surveying operations were
soon begun, each taking a separate course. An Indian rising broke up the
operations of Savary, and both parties returned to Clare's. Gallatin
appeared before the court of Monongalia County, at its October term, and
took the "oath of allegiance and fidelity to the Commonwealth of
Virginia." Clare's, his actual residence, was north of the Virginia
line, but his affections were with the old Dominion. In November the
partners hired from Clare a house at George's Creek, in Springfield
township, and established their residence, after which they returned to
Richmond by way of Cumberland and the Potomac. In February, 1786,
Gallatin made his permanent abode at his new home.
Mention has been made of the intimacy of the young emigrants with Jean
Badollet, a college companion. When they left Geneva he was engaged in
the study of theology, and was now a teacher. He was included in the
original plan of emigration, and the first letters of both Gallatin and
Serre, who had for him an equal attachment, were to him, and year by
year, through all the vicissitudes of their fortune, they kept him
carefully informed of their movements and projects. For two years after
their departure no word was received from him. At last, spurred by the
sharp reproaches of Serre, he broke silence. In a letter written in
March, 1783, informing Gallatin of the troubles in Switzerland, he
excused himself on the plea that their common friend, Dumont, retained
him at Geneva. In answer, Gallatin opened his plans of western
settlement, which included the employment of his fortune in the
establishment of a number of families upon his lands. He suggested to
Badollet to bring with him the little money he had, to which enough
would be added to establish him independently. Dumont was invited to
accompany him. But with a prudence which shows that his previous
experience had not been thrown away upon him, Gallatin recommends his
friend not to start at once, but to hold himself ready for the next, or,
at the latest, the year succeeding, at the same time suggesting the idea
of a general emigration of such Swiss malcontents as were small
capitalists and farmers; that of manufacturers and workmen he
discouraged. It was not, however, until the spring of 1785, on the eve
of leaving Richmond with some families which he had engaged to establish
on his lands, that he felt justified in asking his old friend to cross
the seas and share his lot. This invitation was accepted, and Badollet
joined him at George's Creek.
The settlement beginning to spread, Gallatin bought another farm higher
up the river, to which he gave the name of Friendship Hill. Here he
later made his home.
The western part of Pennsylvania, embracing the area which stretches
from the Alleghany Mountains to Lake Erie, is celebrated for the wild,
picturesque beauty of its scenery. Among its wooded hills the head
waters of the Ohio have their source. At Fort Duquesne, or Pittsburgh,
where the river takes a sudden northerly bend before finally settling in
swelling volume on its southwesterly course to the Mississippi, the
Monongahela adds its mountain current, which separates in its entire
course from the Virginia line the two counties of Fayette and
Washington. The Monongahela takes its rise in Monongalia County,
Virginia, and flows to the northward. Friendship Hill is one of the
bluffs on the right bank of the river, and faces the Laurel Ridge to the
eastward. Braddock's Road, now the National Road, crosses the mountains,
passing through Uniontown and Red Stone Old Fort (Brownsville), on its
course to Pittsburgh. The county seat of Fayette is the borough of Union
or Uniontown. Gallatin's log cabin, the beginning of New Geneva, was on
the right bank of the Monongahela, about twelve miles to the westward of
the county seat. Opposite, on the other side of the river, in Washington
County, was Greensburg, where his friend Badollet was later established.
Again for a long period Gallatin left his family without any word
whatever. His most indulgent friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, could hardly
excuse his silence, and did not hesitate to charge that it was due to
misfortunes which his pride prompted him to conceal. In the early days
of 1786 a rumor of his death reached Geneva, and greatly alarmed his
family. Mr. Jefferson, then minister at Paris, wrote to Mr. Jay for
information. This was Jefferson's first knowledge of the existence of
the young man who was to become his political associate, his philosophic
companion, and his truest friend. Meanwhile Gallatin had attained his
twenty-fifth year and his majority. His family were no longer left in
doubt as to his existence, and in response to his letters drafts were at
once remitted to him for the sum of five thousand dollars, through the
banking-house of Robert Morris. This was, of course, immediately applied
to his western experiment. The business of the partnership now called
for his constant attention. It required the exercise of a great variety
of mental powers, a cool and discriminating judgment, combined with an
incessant attention to details. Nature, under such circumstances, is not
so attractive as she appears in youthful dreams; admirable in her
original garb, she is annoying and obstinate when disturbed. The view of
country which Friendship Hill commands is said to rival Switzerland in
its picturesque beauty, but years later, when the romance of the
Monongahela hills had faded in the actualities of life, Gallatin wrote
of it that "he did not know in the United States any spot which afforded
less means to earn a bare subsistence for those who could not live by
manual labor."
Gallatin has been blamed for "taking life awry and throwing away the
advantages of education, social position, and natural intelligence," by
his removal to the frontier, and his career compared with that of
Hamilton and Dallas, who, like him, foreign born, rose to eminence in
politics, and became secretaries of the treasury of the United States.
But both of these were of English-speaking races. No foreigner of any
other race ever obtained such distinction in American politics as Mr.
Gallatin, and he only because he was the choice of a constituency, to
every member of which he was personally known. It is questionable
whether in any other condition of society he could have secured
advancement by election--the true source of political power in all
democracies. John Marshall, afterwards Chief Justice, recognized
Gallatin's talent soon after his arrival in Richmond, offered him a
place in his office without a fee, and assured him of future distinction
in the profession of the law; but Patrick Henry was the more sagacious
counselor; he advised Gallatin to go to the West, and predicted his
success as a statesman. Modest as the beginning seemed in the country he
had chosen, it was nevertheless a start in the right direction, as the
future showed. It was in no sense a mistake.
Neither did the affairs of the wilderness wholly debar intercourse with
the civilized world. Visiting Richmond every winter, he gradually
extended the circle of his acquaintance, and increased his personal
influence; he also occasionally passed a few weeks at Philadelphia. Two
visits to Maine are recorded in his diary, but whether they were of
pleasure merely does not appear. One was in 1788, in midwinter, by stage
and sleigh. On this excursion he descended the Androscoggin and crossed
Merrymeeting Bay on the ice, returning by the same route in a snowstorm,
which concealed the banks on either side of the river, so that he
governed his course by the direction of the wind. With the intellect of
a prime minister he had the constitution of a pioneer. On one of these
occasions he intended to visit his old friends and hosts, the
Lesderniers, but the difficulty of finding a conveyance, and the rumor
that the old gentleman was away from home, interfered with his purpose.
He remembered their kindness, and later attempted to obtain pensions for
them from the United States government.
But the time now arrived when the current of his domestic life was
permanently diverted, and set in other channels. In May, 1789, he
married Sophie Allègre, the daughter of William Allègre of a French
Protestant family living at Richmond. The father was dead, and the
mother took lodgers, of whom Gallatin was one. For more than a year he
had addressed her and secured her affections. Her mother now refused her
consent, and no choice was left to the young lovers but to marry without
it. Little is known of this short but touching episode in Mr. Gallatin's
life. The young lady was warmly attached to him, and the letter written
to her mother asking forgiveness for her marriage is charmingly
expressed and full of feeling. They passed a few happy months at
Friendship Hill, when suddenly she died. From this time Mr. Gallatin
lost all heart in the western venture, and his most earnest wish was to
turn his back forever upon Fayette County. In his suffering he would
have returned to Geneva to Mademoiselle Pictet, could he have sold his
Virginia lands. But this had become impossible at any price, and he had
no other pecuniary resource but the generosity of his family.
Meanwhile the revolution had broken out in France. The rights of man had
been proclaimed on the Champ de Mars. All Europe was uneasy and alarmed,
and nowhere offered a propitious field for peaceful labor. But Gallatin
did not long need other distraction than he was to find at home.
CHAPTER II
PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE
Political revolutions are the opportunity of youth. In England, Pitt and
Fox; in America, Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris; in Europe, Napoleon and
Pozzo di Borgo, before they reached their thirtieth year, helped to
shape the political destiny of nations. The early maturity of Gallatin
was no less remarkable. In his voluminous correspondence there is no
trace of youth. At nineteen his habits of thought were already formed,
and his moral and intellectual tendencies were clearly marked in his
character, and understood by himself. His tastes also were already
developed. His life, thereafter, was in every sense a growth. The germs
of every excellence, which came to full fruition in his subsequent
career, may be traced in the preferences of his academic days. From
youth to age he was consistent with himself. His mind was of that rare
and original order which, reasoning out its own conclusions, seldom has
cause to change.
His political opinions were early formed. A letter written by him in
October, 1783, before he had completed his twenty-third year, shows the
maturity of his intellect, and his analytic habit of thought. An extract
gives the nature of the reasons which finally determined him to make his
home in America:--
"This is what by degrees greatly influenced my judgment. After my
arrival in this country I was early convinced, upon a comparison of
American governments with that of Geneva, that the latter is
founded on false principles; that the judicial power, in civil as
well as criminal cases, the executive power wholly, and two thirds
of the legislative power being lodged in two bodies which are
almost self-made, and the members of which are chosen for life,--it
is hardly possible but that this formidable aristocracy should,
sooner or later, destroy the equilibrium which it was supposed
could be maintained at Geneva."
The period from the peace of 1783 to the adoption of the federal
Constitution in 1787 was one of political excitement. The utter failure
of the old Confederation to serve the purposes of national defense and
safety for which it was framed had been painfully felt during the war.
Independence had been achieved under it rather than by it, the patriotic
action of some of the States supplying the deficiencies of others less
able or less willing. By the radical inefficiency of the Confederation
the war had been protracted, its success repeatedly imperiled, and, at
its close, the results gained by it were constantly menaced. The more
perfect union which was the outcome of the deliberations of the federal
convention was therefore joyfully accepted by the people at large.
Indeed, it was popular pressure, and not the arguments of its advocates,
that finally overcame the formidable opposition in and out of the
convention to the Constitution. No written record remains of Mr.
Gallatin's course during the sessions of the federal convention. He was
not a member of the body, nor is his name connected with any public act
having any bearing upon its deliberations. Of the direction of his
influence, however, there can be no doubt. He had an abiding distrust of
strong government,--a dread of the ambitions of men. Precisely what form
he would have substituted for the legislative and executive system
adopted nowhere appears in his writings, but certainly neither president
nor senate would have been included. They bore too close a resemblance
to king and lords to win his approval, no matter how restricted their
powers. He would evidently have leaned to a single house, with a
temporary executive directly appointed by itself; or, if elected by the
people, then for a short term of office, without renewal; and he would
have reduced its legislative powers to the narrowest possible limit. The
best government he held to be that which governs least; and many of the
ablest of that incomparable body of men who welded this Union held these
views. But the yearning of the people was in the other direction. They
felt the need of government. They wanted the protection of a strong arm.
It must not be forgotten that the thirteen colonies which declared
their independence in 1776 were all seaboard communities, each with its
port. They were all trading communities. The East, with its fisheries
and timber; the Middle States, with their agricultural products and
peltries; the South, with its tobacco; each saw, in that freedom from
the restrictions of the English navigation laws which the treaty of
peace secured, the promise of a boundless commerce. To protect commerce
there must be a national power somewhere. Since the peace the government
had gained neither the affection of its own citizens nor the respect of
foreign powers.
The federal Constitution was adopted September 17, 1787. The first State
to summon a convention of ratification was Pennsylvania. No one of the
thirteen original States was more directly interested than herself. The
centre of population lay somewhere in her limits, and there was
reasonable ground for hope that Philadelphia would become once more the
seat of government. The delegates met at Philadelphia on November 2. An
opposition declared itself at the beginning of the proceedings.
Regardless of the popular impatience, the majority allowed full scope to
adverse argument, and it was not until December 12 that the final vote
was taken and the Constitution ratified, without recommendations, by a
majority of two to one. In this body Fayette County was represented by
Nicholas Breading and John Smilie. The latter gentleman, of Scotch-Irish
birth, an adroit debater, led the opposition. In the course of his
criticisms he enunciated the doctrines which were soon to become a party
cry; the danger of the Constitution "in inviting rather than guarding
against the approaches of tyranny;" "its tendency to a consolidation,
not a confederation, of the States." Mr. Gallatin does not appear to
have sought to be a delegate to this body, but his hand may be traced
through the speeches of Smilie in the precision with which the
principles of the opposition were formulated and declared; and his
subsequent course plainly indicates that his influence was exerted in
the interest of the dissatisfied minority. The ratification was received
by the people with intense satisfaction, but the delay in debate lost
the State the honor of precedence in the honorable vote of
acquiescence,--the Delaware convention having taken the lead by a
unanimous vote. For the moment the Pennsylvania Anti-Federalists clung
to the hope that the Constitution might yet fail to receive the assent
of the required number of States, but as one after another fell into
line, this hope vanished.
One bold expedient remained. The ratification of some of the States was
coupled with the recommendation of certain amendments. Massachusetts led
the way in this, Virginia followed, and New York, which, in the language
of the day, became the eleventh pillar of the federal edifice, on July
26, 1788, accompanied her ratification with a circular letter to the
governors of all the States, recommending that a general convention be
called.[1]
The argument taken in this letter was the only one which had any chance
of commending itself to popular favor. It was in these words: "that the
apprehension and discontents which the articles occasion cannot be
removed or allayed unless an act to provide for the calling of a new
convention be among the first that shall be passed by the next
Congress." This document, made public at once, encouraged the
Pennsylvania Anti-Federalists to a last effort to bring about a new
convention, to undo or radically alter the work of the old. A conference
held at Harrisburg, on September 3, 1788, was participated in by
thirty-three gentlemen, from various sections of the State, who
assembled in response to the call of a circular letter which originated
in the county of Cumberland in the month of August. The city of
Philadelphia and thirteen counties were represented; six of the
dissenting members of the late convention were present, among whom was
Smilie. He and Gallatin represented the county of Fayette.
Smilie, Gallatin's earliest political friend, was born in 1742, and was
therefore about twenty years his senior. He came to the United States in
youth, and had grown up in the section he now represented. His
popularity is shown by his service in the state legislature, and during
twelve years in Congress as representative or as senator. In any
estimate of Mr. Gallatin, this early influence must be taken into
account. The friendship thus formed continued until Smilie's death in
1816. From the adviser he became the ardent supporter of Mr. Gallatin.
Blair McClanachan, of Philadelphia County, was elected chairman of the
conference. The result of this deliberation was a report in the form of
a series of resolutions, of which two drafts, both in Mr. Gallatin's
handwriting, are among his papers now in the keeping of the New York
Historical Society. The original resolutions were broad in scope, and
suggested a plan of action of a dual nature; the one of which failing,
resort could be had to the other without compromising the movement by
delay. In a word, it proposed an opposition by a party organization. The
first resolution was adroitly framed to avoid the censure with which the
people at large, whose satisfaction with the new Constitution had grown
with the fresh adhesions of State after State to positive enthusiasm,
would surely condemn any attempt to dissolve the Union formed under its
provisions. This resolution declared that it was in order to _prevent_ a
dissolution of the Union and to secure liberty, that a revision was
necessary. The second expressed the opinion of the conference to be,
that the safest manner to obtain such revision was to conform to the
request of the State of New York, and to urge the calling of a new
convention, and recommended that the Pennsylvania legislature be
petitioned to apply for that purpose to the new Congress. These were
declaratory. The third and fourth provided, first, for an organization
of committees in the several counties to correspond with each other and
with similar committees in other States; secondly, invited the friends
to amendments in the several States to meet in conference at a fixed
time and place. This plan of committees of correspondence and of a
meeting of delegates was simply a revival of the methods of the Sons of
Liberty, from whose action sprung the first Continental Congress of
1774.
The formation of such an organization would surely have led to
disturbance, perhaps to civil war. During the progress of the New York
convention swords and bayonets had been drawn, and blood had been shed
in the streets of Albany, where the Anti-Federalists excited popular
rage by burning the new Constitution. But the thirty-three gentlemen who
met at Harrisburg wisely tempered these resolutions to a moderate tone.
Thus modified, they recommended, first, that the people of the State
should acquiesce in the organization of the government, while holding in
view the necessity of very considerable amendments and alterations
essential to preserve the peace and harmony of the Union. Secondly, that
a revision by general convention was necessary. Thirdly, that the
legislature should be requested to apply to Congress for that purpose.
The petition recommended twelve amendments, selected from those already
proposed by other States. These were of course restrictive. The report
was made public in the "Pennsylvania Packet" of September 15. With this
the agitation appears to have ceased. On September 13 Congress notified
the States by resolution to appoint electors under the provisions of the
Constitution. The unanimous choice of Washington as president hushed all
opposition, and for a time the Anti-Federalists sunk into
insignificance.
The persistent labors of the friends of revision were not without
result. The amendments proposed by Virginia and New York were laid
before the House of Representatives. Seventeen received the two thirds
vote of the House. After conference with the Senate, in which Mr.
Madison appeared as manager for the House, these, reduced in number to
twelve by elimination and compression, were adopted by the requisite two
thirds vote, and transmitted to the legislatures of the States for
approval. Ratified by a sufficient number of States, they became a part
of the Constitution. They were general, and declaratory of personal
rights, and in no instance restrictive of the power of the general
government.
In 1789, the Assembly of Pennsylvania calling a convention to revise the
Constitution of the State, Mr. Gallatin was sent as a delegate from
Fayette County. To the purposes of this convention he was opposed, as a
dangerous precedent. He had endeavored to organize an opposition to it
in the western counties, by correspondence with his political friends.
His objections were the dangers of alterations in government, and the
absurdity of the idea that the Constitution ever contemplated a change
by the will of a mere majority. Such a doctrine, once admitted, would
enable not only the legislature, but a majority of the more popular
house, were two established, to make another appeal to the people on the
first occasion, and, instead of establishing on solid foundations a new
government, would open the door to perpetual change, and destroy that
stability which is essential to the welfare of a nation; since no
constitution acquires the permanent affection of the people, save in
proportion to its duration and age. Finally, such changes would sooner
or later conclude in an appeal to arms,--the true meaning of the popular
and dangerous words, "an appeal to the people." The opposition was begun
too late, however, to admit of combined effort, and was not persisted
in; and Mr. Gallatin himself, with practical good sense, consented to
serve as a delegate. Throughout his political course the pride of
mastery never controlled his actions. When debarred from leadership he
did not sulk in his tent, but threw his weight in the direction of his
principles. The convention met at Philadelphia on November 24, 1789, and
closed its labors on September 2, 1790. This was Gallatin's
apprenticeship in the public service. Among his papers are a number of
memoranda, some of them indicating much elaboration of speeches made, or
intended to be made, in this body. One is an argument in favor of
enlarging the representation in the House; another is against a plan of
choosing senators by electors; another concerns the liberty of the
press. There is, further, a memorandum of his motion in regard to the
right of suffrage, by virtue of which "every freeman who has attained
the age of twenty-one years, and been a resident and inhabitant during
one year next before the day of election, every naturalized freeholder,
every naturalized citizen who had been assessed for state or county
taxes for two years before election day, or who had resided ten years
successively in the State, should be entitled to the suffrage, paupers
and vagabonds only being excluded." Certainly, in his conservative
limitations upon suffrage, he did not consult his own interest as a
large landholder inviting settlement, nor pander to the natural desires
of his constituency.
In an account of this convention, written at a later period, Mr.
Gallatin said that it was the first public body to which he was elected,
and that he took but a subordinate share in the debates; that it was one
of the ablest bodies of which he was ever a member, and with which he
was acquainted, and, excepting Madison and Marshall, that it embraced as
much talent and knowledge as any Congress from 1795 to 1812, beyond
which his personal knowledge did not extend. Among its members were
Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence and president
of the Continental Congress, Thomas Mifflin and Timothy Pickering, of
the Revolutionary army, and Smilie and Findley, Gallatin's political
friends. General Mifflin was its president.
But mental distraction brought Mr. Gallatin no peace of heart at this
period, and when the excitement of the winter was over he fell into a
state of almost morbid melancholy. To his friend Badollet he wrote from
Philadelphia, early in March, that life in Fayette County had no more
charms for him, and that he would gladly leave America. But his lands
were unsalable at any price, and he saw no means of support at Geneva.
Some one has said, with a profound knowledge of human nature, that no
man is sure of happiness who has not the capacity for continuous labor
of a disagreeable kind. The occasional glimpses into Mr. Gallatin's
inner nature, which his correspondence affords, show that up to this
period he was not supposed by his friends or by himself to have this
capacity. In the letter which his guardian wrote to him after his flight
from home, he was reproached with his "natural indolence." His good
friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, accused him of being hard to please, and
disposed to _ennui_; and again, as late as 1787, repeats to him, in a
tone of sorrow, the reports brought to her of his "continuance in his
old habit of indolence," his indifference to society, his neglect of
his dress, and general indifference to everything but study and reading,
tastes which, she added, he might as well have cultivated at Geneva as
in the new world; and he himself, in the letter to Badollet just
mentioned, considers that his habits and his laziness would prove
insuperable bars to his success in any profession in Europe. In
estimation of this self-condemnation, it must be borne in mind that the
Genevans were intellectual Spartans. Gallatin must be measured by that
high standard. But if the charge of indolence could have ever justly
lain against Gallatin,--a charge which his intellectual vigor at
twenty-seven seems to challenge,--it certainly could never have been
sustained after he fairly entered on his political and public career. In
October, 1790, he was elected by a two thirds majority to represent
Fayette County in the legislature of the State of Pennsylvania; James
Findley was his colleague, John Smilie being advanced to the state
Senate. Mr. Gallatin was reëlected to the Assembly in 1791 and 1792,
without opposition.
Among his papers there is a memorandum of his legislative service during
these three years, and a manuscript volume of extracts from the Journals
of the House, from January 14, 1791, to December 17, 1794. They form
part of the extensive mass of documents and letters which were collected
and partially arranged by himself, with a view to posthumous
publication. Here is an extract from the memorandum:--
"I acquired an extraordinary influence in that body [the
Pennsylvania House of Representatives]; the more remarkable as I
was always in a party minority. I was indebted for it to my great
industry and to the facility with which I could understand and
carry on the current business. The laboring oar was left almost
exclusively to me. In the session of 1791-1792, I was put on
thirty-five committees, prepared all their reports, and drew all
their bills. Absorbed by those details, my attention was turned
exclusively to administrative laws, and not to legislation properly
so called.... I failed, though the bill I had introduced passed the
House, in my efforts to lay the foundation for a better system of
education. Primary education was almost universal in Pennsylvania,
but very bad, and the bulk of schoolmasters incompetent, miserably
paid, and held in no consideration. It appeared to me that in order
to create a sufficient number of competent teachers, and to raise
the standard of general education, intermediate academical
education was an indispensable preliminary step, and the object of
the bill was to establish in each county an academy, allowing to
each out of the treasury a sum equal to that raised by taxation in
the county for its support. But there was at that time in
Pennsylvania a Quaker and a German opposition to every plan of
general education.
"The spirit of internal improvements had not yet been awakened.
Still, the first turnpike-road in the United States was that from
Philadelphia to Lancaster, which met with considerable opposition.
This, as well as every temporary improvement in our communications
(roads and rivers) and preliminary surveys, met, of course, with my
warm support. But it was in the fiscal department that I was
particularly employed, and the circumstances of the times favored
the restoration of the finances of the State.
"The report of the Committee of Ways and Means of the session
1790-91 was entirely prepared by me, known to be so, and laid the
foundation of my reputation. I was quite astonished at the general
encomiums bestowed upon it, and was not at all aware that I had
done so well. It was perspicuous and comprehensive; but I am
confident that its true merit, and that which gained me the general
confidence, was its being founded in strict justice, without the
slightest regard to party feelings or popular prejudices. The
principles assumed, and which were carried into effect, were the
immediate reimbursement and extinction of the state paper-money,
the immediate payment in specie of all the current expenses, or
warrants on the treasury (the postponement and uncertainty of which
had given rise to shameful and corrupt speculations), and provision
for discharging without defalcation every debt and engagement
previously recognized by the State. In conformity with this, the
State paid to its creditors the difference between the nominal
amount of the state debt assumed by the United States and the rate
at which it was funded by the act of Congress.
"The proceeds of the public lands, together with the arrears, were
the fund which not only discharged all the public debts, but left a
large surplus. The apprehension that this would be squandered by
the legislature was the principal inducement for chartering the
Bank of Pennsylvania, with a capital of two millions of dollars, of
which the State subscribed one half. This, and similar subsequent
investments, enabled Pennsylvania to defray, out of the dividends,
all the expenses of government without any direct tax during the
forty ensuing years, and till the adoption of the system of
internal improvement, which required new resources.
"It was my constant assiduity to business, and the assistance
derived from it by many members, which enabled the Republican party
in the legislature, then a minority on a joint ballot, to elect me,
and no other but me of that party, senator of the United States."
Among the reports enumerated by Mr. Gallatin, as those of which he was
the author, is one made by a committee on March 22, 1793, that they ...
are of opinion slavery is inconsistent with every principle of humanity,
justice, and right, and repugnant to the spirit and express letter of
the Constitution of the Commonwealth. Added to this was a resolution for
its abolition in the Commonwealth.
The seat of government was changed from New York to Philadelphia in
1790, and the first Congress assembled there in the early days of
December for its final session. Philadelphia was in glee over the
transfer of the departments. The convention which framed the new state
Constitution met here in the fall, and the legislature was also holding
its sessions. The atmosphere was political. The national and local
representatives met each other at all times and in all places, and the
public affairs were the chief topic in and out of doors. In this busy
whirl Gallatin made many friends, but Philadelphia was no more to his
taste as a residence than Boston. He was disgusted with the
ostentatious display of wealth, the result not of industry but of
speculation, and not in the hands of the most deserving members of the
community. Later he became more reconciled to the tone of Pennsylvania
society, comparing it with that of New York; he was especially pleased
with its democratic spirit, and the absence of _family influence_. "In
Pennsylvania," he says, "not only we have neither Livingstons, nor
Rensselaers, but from the suburbs of Philadelphia to the banks of the
Ohio I do not know a single family that has any extensive influence. An
equal distribution of property has rendered every individual
independent, and there is amongst us true and real equality. In a word,
as I am lazy, I like a country where living is cheap; and as I am poor,
I like a country where no person is very rich."
Hamilton's excise bill was a bone of contention in the national and
state legislatures throughout the winter. Direct taxation upon anything
was unpopular, that on distilled spirits the most distasteful to
Pennsylvania, where whiskey stills were numerous in the Alleghanies. To
the bill introduced into Congress a reply was immediately made January
14, 1791, by the Pennsylvania Assembly in a series of resolutions which
are supposed to have been drafted by Mr. Gallatin, and to have been the
first legislative paper from his pen. They distinctly charged that the
obnoxious bill was "subversive of the peace, liberty, and rights of the
citizen."
Tax by excise has always been offensive to the American people, as it
was to their ancestors across the sea. It was characterized by the first
Continental Congress of 1774 as "the horror of all free States."
Notwithstanding their warmth, these resolutions passed the Assembly by a
vote of 40 to 16. The course of this excitement must be followed; as it
swept Mr. Gallatin in its mad current, and but for his self-control,
courage, and adroitness would have wrecked him on the breakers at the
outset of his political voyage. The excise law passed Congress on March
3, 1791. On June 22 the state legislature, by a vote of 36 to 11,
requested their senators and representatives in Congress to oppose every
part of the bill which "shall militate against the rights and liberties
of the people."
The western counties of Pennsylvania--Westmoreland, Fayette, Washington,
and Allegheny--lie around the head-waters of the Ohio in a radius of
more than a hundred miles. At this time they contained a population of
about seventy thousand souls. Pittsburgh, the seat of justice, had about
twelve hundred inhabitants. The Alleghany Mountains separate this wild
region from the eastern section of the State. There were few roads of
any kind, and these lay through woods. The mountain passes could be
traveled only on foot or horseback. The only trade with the East was by
pack-horses, while communication with the South was cut off by hostile
Indian tribes who held the banks of the Ohio. This isolation from the
older, denser, and more civilized settlements bred in the people a
spirit of self-reliance and independence. They were in great part
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, a religious and warlike race to whom the
hatred of an exciseman was a tradition of their forefathers. Having no
market for their grain, they were compelled to preserve it by converting
it into whiskey. The still was the necessary appendage of every farm.
The tax was light, but payable in money, of which there was little or
none. Its imposition, therefore, coupled with the declaration of its
oppressive nature by the Pennsylvania legislature, excited a spirit of
determined opposition near akin to revolution.
Unpopular in all the western part of the State, Hamilton's bill was
especially odious to the people of Washington County. The first meeting
in opposition to it was held at Red Stone Old Fort or Brownsville, the
site of one of those ancient remains of the mound-builders which abound
in the western valleys. It was easily reached by Braddock's Road, the
chief highway of the country. Here gathered on July 27, 1791, a number
of persons opposed to the law, when it was agreed that county committees
should be convened in the four counties at the respective seats of
justice. Brackenridge, in his "Incidents of the Western Insurrection,"
says that Albert Gallatin was clerk of the meeting. One of these
committees met in the town of Washington on August 23, when violent
resolutions were adopted. Gallatin, engaged at Philadelphia, was not
present at this assemblage, three of whose members were deputed to meet
delegates from the counties of Westmoreland, Fayette, and Allegheny, at
Pittsburgh, on the first Tuesday in September following, to agree upon
an address to the legislature on the subject of excise and other
grievances. At the Pittsburgh meeting eleven delegates appeared for the
four counties. The resolutions adopted by them, general in character,
read more like a declaration of grievances as a basis for revolution
than a petition for special redress. No wonder that the secretary of the
treasury stigmatized them as "intemperate." They charge that in the laws
of the late Congress hasty strides had been made to all that was unjust
and oppressive. They complain of the increase in the salaries of
officials, of the unreasonable interest of the national debt, of the
non-discrimination between original holders and transferees of the
public securities, of the National Bank as a base offspring of the
funding system; finally, in detail, of the excise law of March 3, 1791.
At this meeting James Marshall and David Bradford represented Washington
County.
In August government offices of inspection were opened. The spirit of
resistance was now fully aroused, and in the early days of September the
collectors for Washington, Westmoreland, and Fayette were treated with
violence. Unwilling to proceed to excessive measures, and no doubt
swayed by the attitude of the Pennsylvania legislature, Congress in
October referred the law back to Hamilton for revision. He reported an
amended act on March 6, 1792, which was immediately passed, and became a
law March 8. It was to take effect on the last day of June succeeding.
By it the rate of duty was reduced, a privilege of time as to the
running of licenses of stills granted, and the tax ordered only for such
time as they were actually used.
But these modifications did not satisfy the malcontents of the four
western counties, and they met again on August 21, 1792, at Pittsburgh.
Of this second Pittsburgh meeting Albert Gallatin was chosen secretary.
Badollet went up with Gallatin. John Smilie, James Marshall, and James
Bradford of Washington County were present. Bradford, Marshall,
Gallatin, and others were appointed to draw up a remonstrance to
Congress. In order to carry out with regularity and concert the measures
agreed upon, a committee of correspondence was appointed, and the
meeting closed with the adoption of the violent resolutions passed at
the Washington meeting of 1791:--
"Whereas, some men may be found among us so far lost to every sense
of virtue and feeling for the distresses of this country as to
accept offices for the collection of the duty.
"Resolved, therefore, that in future we will consider such persons
as unworthy of our friendship; have no intercourse or dealings with
them; withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the
comforts of life which depend upon those duties that as men and
fellow citizens we owe to each other; and upon all occasions treat
them with that contempt they deserve; and that it be, and it is
hereby, most earnestly recommended to the people at large, to
follow the same line of conduct towards them."
If such an excommunication were to be meted out to an offending
neighbor, what measure would the excise man receive if he came from
abroad on his unwelcome errand?
These resolutions were signed by Mr. Gallatin as clerk, and made public
through the press. Resolutions of this character, if not criminal, reach
the utmost limit of indiscretion, and political indiscretion is quite as
dangerous as crime. The petition to Congress, subscribed by the
inhabitants of western Pennsylvania, was drawn by Gallatin; while
explicit in terms, it was moderate in tone. It represented the unequal
operation of the act. "A duty laid on the common drink of a nation,
instead of taxing the citizens in proportion to their property, falls as
heavy on the poorest class as on the rich;" and it ingeniously pointed
out that the distance of the inhabitants of the western counties from
market prevented their bringing the produce of their lands to sale,
either in grain or meal. "We are therefore distillers through necessity,
not choice; that we may comprehend the greatest value in the smallest
size and weight."
Hamilton, indignant, reported the proceedings to the President on
September 9, 1792, and demanded instant punishment. Washington, who was
at Mount Vernon, was unwilling to go to extremes, but consented to issue
a proclamation, which, drafted by Hamilton, and countersigned by
Jefferson, was published September 15, 1792. It earnestly admonished all
persons to desist from unlawful combinations to obstruct the operations
of the laws, and charged all courts, magistrates, and officers with
their enforcement. There was no mistaking Hamilton's intention to
enforce the law. Prosecutions in the Circuit Court, held at Yorktown in
October, were ordered against the Pittsburgh offenders, but no proof
could be had to sustain an indictment.
The President's proclamation startled the western people, and some
uneasiness was felt as to how such of their representatives as had taken
part in the Pittsburgh meeting would be received when they should go up
to the legislature in the winter. Bradford and Smilie accompanied
Gallatin; Smilie to take his seat in the state Senate, and Bradford to
represent Washington County in the House, where he "cut a poor figure."
Gallatin despised him, and characterized him as a "tenth-rate lawyer and
an empty drum." Gallatin found, however, that although the Pittsburgh
meeting had hurt the general interest of his party throughout the State,
and "rather defeated" the repeal of the excise law, his eastern friends
did not turn the cold shoulder to him. He said to every one whom he
knew that the resolutions were perhaps too violent and undoubtedly
highly impolitic, but, in his opinion, contained nothing illegal.
Meanwhile federal officers proceeded to enforce the law in Washington
County. A riot ensued, and the office was forcibly closed. Bills were
found against two of the offenders in the federal court, and warrants to
arrest and bring them to Philadelphia for trial were issued. Gallatin
believed the men innocent, and did not hesitate to advise Badollet to
keep them out of the way when the marshal should go to serve the writs,
but deprecated any insult to the officer. He thought "the precedent a
very dangerous one to drag people such a distance in order to be tried
on governmental prosecutions." Here the matter rested for a season.
At this session of the legislature Gallatin introduced a new system of
county taxation, proposed a clause providing for "trustees yearly
elected, one to each township, without whose consent no tax is to be
raised, nor any above one per cent. on the value of lands," which he
hoped would "tend to crush the aristocracy of every town in the State."
Also he proposed a plan to establish a school and library in each
county, with a sufficient immediate sum in money, and a yearly allowance
for a teacher in the English language.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The drafting of this letter was, notwithstanding his
protest, intrusted to John Jay, one of the strongest of the Federal
leaders, and a warm supporter of the Constitution as it stood.]
CHAPTER III
UNITED STATES SENATE
The death of the grandfather of Mr. Gallatin, and soon after of his
aunt, strongly tempted him to make a journey to Geneva in the summer of
1793. The political condition of Europe at that time was of thrilling
interest. On January 21 the head of Louis XVI. fell under the
guillotine, to which Marie Antoinette soon followed him. The armies of
the coalition were closing in upon France. Of the political necessity
for these state executions there has always been and will always be
different judgments. That of Mr. Gallatin is of peculiar value. It is
found expressed in intimate frankness in a letter to his friend
Badollet, written at Philadelphia, February 1, 1794.
"France at present offers a spectacle unheard of at any other
period. Enthusiasm there produces an energy equally terrible and
sublime. All those virtues which depend upon social or family
affections, all those amiable weaknesses, which our natural
feelings teach us to love or respect, have disappeared before the
stronger, the only, at present, powerful passion, the _Amor
Patriæ_. I must confess my soul is not enough steeled, not
sometimes to shrink at the dreadful executions which have restored
at least apparent internal tranquillity to that republic. Yet upon
the whole, as long as the combined despots press upon every
frontier, and employ every engine to destroy and distress the
interior parts, I think they, and they alone, are answerable for
every act of severity or injustice, for every excess, nay for every
crime, which either of the contending parties in France may have
committed."
Within a few years the publication of the correspondence of De Fersen,
the agent of the king and queen, has supplied the proof of the charge
that they were in secret correspondence with the allied sovereigns to
introduce foreign troops upon the soil of France,--a crime which no
people has ever condoned.
The French Revolution, which from its beginning in 1789 reacted upon the
United States with fully the force that the American Revolution exerted
upon France, had become an important factor in American politics. The
intemperance of Genet, the minister of the French Convention to the
United States on the one hand, and the breaches of neutrality by England
on the other, were dividing the American people into English and French
parties. The Federalists sympathized with the English, the late enemies,
and the Republicans with the French, the late allies, of the United
States.
Mr. Gallatin had about made up his mind to visit Europe, when an
unexpected political honor changed his plans. The Pennsylvania
legislature elected him a senator of the United States on joint ballot,
a distinction the more singular in that the legislature was Federalist
and Mr. Gallatin was a representative of a Republican district, and
strong in that faith. Moreover, he was not a candidate either of his own
motion or by that of his friends, but, on the contrary, had doubts as to
his eligibility because of insufficient residence. This objection, which
he himself stated in caucus, was disregarded, and on February 28, 1793,
by a vote of 45 to 37, he was chosen senator. Mr. Gallatin had just
completed his thirty-second year, and now a happy marriage came
opportunely to stimulate his ambition and smooth his path to other
honors.
Among the friends made at Philadelphia was Alexander J. Dallas, a
gentleman two years Gallatin's senior, whose career, in some respects,
resembled his own. He was born in Jamaica, of Scotch parents; had been
thoroughly educated at Edinburgh and Westminster, and, coming to the
United States in 1783, had settled in Philadelphia. He now held the post
of secretary of state for Pennsylvania. Mr. Gallatin's constant
committee service brought him into close relations with the secretary,
and the foundation was laid of a lasting political friendship and social
intimacy. In the recess of the legislature, Mr. Gallatin joined Mr.
Dallas and his wife in an excursion to the northward. Mr. Gallatin's
health had suffered from close confinement and too strict attention to
business, and he needed recreation and diversion. In the course of the
journey the party was joined by some ladies, friends of Mrs. Dallas,
among whom was Miss Hannah Nicholson. The excursion lasted nearly four
weeks. The result was that Mr. Gallatin returned to Philadelphia the
accepted suitor of this young lady. He describes her in a letter to
Badollet as "a girl about twenty-five years old, who is neither handsome
nor rich, but sensible, well-informed, good-natured, and belonging to a
respectable and very amiable family." Nor was he mistaken in his
choice,--a more charming nature, a more perfect, well-rounded character
than hers is rarely found. They were married on November 11, 1793. She
was his faithful companion throughout his long and honorable career, and
death separated them but by a few months. This alliance greatly widened
his political connection.
Commodore James Nicholson, his wife's father, famous in the naval annals
of the United States as the captain of the Trumbull, the first of
American frigates, at the time resided in New York, and was one of the
acknowledged leaders of the Republican party in the city. His two
brothers--Samuel and John--were captains in the naval service. His two
elder daughters were married to influential gentlemen;--Catharine to
Colonel Few, senator from Georgia; Frances, to Joshua Seney, member of
Congress from Maryland; Maria later (1809) married John Montgomery, who
had been member of Congress from Maryland, and was afterwards mayor of
Baltimore. A son, James Witter Nicholson, then a youth of twenty-one,
was, in 1795, associated with Mr. Gallatin in his Western Company, and,
removing to Fayette, made his home in what was later and is now known as
New Geneva. Here, in connection with Mr. Gallatin and the brothers
Kramer, Germans, he established extensive glass works, which proved
profitable.
* * * * *
Mr. Gallatin's election to the United States Senate did not disqualify
him for his unfinished legislative term, and, on his return to
Philadelphia, he was again plunged in his manifold duties. The few days
which intervened between his marriage and the meeting of Congress--a
short honeymoon--were spent under the roof of Commodore Nicholson in New
York.
On February 28, 1793, the Vice-President laid before the Senate a
certificate from the legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to
the election of Albert Gallatin as senator of the United States. Mr.
Gallatin took his seat December 2, 1793. The business of the session was
opened by the presentation of a petition signed by nineteen individuals
of Yorktown, Pennsylvania, stating that Mr. Gallatin had not been nine
years a citizen of the United States. This petition had been handed to
Robert Morris, Mr. Gallatin's colleague for Pennsylvania, by a member of
the legislature for the county of York, but he had declined to present
it, and declared to Mr. Gallatin his intention to be perfectly neutral
on the occasion--at least so Mr. Gallatin wrote to his wife the next
day; but Morris did not hold fast to this resolution, as the votes in
the sequel show. The petition was ordered to lie upon the table. On
December 11 Messrs. Rutherford, Cabot, Ellsworth, Livermore, and
Mitchell were appointed a committee to consider the petition. These
gentlemen, Gallatin wrote, were undoubtedly "the worst for him that
could have been chosen, and did not seem to him to be favorably
disposed." He himself considered the legal point involved as a nice and
difficult one, and likely to be decided by a party vote. The fourth
article of the Constitution of the first Confederation of the United
States reads as follows:--
"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and
intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union,
the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds,
and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all
privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States."
Article 1, section 3, of the new Constitution declares:--
"No person shall be a senator who shall not have attained to the
age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that
State for which he shall be chosen."
Mr. Gallatin landed in Massachusetts in July, 1780, while still a minor.
His residence, therefore, which had been uninterrupted, extended over
thirteen years. He took the oath of citizenship and allegiance to
Virginia in October, 1785, since which, until his election in 1793, nine
years, the period called for by the United States Constitution, had not
elapsed. On the one hand, his actual residence exceeded the required
period of citizenship; on the other, his legal and technical residence
as a citizen was insufficient. In point of fact, his intention to become
a citizen dated from the summer of 1783.
To take from the case the air of party proscription, which it was
beginning to assume, the Senate discharged its special committee, and
raised a general committee on elections to consider this and other
cases. On February 10, 1794, the report of this committee was submitted,
and a day was set for a hearing by the Senate, with open doors. On that
day Mr. Gallatin exhibited a written statement of facts, agreed to
between himself and the petitioners, and the case was left to the Senate
on its merits. On the 28th a test vote was taken upon a motion to the
effect that "Albert Gallatin, returned to this House as a member for the
State of Pennsylvania, is duly qualified for and elected to a seat in
the Senate of the United States," and it was decided in the
negative--yeas, 12; nays, 14.[2]
Motion being made that the election of Albert Gallatin to be a senator
of the United States was void,--he not having been a citizen of the
United States for the term of years required as a qualification to be a
senator of the United States,--it was further moved to divide the
question at the word "void;" and the question being then taken on the
first paragraph, it passed in the affirmative--yeas, 14; nays, 12. The
yeas and nays were required, and the Senate divided as before. The
resolution was then put and adopted by the same vote. Thus Mr. Gallatin,
thirteen years a resident of the country, a large land-holder in
Virginia, and for several terms a member of the Pennsylvania
legislature, was excluded from a seat in the Senate of the United
States.
Mr. Gallatin conducted his case with great dignity. On being asked
whether he had any testimony to produce, he replied, in writing, that
there was not sufficient matter charged in the petition and proved by
the testimony to vacate his seat, and declined to go to the expense of
collecting evidence until that preliminary question was settled.
Short as the period was during which Mr. Gallatin held his seat, it was
long enough for him seriously to annoy the Federal leaders. Indeed, it
is questionable whether, if he had delayed his embarrassing motion, a
majority of the Senate could have been secured against him. Certain it
is that the Committee on Elections, appointed on December 11, did not
send in its report until the day after Mr. Gallatin moved his
resolution, calling upon the secretary of the treasury for an elaborate
statement of the debt on January 1, 1794, under distinct heads,
including the balances to creditor States, a statement of loans,
domestic and foreign, contracted from the beginning of the government,
statements of exports and imports; finally for a summary statement of
the receipts and expenditures to the last day of December, 1790,
_distinguishing the moneys received under each branch of the revenue and
the moneys expended under each of the appropriations, and stating the
balances of each branch of the revenue remaining unexpended on that
day_, and also calling for similar and separate statements for the years
1791, 1792, 1793. This resolution, introduced on January 8, was laid
over. On the 20th it was adopted. It was not until February 10 that a
reply from the secretary of the treasury was received by the Senate, and
on the 11th submitted to Gallatin, Ellsworth, and Taylor for
consideration and report. In this letter (February 6, 1794) Hamilton
stated the difficulty of supplying the precise information called for,
with the clerical forces of the department, the interruption it would
cause in the daily routine of the service, and deprecated the practice
of such unexpected demands.
With this response of the secretary the inquiry fell to the ground, but
it was neither forgotten nor forgiven by his adherents, and Mr. Gallatin
paid the penalty on at least one occasion. This was years later, when he
himself was secretary of the treasury. On March 2, 1803, the day before
the adjournment of Congress, Mr. Griswold, Federalist from Connecticut,
attacked the correctness of the accounts of the sinking fund, and
demanded an answer to a resolution of the House on the management of
this bureau. Had such been his desire, Mr. Gallatin was foreclosed from
Hamilton's excuse. On the night of the 3d he sent in an elaborate
statement which set accusation at rest and criticism at defiance.
Mr. Gallatin's short stay in the Senate revealed to the Federalists the
character of the man, who, disdaining the lesser flight, checked only at
the highest game. He accepted his exclusion with perfect philosophy.
Soon after the session opened he said, "My feelings cannot be much hurt
by an unfavorable decision, since having been elected is an equal proof
of the confidence the legislature of Pennsylvania reposed in me, and not
being qualified, if it is so decided, cannot be imputed to me as a
fault." His exclusion was by no means a disadvantage to him. It made
common cause of the honor of Pennsylvania and his own; it endeared him
to the Republicans of his State as a martyr to their principles. It
"secured him," to use his own words, "many staunch" friends throughout
the Union, and extended his reputation, hitherto local and confined,
over the entire land; more than all, it led him to the true field of
political contest--the House of Representatives of the people of the
United States.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: The yeas and nays being required by one fifth of the
senators present, there were: _Affirmative_.--Bradley, Brown, Burr,
Butler, Edwards, Gunn, Jackson, Langdon, Martin, Monroe, Robinson,
Taylor; 12.
_Negative_.--Bradford, Cabot, Ellsworth, Foster, Frelinghuysen, Hawkins,
Izard, King, Livermore, Mitchell, Morris, Potts, Strong, Vining; 14.]
CHAPTER IV
THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION
Mr. Gallatin was now out of public life. For eighteen months since he
came up to the legislature with his friends of the Pittsburgh
convention, he had not returned to Fayette. His private concerns were
suffering in his absence. Neither his barn, his meadow, nor his house
was finished at the close of 1793. In May, 1794, he took his wife to his
country home. Their hopes of a summer of recreation and domestic comfort
in the wild beauties of the Monongahela were not to be realized. Before
the end of June the peaceful country was in a state of mad agitation.
The seeds of political discontent, sown at Pittsburgh in 1792, had
ripened to an abundant harvest. An act passed by Congress June 5, 1794,
giving to the state courts concurrent jurisdiction in excise cases,
removed the grievance of which Gallatin complained, the dragging of
accused persons to Philadelphia for trial, but was not construed to be
retroactive in its operation. The marshal, accordingly, found it to be
his duty to serve the writs of May 31 against those who had fallen under
their penalties. These writs were returnable in Philadelphia. They were
served without trouble in Fayette County. Not so in Allegheny. Here on
July 15, 1794, the marshal had completed his service, when, while still
in the execution of his office, and in company with the inspector, he
was followed and fired upon. The next day a body of men went to the
house of the marshal and demanded that he should deliver up his
commission. They were fired upon and dispersed, six were wounded, and
the leader killed. A general rising followed. The marshal's house,
though defended by Major Kirkpatrick, with a squad from the Pittsburgh
garrison, was set on fire, with the adjacent buildings, and burned. On
July 18 the insurgents sent a deputation of two or three to Pittsburgh,
to require of the marshal a surrender of the processes in his
possession, and of the inspector the resignation of his office. These
demands were, of course, rejected; but the officers, alarmed for their
personal safety, left the town, and, descending the Ohio by boat to
Marietta, proceeded by a circuitous route to Philadelphia, and made
their report to the United States authorities.
This was the outbreak of the Western or Whiskey Insurrection. The
excitement spread rapidly through the western counties. Fayette County
was not exempt from it. The collector's house was broken into, and his
commission taken from him by armed men; the sheriff refused to serve the
writs against the rioters of the spring. Since these disturbances there
had been no trouble in this county. But the malcontents elsewhere rose
in arms, riots ensued, and the safety of the whole community was
compromised. The news reaching Fayette, the distillers held a meeting at
Uniontown, the county seat, on July 20. Both Gallatin and Smilie were
present, and by their advice it was agreed to submit to the laws. The
neighboring counties were less fortunate. On July 21 the Washington
County committee was summoned to meet at Mingo Creek Meeting-house. On
the 23d there was a large assemblage of people, including a number of
those who had been concerned in burning the house of the Pittsburgh
inspector. James Marshall, the same who opposed the ratification of the
federal Constitution, David Bradford, the "empty drum," and Judge
Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, attended this meeting. Bradford, the most
unscrupulous of the leaders, sought to shirk his responsibility, but was
intimidated by threats, and thereafter did not dare to turn back.
Brackenridge was present to counsel the insurgents to moderation. In
spite of his efforts the meeting ended in an invitation, which the
officers had not the boldness to sign, to the townships of the four
western counties of Pennsylvania and the adjoining counties of Virginia
to send representatives to a general meeting on August 14, at
Parkinson's Ferry on the Monongahela, in Washington County. Bradford,
determined to aggravate the disturbance, stopped the mail at Greensburg,
on the road between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and robbed it of the
Washington and Pittsburgh letters, some of which he published, to the
alarm of their authors.
On July 28 a circular signed by Bradford, Marshall, and others was sent
out from Cannonsburg to the militia of the county, whom it summoned for
personal service, and likewise called for volunteers to rendezvous the
following Wednesday, July 30, at their respective places of meeting,
thence to march to Braddock's Field, on the Monongahela, the usual
rendezvous of the militia, about eight miles south of Pittsburgh, by two
o'clock of Friday, August 1. It closed in these words, "Here is an
expedition proposed in which you will have an opportunity for displaying
your military talents and of rendering service to your country." Nothing
less was contemplated by the more extreme of these men than an attack
upon Fort Pitt and the sack of Pittsburgh. Thoroughly aroused at last,
the moderate men of Washington determined to breast the storm. A meeting
was held; James Ross of the United States Senate made an earnest appeal,
and was supported by Scott of the House of Representatives and Stokely
of the Senate of Pennsylvania. Marshall and Bradford yielded, and
consented to countermand the order of rendezvous. But the excited
population poured into the town from all quarters, and Bradford, who
found that he had gone too far to retreat, again took the lead of the
movement, already beyond restraint.
There are accounts of this formidable insurrection by H. H. Brackenridge
and William Findley, eye-witnesses. These supply abundant details.
Findley says that he knew that the movement would not stop at the limit
apparently set for it. "The opposing one law would lead to oppose
another; they would finally oppose all, and demand a new modeling of the
Constitution, and there would be a revolution." There was great alarm in
Pittsburgh. A meeting was held there Thursday evening, July 31, at which
a message from the Washington County insurgents was read, violent
resolutions adopted, and the 9th of August appointed as the day for a
town meeting for election of delegates to a general convention of the
counties at Parkinson's Ferry; Judge Brackenridge of Pittsburgh, a man
of education, influence, and infinite jest and humor, was present at
this meeting. Of Scotch-Irish birth himself, his sympathies of race were
with his countrymen, but in political sentiments he was not in harmony
with their leaders. They were nearly all Republicans, while he had sided
with the Federalists in the convention which adopted the new
Constitution of the United States. He was a man of peace, and of too
much sagacity not to foresee the inevitable ruin upon which they were
rushing. At Mingo Creek he had thwarted the plans of immediate
revolution. The evident policy of moderate men was to prevent any
violence before the convention at Parkinson's Ferry should meet, and to
bend all their energies to control the deliberations of that body. The
people of Pittsburgh were intensely excited by the armed gathering
almost at their doors.
Brackenridge felt that the only safe issue from the situation was to
take part in and shape the action of that gathering. Under his lead a
committee from the Pittsburgh meeting, followed by a large body of the
citizens, went out to the rendezvous. Here they found a motley
assemblage, arrayed in the picturesque campaign costume which the
mountaineers wore when they equipped themselves to meet the
Indians,--yellow hunting-shirts, handkerchiefs tied about their heads,
and rifles on the shoulder; the militia were on foot, and the light
horse of the counties were in military dress. Conspicuous about the
field, "haughty and pompous," as Gallatin described him in the
legislature, was David Bradford, who had assumed the office of
major-general. Brackenridge draws a lifelike picture of him as, mounted
on a superb horse in splendid trappings, arrayed in full uniform, with
plume floating in the air and sword drawn, he rode over the ground, gave
orders to the military, and harangued the multitude. On the historic
ground where Washington plucked his first military laurels were gathered
about seven thousand men, of whom two thousand militia were armed and
accoutred as for a campaign,--a formidable and remarkable assemblage,
when it is considered that the entire male population of sixteen years
of age and upwards of the four counties did not exceed sixteen
thousand, and was scattered over a wide and unsettled country. This is
Brackenridge's estimate of the numbers. Later, Gallatin, on comparison
of the best attainable information, estimated the whole body at from
fifteen hundred to two thousand men. Whatever violence Bradford may have
intended, none was accomplished. That he read aloud the Pittsburgh
letters, taken from the mail, shows his purpose to inflame the people to
vindictive violence. He was accused by contemporary authorities of
imitation of the methods of the French Jacobins, which were fresh
examples of revolutionary vigor. But the mass was not persuaded. After
desultory conversation and discussion, the angry turn of which was at
times threatening to the moderate leaders, the meeting broke up on
August 2; about one third dispersed for their homes, and the remainder,
marching to Pittsburgh, paraded through the streets, and finally
crossing the river in their turn scattered. They did no damage to the
town beyond the burning of a farm belonging to Major Kirkpatrick of the
garrison. The taverns were all closed, but the citizens brought whiskey
to their doors. Judge Brackenridge reports that his sacrifice to peace
on this occasion cost him four barrels of his best old rye.
This moderation was no augury of permanent quiet. Brackenridge, who was
a keen observer of men, says of the temper of the western population at
this period: "I had seen the spirit which prevailed at the Stamp Act,
and at the commencement of the revolution from the government of Great
Britain, but it was by no means so general and so vigorous amongst the
common people as the spirit which now existed in the country." Nor did
the armed bands all return peaceably to their homes. The house of the
collector for Fayette and Washington counties was burned, and warnings
were given to those who were disposed to submit to the law. The
disaffected were called "Tom the tinker" men, from the signature affixed
to the threatening notices. From a passage in one of Gallatin's letters
it appears that there was a person of that name, a New England man, who
had been concerned in Shays's insurrection. Liberty poles, with the
device, "An equal tax and no excise law," were raised, and the trees
placarded with the old revolutionary motto, "United we stand, divided we
fall," with a divided snake as an emblem. Mr. Gallatin's neighborhood
was not represented at Braddock's Field, and not more than a dozen were
present from the entire county. But now the flame spread there also, and
liberty poles were raised. Mr. Gallatin himself, inquiring as to their
significance and expressing to the men engaged the hope that they would
not behave like a mob, was asked, in return, if he was not aware of the
Westmoreland resolution that any one calling the people a mob should be
tarred and feathered,--an amusing example of that mob logic which
proves the affirmative of the proposition it denies.
Mr. Gallatin did not attend the meeting at Braddock's Field. Somewhat
isolated at his residence at the southerly border of the county, engaged
in the care of his long neglected farm, and in the full enjoyment of
release from the bustle and excitement of public life, he had paid
little attention to passing events. He was preparing definitively to
abandon political pursuits and to follow some kind of mercantile
business, or take up some land speculation and study law in his
intervals of leisure. It was not a year since he had given hostages to
fortune. He was now in the full tide of domestic happiness, which was
always to him the dearest and most coveted. He might well have hesitated
before again engaging upon the dangerous and uncertain task of
controlling an excited and aggrieved population. But he did not
hesitate.
The people among whom he had made his home, and whose confidence had
never failed him, were his people. By them he would stand in their
extremity, and if hurt or ruin befell them, it should not be for want of
the interposition of his counsel. He knew his powers, and he determined
to bring them into full play. He knew the danger also, but it only
nerved him to confront and master it. He knew his duty, and did not
swerve one hair from the line it prompted. In no part of his long,
varied, and useful political life does he appear to better advantage
than in this exciting episode of the Whiskey Insurrection. His
self-possession, his cool judgment, swayed neither by timidity nor
rashness, never for a moment failed him. Here he displayed that
remarkable combination of persuasion and control,--the indispensable
equipment of a political chief,--which, in later days, gave him the
leadership of the Republican party. With intuitive perception of the
political situation he saw that the only path to safety, beset with
difficulty and danger though it were, was through the convention at
Parkinson's Ferry. He did not believe that any revolutionary proceedings
had yet been taken, or that the convention was an illegal body, but he
was determined to separate the wheat from the chaff, and disengage the
moderate and the law-abiding from the disorderly. By the light of his
own experience he had learned wisdom. He also had drawn a lesson from
the French Revolution, and knew the uncontrollable nature of large
popular assemblages. The news from Philadelphia, the seat of government,
was of a kind to increase his alarm. Washington was not the man to
overlook such an insult to authority as the resistance to the marshal
and inspector; nor was it probable that Hamilton would let pass such an
occasion for showing the strength and vigor of the government.
Before the meeting at Braddock's Field, the secretary's plans for a
suppression of the insurrection were matured. On August 2 he laid
before the President an estimate of the probable armed force of the
insurgents, and of that with which he proposed to reduce them to
submission. When the question of the use of force came before the
cabinet, Edmund Randolph, who was secretary of state, opposed it in a
written opinion, one phrase of which deserves repetition:--
"It is a fact well known that the parties in the United States are
highly inflamed against each other, and that there is but one
character which keeps both in awe. As soon as the sword shall be
drawn, who shall be able to retain them."
Mifflin, the governor of Pennsylvania, deprecated immediate resort to
force; the venerable Chief Justice McKean suggested the sending of
commissioners on the part of the federal and state governments.
Washington, with perfect judgment, combined these plans, and happily
allied conciliation with force. A proclamation was issued on August 7
summoning all persons involved in the disturbance to lay down their arms
and repair to their homes by September 1. Requisitions were made upon
the governors of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey for
fifteen thousand men in all, and a joint commission of five was
raised,--three of whom on the part of the United States were appointed
by the President, and two on the part of the State of Pennsylvania. This
news was soon known at Pittsburgh, and rapidly spread through the
adjacent country; and it was clear that in the proceedings to be taken
at Parkinson's Ferry the question of resistance or submission must be
definitively settled. On August 14, 1794, the convention assembled; two
hundred and twenty-six delegates in all, of whom ninety-three were from
Washington, forty-nine from Westmoreland, forty-three from Allegheny,
thirty-three from Fayette, two from Bedford, five from Ohio County in
Virginia, with spectators to about the same number.
Parkinson's Ferry, later called Williamsport, and now Monongahela City,
is on the left bank of the Monongahela, about half way between
Pittsburgh and Red Stone Old Fort or Brownsville. Brackenridge pictures
the scene with his usual local color: "Our hall was a grove, and we
might well be called 'the Mountain' (an allusion to the radical left of
the French convention), for we were on a very lofty ground overlooking
the river. We had a gallery of lying timber and stumps, and there were
more people collected there than there was of the committee." In full
view of the meeting stood a liberty pole, raised in the morning by the
men who signed the Braddock's Field circular order, and it bore the
significant motto, "Liberty and no excise and no asylum for cowards."
Among the delegates, or the committee, to use their own term, were
Bradford, Marshall, Brackenridge, Findley, and Gallatin. Before the
meeting was organized, Marshall came to Gallatin and showed him the
resolutions which he intended to move, intimating at the same time that
he wished Mr. Gallatin to act as secretary. Mr. Gallatin told him that
he highly disapproved the resolutions, and had come to oppose both him
and Bradford, and therefore did not wish to serve. Marshall seemed to
waver; but soon the people met, and Edward Cook of Fayette, who had
presided at Braddock's Field, was chosen chairman, with Gallatin for
secretary. Bradford opened the proceedings with a summary sketch of the
action previously taken, declared the purpose of the committee to be to
determine on a course of action, and his own views to be the appointment
of committees to raise money, purchase arms, enlist volunteers, or draft
the militia: in a word, though he did not use it, to levy war.
At this point in the proceedings the arrival of the commissioners from
the President was announced, but the progress of the meeting was not
interrupted. The commissioners were at a house near the meeting, but
there were serious objections against holding a conference at this
place.
Marshall then moved his resolutions. The first, declaratory of the
grievance of carrying citizens great distances for trial, was
unanimously agreed to. The second called for a committee of public
safety "to call forth the resources of the western country to repel any
hostile attempts that may be made against the rights of the citizens, or
of the body of the people." Had this resolution been adopted, the people
were definitively committed to overt rebellion. This brought Mr.
Gallatin at once to his feet. He denied that any hostile attempts
against the rights of the people were threatened, and drew an adroit
distinction between the regular army, which had not been called out, and
the militia, who were a part of the people themselves; and to gain time
he moved a reference of the resolutions to a committee who should be
instructed to wait the action of the government. In the course of his
speech Gallatin denied the assertion that resistance to the excise law
was legal, or that coercion by the government was necessarily hostile.
He was neither supported by his own friends nor opposed by those of
Bradford. He stood alone.
But Marshall withdrew his resolution, and a committee of sixty was
appointed, with power to summon the people. The only other objectionable
resolution was that which pledged the people to the support of the laws,
except the excise law and the taking of citizens out of their counties
for trial,--an exception which Gallatin succeeded in having stricken
out. He then urged the adoption of the resolution, without the
exception, as necessary "to the establishment of the laws and the
conservation of the peace," and here he was supported by Brackenridge.
The entire resolutions were finally referred to a committee of
four,--Gallatin, Bradford, Husbands, and Brackenridge. The meeting then
adjourned. The next morning a standing committee of sixty was chosen,
one from each township. From these a committee of twelve was selected
to confer with the government commissioners. Upon this committee were
Cook, the chairman, Bradford, Marshall, Gallatin, Brackenridge, and
Edgar. The meeting then adjourned.
Upon this representative body there seems to have been no outside
pressure. The proclamation of the President, which arrived while it was
in session, showed the determination, while the appointment of the
commission showed the moderation, of the government. Gallatin availed of
each circumstance with consummate adroitness, pointing out to the
desperate the folly of resistance, and to the moderate an issue for
honorable retreat.
Meanwhile, the commissioners reached Pittsburgh, where on August 20 the
committee of conference was received by them, and an informal
understanding arrived at, which was put in writing. The laws were to be
enforced with as little inconvenience to the people as possible. All
criminal suits for indictable offenses were to be dropped, but civil
suits were to take their course. Notice was given that a definitive
submission must be made by September 1 following. On the 22d the
conference committee answered that they must consult with the committee
of sixty. Thursday the 28th was appointed for a meeting at Red Stone Old
Fort, the very spot where the original resolutions of opposition were
passed in 1791. In the report drawn up every member of the twelve,
except Bradford, favored submission.
The hour was critical, the deliberations were in the open air, and under
the eyes of a threatening party of seventy riflemen accidentally present
from Washington County across the stream. Bradford, who instinctively
felt that he had placed himself beyond the pale of pardon, and to whom
there was no alternative to revolution but flight, pressed an instant
decision and rejection of the written terms of the commissioners. In the
presence of personal danger, the conferrees only dared to move that part
of their report which advised acceptance of the proffered terms. The
question of submission they left untouched. An adjournment was obtained.
The next day, to quote the words of Brackenridge, "the committee having
convened, Gallatin addressed the chair in a speech of some hours. It was
a piece of perfect eloquence, and was heard with attention and without
disturbance." Never was there a more striking instance of intellectual
control over a popular assemblage. He saved the western counties of
Pennsylvania from anarchy and civil war. He was followed by
Brackenridge, who, warned by the example of his companion, or encouraged
by the quiet of the assemblage, supported him with vigor. Bradford, on
the other hand, faced the issue with directness and savage vehemence. He
repelled the idea of submission, and insisted upon an independent
government and a declaration of war. Edgar of Washington rejoined in
support of the report. Gallatin now demanded a vote, but the twelve
conferrees alone supported him. He then proposed an informal vote, but
without result. Finally a secret ballot was proposed by a member. A hat
was passed, and when the slips of paper were taken out, there were
thirty-four yeas and twenty-three nays. The report was declared to be
adopted, and amid the scowls of the armed witnesses the meeting
adjourned; not, however, before a new committee of conference had been
appointed. On this new committee not one of the old leaders was named.
They evidently knew the folly of further delay, or of attempting to
secure better terms. As his final act Colonel Cook, the chairman of the
standing committee of sixty, indorsed the resolution adopted. It
declared it to be "to the interest of the people of the country to
accede to the proposals made by the commissioners on the part of the
United States." This was duly forwarded, with request for a further
conference. The commissioners consented, but declined to postpone the
time of taking the sense of the people beyond September 11.
William Findley said of the famous and critical debate at Red Stone: "I
had never heard speeches that I more ardently desired to see in print
than those delivered on this occasion. They would not only be valuable
on account of the oratory and information displayed in all the three,
and especially in Gallatin's, who opened the way, but they would also
have been the best history of the spirit and the mistakes which then
actuated men's minds." Findley, in his allotment of the honors of the
day, considers that "the verbal alterations made by Gallatin saved the
question." Brackenridge thought that his own seeming to coincide with
Bradford prevented the declaration of war; and he has been credited with
having saved the western counties from the horrors of civil war,
Pittsburgh from destruction, and the Federal Union from imminent danger.
Historians have agreed in according to Gallatin the honor of this field
day. It was left to John C. Hamilton, half a century later, to charge a
want of courage upon Gallatin,--a baseless charge.[3] Not Malesherbes,
the noble advocate defending the accused monarch before the angry French
convention, with the certainty of the guillotine as the reward of his
generosity, is more worthy of admiration than Gallatin boldly pleading
the cause of order within rifle range of an excited band of lawless
frontiersmen. If, as he confessed later, in his part in the Pittsburgh
resolutions he was guilty of "a political sin," he nobly atoned for it
under circumstances that would have tried the courage of men bred to
danger and to arms. Sin it was, and its consequences were not yet summed
up. For although the back of the insurrection was broken at Red Stone
Old Fort, there was much yet to be done before submission could be
completed.
Bradford attempted to sign, but found that his course at Red Stone Old
Fort had placed him outside the amnesty. Well might the moderate men say
in their familiar manner of Scripture allusion, "Dagon is fallen." He
fled down the Ohio and Mississippi to Louisiana, then foreign soil. The
commissioners waited at Pittsburgh for the signatures of adhesion on
September 10, which was the last day allowed by the terms of amnesty.
They required that meetings should be held on this day in the several
townships; the presiding officers to report the result to commissioner
Ross at Uniontown the 16th of the same month, on which day he would set
out for Philadelphia. The time was inadequate, but there was no help.
Gallatin hastened the submission of Fayette, and a meeting of committees
from the several townships met at the county seat, Uniontown, on
September 10, 1794, when a declaration drawn by Mr. Gallatin was
unanimously adopted. A passage in this admirable paper shows the
comparative order which prevailed in Fayette County during this period
of trouble. It is an appeal to the people of the neighboring counties,
who, under the influence of their passions and resentment, might blame
those of Fayette for their moderation.
"The only reflection we mean to suggest to them is the
disinterestedness of our conduct upon this occasion. The indictable
offences to be buried in oblivion were committed amongst them, and
almost every civil suit that has been instituted under the revenue
law, in the federal court, was commenced against citizens of this
county. By the terms proposed, the criminal prosecutions are to be
dropped, but no condition could be obtained for the civil suits. We
have been instrumental in obtaining an amnesty, from which those
alone who had a share in the riots derive a benefit, and the other
inhabitants of the western country have gained nothing for
themselves."
This declaration was forwarded on September 17 to Governor Mifflin, with
reasons for the delay, and advice that signatures were fast being
obtained, not only in the neighboring counties, but even in Fayette,
where this formality had not been thought necessary. It closes with a
forcible appeal to delay the sending of troops until every conciliatory
measure should have proved abortive.
But the commissioners, unfortunately, were not favorably impressed with
the reception they met with or the scenes they witnessed on their
western mission. They had heard of Bradford's threat to establish an
independent government west of the mountains, and they had seen a
liberty pole raised upon which the people with the greatest difficulty
had been dissuaded from hoisting a flag with six stripes--emblematic of
the six counties represented in the committee. The flag was made, but
set aside for the fifteen stripes with reluctance. This is Findley's
recollection, but Brackenridge says that it was a flag of seven stars
for the four western counties, Bedford, and the two counties of
Virginia. This, he adds, was the first and only manifestation among any
class of a desire to separate from the Union. But here his memory
failed him.
Hamilton had long been impatient. Again, as in old days, he presented
his arguments directly to the people. Under the heading, "Tully to the
people of the United States," he printed a letter on August 26, of which
the following is a passage:--
"Your representatives in Congress, pursuant to the commission
derived from you, and with a full knowledge of the public
exigencies, have laid an excise. At three succeeding sessions they
have revised that act ... and _you_ have actually paid more than a
million of dollars on account of it. But the four western counties
of Pennsylvania undertake to rejudge and reverse your decrees.
_You_ have said, 'The Congress _shall have power_ to lay
_excises_.' They say, 'The Congress shall _not have_ this power;'
or, what is equivalent, they shall not exercise it, for a _power_
that may not be exercised is a nullity. Your representatives have
said, and four times repeated it, 'An excise on distilled spirits
_shall_ be collected;' they say, 'It _shall not_ be collected. We
will punish, expel, and banish the officers who shall attempt the
collection.'"
The peace commissioners returned to Philadelphia and made their report
on September 24. The next day, September 25, Washington issued a
proclamation calling out the troops. In it he again warned the
insurgents. The militia, already armed, accoutred, and equipped, and
awaiting marching orders, moved at once. Governor Mifflin at first
hesitated about his power to call out the militia, but when the
President's requisition was made, he summoned the legislature in special
session, and obtained from it a hearty support, with authority to accept
volunteers and offer a bounty. Thus fortified, he made a tour through
the lower counties of the State, and by his extraordinary popular
eloquence soon filled up the ranks. The old soldier led his troops in
person. Those of New Jersey were commanded by their governor, Richard
Howell of Revolutionary fame. These formed the right wing and marched to
rendezvous at Bedford to cross the mountains by the northern and
Pennsylvania route. The left wing, composed of the Virginia troops,
under the veteran Morgan, and those of Maryland, under Samuel Smith, a
brigadier-general in the army of the Revolution, assembled at Cumberland
to cross the mountains by Braddock's Road. The chief command was
confided to Governor Henry Lee of Virginia. Washington accompanied the
army as far as Bedford. Hamilton continued with it to Pittsburgh, which
was reached in the last days of October and the first of November, after
a wearisome march across the mountains in heavy weather. Arrived in the
western counties, the army found no opposition.
Meanwhile, on October 2, the standing committee met again at Parkinson's
Ferry, and unanimously adopted resolutions declaring the general
submission, and explaining the reasons why signatures to the amnesty had
not been general. Findley and Redick were appointed to take these
resolutions to the President, and to urge him to stop the march of the
troops. They met the left wing at Carlisle. Washington received them
courteously, but did not consent to countermand the march. They hurried
back for more unequivocal assurances, which they hoped to be able to
carry to meet Washington on his way to review the right wing. On October
14, the day of the autumn elections, general submissions were
universally signed, and finally, on October 24, a third and last meeting
was held at Parkinson's Ferry, at which a thousand people attended,
when, with James Edgar, chairman, and Albert Gallatin, secretary, it was
resolved, first, that the civil authority was fully competent to punish
both past and future breaches of the law; secondly, that surrender
should be made of all persons charged with offenses, in default of which
the committee would aid in bringing them to justice; thirdly, that
offices of inspection might be opened, and that the distillers were
willing and ready to enter their stills.
These resolutions were published in the "Pittsburgh Gazette." Findley
carried them to Bedford, but before he reached the army the President
had returned to Philadelphia. The march of the army was not stopped. The
two wings made a junction at Uniontown. Companies of horse were
scattered through the country. New submissions were made, and the oath
of allegiance, required by General Lee, was generally taken.
Hamilton now investigated the whole matter of the insurrection, and it
was charged against him, and the charge is supported by Findley, with
names of persons, that he spared no effort to secure evidence to bring
Gallatin within the pale of an indictment. Of course he failed in this
purpose, if indeed it were ever seriously entertained. But the belief
that Gallatin was the arch-fiend, who instigated the Whiskey
Insurrection, had already become a settled article in the Federalist
creed, and for a quarter of a century, long after the Federalist party
had become a tradition of the past, the Genevan was held up to scorn and
hatred, as an incarnation of deviltry--an enemy of mankind.
On the 8th of November, Hamilton, who remained with the army, wrote to
the President that General Lee had concluded to take hold of all who are
worth the trouble by the military arm, and then to deliver them over to
the disposition of the judiciary. In the mean time, he adds, "all
possible means are using to obtain evidence, and accomplices will be
turned against the others."
The night of November 13, 1794, was appointed for the arrests; a
dreadful night Findley describes it to have been. The night was frosty;
at eight o'clock the horse sallied forth, and before daylight arrested
in their beds about two hundred men. The New Jersey horse made the
seizures in the Mingo Creek settlement, the hot-bed of the insurrection
and the scene of the early excesses. The prisoners were taken to
Pittsburgh, and thence, mounted on horses, and guarded by the
Philadelphia Gentlemen Corps, to the capital. Their entrance into
Cannonsburg is graphically described by Dr. Carnahan, president of
Princeton College, in his account of the insurrection.
"The contrast between the Philadelphia horsemen and the prisoners
was the most striking that can be imagined. The Philadelphians were
some of the most wealthy and respectable men of that city. Their
uniform was blue, of the finest broadcloth. Their horses were large
and beautiful, all of a bay color, so nearly alike that it seemed
that every two of them would make a good span of coach horses.
Their trappings were superb. Their bridles, stirrups, and
martingales glittered with silver. Their swords, which were drawn,
and held elevated in the right hand, gleamed in the rays of the
setting sun. The prisoners were also mounted on horses of all
shapes, sizes, and colors; some large, some small, some long tails,
some short, some fat, some lean, some every color and form that can
be named. Some had saddles, some blankets, some bridles, some
halters, some with stirrups, some with none. The riders also were
various and grotesque in their appearance. Some were old, some
young, some hale, respectable looking men; others were pale,
meagre, and shabbily dressed. Some had great coats,--others had
blankets on their shoulders. The countenance of some was downcast,
melancholy, dejected; that of others, stern, indignant, manifesting
that they thought themselves undeserving such treatment. Two
Philadelphia horsemen rode in front and then two prisoners, and two
horsemen and two prisoners, actually throughout a line extending
perhaps half a mile.... If these men had been the ones chiefly
guilty of the disturbance, it would have been no more than they
deserved. But the guilty had signed the amnesty, or had left the
county before the army approached."
Dallas, the secretary of state, Gallatin's friend, was one of this
troop. Gallatin saw him soon after his return. In a letter to his wife
of December 3, Gallatin relates the experience of the trooper who had
little stomach for the work he had to do.
"I saw Dallas yesterday. Poor fellow had a most disagreeable
campaign of it. He says the spirits, I call it the madness, of the
Philadelphia Gentlemen's Corps was beyond conception before the
arrival of the President. He saw a list (handed about through the
army by officers, nay, by a general officer) of the names of those
persons who were to be destroyed at all events, and you may easily
guess my own was one of the most conspicuous. Being one day at
table with sundry officers, and having expressed his opinion that,
if the army were going only to support the civil authority, and not
to do any military execution, one of them (Dallas did not tell me
his name, but I am told it was one Ross of Lancaster, aide-de-camp
to Mifflin) half drew a dagger he wore instead of a sword, and
swore any man who uttered such sentiments ought to be dagged. The
President, however, on his arrival, and afterwards Hamilton, took
uncommon pains to change the sentiments, and at last it became
fashionable to adopt, or at least to express, sentiments similar to
those inculcated by them."
Randolph was, perhaps, not far out of the way in his fear of a civil war
should blood be drawn, and in his conviction that the influence of
Washington was the only sedative for the fevered political pulse. On
November 17 general orders were issued for the return of the army, a
detachment of twenty-five hundred men only remaining in the West, under
command of General Morgan. There were no further disturbances. The army
expenses gave a circulating medium, and the farmers, having now the
means to pay their taxes, made no further complaints of the excise law.
The total expense of the insurrection to the government was $800,000.
Mr. Gallatin returned with his wife from his western home early in
November. He had been again chosen at the October elections to represent
Fayette in the Pennsylvania Assembly. Moreover, at the same time, he was
elected to represent the congressional district of Washington and
Allegheny in the House of Representatives of the United States. Of four
candidates Gallatin led the poll. Judge Brackenridge was next in order.
No better proof is needed of the firm hold Gallatin had in the esteem
and affection of the people. No doubt, either, that they understood his
principles, and relied upon his sincere attachment to the country he had
made his home.
When he appeared to take his seat in the Assembly he found that his
election was contested. A petition was presented from thirty-four
persons calling themselves peaceable citizens of Washington County,
which stated that their votes had not been cast, because of the
disturbed condition of the country, and requested the Assembly to
declare the district to have been in a state of insurrection at the time
of the election, and to vacate the same. Mr. Gallatin knew the person
who procured the signatures, and also that the business originated in
the army. It was couched in terms insulting to all the members elect
from that district. After a protracted debate the election was declared
void on January 9, 1795. It was during this debate that Mr. Gallatin
made the celebrated speech called "The speech on the western elections,"
in which occurs the confession already alluded to. Speaking of the
Pittsburgh resolutions of 1792, he said:--
"I might say that those resolutions did not originate at
Pittsburgh, as they were almost a transcript of the resolutions
adopted at Washington the preceding year; and I might even add that
they were not introduced by me at the meeting. But I wish not to
exculpate myself where I feel I have been to blame. The sentiments
thus expressed were not illegal or criminal; yet I will freely
acknowledge that they were violent, intemperate, and reprehensible.
For, by attempting to render the office contemptible, they tended
to diminish that respect for the execution of the laws which is
essential to the maintenance of a free government; but whilst I
feel regret at the remembrance, though no hesitation in this open
confession of that _my only political sin_, let me add that the
blame ought to fall where it is deserved."
This was the first speech of Gallatin that appeared in print--simple,
lucid, convincing. The result of the new Assembly election would
naturally determine the right of the representatives of the contested
district to their seats in Congress. Word had gone forth from the
Treasury Department that Gallatin must not take his seat in Congress,
and the whippers-in took heed of the desire of their chief. A line of
instruction to Badollet, who lived at Greensburg in Washington County,
across the river from Gallatin's residence, determined the matter.
Gallatin warned him against the attempt that would be made to disaffect
that district because none of the representatives whose seats had been
vacated were residents of it. "Fall not into the snare," he wrote; "take
up nobody from your own district; reëlect unanimously the same members,
whether they be your favorites or not. It is necessary for the sake of
our general character." Here is an instance of that true political
instinct which made of him "the ideal party leader." His advice was
followed, and all the members were reëlected but one, who declined. Mr.
Gallatin returned to his seat in the Assembly on February 14, and
retained it until March 12, when he asked and obtained leave of absence.
He does not appear to have taken further part in the session. The
subjects, personal to himself, which occupied his attention during the
summer will be touched upon elsewhere.
The pitiful business of the trial of the western prisoners needs only
brief mention. In May Gallatin was summoned before the grand jury as a
witness on the part of the government. The inquiry was finished May 12,
and twenty-two bills were found for treason. Against Fayette two bills
were found; one for misdemeanor in raising the liberty pole in
Uniontown. The petit jury was composed of twelve men from each of the
counties of Fayette, Washington, Allegheny, and Northumberland, but none
from Westmoreland. One man, a German from Westmoreland, who was
concerned in a riot in Fayette, was found guilty and condemned to death.
Mr. Gallatin, at the request of the jury, drew a petition to the
President, who granted a pardon. Washington extended mercy to the only
other offender who incurred the same penalty.
To the close of this national episode, which, in its various phases of
incident and character, is of dramatic interest, Gallatin, through good
repute and ill repute, stood manfully by his constituents and friends.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Hamilton's _History of the Republic_, vi. 96.]
CHAPTER V
MEMBER OF CONGRESS
The first session of the fourth Congress began at Philadelphia on
Monday, December 7, 1795. Washington was president, John Adams
vice-president. No one of Washington's original constitutional advisers
remained in his cabinet. Jefferson retired from the State Department at
the beginning of the first session of the third Congress. Edmund
Randolph, appointed in his place, resigned in a cloud of obloquy on
August 19, 1795, and the portfolio was temporarily in charge of Timothy
Pickering, secretary of war. Hamilton resigned the department of the
Treasury on January 31, 1795, and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., succeeded him in
that most important of the early offices of the government. General
Henry Knox, the first secretary of war, pressed by his own private
affairs and the interests of a large family, withdrew on December 28,
1794, and Timothy Pickering, the postmaster-general, had been appointed
in his stead January 2, 1795. The Navy Department was not as yet
established (the act creating it was passed April 30, 1798), but the
affairs which concerned this branch of the public service were under
the direction of the secretary of war. The administration of Washington
was drawing to a close. In the lately reconstructed cabinet, honest,
patriotic, and thorough in administration, there was no man of shining
mark. The Senate was still in the hands of the Federal party. The bare
majority which rejected Gallatin in the previous Congress had increased
to a sufficient strength for party purposes, but neither in the ranks of
the administration nor the opposition was there in this august
assemblage one commanding figure.
The House was nearly equally divided. The post of speaker was warmly
contested. Frederick A. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, who had presided
over the House at the sessions of the first Congress, 1789-1791, and
again over the third, 1793-1795, was the candidate of the Federalists,
but was defeated by Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, whose views in the
last session had drifted him into sympathy with the Republican
opposition. The House, when full, numbered one hundred and five members,
among whom were the ablest men in the country, veterans of debate versed
in parliamentary law and skilled in the niceties of party fence. In the
Federal ranks, active, conscious of their power, and proud of the great
party which gloried in Washington as their chief, were Robert Goodloe
Harper of South Carolina, Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, Roger
Griswold and Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, who led the front and held the
wings of debate; while in reserve, broken in health but still in the
prime of life, the pride of his party and of the House, was Fisher Ames,
the orator of his day, whose magic tones held friend and foe in rapt
attention, while he mastered the reason or touched the heart. Upon these
men the Federal party relied for the vindication of their principles and
the maintenance of their power. Supporting them were William Vans Murray
of Maryland, Goodrich and Hillhouse of Connecticut, William Smith of
South Carolina, Sitgreaves of Pennsylvania, and in the ranks a
well-trained party. Opposed to this formidable array of Federal talent
was the Republican party, young, vigorous, and in majority, bold in
their ideas but as yet hesitating in purpose under the controlling if
not overruling influence of the name and popularity of Washington.
[Illustration: Rob. G. Harper]
Hamilton watched the shifting fortunes of his party from a distance, and
found time in the pressure of a large legal practice to aid each branch
of administration in turn with his advice. But though he still inspired
its councils, he no longer directed its course. In his Monticello home
Jefferson waited till the fruit was ripe for falling, occasionally
impatient that his followers did not more roughly shake the tree.
The open rupture of Jefferson with Hamilton was the first great break in
the Federal administration; the lukewarmness of Madison, whose leanings
were always towards Jefferson, followed.
At the head of the Republican opposition was Madison. Wise in council,
convincing in argument, an able and even adroit debater, he was an
admirable leader, but his tactics were rather of the closet than the
field. He was wanting in the personal vigor which, scorning defense,
delights in bold attack upon the central position of the enemy, and
carries opposition to the last limit of parliamentary aggression. With
this mildness of character, though recognized as the leader of his
party, he, as a habit, waived his control upon the floor of the House,
and, reserving his interference for occasions when questions of
constitutional interpretation arose, left the general direction of
debate to William B. Giles of Virginia, a skillful tactician and a ready
debater, keen, bold, and troubled by no scruples of modesty, respect, or
reverence for friend or foe. Of equal vigor, but of more reserve, was
John Nicholas of Virginia--a man of strong intellect, reliable temper,
and with the dignity of the old school. To these were now added Albert
Gallatin and Edward Livingston. Edward Livingston, from New York, was
young, and as yet inexperienced in debate, but of remarkable powers. He
was another example of that early intellectual maturity which was a
characteristic of the time.
When Congress met, the all-disturbing question was the foreign policy of
the United States. The influence of the French Revolution upon American
politics was great. The Federalists, conservative in their views, held
the new democratic doctrines in abhorrence, and used the terrible
excesses of the French Revolution with telling force against their
Republican adversaries. The need of a strong government was held up as
the only alternative to anarchy. In the struggle which now united Europe
against the French republic, the sympathies of the Federalists were with
England. Hence they were accused of a desire to establish a monarchy in
the United States, and were ignominiously called the British party.
Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection in
Pennsylvania gave point to their arguments.
On the other side was the large and powerful party which, throughout the
war in the Continental Congress, under the confederation in the national
convention which framed and in the state conventions which ratified the
Constitution, had opposed the tendency to centralization, but had been
defeated by the yearning of the body of the plain people for a
government strong enough at least to secure them peace at home and
protection abroad. This natural craving being satisfied, the old
aversion to class distinctions returned. The dread of an aristocracy,
which did not exist even in name, threw many of the supporters of the
Constitution into the ranks of its opponents, who were democrats in name
and in fact. The proclamation of the rights of man awoke this latent
sentiment, and aroused an intense sympathy for the people of France.
This again was strengthened by the memory, still warm, of the services
of France in the cause of independence. Lafayette, who represented the
true French republican spirit, and held a place in the affections of the
American people second only to that of Washington, was languishing, a
prisoner to the coalition of sovereigns, in an Austrian dungeon.
Jefferson returned from France deeply imbued with the spirit of the
French Revolution. His views were warmly received by his political
friends, and the principles of the new school of politics were rapidly
spread by an eager band of acolytes, whose ranks were recruited until
the feeble opposition became a powerful party. Democratic societies,
organized on the plan of the French Jacobin clubs, extended French
influence, and no doubt were aided in a practical way by Genet, whose
recent marriage with the daughter of George Clinton, the head of the
Republican party in New York, was an additional link in the bond of
alliance.
During the second session of the third Congress Madison had led the
opposition in a mild manner; party lines were not yet strongly defined,
and the influence of Washington was paramount. In the interim between
its expiration and the meeting of the fourth Congress in December, the
country was wildly agitated by the Jay treaty. This document not
reaching America until after the adjournment of Congress in March,
Washington convened the Senate in extra and secret session on June 1,
and the treaty was ratified by barely two thirds majority. Imprudently
withheld for a time, it was at last made public by Senator Mason of
Virginia, one of the ten who voted against its ratification. It
disappointed the people, and was denounced as a weak and ignominious
surrender of American rights. The merchants of Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, and Charleston protested against it in public meetings. It
was burned, and the English flag was trailed in the dust before the
British minister's house at the capital. Jay was hung in effigy, and
Hamilton, who ventured to defend the treaty at a public meeting, was
stoned. To add to the popular indignation that the impressment of
American seamen had been ignored in the instrument, came the alarming
news that the British ministry had renewed their order to seize vessels
carrying provisions to France, whither a large part of the American
grain crop was destined. On the other hand, Randolph, the secretary of
state, had compromised the dignity of his official position in his
intercourse with Fauchet, the late French ambassador, whose
correspondence with his government, thrown overboard from a French
packet, had been fished up by a British man-of-war, and forwarded to
Grenville, by whom it was returned to America. Thus petard answered
petard, and the charge by the Republicans upon the Federalists of taking
British gold was returned with interest, and the accusation of receiving
bribe money was brought close home to Randolph, if not proved.
Hard names were not wanting either; Jefferson was ridiculed as a
_sans-culotte_ and red-legged Democrat. Nor was Washington spared. He
was charged with an assumption of royal airs, with political hypocrisy,
and even with being a public defaulter; a charge which no one dared to
father, and which was instantly shown to be false and malicious. It was
made by Bache in "The Aurora," a contemptible sheet after the fashion of
"L'Ami du Peuple," Marat's Paris organ.
Such was the temper of the people when the House of Representatives met
on December 7, 1795. The speaker, Dayton, was strongly anti-British in
feeling. He was a family connection of Burr, but there is no reason to
suppose that he was under the personal influence of that adroit and
unscrupulous partisan. On the 8th President Washington, according to his
custom, addressed both houses of Congress. This day for the first time
the gallery was thrown open to the public. When the reply of the Senate
came up for consideration, the purpose of the Republicans was at once
manifest. They would not consent to the approbation it expressed of the
conduct of the administration. They would not admit that the causes of
external discord had been extinguished "on terms consistent with our
national honor and safety," or indeed extinguished at all, and they
would not acknowledge that the efforts of the President to establish the
peace, freedom, and prosperity of the country had been "enlightened and
firm." Nevertheless the address was agreed to by a vote of 14 to 8.
In the House a resolution was moved that a respectful address ought to
be presented. The opposition immediately declared itself. Objection was
made to an address, and in its stead the appointment of a committee to
wait personally on the President was moved. The covert intent was
apparent through the thin veil of expediency, but the Republicans as a
body were unwilling to go this length in discourtesy, and did not
support the motion. Only eighteen members voted for it. Messrs. Madison,
Sedgwick, and Sitgreaves, the committee to report an address, brought in
a draft on the 14th which was ordered to be printed for the use of the
members. The next day the work of dissection was begun by an objection
to the words "probably unequaled spectacle of national happiness"
applied to the country, and the words "undiminished confidence" applied
to the President. The words "probably unequaled" were stricken out
without decided opposition by a vote of forty-three to thirty-nine.
Opinions were divided on that subject even in the ranks of the
Federalists. The cause of dissatisfaction was the Jay treaty. The
address was recommitted without a division. The next day Madison brought
in the address with a modification of the clause objected to. In its new
form the "very great share" of Washington's zealous and faithful
services in securing the national happiness was acknowledged. The
address thus amended was unanimously adopted. In this encounter nothing
was gained by the Republicans. The people would not have endured an open
declaration of want of confidence in Washington. But the entering wedge
of the new policy was driven. The treaty was to be assailed. It was,
however, the pretext, not the cause of the struggle, the real object of
which was to extend the powers of the House, and subordinate the
executive to its will. Before beginning the main attack the Republicans
developed their general plan in their treatment of secondary issues; of
these the principal was a tightening of the control of the House over
the Treasury Department.
In this Mr. Gallatin took the lead. His first measure was the
appointment of a standing Committee of Finance to superintend the
general operations of this nature,--an efficient aid to the Treasury
when there is accord between the administration and the House, an
annoying censor when the latter is in opposition. This was the beginning
of the Ways and Means Committee, which soon became and has since
continued to be the most important committee of the House. To it were to
be referred all reports from the Treasury Department, all propositions
relating to revenue, and it was to report on the state of the public
debt, revenue, and expenditures. The committee was appointed without
opposition. It consisted of fourteen members, William Smith, Sedgwick,
Madison, Baldwin, Gallatin, Bourne, Gilman, Murray, Buck, Gilbert,
Isaac Smith, Blount, Patten, and Hillhouse, and represented the strength
of both political parties. To this committee the estimates of
appropriations for the support of the government for the coming year
were referred. The next step was to bring to the knowledge of the House
the precise condition of the Treasury. To this end the secretary was
called upon to furnish comparative views of the commerce and tonnage of
the country for every year from the formation of the department in 1789,
with tables of the exports and imports, foreign and domestic, separately
stated, and with a division of the nationality of the carrying vessels.
Later, comparative views were demanded of the receipts and expenditures
for each year; the receipts under the heads of Loans, Revenue in its
various forms, and others in their several divisions; the expenditures,
also, to be classified under the heads of Civil List, Foreign
Intercourse, Military Establishment, Indian Department, Naval, etc.
Finally a call was made for a statement of the annual appropriations and
the applications of them by the Treasury. The object of Mr. Gallatin was
to establish the expenses of the government in each department of
service on a permanent footing for which annual appropriations should be
made, and for any extraordinary expenditure to insist on a special
appropriation for the stated object and none other. By keeping
constantly before the House this distinction between the permanent fund
and temporary exigencies, he accustomed it to take a practical business
view of its legislative duties, and the people to understand the
principles he endeavored to apply.
In a debate at the beginning of the session, on a bill for establishing
trading houses with the Indians, Mr. Gallatin showed his hand by
declaring that he would not consent to appropriate any part of the war
funds for the scheme; nor, in view of the need of additional permanent
funds for the discharge of the public debt, would he vote for the bill
at all, unless there was to be a reduction in the expense of the
military establishment; and he would not be diverted from his purpose
although Mr. Madison advocated the bill because of its extremely
benevolent object. The Federal leaders saw clearly to what this doctrine
would bring them, and met it in the beginning. The first struggle
occurred when the appropriations for the service of 1796 were brought
before the House. Beginning with a discussion upon the salaries of the
officers of the mint, the debate at once passed to the principle of
appropriations. The Federalists insisted that a discussion of the merits
of establishments was not in order when the appropriations were under
consideration; that the House ought not, by withholding appropriations,
to destroy establishments formed by the whole legislature, that is, by
the Senate and House; that the House should vote for the appropriations
agreeably to the laws already made. This view was sanctioned by
practice. Mr. Gallatin immediately opposed this as an alarming and
dangerous principle. He insisted that there was a certain discretionary
power in the House to appropriate or not to appropriate for any object
whatever, whether that object were authorized or not. It was a power
vested in the House for the purpose of checking the other branches of
government whenever necessary. He claimed that this power was shown in
the making of yearly instead of permanent appropriations for the civil
list and military establishments, yet when the House desired to
strengthen public credit it had rendered the appropriation for those
objects permanent and not yearly. It was, therefore, "contradictory to
suppose that the House was bound to do a certain act at the same time
that they were exercising the discretionary power of voting upon it."
The debate determined nothing, but it is of interest as the first
declaration in Congress of the supremacy of the House of
Representatives.
The great debate which, from the principles involved in it as well as
the argument and oratory with which they were discussed, made this
session of the House famous, was on the treaty with Great Britain. This
was the first foreign treaty made since the establishment of the
Constitution. The treaty was sent in to the House "for the information
of Congress," by the President, on March 1, with notice of its
ratification at London in October. The next day Mr. Edward Livingston
moved that the President be requested to send in a copy of the
instructions to the minister of the United States who negotiated the
treaty, together with the correspondence and other documents. A few days
later he amended his resolution by adding an exception of such of said
papers as any existing negotiations rendered improper to disclose. The
Senate in its ratification of the treaty suspended the operation of the
clause regulating the trade with the West Indies, on which Great Britain
still imposed the old colonial restriction, and recommended the
President to open negotiations on this subject; and in fact such
negotiations were in progress. The discussion was opened on the Federal
side by a request to the gentlemen in favor of the call to give their
reasons. Mr. Gallatin supported the resolution, and expressed surprise
at any objection, considering that the exception of the mover rendered
the resolution of itself unexceptionable. The President had not informed
the House of the reasons upon which the treaty was based. If he did not
think proper to give the information sought for, he would say so to
them. A question might arise whether the House should get at those
secrets even if the President refused the request, but that was not the
present question. In reply to Mr. Murray, who asserted that the treaty
was the supreme law of the land, and that there was no discretionary
power in the House except on the question of its constitutionality, Mr.
Gallatin said that Congress possessed the power of regulating
trade,--perhaps the treaty-making power clashed with that,--and
concluded by observing that the House was the grand inquest of the
nation, and that it had the right to call for papers on which to ground
an impeachment. At present he did not contemplate an exercise of that
right. Mr. Madison said it was now to be decided whether the general
power of making treaties supersedes the powers of the House of
Representatives, particularly specified in the Constitution, so as to
give to the executive all deliberative will and leave the House only an
executive and ministerial instrumental agency; and he proposed to amend
the resolution so as to read, "except so much of said papers as in his
(the President's) judgment it may be inconsistent with the interest of
the United States at this time to disclose." But his motion was defeated
by a vote of 47 nays to 37 yeas.
The discussion being resumed in committee of the whole, the expressions
of opinion were free on both sides, but so moderate that one of the
members made comment on the calmness and temper of the discussion.
Nicholas said that, if the treaty were not the law of the land, the
President should be impeached. But the parts of the treaty into which
the President had not the right to enter, he could not make law by
proclamation. Swanwick supported the call as one exercised by the House
of Commons. On the Federal side, Harper said that the papers were not
necessary, and, being unnecessary, the demand was an improper and
unconstitutional interference with the executive department. If he
thought them necessary, he would change the milk and water style of the
resolutions. In that case the House had a right to them and he had no
idea of requesting as a favor what should be demanded as a right.
Gallatin, he said, had declared that it was a request, but that in case
of refusal it might be considered whether demand should not be made, and
he charged that when, at the time the motion was made, the question had
been asked, what use was to be made of the papers, Gallatin did not and
could not reply. Mr. Gallatin answered that whether the House had a
discretionary power, or whether it was bound by the instrument, there
was no impropriety in calling for the papers. He hoped to have avoided
the constitutional question in the motion, but as the gentlemen had come
forward on that ground, he had no objection to rest the decision of the
constitutional power of Congress on the fate of the present question. He
would therefore state that the House had a right to ask for the papers.
The constitutional question being thus squarely introduced, Mr. Gallatin
made an elaborate speech, which, from its conciseness in statement,
strength of argument, and wealth of citations of authority, was, to say
the least, inferior to no other of those drawn out in this memorable
struggle. In its course he compared the opinion of those who had opposed
the resolution to the saying of an English bishop, that the people had
nothing to do with the law but to obey it, and likened their conduct to
the servile obedience of a Parliament of Paris under the old order of
things. He concluded with the hope that the dangerous doctrine, that the
representatives of the people have not the right to consult their
discretion when about exercising powers delegated by the Constitution,
would receive its death-blow. Griswold replied in what by common consent
was the strongest argument on the Federal side. The call, at first view
simple, had, he said, become a grave matter. The gist of his objection
to it was that the people in their Constitution had made the treaty
power paramount to the legislative, and had deposited that power with
the President and Senate.
Mr. Madison once more rose to the constitutional question. He said that,
if the passages of the Constitution be taken literally, they must clash.
The word _supreme_, as applied to treaties, meant as over the state
Constitutions, and not over the Constitution and laws of the United
States. He supported Mr. Gallatin's view of the congressional power as
coöperative with the treaty power. A construction which made the treaty
power omnipotent he thought utterly inadmissible in a constitution
marked throughout with limitations and checks.
Mr. Gallatin again claimed the attention of the House, as the original
question of a call for papers had resolved itself into a discussion on
the treaty-making power. In the treaty of peace of 1783 there were
three articles which might be supposed to interfere with the legislative
powers of the several States: 1st, that which related to the payment of
debts; 2d, the provision for no future confiscations; 3d, the
restitution of estates already confiscated. The first could not be
denied. "Those," he said, "might be branded with the epithet of
disorganizers, who threatened a dissolution of the Union in case the
measures they dictated were not obeyed; and he knew, although he did not
ascribe it to any member of the House, that men high in office and
reputation had industriously spread an alarm that the Union would be
dissolved if the present motion was carried." He took the ground that a
treaty is not valid, and does not bind the nation as such, till it has
received the sanction of the House of Representatives. Mr. Harper closed
the argument on the Federal side. On March 24 the resolution calling for
the papers was carried by a vote of yeas 62, nays 37, absent 5, the
speaker 1 (105). Livingston and Gallatin were appointed to present the
request to the President.
On March 30 the President returned answer to the effect that he
considered it a dangerous precedent to admit this right in the House;
that the assent of the House was not necessary to the validity of a
treaty; and he absolutely refused compliance with the request. The
letter of instructions to Jay would bear the closest examination, but
the cabinet scorned to take shelter behind it, and it was on their
recommendation that the President's refusal was explicit. This message,
in spite of the opposition of the Federalists, was referred, by a vote
of 55 yeas to 37 nays, to the committee of the whole. This reference
involved debate. In his opposition to this motion, Mr. Harper said that
the motives of the friends of the resolution had been avowed by the
"gentleman who led the business, from Pennsylvania;" whereby it appears
that Mr. Gallatin led the Republicans in the first debate. During this
his first session he shared this distinction with Mr. Madison. At the
next he became the acknowledged leader of the Republican party.
On April 3 the debate was resumed. This second debate was led by Mr.
Madison, who considered two points: 1st, the application for papers; 2d,
the constitutional rights of Congress. His argument was of course calm
and dispassionate after his usual manner. The contest ended on April 7,
with the adoption of two resolutions: 1st, that the power of making
treaties is exclusively with the President and Senate, and the House do
not claim an agency in making them, or ratifying them when made; 2d,
that when made a treaty must depend for the execution of its
stipulations on a law or laws to be passed by Congress; and the House
have a right to deliberate and determine the expediency or inexpediency
of carrying treaties into effect. These resolutions were carried by a
vote of 63 to 27.
There was now a truce of a few days. In the meanwhile the country was
agitated to an extent which, if words mean anything, really threatened
an attempt at dissolution of the Union, if not civil war itself. The
objections on the part of the Republicans were to the treaty as a whole.
Their sympathies were with France in her struggle for liberty and
democratic institutions and against England, and their real and proper
ground of antipathy to the instrument lay in its concession of the right
of capture of French property in American vessels, whilst the treaty
with France forbade her to seize British property in American vessels.
The objections in detail had been formulated at the Boston public
meeting the year before. The commercial cities were disturbed by the
interference with the carrying trade; the entire coast, by the search of
vessels and the impressment of seamen; the agricultural regions, by the
closing of the outlet for their surplus product; the upland districts,
by the stoppage of the export of timber. But the country was without a
navy, was ill prepared for war, and the security of the frontier was
involved in the restoration of the posts still held by the British.
The political situation was uncertain if not absolutely menacing. The
threats of disunion were by no means vague. The Pendleton Society in
Virginia had passed secession resolutions, and a similar disposition
appeared in other States. While the treaty was condemned in the United
States, British statesmen were not of one opinion as to the advantages
they had gained by Grenville's diplomacy. Jay's desire, expressed to
Randolph, "to manage so that in case of wars our people should be united
and those of England divided," was not wholly disappointed. And there is
on record the expression of Lord Sheffield, when he heard of the rupture
in 1812, "We have now a complete opportunity of getting rid of that most
impolitic treaty of 1794, when Lord Grenville was so perfectly duped by
Jay."[4] Washington's ratification of the treaty went far to correct the
hasty judgment of the people, and to reconcile them to it as a choice of
evils. Supported by this modified tone of public opinion, the
Federalists determined to press the necessary appropriation bills for
carrying the treaties into effect. Besides the Jay treaty there were
also before the House the Wayne treaty with the Indians, the Pinckney
treaty with Spain, and the treaty with Algiers. With these three the
House was entirely content, and the country was impatient for their
immediate operation. Wayne's treaty satisfied the inhabitants on the
frontier. The settlers along the Ohio, among whom was Gallatin's
constituency, were eager to avail themselves of the privileges granted
by that of Pinckney, which was a triumph of diplomacy; and all America,
while ready to beard the British lion, seems to have been in terror of
the Dey of Algiers. Mr. Sedgwick offered a resolution providing for the
execution of the four treaties. Mr. Gallatin insisted on and received a
separate consideration of each. That with Great Britain was reserved
till the rest were disposed of. It was taken up on April 14. Mr. Madison
opened the debate. He objected to the treaty as wanting in real
reciprocity; 2d, in insufficiency of its provisions as to the rights of
neutrals; 3d, because of its commercial restrictions. Other Republican
leaders followed, making strong points of the position in which the
treaty placed the United States with regard to France, to whom it was
bound by a treaty of commercial alliance, which was a part of the
contract of aid in the Revolutionary War; and also of the possible
injustice which would befall American claimants in the British courts of
admiralty.
The Federalists clung to their ground, defended the treaty as the best
attainable, and held up as the alternative a war, for which the refusal
of the Republicans to support the military establishment and build up a
navy left the country unprepared. In justice to Jay, his significant
words to Randolph, while doubtful of success in his negotiation, should
be remembered: "Let us hope for the best and prepare for the worst." To
the red flag which the Federalists held up, Mr. Gallatin replied,
accepting the consequences of war if it should come, and gave voice to
the extreme dissatisfaction of the Virginia radicals with Jay and the
negotiation. He charged that the cry of war and threats of a
dissolution of the government were designed for an impression on the
timidity of the House. "It was through the fear of being involved in a
war that the negotiation with Great Britain had originated; under the
impression of fear the treaty had been negotiated and signed; a fear of
the same danger, that of war, had promoted its ratification; and now
every imaginary mischief which could alarm our fears was conjured up in
order to deprive us of that discretion which this House thought they had
a right to exercise, and in order to force us to carry the treaty into
effect." He insisted on the important principle that 'free ships make
free goods,' and complained of its abandonment by the negotiators.
In a reply to this attack upon Jay, whose whole life was a refutation of
the charge of personal or moral timidity, Mr. Tracy passed the limits of
parliamentary courtesy. "The people," he said, "where he was most
acquainted, whatever might be the character of other parts of the Union,
were not of the stamp to cry hosannah to-day and crucify to-morrow; they
will not dance around a whiskey pole to-day and curse their government,
and upon hearing of a military force sneak into a swamp. No," said he,
"my immediate constituents, whom I very well know, understand their
rights and will defend them, and if they find the government will not
protect them, they will attempt at least to protect themselves;" and he
concluded, "I cannot be thankful to that gentleman for coming all the
way from Geneva to give Americans a character for pusillanimity." He
held it madness to suppose that if the treaty were defeated war could be
avoided. Called to order, he said that he might have been too personal,
and asked pardon of the gentleman and of the House.
The brilliant crown of the debate was the impassioned speech of Fisher
Ames, the impression of which upon the House and the crowded gallery is
one of the traditions of American oratory. The scene, as it has been
handed down to us, resembles, in all save its close, that which
Parliament presented when Chatham made his last and dying appeal. Like
the great earl, Ames rose pale and trembling from illness to address a
House angry and divided. Defending himself and the Federal party against
the charge of being in English interest, he said, "Britain has no
influence, and can have none. She has enough--and God forbid she ever
should have more. France, possessed of popular enthusiasm, of party
attachments, has had and still has _too much influence_ on our
politics,--any foreign influence is too much and ought to be destroyed.
I detest the man and disdain the spirit that can ever bend to a mean
subserviency to the views of any nation. It is enough to be American.
That character comprehends our duties and ought to engross our
attachments." Considering the probable influence on the Indian tribes of
the rejection of the treaty, he said, "By rejecting the Posts we light
the savage fires, we bind the victims.... I can fancy that I listen to
the yells of savage vengeance and shrieks of torture. Already they seem
to sigh in the west wind,--already they mingle with every echo from the
mountains." His closing words again bring Chatham to mind. "Yet I have
perhaps as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There
is, I believe, no member who will not think his chance to be a witness
of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass
to reject, and a spirit should rise, as rise it will, with the public
disorders to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost
broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive the government and
Constitution of my country." This appeal, supported by the petitions and
letters which poured in upon the House, left no doubt of the result. An
adjournment was carried, but the speech was decisive. The next day,
April 29, it was resolved to be expedient to make the necessary
appropriations to carry the treaty into effect. The vote stood 49 ayes
to 49 nays, and was decided in the affirmative by Muhlenberg, who was in
the chair. But the House would not be satisfied without an expression of
condemnation of the instrument. On April 30 it was resolved that in the
opinion of the House the treaty was objectionable.
While Mr. Gallatin in this debate rose to the highest rank of
statesmanship, he showed an equal mastery of other important subjects
which engaged the attention of the House during the session. He was
earnest for the protection of the frontier, but had no good opinion of
the Indians. "Twelve years had passed," he said, "since the peace of
1783; ever since that time he had lived on the frontier of Pennsylvania.
Not a year of this period had passed, whether at war or peace, that some
murders had not been committed by the Indians, and yet not an act of
invasion or provocation by the inhabitants." In the matter of
impressment of American seamen, he urged the lodging of sufficient power
in the executive. Men had been impressed, and he held it to be the duty
of the House to take notice of it by war or negotiation. In the
establishment of land offices for the sale of the western lands he
brought to bear upon legislation his practical experience. He urged that
the tracts for sale be divided, and distinctions be made between large
purchasers and actual settlers--proposing that the large tracts be
sold at the seat of government, and the small on the territory itself.
He instanced the fact that in 1792 all the land west of the Ohio was
disposed of at 1_s_. 6_d_. the acre, and a week afterwards was resold at
$1.50, so that the money which should have gone into the treasury went
to the pockets of speculators. He also suggested that the proceeds of
the sales should be a fund to pay the public debt, and that the public
stock should always be received at its value in payment for land; a plan
by which the land would be brought directly to the payment of the debt,
as foreigners would gladly exchange the money obligations of the
government for land. On the question of taxation he declared himself in
favor of direct taxes, and held that a tax on houses and lands could be
levied without difficulty. He would satisfy the people that it was to
pay off the public debt, which he held to be a public curse. He
supported the excise duty on stills under regulations which would avoid
the watching of persons and houses and inspection by officers, and
proposed that licenses be granted for the time applied for.
The military establishment he opposed in every way, attacked the
principle on which it was based, and fought every appropriation in
detail, from the pay of a major-general to the cost of uniforms for the
private soldiers. He was not afraid of the army, he said, but did not
think that it was necessary for the support of the government or
dangerous to the liberties of the people; moreover, it cost six hundred
thousand dollars a year, which was a sum of consequence in the condition
of the finances.
The navy found no more favor in his eyes. He denied that fleets were
necessary to protect commerce. He challenged its friends to show, from
the history of any nation in Europe as from our own, that commerce and
the navy had gone hand in hand. There was no nation except Great
Britain, he said, whose navy had any connection with commerce. Navies
were instruments of power more calculated to annoy the trade of other
nations than to protect that of the nations to which they belonged. The
price England had paid for her navy was a debt of three hundred millions
of pounds sterling. He opposed appropriations even for the three
frigates, United States, Constitution, and Constellation,--the
construction of which had been ordered,--the germs of that navy which
was later to set his theory at naught, redeem the honor of the flag,
protect our commerce, and release the country and the civilized world
from ignominious tribute to the Mediterranean pirates, who were
propitiated in this very session only at the cost of a million of
dollars to the Treasury of the United States, and by the gift of a
frigate.
In the debate over the payment of the sum of five millions, which the
United States Bank had demanded from the government, the greatest part
of which had been advanced on account of appropriations, he lamented the
necessity, but urged the liquidation. This was the occasion of another
personal encounter. In reply to a charge of Gallatin that the
Federalists were in favor of debt, Sedgwick alluded to Gallatin's part
in the Whiskey Insurrection, and said that none of those gentlemen whom
Gallatin had charged with "an object to perpetuate and increase the
public debt" had been known to have combined "in every measure which
might obstruct the operation of law," nor had declared to the world
"that the men who would accept of the offices to perform the necessary
functions of government were lost to every sense of virtue;" "that from
them was to be withheld every comfort of life which depended on those
duties which as men and fellow-citizens we owe to each other. If," he
said, "the gentlemen had been guilty of such nefarious practices, there
would have been a sound foundation for the charge brought against them."
Gallatin made no reply. This was the one political sin he had
acknowledged. His silence was his expiation.
The Treasury Department and its control, past and present, was the
object of his unceasing criticism. In April, 1796, he said, "The
situation of the gentleman at the head of the department [Wolcott] was
doubtless delicate and unpleasant; it was the more so when compared with
that of his predecessor [Hamilton]. Both indeed had the same power to
borrow money when necessary; but that power, which was efficient in the
hands of the late secretary and liberally enough used by him, was become
useless at present. He wished the present secretary to be extricated
from his present difficulty. Nothing could be more painful than to be at
the head of that department with an empty treasury, a revenue inadequate
to the expenses, and no means to borrow." Nevertheless he feared that if
it were declared that the payment of the debt incurred by themselves
were to be postponed till the present generation were over, it might
well be expected that the principle thus adopted by them would be
cherished, that succeeding legislatures and administrations would follow
in their steps, and that they were laying the foundations of that
national curse,--a growing and perpetual debt.
On the last day of the session W. Smith had challenged the correctness
of Gallatin's charge that there had been an increase of the public debt
by five millions under the present administration, and claimed that
there were errors in Gallatin's statement of more than four and a half
millions. Gallatin defended his figures. At this day it is impossible to
determine the merits of this dispute.
One incident of this session deserves mention as showing the distaste of
Gallatin for anything like personal compliment, stimulated in this
instance, perhaps, by his sense of Washington's dislike to himself. It
had been the habit of the House since the commencement of the government
to adjourn for a time on February 22, Washington's birthday, that
members might pay their respects to the President. When the motion was
made that the House adjourn for _half an hour_, the Republicans
objected, and Gallatin, nothing loath to "bell the cat," moved that the
words "half an hour" be struck out. His amendment was lost without a
division. The motion to adjourn was then put and lost by a vote of 50
nays to 38 ayes. The House waited on the President at the close of the
business of the day. On June 1 closed this long and memorable session,
in which the assaults of the Republicans upon the administration were so
persistent and embarrassing as to justify Wolcott's private note to
Hamilton, April 29, 1796, that "unless a radical change of opinion can
be effected in the Southern States, the existing establishments will not
last eighteen months. The influence of Messrs. Gallatin, Madison, and
Jefferson must be diminished, or the public affairs will be brought to a
stand." Here is found an early recognition of the political
"triumvirate," and Gallatin is the first named.
Gallatin seems to have had some doubts as to his reëlection to Congress.
As he did not reside in the Washington and Allegheny district, his name
was not mentioned as a candidate, and, to use his own words, he expected
to "be gently dropped without the parade of a resignation." In his
distaste at separation from his wife, the desire to abandon public life
grew upon him. But personal abuse of him in the newspapers exasperating
his friends, he was taken up again in October, and he arrived on the
scene, he says, too late to prevent it. He had no hope, however, of
success, and was resolved to resign a seat to which he was in every way
indifferent. "Ambition, love of power," he wrote to his wife on October
16, he had never felt, and he added, if vanity ever made one of the
ingredients which impelled him to take an active part in public life, it
had for many years altogether vanished away. He was nevertheless
reëlected by the district he had represented.
* * * * *
The second session of the fourth Congress began on December 5, 1796. At
the beginning of this session Mr. Gallatin took the reins of the
Republican party, and held them till its close. The position of the
Federalists had been strengthened before the country by the energy of
Washington, who, impatient of the delays which Great Britain opposed to
the evacuation of the posts, marched troops to the frontier and obtained
their surrender. Adet, the new French minister, had dashed the feeling
of attachment for France by his impudent notice to the President that
the dissatisfaction of France would last until the executive of the
United States should return to sentiments and measures more conformable
to the interests and friendships of the two nations. In September
Washington issued his Farewell Address, in which he gave the famous
warning against foreign complications, which, approved by the country,
has since remained its policy; but neither the prospect of his final
withdrawal from the political and official field, nor the advice of
Jefferson to moderate their zeal, availed to calm the bitterness of the
ultra Republicans in the House.
The struggle over the answer to the President's message, which Fisher
Ames on this occasion reported, was again renewed. An effort was made to
strike out the passages complimentary to Washington and expressing
regret at his approaching retirement. Giles, who made the motion, went
so far as to say that he 'wished him to retire, and that this was the
moment for his retirement, that the government could do very well
without him, and that he would enjoy more happiness in his retirement
than he possibly could in his present situation.' For his part he did
not consider Washington's administration either "wise or firm," as the
address said. Gallatin made a distinction between the administration and
the legislature, and in lieu of the words, wise, firm, and patriotic
administration, proposed to address the compliment directly to the
wisdom, firmness, and patriotism of Washington. But Ames defended his
report, and it was adopted by a vote of 67 to 12. Gallatin voted with
the majority, but Livingston, Giles, and Macon held out with the small
band of disaffected, among whom it is amusing also to find Andrew
Jackson, who took his seat at this Congress to represent Tennessee,
which had been admitted as a State at the last session.[5]
The indebtedness of the States to the general government, in the old
balance sheet, on the payment of which Gallatin insisted, was a subject
of difference between the Senate and the House. Gallatin was appointed
chairman of the committee of conference on the part of the House. The
reduction of the military establishment, which he wished to bring down
to the footing of 1792, was again insisted upon. Gallatin here
ingeniously argued against the necessity for the number of men
proposed, that it was a mere matter of opinion, and if it was a matter
of opinion, it was not strictly necessary, because if necessary it was
no longer a matter of opinion. Naval appropriations were also opposed,
on the ground that a navy was prejudicial to commerce. Taxation, direct
and indirect, and compensation to public officers were also subjects of
debate at this session. On the subject of appropriations, general or
special, he was uncompromising. He charged upon the Treasury Department
that notwithstanding the distribution of the appropriations they thought
themselves at liberty to take money from an item where there was a
surplus and apply it to another where it was wanted. To check such
irregularity, he secured the passage of a resolution ordering that "the
several sums shall be solely applied to the objects for which they are
respectively appropriated," and tacked it to the appropriation bill. The
Senate added an amendment removing the restriction, but Gallatin and
Nicholas insisting on its retention, the House supported them by a vote
of 52 to 36, and the Senate receded.
Notwithstanding the apparent enthusiasm of the House in the early part
of the session, when the tricolor of France, a present from the French
government to the United States, was sent by Washington to Congress, to
be deposited with the archives of the nation, French influence was on
the wane. The common sense of the country got the better of its
passion. In the reaction the Federalists regained
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