This official denial and private correction of the story, afterwards made public in the shape of a letter from the New York member to his constituents, seem to be sufficient for the satisfaction of all parties. Still, the innuendo of Randolph was compromising to Mr. Gallatin, and was made the theme of long-continued attacks upon him. Five years afterwards, when Mr. Madison was President and Gallatin was in sore need of support, Mr. Jefferson wrote to William Wirt a letter warmly defending him in this matter as in others. He said, in taking up one by one the charges that Mr. Gallatin had been a party to Randolph’s opposition: “But the story of the two millions; Mr. Gallatin satisfied us that this affirmation of J. R. was as unauthorized as the fact itself was false. It resolves itself, therefore, into his inexplicit letter to a committee of Congress. As to this, my own surmise was that Mr. Gallatin might have used some hypothetical expression in conversing on that subject, which J. R. made a positive one, and he being a duellist, and Mr. Gallatin with a wife and children depending on him for their daily subsistence, the latter might wish to avoid collision and insult from such a man.”
There are occasions when defence is worse than attack. If Mr. Jefferson thought that his Secretary of the Treasury wanted the moral courage to speak out at the risk of personal danger, there is no more to be said so far as concerns Mr. Jefferson; but in regard to Mr. Gallatin the suggestion seems to be completely set aside by two considerations: in the first place, the question put by Randolph was not founded, nor even alleged to be founded, on his own conversations with Mr. Gallatin,[73] and therefore not he, but Mr. Masters alone, had the right to call Mr. Gallatin to account; in the second place, Mr. Gallatin’s letter was very explicit on one point, and that to a duellist the essential one; it flatly and categorically contradicted Randolph’s charge, and there seems to be no reason why Mr. Randolph might not have founded a challenge on that contradiction as well as on any other had he felt that the occasion warranted a duel.
The truth is that Mr. Randolph at this time might have fought as many duels as there were days, had he wished to do so. Bitter as his tongue was, there were men enough who were not afraid either of it or of his pistols. Mr. Gallatin, on the other hand, was anxious that, if possible, Randolph should not be outlawed. Until March, 1807, at all events, he was chairman of the Ways and Means, and Mr. Gallatin’s relations with him must be maintained. More than this, there was absolutely no other member on the Administration side of the House who had the capacity to take the place of leader. Even in October, 1807, when Randolph was at last dethroned, it was, as will be seen, much against Mr. Gallatin’s will, and, as he well knew, much to the risk of public interest and his own comfort. He would rather have continued to tolerate Randolph than to trust the leadership of the House in the hands of incompetent men.
Nevertheless, this conduct of Mr. Randolph necessarily broke up the confidence existing between him and Mr. Gallatin, and although Randolph was never one of Mr. Gallatin’s declared enemies, but, on the contrary, always spoke of him as “that great man,—for great let me call him,”[74] their intimacy ceased from this time. In July, 1807, Randolph wrote to Joseph H. Nicholson: “I have no communication with the great folks. Gallatin used formerly to write to me, but of late our intercourse has dropped. I think it is more than two years since I was in his house. How this has happened I can’t tell, or rather I can, for I have not been invited there.” The loss was all the more serious to Mr. Gallatin, because at this same moment Joseph H. Nicholson left the House to accept a seat on the bench, and thus the two members on whom he had most depended were beyond his reach. A corresponding loss of personal influence was inevitable; but this was not all; the Aurora, while shrewdly avoiding direct support of Randolph’s defection, made use of Randolph’s assertions to charge Mr. Gallatin with what amounted to treason against Mr. Jefferson, and at last Mr. Jefferson himself had to interpose to reassure his Secretary of the Treasury in the following letter:
JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN.
Washington, October 12, 1806.
Dear Sir,—You witnessed in the earlier part of the Administration the malignant and long-continued efforts which the Federalists exerted in their newspapers to produce misunderstanding between Mr. Madison and myself. These failed completely. A like attempt was afterwards made through other channels to effect a similar purpose between General Dearborn and myself, but with no more success. The machinations of the last session to put you at cross-questions with us all were so obvious as to be seen at the first glance of every eye. In order to destroy one member of the Administration, the whole were to be set to loggerheads to destroy one another. I observe in the papers lately new attempts to revive this stale artifice, and that they squint more directly towards you and myself. I cannot, therefore, be satisfied till I declare to you explicitly that my affection and confidence in you are nothing impaired, and that they cannot be impaired by means so unworthy the notice of candid and honorable minds. I make the declaration that no doubts or jealousies, which often beget the facts they fear, may find a moment’s harbor in either of our minds. I have so much reliance on the superior good sense and candor of all those associated with me as to be satisfied they will not suffer either friend or foe to sow tares among us. Our Administration now drawing towards a close, I have a sublime pleasure in believing it will be distinguished as much by having placed itself above all the passions which could disturb its harmony, as by the great operations by which it will have advanced the well-being of the nation.
Accept my affectionate salutations and assurances of my constant and unalterable respect and attachment.
GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.
Washington, 13th October, 1806.
Dear Sir,—In minds solely employed in honest efforts to promote the welfare of a free people there is but little room left for the operation of those passions which engender doubts and jealousies. That you entertained none against me I had the most perfect conviction before I received your note of yesterday. Of your candor and indulgence I have experienced repeated proofs; the freedom with which my opinions have been delivered has been always acceptable and approved, even when they may have happened not precisely to coincide with your own view of the subject and you have thought them erroneous. But I am not the less sensible of your kindness in repeating at this juncture the expression of your confidence. If amongst the authors of the animadversions to which you allude there be any who believe that in my long and confidential intercourse with Republican members of Congress, that particularly in my free communications of facts and opinions to Mr. Randolph, I have gone beyond what prudence might have suggested, the occasion necessarily required, or my official situation strictly permitted, those who are impressed with such belief must be allowed to reprove the indiscretion, and may perhaps honestly suspect its motive. For those having charged me with any equivocation, evasion, or the least deviation from truth in any shape whatever, I cannot even frame an apology. And, without cherishing resentment, I have not the charity to ascribe to purity of intention the Philadelphia attacks, which indeed I expect to see renewed with additional virulence and a total disregard for truth. I am, however, but a secondary object, and you are not less aware than myself that the next Presidential election lurks at the bottom of those writings and of the Congressional dissensions. [To you my wish may be expressed that whenever you shall be permitted to withdraw, the choice may fall on Mr. Madison, as the most worthy and the most capable. But I know that on that point, as well as on all others which relate to elections, no Executive officer ought to interfere].[75]
Much more, however, do I lament the injury which the Republican cause may receive from the divisions amongst its friends in so many different quarters. Sacrificing the public good and their avowed principles to personal views, to pride and resentment, they afford abundant matter of triumph to our opponents; they discredit at all events, and may ultimately ruin, the cause itself. But if we are unable to control the conflicting passions and jarring interests which surround us, they will not at least affect our conduct. The Administration has no path to pursue but to continue their unremitted attention to the high duties entrusted to their care, and to persevere in their efforts to preserve peace abroad, and at home to improve and invigorate our republican institutions. The most important object at present is to arrange on equitable terms our differences with Spain. That point once accomplished, your task shall have been satisfactorily completed, and those you have associated in your labors will be amply rewarded by sharing in the success of your Administration. From no other source can any of them expect to derive any degree of reputation.
With sincere respect and grateful attachment.
GALLATIN TO MARIA NICHOLSON.
Washington. October 27, 1806.
... I had seen the piece in the “Enquirer” to which you allude before I left New York. To be abused and misunderstood by political friends of worth is not pleasant, but the great question in all those things is: Did you perform your duty, and did you, as far as you were able, promote the public good? For, worldly as you think me, rest assured that, however I may prize public opinion, it is not there that I seek for a reward. I suspect—but that is solely between ourselves—that some friends of John Randolph, mortified at his conduct and still more at its effect on his consequence, would wish to throw the blame of his excesses on me; and that, on the other hand, a weak friend of the President has felt hurt that my opinions had not in every particular coincided with the President’s. To those joint causes I ascribe the Virginia attack. Mr. Jefferson, thinking that I might be hurt by it, wrote me the enclosed letter.... It affords additional proof of the goodness of his heart, and shows that he is much above all those little squabbles....
In order to follow out to its conclusion this long story of John Randolph’s schism, it has been necessary to leave the larger questions of public interest far behind. Whatever misstatements of fact Randolph may have made, his opinion on one point was indubitably correct: Mr. Jefferson’s Spanish policy in 1805-6 was feeble, and it was a failure. It was feeble not because it proposed the purchase of Florida from France or from Spain, but because it threatened war without backing its threats by real force. The situation in regard to England was no better. To the very serious questions of impressments, of the annual blockade of New York, and of the lawless proceedings of the British ships of war, was now added the settled determination on the part of England to stop the prodigious increase of American commerce which threatened to ruin the shipping interests of Great Britain. For this purpose an old rule of the war of 1756 was revived, and the American shipping engaged in the hitherto legal trade of carrying West India produce from the United States to Europe was suddenly swept into British ports and condemned. All the resistance that Mr. Madison could offer was a pamphlet,—convincing enough as to the right, but not equally so as to the power, of the United States. Congress, however, reinforced it by a non-importation act, and Mr. Monroe and William Pinkney were appointed a special commission to negotiate.
Meanwhile, the affairs of Mr. Gallatin’s own Department had suffered no check or misfortune. His report of December, 1805, showed that the revenue had risen high above its highest previous mark, to $12,672,000, which, with the produce of the Mediterranean Fund and of the land sales, carried the receipts of the government nearly to $14,000,000. The surplus in the Treasury, after meeting all the regular expenditures and navy deficiencies, French claims, and the $1,750,000 of the Louisiana purchase, for which a loan had been authorized, would still exceed one million dollars on a reasonable estimate. The reduction of debt had already reached that point at which Mr. Gallatin was obliged to pause and impress upon Congress the idea that a new class of duties lay before them; four years more of the application of his system would pay off all the debt that was susceptible of immediate payment; the rest could be redeemed only by purchase, or by waiting until the law permitted its redemption. “Should circumstances render it eligible, a considerable portion of the revenue now appropriated for that purpose [payment of debt] may then, in conformity with existing provisions, be applied to other objects.”
The following year, 1806, was still more prosperous. The regular revenue exceeded $13,000,000; the receipts altogether had reached the sum of $14,500,000; the two millions appropriated for purchasing Florida had been supplied out of surplus and sent abroad; the Tripolitan war was over; a surplus of $4,000,000 was left in the Treasury; and only three years remained before the day when some disposition must be made of the excess of revenue.
So far as the mere financial arrangements for this event were concerned, Mr. Gallatin took them himself in charge. He abandoned at once the salt tax, which produced about $500,000, and he proposed to continue the Mediterranean Fund only one year longer. At the same time he procured the passage of an Act authorizing him to convert the unredeemed amount of the old six per cent. deferred stock, representing a capital of about $32,000,000, and the three per cents. (about $19,000,000), into a six per cent. stock, redeemable at six months’ notice. The inducements offered to the holders are explained in Mr. Gallatin’s letter of 20th January, 1806,[76] to John Randolph, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
The greater measures of public policy which were to crown the edifice of republican government, and to realize all those ideal benefits to humanity which Mr. Jefferson and his friends aimed at, fell of necessity and properly to the President’s charge. Nowhere in all the long course of Mr. Jefferson’s great career did he appear to better advantage than when in his message of 1806 he held out to the country and the world that view of his ultimate hopes and aspirations for national development, which was, as he then trusted, to be his last bequest to mankind. Having now reached the moment when he must formally announce to Congress that the great end of relieving the nation from debt was at length within reach, and with it the duty of establishing true republican government was fulfilled, he paused to ask what use was to be made of the splendid future thus displayed before them. Should they do away with the taxes? Should they apply them to the building up of armies and navies? Both relief from taxation and the means of defence might be sufficiently obtained without exhausting their resources, and still the great interests of humanity might be secured. These great interests were economical and moral; to supply the one, a system of internal improvement should be created commensurate with the magnitude of the country; “by these operations new channels of communication will be opened between the States, the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.” To provide for the other, the higher education should be placed among the objects of public care; “a public institution can alone supply those sciences which, though rarely called for, are yet necessary to complete the circle, all the parts of which contribute to the improvement of the country and some of them to its preservation.” A national university and a national system of internal improvement were an essential part, and indeed the realization and fruit, of the republican theories which Mr. Jefferson and his associates put in practice as their ideal of government.
In this path Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Gallatin went hand in hand. The former, indeed, thought an amendment of the Constitution necessary in order to bring these objects within the enumerated powers of the government, while Mr. Gallatin, here, as in regard to the bank and the Louisiana purchase, found no difficulty on that score; but Mr. Jefferson looked forward to the adoption of such an amendment before the three years’ interval had elapsed, and in the mean while Mr. Gallatin was actually putting his schemes into operation. The first report of the commissioners appointed to lay out the Cumberland Road, from the Potomac to the Ohio, was laid before Congress in January, 1807. A month later Congress passed the act under which the coast survey was authorized, and appropriated $50,000 to carry it into effect. A few weeks afterwards, Senator Worthington, of Ohio, one of Mr. Gallatin’s closest friends, caused a resolution to be adopted directing the Secretary of the Treasury to prepare and report to the Senate a general scheme of internal improvement.
Few persons have now any conception of the magnitude of the scheme thus originated. The university was but a trifle, which Mr. Gallatin was ready to take upon his shoulders at once without waiting for other resources than he already had. He seemed to have a passion for organization. The land system, the sinking fund system, the Cumberland Road, the coast survey, were all in his hands, and were, if not exclusively yet essentially, organized by him. He now turned his attention to the creation of a new scheme, in comparison with which all the others were only fragments and playthings. His report on internal improvements was sent in to the Senate on the 12th of April, 1808, after a year’s preparation. It presented a plan the mere outlines of which can alone find place here.
According to this sketch, the projected improvements were classified under the following heads:
I. Those parallel with the sea-coast, viz., canals cutting Cape Cod, New Jersey, Delaware, and North Carolina, so as to make continuous inland navigation along the coast to Cape Fear, at an estimated cost of $3,000,000; and a great turnpike road from Maine to Georgia, at an estimated cost of $4,800,000.
II. Those that were to run east and west, viz., improvement of the navigation of four Atlantic rivers, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Santee, and of four corresponding western rivers, the Alleghany, the Monongahela, the Kanawha, and the Tennessee, to the highest practicable points, at an estimated cost of $1,500,000; and the connection of these highest points of navigation by four roads across the Appalachian range, at an estimated cost of $2,800,000; and finally, a canal at the falls of the Ohio, $300,000, and improvement of roads to Detroit, St. Louis, and New Orleans, $200,000.
III. Those that were to run north and northwest to the lakes, viz., to connect the Hudson River with Lake Champlain, $800,000; to connect the Hudson River with Lake Ontario at Oswego by canal, $2,200,000; a canal round Niagara Falls, $1,000,000.
IV. Local improvements, $3,400,000.
The entire estimated expense was $20,000,000; by an appropriation of $2,000,000 a year the whole might be accomplished in ten years; by a system of selling to private parties the stock thus created by the government for turnpikes and canals, the fund might be made itself a permanent resource for further improvements.
Naturally the improvements thus contemplated were so laid out as to combine and satisfy local interests. The advantage which Mr. Gallatin proposed to gain was that of combining these interests in advance, so that they should co-operate in one great system instead of wasting the public resources in isolated efforts. He wished to fix the policy of government for at least ten years, and probably for an indefinite time, on the whole subject of internal improvements, as he had already succeeded in fixing it in regard to the payment of debt. By thus establishing a complete national system to be executed by degrees, the whole business of annual chaffering and log-rolling for local appropriations in Congress, and all its consequent corruptions and inconsistencies, were to be avoided.
Nor did Mr. Gallatin in making these propositions overlook the pressing necessity of providing for the national defence. His anticipated surplus exceeded five millions of dollars, and he intended that while two millions were annually set aside for internal improvements, the other three millions should be applied simultaneously for arsenals, magazines, and fortifications, or, if desired, for building a navy, while even from a military point of view the proposed roads and canals were as essential as arms, forts, or ships to national defence. In one respect, however, Mr. Gallatin differed rather widely from Mr. Jefferson, and this difference of opinion concerned a cardinal point of the President’s policy. The famous gun-boat scheme, which seems to have been the creation of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Robert Smith, took shape during the winter, of 1806-7, in a special message, dated February 10, which recommended the immediate building of two hundred gun-boats. When the draft of this message was sent to Mr. Gallatin for his criticisms, he wrote that he was “clearly of opinion” there was no necessity for building so many of these vessels, and he urged that the seventy-three already in course of construction were more than enough in a time of peace. “Of all the species of force which war may require,—armies, ships of war, fortifications, and gun-boats,—there is none which can be obtained in a shorter notice than gun-boats, and none therefore that it is less necessary to provide beforehand. I think that within sixty days, perhaps half the time, each of the seaports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore might build and fit out thirty, and the smaller ports together as many, especially if the timber was prepared beforehand. But beyond that preparation I would not go, for exclusively of the first expense of building and the interest of the capital thus laid out, I apprehend that, notwithstanding the care which may be taken, they will infallibly decay in a given number of years, and will be a perpetual bill of costs for repairs and maintenance.”[77]
Mr. Jefferson’s reply to this argument will be found in his letter of February 9, 1807, to Mr. Gallatin. When he fairly mounted a hobby-horse he rode it over all opposition, and, of all hobby-horses, gun-boats happened at this time to be his favorite. He insisted that the whole two hundred must be built, for five reasons: 1. Because they could not be built in two, or even in six months. 2. Because, in case of war, the enemy would destroy them on the stocks in New York, Boston, Norfolk, or any seaport. 3. “The first operation of war by an enterprising enemy would be to sweep all our seaports of their vessels at least.” 4. The expense of their preservation would be nothing. 5. The expense of construction would be less than supposed.[78]
Mr. Jefferson was a great man, and like other great men he occasionally committed great follies, yet it may be doubted whether in the whole course of his life he ever wrote anything much more absurd than this letter. When war came, each of his three former reasons was shown to be an error, and long before the war arrived, his two concluding reasons were contradicted by facts. These letters were written in February, 1807. In June, 1809, barely two years later, the then Secretary of the Navy, Paul Hamilton, reported that 176 gun-boats had been built, of which 24 only were in actual service. The aggregate expense to that date had been $1,700,000, or about $725,000 a year; while the reader will remember that the whole navy expenditure for 1807 was $1,722,000, and in 1808 nearly $1,900,000, against the modest $650,000 which had been agreed upon at the beginning of Mr. Jefferson’s Administration. Any one who is curious to see how far Mr. Gallatin’s opinion as to the “perpetual bill of costs for repairs” was correct, may refer to Paul Hamilton’s letter of June 6, 1809, to the Senate committee.[79] Had all this expenditure improved the national defences, the waste of money would have seemed less outrageous even to Mr. Gallatin, who was its chief victim; but, as most naval officers expected, the gun-boats were in some respects positively mischievous, in others of very little use, and they were easily destroyed by the enemy whenever found. At the end of the war such of them as were not already captured, burned, wrecked, or decayed were quietly broken up or sold.[80]
Friends and enemies have long since agreed that Mr. Jefferson’s gun-boats were a grievous mistake. How decidedly Mr. Gallatin remonstrated against the development given to this policy, may be seen in the letter of which a portion has been quoted. He strongly urged that no more gun-boats should be built till they were wanted, and he begged Mr. Jefferson to let Congress decide whether they were wanted or not. Mr. Jefferson did not take the advice, and, as usual, Mr. Gallatin was the one to suffer for the mistakes of his chief; the gun-boats lasted long enough to give him great trouble and to be one of the principal means of bankrupting the Treasury even before the war; unfortunately, he had exhausted his strength in complaints of the Navy Department; he had spoken again and again in language which for him was without an example; in the present instance he had Mr. Jefferson himself for his strongest opponent, and there was nothing to be done but to submit.
With this exception, one merely of detail and judgment, Mr. Gallatin seems to have cordially supported the comprehensive scheme which the Administration of Mr. Jefferson pointed out to Congress as the goal of its long pilgrimage. Six years of frugality and patience had, as it conceived, fixed beyond question the republicanism of national character, established a political system purely American, and sealed this result by reducing the national debt until its ultimate extinction was in full view. To fix the future course of the republican system thus established was a matter of not less importance, was perhaps a matter of much greater difficulty, than the task already accomplished. To make one comprehensive, permanent provision for the moral and economical development of the people, to mark out the path of progress with precision and to enter upon it at least so far as to make subsequent advance easy and certain, this was the highest statesmanship, the broadest practical philanthropy. For this result Mr. Gallatin, in the ripened wisdom of his full manhood, might fairly say that his life had been well spent.
For a time he saw the prize within his grasps then almost in an instant it was dashed away, and the whole fabric he had so laboriously constructed fell in ruins before his eyes. That such a disaster should have overwhelmed him at last was neither his fault nor that of Mr. Jefferson; it was the result of forces which neither he nor any other man or combination of men, neither his policy nor any other policy or resource of human wisdom, could control. In the midst of the great crash with which the whole structure of Mr. Jefferson’s Administration toppled over and broke to pieces in its last days, there is ample room to criticise and condemn the theories on which he acted and the measures which he used, but few critics would now be bold enough to say that any policy or any measure could have prevented that disaster.
The story is soon told. Mr. Monroe and Mr. William Pinkney, appointed as a special commission to negotiate with the government of Great Britain, began their labors in July, 1806. They were fortunate enough to find the British government in friendly hands, for they happened to fall upon the short administration of Mr. Fox. With much difficulty they negotiated a treaty which was signed on the last day of the year. This treaty was doubtless a bad treaty; not so bad as that of Mr. Jay, but still very unsatisfactory, and, what was worse, the British government, by a formal note appended to it, reserved the right to render it entirely nugatory if the United States did not satisfy Great Britain that she would resist the maritime decrees of France. Whether, under these circumstances, the treaty was worth accepting, is doubtful; whether Mr. Jefferson erred in insisting upon modifications of it, may be a question. Certain it is that the Administration concurred in sending it back to England for essential changes, and that Mr. Jefferson, undaunted by his previous failure to influence France by fear of his alliance with England, now expected to control England by fear of his alliance with France. “It is all-important that we should stand on terms of the strictest cordiality” with France, he wrote to Paris in announcing his treatment of the British treaty; but this cordiality was to go no further than friendly favors. “I verily believe,” he wrote at the same time,[81] “that it will ever be in our power to keep so even a stand between England and France as to inspire a wish in neither to throw us into the scale of his adversary.”
Never did a man deceive himself more miserably, for even while he wrote these lines the government of England was reverting to its policy of crushing the commercial growth of America. Mr. Fox was dead; a new Administration had come into power, strongly retrograde in policy, and with George Canning for its soul. Whatever the errors or faults of Mr. Canning may have been, timidity was not one of them, and the diplomatic ingenuity of Mr. Jefferson, with its feeble attempts to play off France against England and England against France, was the last policy he was likely to respect. Even the American who reads the history of the year 1807, seeing the brutal directness with which Mr. Canning kicked Mr. Jefferson’s diplomacy out of his path, cannot but feel a certain respect for the Englishman mingled with wrath at his insolent sarcasm. From the moment Mr. Canning and his party assumed power, the fate of Mr. Jefferson’s Administration was sealed; nothing he could do or could have done could avert it; England was determined to recover her commerce and to take back her seamen, and America could not retain either by any means whatever; she had no alternative but submission or war, and either submission or war was equally fatal to Mr. Jefferson’s Administration. Mr. Canning cared little which course she took, but he believed she would submit.
The first intimation of the new state of affairs came in an unexpected and almost accidental shape. The winter of 1806-7 had passed, and, so far as Congress was concerned, it had passed without serious conflicts. Burr’s wild expedition had startled and excited the country, but this episode had no special connection with anything actual; it was rather a sporadic exhibition of the personal peculiarities of Mr. Burr and his lurid imagination. Congress adjourned on the 3d March, 1807; as the summer advanced, Mr. Gallatin went with his family to New York; on the 25th June he was suddenly summoned back to Washington by a brief note from Mr. Jefferson announcing the capture of the American frigate Chesapeake by the British ship-of-war Leopard.
The story of this famous event, which more than any other single cause tended to exasperate national jealousies and to make England and America permanently hostile, is told in every American school history, and will probably be familiar to every school-boy in the United States for generations yet to come. Even time is slow in erasing the memory of these national humiliations, and the singular spectacle has been long presented of a great nation preserving the living memory of a wrong that the offending nation hardly noticed at the time and almost immediately forgot. The reason was that in this instance the wrong was a cruel and cynical commentary on all the mistakes of our national policy; it gave the sentence of death to the favorite dogmas and doctrines of the American Administration, and it was a practical demonstration of their absurdity, the more mortifying because of its incontestable completeness.
Mr. Gallatin hastened to Washington, sickened by anxiety and responsibility; his state of mind and that of his political friends may be shown by a few extracts from his papers:
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
Washington, 10th July, 1807.
... I am afraid that in common with many more your feelings prevent your taking a correct view of our political situation. To spurn at negotiation and to tremble for the fate of New York are not very consistent. But every person not blinded by passion and totally ignorant of the laws and usages of civilized nations knows that, whenever injuries are received from subordinate officers, satisfaction is demanded from the government itself before reprisals are made; and that time to receive our property from abroad and to secure our harbors as well as we can is of importance to us, can any one doubt in New York? It is our duty to ask for reparation, to avert war if it can be done honorably, and in the mean while not to lose an instant in preparing for war. On the last point I doubt, between ourselves, whether everything shall be done which ought to be done. And for that reason alone I wish that Congress may be called somewhat earlier than is now intended. The President wishes the call for the last of October. I had at first proposed the middle, but from various circumstances I now want an immediate call. The principal objection will not be openly avowed, but it is the unhealthiness of this city. I am glad to see the spirit of the people, but I place but a moderate degree of confidence on those first declarations in which many act from the first impulse of their feelings, more from sympathy or fear, and only a few from a calm view of the subject. I think that I have taken such a view, probed the extent of the dangers and evils of a war, and, though fully aware of both, will perhaps persevere longer under privations and evils than many others. Our commerce will be destroyed and our revenue nearly annihilated. That we must encounter; but our resources in money and men will be sufficient considerably to distress the enemy and to defend ourselves everywhere but at sea. I have, in a national point of view, but one subject of considerable uneasiness, and that is New York, which is now entirely defenceless, and from its situation nearly indefensible. This last idea I keep altogether to myself. I think that I increased my sickness by intensity of thinking and not sleeping at nights. I certainly grew better as soon as my plans were digested, and, except as to New York, I feel now very easy, provided that our resources shall be applied with ability and in the proper direction. In the mean while the ships on our coast may accelerate hostilities. This we will try to avoid, and so will Mr. Erskine, who, having neither orders nor advice from his government on this subject, cannot be very easy and will not be very influential. (Admiral Berkeley’s order is, very curiously, drawn and dated as far back as 1st June.) But I think that these hostilities will be confined to blockade and captures till they receive new instructions, and that New York has no immediate danger to apprehend. At all events, against such a force it may be defended. The difficulty is in case a fleet of ten ships of the line shall attack it....
14th July, 1807.
... Of our public affairs I have nothing new to say. It is probable that the attack on our frigate was not directly authorized by the British government; it is certain that the subsequent acts of the commodore in the vicinity of Norfolk were without any order even from his admiral. But from the character and former orders of the last-mentioned (Berkeley) it is probable that, considering the proclamation as hostile, he will order all merchant vessels on our coast to be taken and the Chesapeake to be blockaded. They will not venture on any hostilities on shore until they receive orders from Great Britain; for their naval arrogance induces them to make unfounded distinctions between what is legal on land or on water even within our jurisdiction, and they have not really sense or knowledge enough to feel that their present conduct within the Chesapeake is as much an actual invasion as if an army was actually landed. Upon the whole, you will, I am persuaded, have time to do whatever is practicable for the defence of New York. I have seen Mr. Erskine, whom I treated with more civility than cordiality; but I could not help it. I believe that he is much embarrassed between what is right and his fear of the naval officers and of his own government.
NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.
Buck Spring, 12th July, 1807.
Sir,—The attack of the British on the Chesapeake and their subsequent conduct near Norfolk has much irritated every one here, and all are anxious to learn what the President intends to do. From the tenor of his proclamation I suppose he intends to have a representation made to the British government, and, in case that does not produce the desired effect, to order our ministers home, and in the mean time to have all the preparations for war he can ready. I also suppose from the proclamation that Congress will not be called until he hears from London, unless there should be a change in the state of affairs....
If war must be, we ought to prosecute it with the same zeal that we have endeavored to preserve peace, and by great exertions convince the enemy that it is not from fear or cowardice that we dread it. But peace, if we can have it, is always best for us, and if the Executive can get justice done and preserve it, that Executive will deserve the thanks of every democrat in the Union.
JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON TO GALLATIN.
Chesterfield, 14th July, 1807.
Dear Sir,—...We are looking with great anxiety towards Washington for the measures to be adopted by the government. For myself I consider a war inevitable, and almost wish for it. An unqualified submission to Britain would not be more degrading than forbearance now. The Ministry may probably, and I think will, disavow the late act of their officer; but there are insults and injuries for which neither an individual nor a nation can accept an apology. I had hoped, therefore, that Mr. Erskine would have been ordered home and our own envoys recalled. Nothing is now left to negotiate on. No man ever saved his honor who opened a negotiation for it. It is no subject of barter. If Tarquin had begged pardon of Collatinus for ravishing his wife, I think it would not have been granted. At all events we cannot, or at least ought not, negotiate till our seamen are restored. In 1764, when France took possession of Turk’s Island, her minister at the Court of London proposed to negotiate for some claims that his master had upon it. George Grenville told him, “We will not hear you; we will listen to nothing while the island is in your possession. Restore it, and we will then hear what you have to say.” It was instantaneously given up. I wish Mr. Jefferson would read the history of that transaction, and also Lord Chatham’s celebrated speech on the business of Falkland Islands. Each furnishes an admirable lesson for the present moment. But one feeling pervades the nation. All distinctions of federalism and democracy are vanished. The people are ready to submit to any deprivation, and if we withdraw ourselves within our own shell, and turn loose some thousands of privateers, we shall obtain in a little time an absolute renunciation of the right of search for the purposes of impressment. A parley will prove fatal, for the merchants will begin to calculate. They rule us, and we should take them before their resentment is superseded by considerations of profit and loss. I trust in God the Revenge is going out to bring Monroe and Pinkney home.
GALLATIN TO JOSEPH H. NICHOLSON.
Washington, 17th July, 1807.
Dear Sir,—...With you I believe that war is inevitable, and there can be but one opinion on the question whether the claims of the parties prior to the attack on the Chesapeake should be a subject of discussion. There were but two courses to be taken: either to consider the attack as war and retaliate accordingly, or, on the supposition that that act might be that of an unauthorized officer, to ask simply, and without discussion, disavowal, satisfaction, and security against a recurrence of outrages. The result will in my opinion be the same, for Great Britain will not, I am confident, give either satisfaction or security; but the latter mode, which, as you may have perceived by the President’s proclamation and his answer to military corps, has been adopted, was recommended not only by the nature of our Constitution, which does not make the President arbiter of war, but also by the practice of civilized nations; and the cases of Turk’s Island, Falkland Islands, Nootka Sound, etc., are in point in that respect. Add to this that the dissatisfaction caused by that course operates only against the Administration, and that the other will produce an unanimity in support of the war which would not otherwise have existed. It will also make our cause completely popular with the Baltic powers, and may create new enemies to Britain in that quarter. Finally, four months were of importance to us, both by diminishing the losses of our merchants and for preparations of defence and attack.
I will, however, acknowledge that on that particular point I have not bestowed much thought; for, having considered from the first moment war was a necessary result, and the preliminaries appearing to me but matters of form, my faculties have been exclusively applied to the preparations necessary to meet the times; and although I am not very sanguine as to the brilliancy of our exploits, the field where we can act without a navy being very limited, and perfectly aware that a war in a great degree passive and consisting of privations will become very irksome to the people, I feel no apprehension of the immediate result. We will be poorer both as a nation and as a government; our debt and taxes will increase, and our progress in every respect be interrupted. But all those evils are not only not to be put in competition with the independence and honor of the nation, they are, moreover, temporary, and very few years of peace will obliterate their effects. Nor do I know whether the awakening of nobler feelings and habits than avarice and luxury might not be necessary to prevent our degenerating, like the Hollanders, into a nation of mere calculators. In fact, the greatest mischiefs which I apprehend from the war are the necessary increase of Executive power and influence, the speculation of contractors and jobbers, and the introduction of permanent military and naval establishments....
NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.
Rock Spring, 2d August, 1807.
... Peace is everything to us, especially in this part of the Union. Here the three last crops have been uncommonly short, and the last the shortest of the three. These bad crops have compelled many, who were both careful and industrious, to go in debt for bread and to leave their merchant account unpaid. If the Executive shall put a satisfactory end to the fracas with Great Britain, it will add as much to his reputation as the purchase of Louisiana. But if this cannot be done, we must try which can do the other the most harm.
I suppose while I am thinking what effect the war may have on my neighbors and countrymen, you are engaged in calculating its effects on the payment of the national debt.
I still wish peace, but if this be denied to us I am for strong measures against the enemy.
Until it was quite certain whether the attack on the Chesapeake was an authorized act, government could only prepare for war. Mr. Jefferson called upon his Cabinet for written opinions, and Mr. Gallatin prepared an elaborate paper containing a general view of the defensive and offensive measures which war would require.[82] This done, and temporary arrangements made, the Cabinet again separated, and Mr. Gallatin returned to New York.
Congress was called for the 26th October, 1807, and the Administration came together a few weeks earlier to prepare for the meeting. When Mr. Jefferson sent as usual the draft of his message for revision, Mr. Gallatin found that it was drawn up “rather in the shape of a manifesto issued against Great Britain on the eve of a war, than such as the existing, undecided state of affairs seems to require.” He remonstrated in a letter, too long to quote, but of much historical interest.[83] The conclusion was that “in every view of the subject I feel strongly impressed with the propriety of preparing to the utmost for war and carrying it with vigor if it cannot be ultimately avoided, but in the mean while persevering in that caution of language and action which may give us some more time and is best calculated to preserve the remaining chance of peace, and most consistent with the general system of your Administration.” Mr. Jefferson at once acceded to this view.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
Washington, 30th October, 1807.
... Varnum has, much against my wishes, removed Randolph from the Ways and Means and appointed Campbell, of Tennessee. It was improper as related to the public business, and will give me additional labor. Vanzandt has missed the clerkship of the House, and lost his place, from Mr. Randolph’s declaration that he had listened to and reported secret debates. The punishment, considering its consequences on his future prospects, is rather hard. (The President’s speech was originally more warlike than was necessary, but I succeeded in getting it neutralized; this between us; but it was lucky; for) Congress is certainly peaceably disposed....
The British government, however, had no intention of making a war out of the Chesapeake affair. With much dexterity Mr. Canning used this accident for his own purposes. He applied the curb and spur at the same moment with marvellous audacity; disavowing the acts of the British naval officers, he evaded the demand of our government for satisfaction, and, while thus showing how sternly he meant to repress what he chose to consider our insolence, he sent Mr. Rose to Washington to amuse Mr. Jefferson with negotiations, while at the same time he himself carried out his fixed policy, with which the affair of the Chesapeake had no other than a general and accidental connection. Contemptuously refusing to renew negotiations over Mr. Monroe’s treaty, at the very moment of Mr. Rose’s departure to Washington he issued his famous orders in council of November 11, 1807, by which the chief part of the trade of America with the continent of Europe was, with one stroke of the pen, suppressed.
As there was no pretence of law or principle under which this act could be justified, Mr. Canning put it upon the ground of retaliation for the equally outrageous decrees of France; but in fact he cared very little what ground it was placed upon. The act was in its nature one of war, and, as a war measure for the protection of British commercial shipping rapidly disappearing before French regulations and American competition, this act was no more violent than any other act of war. Its true foundation was a not unwarranted contempt for American national character. As Lord Sidmouth, who disapproved the orders in council, wrote in 1807: “It is in vain to speculate on the result when we have to bear with a country in which there is little authority in the rulers, and as little public spirit and virtue in the people. America is no longer a bugbear; there is no terror in her threats.”[84] America had her redress if she chose to take it; if she did not choose to take it, as Mr. Canning would probably have argued, it could only be because, after all, it was against her interest to do so, which to Mr. Canning was the demonstration of his own problem.[85]
The certain news of the orders in council of November 11 reached Washington on December 18, together with threatening news from France. A Cabinet council was instantly held, and the confidential friends of the Administration consulted. The situation was clear. In the face of the orders in council our commerce must be kept at home, at least until further measures could be taken. Whether as a war or as a peace measure, an embargo was inevitable, and, unwilling as all parties were to be driven into it, there was no alternative. A much more difficult question was whether the embargo should be made a temporary measure; in other words, whether war, after a certain date, should be the policy of the government.
Mr. Gallatin’s opinions on these points are fortunately preserved. He wrote to Mr. Jefferson, apparently after a Cabinet council, on the 18th December as follows:
GALLATIN TO JEFFERSON.
Treasury Department, 18th December, 1807.
Dear Sir,—Reflecting on the proposed embargo and all its bearings, I think it essential that foreign vessels may be excepted so far at least as to be permitted to depart in ballast or with such cargoes as they may have on board at this moment. They are so few as to be no object to us, and we may thereby prevent a similar detention of our vessels abroad, or at least a pretence for it. Such a seizure of our property and seamen in foreign ports would be far greater than any possible loss at sea for six months to come. I wish to know the name of the member to whom Mr. Rodney sent the sketch of a resolution, in order to mention the subject to him, and also, if you approve, that you would suggest it to such as you may see. I also think that an embargo for a limited time will at this moment be preferable in itself, and less objectionable in Congress. In every point of view, privations, sufferings, revenue, effect on the enemy, politics at home, &c., I prefer war to a permanent embargo. Governmental prohibitions do always more mischief than had been calculated; and it is not without much hesitation that a statesman should hazard to regulate the concerns of individuals as if he could do it better than themselves.
The measure being of a doubtful policy, and hastily adopted on the first view of our foreign intelligence, I think that we had better recommend it with modifications, and at first for such a limited time as will afford us all time for reconsideration, and, if we think proper, for an alteration in our course without appearing to retract. As to the hope that it may have an effect on the negotiation with Mr. Rose, or induce England to treat us better, I think it entirely groundless.
Respectfully, your obedient servant.
Mr. Jefferson wrote back approving the first suggestion, and it was inserted in the bill, but on the other point Mr. Gallatin was overruled. Mr. Jefferson and most of the Southern leaders of his party had a strong faith in the efficacy of commercial regulations; they believed that as the commerce of America was very valuable to England and France, therefore England and France might be forced to do our will by depriving them of that commerce; and perhaps they were in the right, within certain limits, for, other agencies being disregarded and the influences of commerce being left to act through periods of years, nations will ultimately be controlled by them; England herself was ultimately compelled by the policy of commercial restrictions to revoke her orders in council, but only after five years of experiment and too late to prevent war.
Meanwhile, the effect of a permanent embargo was to carry out by the machinery of the United States government precisely the policy which Mr. Canning had adopted for his own. American shipping ceased to exist; American commerce was annihilated; American seamen were forced to seek employment under the British flag, and British ships and British commerce alone occupied the ocean. The strangest and saddest spectacle of all was to see Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Gallatin, after seven years of patient labor in constructing their political system, forced to turn their backs upon that future which only a few weeks before had been so brilliant, and, with infinitely more labor and trouble than they had used in building their edifice up, now toil to pull it down.