Albert Gallatin Part 5

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, Const.i.tution, 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 a.s.saults of the Republicans upon the administration were so persistent and embarra.s.sing 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 reelection 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 reelected 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 pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sion. In the reaction the Federalists regained the popular favor for a season.

Whatever latent sympathy the French people may have had for America as the nation which set the example of resistance to arbitrary rule, the French government certainly was moved by no enthusiasm for abstract rights. Its only object was to check the power of their ancient enemy, and deprive it of its empire beyond the seas. Nevertheless, France did contribute materially to American success. The American government and people acknowledged the value of her a.s.sistance, and, in spite of the prejudices of race, there was a strong bond of sympathy between the two nations; and when, in her turn, France, in 1789, threw off the feudal yoke, she expected and she received the sympathy of America. Beyond this the government and the people of the United States could not and would not go. The position of France in the winter of 1796-97 was peculiar.

She was at war with the two most formidable powers of Europe,--Austria and England, the one the mistress of Central Europe, the other supreme ruler of the seas. The United States was the only maritime power which could be opposed to Great Britain. The French government determined to secure American aid by persuasion, if possible, otherwise by threat. The Directory indiscreetly appealed from the American government to the American people, forgetting that in representative governments these are one. Nor was the precedent cited in defense of this unusual proceeding--namely, the appeal of the American colonists to the people of England, Ireland, and Canada to take part in the struggle against the British government--pertinent; for that was an appeal to sufferers under a common yoke.

The enthusiasm awakened in France by the dramatic reception of the American flag, presented by Monroe to the French Convention, was somewhat dampened by the cooler manner with which Congress received the tricolor, and was entirely dashed by the moderation of the reply of the House to Washington's message. The consent of the House to the appropriations to carry out the Jay Treaty decided the French Directory to suspend diplomatic relations with the United States. The marvelous successes of Bonaparte in Italy over the Austrian army encouraged Barras to bolder measures. The Directory not only refused to receive Charles C.

Pinckney, the new American minister, but gave him formal notice to retire from French territory, and even threatened him with subjection to police jurisdiction. In view of this alarming situation, President Adams convened Congress.

The first session of the fifth Congress began at Philadelphia on Monday, May 15, 1797. Jonathan Dayton was reelected speaker of the House. Some new men now appeared on the field of national debate: Samuel Sewall and Harrison Gray Otis from Ma.s.sachusetts, James A. Bayard from Delaware, and John Rutledge, Jr., from South Carolina. Madison and Fisher Ames did not return, and their loss was serious to their respective parties.

Madison was incontestably the finest reasoning power, and Ames, as an orator, had no equal in our history until Webster appeared to dwarf all other fame beside his matchless eloquence. Parties were nicely balanced, the nominal majority being on the Federal side. Harper and Griswold retained the lead of the administration party. Giles still led the Republican opposition, but Gallatin was its main stay, always ready, always informed, and already known to be in the confidence of Jefferson, its moving spirit. The President's message was, as usual, the touchstone of party. The debate upon it unmasked opinions. It was to all intents a war message, since it asked provision for war. The action of France left no alternative. The Republicans recognized this as well as the Federalists. They must either respond heartily to the appeal of the executive to maintain the national honor, or come under the charge they had brought against the Federalists of sympathy with an enemy. At first they sought a middle ground. Admitting that the rejection of our minister and the manner of it, if followed by a refusal of all negotiation on the subject of mutual complaints, would put an end to every friendly relation between the two countries, they still hoped that it was only a suspension of diplomatic intercourse. Hence, in response to the a.s.surance in the message that an attempt at negotiation would first be made, Nicholas moved an amendment in this vein. The Federalists opposed all interference with the executive, but the Republicans took advantage of the debate to clear themselves of any taint of unpatriotic motives in their semi-opposition. The Federalists, repudiating the charge of British influence, held up Genet to condemnation, as making an appeal to the people, Fauchet as fomenting an insurrection, and Adet as insulting the government. The Republicans retorted upon them Grenville's proposition to Mr. Pinckney, to support the American government against the dangerous Jacobin factions which sought to overturn it. Gallatin deprecated bringing the conduct of foreign relations into debate, and hoped that the majority would resist the rashness which would drive the country into war; he claimed that a disposition should be shown to put France on an equal footing with other nations. He would offer an ultimatum to France. Harper closed the debate in a powerful and brilliant speech, opposing the amendment because he was for peace, and because peace could only be maintained by showing France that we were preparing for war. So the rival leaders based their opposite action on a common ground. Dayton, the speaker, now embodied Gallatin's idea in another form, and introduced a paragraph to the effect that "the House receive with the utmost satisfaction the information of the President that a fresh attempt at negotiation will be inst.i.tuted, and cherish the hope that a mutual spirit of conciliation and a disposition on the part of the United States to place France on grounds as favorable as other countries will produce an accommodation compatible with the engagements, rights, and honor of our nation."

Kittera, who was one of the committee on the address, then moved to add after "mutual spirit of conciliation" the clause, "to compensate for any injury done to our neutral rights," etc. This both Harper and Gallatin opposed. Gallatin objected to being forced to this choice. To vote in its favor was a threat, if compensation were refused; to vote against it was an abandonment of the claim. But he should oppose it, if forced to a choice. The Federal leaders insisted; the previous question was ordered, 51 to 48. Here Mr. Gallatin showed himself the leader of his party. He stated that, the majority having determined the question, it was now a choice of evils, and he should vote for the amendment, and it was adopted, 78 ayes to 21 nays. Among the nays were Harper, the Federalist leader, Giles, the nominal chief of the Republicans, and Nicholas, high in rank in that party. But the last word was not yet said. Edward Livingston, who day by day a.s.serted himself more positively, denied that the conduct of the executive had been "just and impartial to foreign nations," and moved to strike out the statement; Gallatin was more moderate. Though he did not believe that in every instance the government had been just and impartial, yet, generally speaking, it had been so. He did not approve the British treaty, though he attributed no bad motives to its makers; but he did not think that the laws respecting the subordinate departments of the executive and judiciary had been fairly executed. He therefore would not consent to the sentence in the answer to the address, that the House did not hesitate to declare that "they would give their most cordial support to principles so deliberately and uprightly established."

What, he asked, were these principles? Otis denounced this as an artful attempt to cast a censure, not only on the executive, but on all the departments of government, and Allen of Connecticut declared "that there was American blood enough in the House to approve this clause and American accent enough to p.r.o.nounce it." The rough prejudice of the Saxon against the Latin race showed itself in this language, and expressed the antagonism which Mr. Gallatin found to increase with his political progress. Both the resolution and the amendment were defeated, 53 nays to 45 yeas. But when the final vote came upon the address, Mr.

Gallatin, with that practical sense which made him the sheet anchor of his party in boisterous weather, voted with the Federalists and carried the moderate Republicans with him. The vote was 62 to 36. Among the irreconcilables the name of Edward Livingston is recorded.

The answer of the President was a model of good sense. "No event can afford me so much cordial satisfaction as to conduct a negotiation with the French Republic to a removal of prejudices, a correction of errors, a dissipation of umbrages, an accommodation of all differences, and a restoration of harmony and affection to the mutual satisfaction of both nations."

This was the leading debate of the session. The situation was too grave for trifling. On June 5, two days after the President's reply, resolutions were introduced to put the country in a state of defense.

Gallatin struggled hard to keep down the appropriations, and opposed the employment of the three frigates, which as yet had not been equipped or manned. If they got to sea, the President would have no option except to enforce the disputed articles of the French treaty. Gallatin laid down also the law of search in accordance with the law of nations, and pointed out that resistance to search or capture by merchantmen would not only lead to war, but was war. In the remaining acts of the session he was in favor of the defense of ports and harbors, with no preference as to fortification on government territory; in favor of a prohibition of the export of arms; against raising an additional corps of artillery; against expatriation of persons who took service under foreign governments. He opposed the duty on salt as unequal and unnecessary, and sought to have the loan, which became necessary, cut down to the exact sum of the deficiency in the appropriations; and finally, on the impeachment of William Blount, Senator of the United States, charged with having conspired with the British government to attack the Spaniards of St. Augustine, he pointed out the true method of procedure in the preparation of the bill of impeachment and the arraignment of the offender.

The House adjourned on July 10. Jefferson complained of the weakness and wavering of this Congress, the majority of which shifted with the breeze of "panic or prowess." This was, however, a very narrow view; for at this session the House fairly represented the prevailing sentiment of the country, which was friendly to France as a nation, but indignant with the insolence of her rulers. Gallatin, in the middle of the session, wrote to his wife that the Republicans "were beating and beaten by turns." He supposed that her father, Commodore Nicholson, 'thought him too moderate and about to trim,' and then declared, 'Moderation and firmness hath ever been, and ever will be, my motto.' Gallatin tells a story of his colleague from Pennsylvania, the old Anti-Federalist, Blair McClanachan, which shows the warmth of party feeling. They were both dining with President Adams, who entertained the members of Congress in turn. "McClanachan told the President that, by G.o.d, he would rather see the world annihilated than this country united with Great Britain; that there would not remain a single king in Europe within six months, etc., all in the loudest and most decisive tone."

Jefferson, who, as vice-president, presided over the debates in the Senate, had no cause to complain of any hesitation in that body, in which the Federalists had regained a clear working majority, giving him no chance of a deciding vote.

The second session of the fifth Congress began on November 13, 1797. The words of the President's address, "We are met together at a most interesting period, the situation of the powers of Europe is singular and portentous," was not an idle phrase. The star of Bonaparte already dominated the political firmament. Europe lay prostrate at the feet of the armies of the Directory. England, who was supposed to be the next object of attack, was staggering under the load of debt; and the sailors of her channel fleet had risen in mutiny. Even the Federalists, the aristocrats as Mr. Gallatin delighted to call them, believed that she was gone beyond recovery. But the admirers of France were no better satisfied with the threatening att.i.tude of the Directory towards America, and eagerly waited news of the reception given to the envoys extraordinary, Gerry, Pinckney, and Marshall, whom Adams with the consent of the Senate dispatched to Paris in the summer. Even Jefferson lost his taste for a French alliance, and almost wished there were "an ocean of fire between the new and the old world."

The tone of the President's address was considered wise on all sides, and it was agreed that the answer should be general and not a subject of contention. One of the members asked to be excused from going with the House to the President, but Gallatin showed that, as there was no power to compel attendance, no formal excuse was necessary. When the motion was put as to whether they should go in a body as usual to present their answer, Mr. Gallatin voted in the negative. He nevertheless accompanied the members, who were received pleasantly by President Adams and "treated to cake and wine."

Harper was made the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Though of high talents and a fine speaker, Gallatin found him a "great bungler" in the business of the House, a large share of which fell upon his own shoulders as well as the direction of the Republicans, of whom, notwithstanding the jealousy of Giles, he now was the acknowledged leader. As a member for Pennsylvania, Mr. Gallatin presented a memorial from the Quakers with regard to the arrest of fugitive slaves on her soil; the law of Pennsylvania declaring all men to be free who set foot in that State except only servants of members of Congress. There was already an opposition to hearing any pet.i.tion with regard to slaves, but Gallatin insisted on the memorial taking the usual course of reference to a committee. He directed the House also in the correct path in its legislation as to foreign coins. It was proposed to take from them the quality of legal tender; but he showed that it was policy not to discriminate against such coins until the mint could supply a sufficiency for the use of the country. In this argument he estimated the entire amount of specie in the United States at eight millions of dollars. At this early period in his political career he was acquiring that precise knowledge of the facts of American finance which later served to establish the principles upon which it is based.

This session was noteworthy by reason of the first personal encounter on the floor of the House. It was between two Northern members, Lyon of Vermont and Griswold of Connecticut. Gallatin stood by Lyon, who was of his party, and showed that the House could not expel him, since it was not at the time in organized session. As the Federalists would not consent to censure Griswold, both offenders escaped even a formal reproof. The general bitterness of feeling which marked the summer session was greatly modified in the expectant state of foreign politics; but the occasion for display of political divergence was not long delayed.

On January 18, 1798, Mr. Harper, who led the business of the House, moved the appropriation for foreign intercourse. This was seized upon by the opposition to advance still further their line of attack by a limitation of the const.i.tutional prerogative of the President. In addition to the usual salaries of the envoys to Great Britain and France, appropriations were asked for the posts at Madrid, Lisbon, and Berlin, which last Mr. Adams had designated as a first-cla.s.s mission.

The discussion on the powers of the President, and the extent to which they might be controlled by paring down the appropriations, lifted the debate from the narrow ground of economy in administration to the higher plane of const.i.tutional powers. Nicholas opened on the Republican side by announcing that it was seasonable to bring back the establishment of the diplomatic corps to the footing it had been on until the year 1796. In all governments like our own he declared that there was a tendency to a union and consolidation of all its parts into the executive, and the limitation and annexion of the parts with each other as settled by the Const.i.tution would be destroyed by this influence unless there were a constant attention on the part of the legislature to resist it. The appointment of a minister plenipotentiary to Prussia, with which we had little or no commercial intercourse, offered an opportunity to determine this limitation. Harper said that this was a renewal of the old charge that foreign intercourse was unnecessary, and the old suggestion that our commerce ought to be given up or left to shift for itself. Mr. Gallatin laid down extreme theories which have never yet found practical application. He took the question at once from party or personal ground by admitting that the government was essentially pure, its patronage not extensive, or its effect upon the legislative or any other branch of the government as yet material.

The Const.i.tution had placed the patronage in the executive. There he thought it was wisely placed. The legislature would be more corrupt than the executive were it placed with them. While not willing at once to give up political foreign intercourse, he thought that it should by degrees be altogether declined. To it he ascribed the critical situation of the country. Commercial intercourse could be protected by the consular system. He then argued that the power to provide for expenses was the check intended by the Const.i.tution. To this Griswold answered that this doctrine of checks contained more mischief than Pandora's box; Bayard, that the checks were all directed to the executive, and that they would check and counter-check until they _stopped the wheels of government_.[6] When the President was manacled and at the mercy of the House they would be satisfied. He held the executive to be the weakest branch of the government, because its powers are defined; but the limits of the House are undefined.

As the debate advanced, Nicholas declared that the purpose of the Republicans was to define the executive power and to put an end to its extension through their power over appropriations. Later he would bring in a motion to do away with all foreign intercourse. Goodrich answered that the office of foreign minister was created by the Const.i.tution itself, and the power of appointment was placed in the President. The House might speculate upon the propriety of doing away with all intercourse with foreign powers, but could not decide on it, for political intercourse did not depend on the sending of ministers abroad.

Foreign ministers would come here and the Const.i.tution required their reception. The idea that we should have no foreign intercourse was taken from Washington's Farewell Address, but his words applied only to alliances offensive and defensive. If ministers were abandoned, envoys extraordinary must be sent, a much more dangerous practice; the only choice was between ministers and spies. In conclusion he accused the Republicans of making one continuous attack upon the administration, and charged that the opposition to the appropriation bill was not a single measure, but connected with others, and intended to clog the wheels of government.

The purpose of the Republicans being thus declared by Nicholas and squarely met by the friends of the administration, Mr. Gallatin, March 1, 1798, summed up the opposition arguments in an elaborate speech three hours and a quarter in length. He denied the novel doctrine that each department had checks within itself, but none upon others; he claimed that the principle of checks is admitted in all mixed governments.

Commercial intercourse, he said, is regulated by the law of nations, by the munic.i.p.al law of respective countries and by treaties of commerce, the application of which is the province of consuls. What advantages, he asked, had our commercial treaties given us, either that with France or that with England? He excepted that part of the treaty with Great Britain which arranged our difference with that power, as foreign to the discussion. He claimed that the restriction which we had laid upon ourselves by our commercial treaties had been attended with political consequences fatal to our tranquillity. Washington had advised a separation of our political from our commercial relations. The message of President Adams intimated a different policy and alluded to the balance of power in Europe as not to be forgotten or neglected.

Interesting as that balance may be to Europe, how does it concern us? We shall never throw our weight into the scale. Pa.s.sing from this to the danger of the absorption of powers by the executive, he cited the examples of the Cortes of Spain, the etats Generaux of France, the Diets of Denmark. In all these countries the executive is in possession of legislative, of absolute powers. The fate of the European republics was similar. Venice, Switzerland, and Holland had shown the legislative powers merging into the executive. The object of the Const.i.tution of the United States is to divide and distribute the powers of government. With uncontrolled command over the purse of the people the executive tends to prodigality, to taxes, and to wars. He closed with a hope that a fixed determination to prevent the increase of the national expenditure, and to detach the country from any connection with European politics, would tend to reconcile parties, promote the happiness of America, and conciliate the affection of every part of the Union. No such admirable exposition of the true American doctrine of non-interference with European politics had at that time been heard in Congress.

In reply, Harper insisted on the admission that the purpose of the amendment of Nicholas was to restrain the President; that it was a question of power, not of money. Mr. Gallatin admitted the right of appointment, but denied that the House was bound to appropriate. Harper rejoined that the offices did not originate with the President but with the Const.i.tution, and that they could not be destroyed by the action of the House, and, leaving the general ground of debate, made a brilliant attack upon the Republicans as revolutionists, whom he divided into three cla.s.ses: the philosophers, the Jacobins, and the _sans-culottes_.

The philosophers are most to be dreaded. "They declaim with warmth on the miseries of mankind, the abuses of government, and the vices of rulers; all which they engage to remove, providing their theories should once be adopted. They talk of the perfectibility of man and of the dignity of his nature; and, entirely forgetting what he is, declaim perpetually about what he should be." Of Jacobins there are plenty. They profit by the labors of others; tyrants in power, demagogues when not.

Fortunately for America there are few or no _sans-culottes_ among her inhabitants. Jefferson, he said, returned from France a missionary to convert Americans to the new faith, and he charged that the system of French alliance and war with Great Britain by the United States was a part of the scheme of the French revolutionists, and was imported into this country. Gallatin and his friends he regarded in the light of an enemy who has commenced a siege against the fortress of the Const.i.tution.

The restricting amendment was lost, and the bill pa.s.sed by a vote of 52 yeas to 43 nays. Nor is it easy to see how the theory of Mr. Gallatin with regard to diplomatic relations could have been applied successfully with the existing channels of intercourse. Now that the ocean cable brings governments into direct relation with each other, there is a tendency to restrict the authority of amba.s.sadors, for whom there is no longer need, and the entire system will no doubt soon disappear. Mr.

Gallatin's speech was the delight of his party and his friends. He was called upon to write it out, and two thousand copies of it were circulated as the best exposition of Republican doctrine.

Early in February the President informed Congress of certain captures and outrages committed by a French privateer within the limits of the United States, including the burning of an English merchantman in the harbor of Charleston. On March 19, in a further special message, he communicated dispatches from the American envoys in France, and also informed Congress that he should withdraw his order forbidding merchant vessels to sail in an armed condition. A collision might, therefore, occur at any moment.

On March 27, 1798, a resolution was introduced that it is not now expedient for the United States to resort to war against the French Republic; a second, to restrict the arming of merchant vessels; and a third, to provide for the protection of the seacoast and the internal defense of the country. Speaking to the first resolution, Mr. Gallatin said that the United States had arrived at a crisis at which a stand must be made, when the House must say whether it will resort to war or preserve peace. If to war, the expense and its evils must be met; if peace continue, then the country must submit: in either case American vessels would be taken. It was a mere matter of calculation which course would best serve the interest and happiness of the country. If he could separate defensive from offensive war, he should be in favor of it; but he could not make the distinction, and therefore he should be in favor of measures of peace. The act of the President was a war measure.

Members of the House so designated it in letters to their const.i.tuents.

On April 2 the President was requested to communicate the instructions and dispatches from the envoys extraordinary, mention of which he had made in his message of March 19. Gallatin supported the call. He said that the President was not afraid of communicating information, as he had shown in the preceding session, and that to withhold it would endanger the safety of our commerce, or prevent the happy issue of negotiation. On April 3 Mr. Gallatin presented a pet.i.tion against hazarding the neutrality and peace of the nation by authorizing private citizens to arm and equip vessels. This was signed by forty members of the Pennsylvania legislature. Protests of a similar character were presented from other parts of the country. On the same day the President sent in the famous X Y Z dispatches, in confidence. These letters represented the names of Hottinguer, Bellamy, and Hauteval, the agents of Talleyrand, the foreign minister of the First Consul, which were withheld by the President. The mysterious negotiations contained a distinct demand by Talleyrand of a douceur of 1,200,000 livres to the French officials as a condition of peace. The effect was immediately to strengthen the administration, Dayton, the speaker, pa.s.sing to the ranks of the Federalists.

On the 18th the Senate sent down a bill authorizing the President to procure sixteen armed vessels to act as convoys. Gallatin still held firm. He admitted that from the beginning of the European contest the belligerent powers had disregarded the law of nations and the stipulations of treaties, but he still opposed the granting of armed convoys, which would lead to a collision. Let us not, he said, act on speculative grounds; if our present situation is better than war, let us keep it. Better even, he said, suffer the French to go on with their depredations than to take any step which may lead to war.

Allen of Connecticut read a pa.s.sage from the dispatches which envenomed the debate. By it one of the French agents appears to have warned the American envoys that they were mistaken in supposing that an exposition of the unreasonable demands of France would unite the people of the United States. He said, "You should know that the _diplomatic skill_ of France and the _means_ she possesses in your country are sufficient to enable her, with the _French party_ in America, to throw the blame which will attend the rupture of the negotiations on the _Federalists_, as you term yourselves, but on the _British party_, as France terms you, and you may a.s.sure yourselves this will be done." Allen then charged upon Gallatin that his language was that of a foreign agent. Gallatin replied that the representatives of the French Republic in this country had shown themselves to be the worst diplomatists that had ever been sent to it, and he asked why the gentlemen who did not come forward with a declaration of war (though they were willing to go to war without the declaration) charge their adversaries with meaning to submit to France.

France might declare war or give an order to seize American vessels, but as long as she did not, some hope remained that the state of peace might not be broken; and he said in conclusion "that, notwithstanding all the violent charges and personal abuse which had been made against him, it would produce no difference in his manner of acting, neither prevent him from speaking against every measure which he thought injurious to the public interest, nor, on the other hand, inflame his mind so as to induce him to oppose measures which he might heretofore have thought proper."

The war feeling ran high in the country; "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute,"[7] was the popular cry. On May 28 Mr. Harper introduced a bill to suspend commercial intercourse with France.

Gallatin thought this a doubtful measure. Its avowed purpose was to distress France in the West Indies, but he said that in six months that entire trade would be by neutral vessels. In the discussion on the bill to regulate the arming of merchant vessels, he showed that it was the practice of neutral European nations to allow such vessels to arm, but not to regulate their conduct. Bonds are required in cases of letter of marque, and the merchant who arms is bound not to break the laws of nations or the agreements of treaties. Restriction was therefore unnecessary. Government should not interfere. Commercial intercourse with France was suspended June 13.

In the pride of their new triumph and the intensity of their personal feeling the Federalists overleaped their mark, and began a series of measures which ultimately cost them the possession of the government and their political existence. The first of these was the Sedition Bill, which Jefferson believed to be aimed at Gallatin in person. Mr. Gallatin met it at its inception with a statement of the const.i.tutional objections, viz., 1st, that there was no power to make such a law, and 2d, the special provision in the Const.i.tution that the writ of _habeas corpus_ shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion and invasion. There was neither. The second, the Alien Bill, gave the President power to expel from the country all aliens. Over this measure Gallatin and Harper had hot words. Gallatin charged upon Harper not only a misrepresentation of the arguments of his opponents, but an arraignment of the motives of others, while claiming all purity for his own. Harper answered in words which show that Gallatin, for once, had met warmth with warmth, and anger with anger. When, Harper said, a gentleman, who is usually so cool, all at once a.s.sumes such a tone of pa.s.sion as to forget all decorum of language, it would seem as if the observation had been properly applied. On the vote to strike out the obnoxious sections, the Federalists defeated their antagonists, and on June 21 the bill itself was pa.s.sed with all its odious features by 46 to 40.

On June 21 President Adams sent in a message with letters from Gerry, who had remained at Paris after the return of Marshall and Pinckney, on the subject of a loan. They contained an intimation from Talleyrand that he was ready to resume negotiations. In this message Adams said, "I will never send another minister to France without a.s.surances that he will be received, respected, and honored as the representative of a great, free, powerful, and independent nation." On the 25th an act was pa.s.sed authorizing the commanders of merchant vessels to defend themselves against search and seizure under regulations by the President. On June 30 a further act authorized the purchase and equipment of twelve vessels as an addition to the naval armament. To all intents and purposes a state of war between the two countries already existed.

The 4th of July (1798) was celebrated with unusual enthusiasm all over the United States, and the black c.o.c.kade was generally worn. This was the distinctive badge of the Federalists, and a response to the tricolor which Adet had recommended all French citizens to wear in 1794.