With respect to my longer stay here I entertain a just sense of your partiality and kind feelings towards me; and I may add that, so far as I am personally concerned, the station is not only highly honorable, but more agreeable than any other public employment which [I] might fill. But considerations connected with my children and with my private affairs imperiously require my presence in America, at least for some months. Under those circumstances I will, with your permission, return next spring, but take leave here as only going with leave of absence. I would probably be ready to return here in the autumn, and take care that the public interest should not in the mean while suffer. Mr. Sheldon is indeed fully equal to the task of managing all the current affairs of the mission; and France has given us the example of leaving a chargé for a short time. But this must not by any means prevent you from filling the place at once on my return, if you think it proper. I will only thank you to let me know your intention in that respect as soon as possible after the receipt of this letter.
GALLATIN TO J. Q. ADAMS.
Paris, 28th February, 1823.
Dear Sir,—There not being at this time the least prospect of a settlement of our claims, I do not perceive any reason connected with the public service for protracting my stay in this country. I will terminate, as far as this government will allow, what relates to the fisheries, although I would have wished to hear from you on the subject; and some heavy losses I have experienced at home, as well as certain family circumstances, imperiously requiring my presence there, it is my intention, if nothing new and important of a public nature shall take place, to take my departure in the course of the spring. I had already written a private letter on that subject to the President, to which I had hoped to have received an answer before this time, and in which I had asked only for leave of absence. But, this being an unusual course, it may be better at once to appoint a successor, and I wish it to be done. If the President shall think it more eligible to wait for the meeting of the Senate, you know that Mr. Sheldon is fully competent to carry on the current business; and I believe him equally so to act on any incident that may arise. As to the still uncertain war with Spain, nothing can possibly be necessary here on our part than perhaps some remonstrance in case of infractions of our neutral rights. There is no disposition on the part of France to commit acts of that kind, and that subject is also quite familiar to Mr. Sheldon.
GALLATIN TO J. Q. ADAMS.
Paris, 18th April, 1823.
Sir,—I had the honor to receive your despatch No. 55, and intend to avail myself of the leave of absence granted by the President, and to take my departure in about a month, leaving Mr. Sheldon as chargé d’affaires.
I beg you to express my thanks to the President, but to repeat that it is not my wish that another appointment should be delayed on my account, if deemed useful.
Mr. Gallatin accordingly left Paris with his family about the middle of May, 1823, and arrived in New York on the 24th June. The following letter, the last which Mr. Crawford wrote him, was not received by Mr. Gallatin in Europe. Whether the intensity of that struggle for the Presidency in which Mr. Crawford was now engaged had embittered his mind, or whether the paralysis which struck him down only a short time afterwards was casting its shadow before it, this letter shows a peculiar irritation which seems almost ready to make Mr. Gallatin himself its victim.
CRAWFORD TO GALLATIN.
Washington, 26th May, 1823.
My dear Sir,—Your letter of the 27th of September last was received some time in December thereafter, and is the last letter I have had from you.
Some time in December I understood you had applied for leave of absence, and shortly after was informed that it had been granted.
In the latter end of April the President showed me a private letter from you dated in the early part of March, in which you declare your determination to leave France the 10th of this month, and a few days afterwards I was informed that Mr. Adams had requested you to remain. I understand that this request had been made in consequence of the expected rupture between France and Spain. It would therefore appear that the reasons you assigned for believing your presence at Paris would be useless have not been considered good by the Secretary of State. To me they appeared conclusive when I read the letter, and reflection has only confirmed my first impressions. It is not pretended that the war with Spain will favor the efforts which have for twelve years past been made without success to procure indemnity for unjust spoliations committed upon our merchants. Infractions of our neutral rights must then be apprehended before a successor could be sent. The interest of France to strip Great Britain of an excuse to interfere in the war is the best guaranty that can be offered for her scrupulous respect for neutral rights. All that an American minister can do during the present year at Paris will be to give information of what is going on and speculate upon what may possibly be done in the progress of the war. If the Secretary was at Paris, or if his protégé, Mr. [Alexander] Everett, was there, the curiosity of the government to grasp at future events would have ample gratification. I do not know Mr. Sheldon well enough to form an opinion of his capacity to minister to this propensity of man, but I presume he would supply it with as much, if not as delicate, food as it would receive from you.
Some of the little people who buzz about the government have, I understand, been very busy in the expression of their opinions that the change of relations between France and Spain renders highly important that you should remain. The people have had their cue, and repeat their lesson by rote, for if they were capable of reasoning themselves they would see the folly of their declarations. It is impossible that reflecting men whose judgments are not led astray by some strong impression resulting from selfish purposes, can believe that it is of any importance to have a minister at Paris at this moment.
The reason then assigned for this request is not the true one. That must be sought not in Paris but in the United States. You will understand it as well as I do upon a moment’s reflection. Your presence in the United States during the present year may not suit the views and projects of certain gentlemen; it is, therefore, necessary to devise some cause for keeping you at Paris. It is possible that if Mr. Rush was disposed to return, some cause connected with the rupture between France and Spain would be discovered to render his stay in London necessary. As that gentleman, however, has written a number of letters to his friends in Pennsylvania which may have an effect somewhat similar to that which was apprehended from your return, it is possible that it may facilitate his return.
I have written this letter under an impression that the request of Mr. Adams may arrive at Paris before you leave it. Your friends are desirous of your return, and will be disappointed if you do not. I have understood that Mr. Astor has received a letter from you as late as the 17th ult. which is indicative of your intention to return, but Mr. Astor thinks that you will not, and that you ought not. He is probably governed in this opinion by his interests and wishes. If you do not return in the Montano, which it is now said will not sail before the 20th of this month, he will see you before this letter reaches you, as I shall confide it to the care of Mr. Erving, who, it is understood, will not sail until the arrival of the Montano.
Your friends Lacock and Roberts are very decided on the question which now attracts the attention of the nation. Indeed, there are but few exceptions among your old political associates. Many of them, unfortunately, are no more, and new men have filled their places; the new-comers, however, have a high respect for your character, talents, and opinions, and wish to see and converse with you upon this question....
Mr. Crawford had his wish. Gallatin returned, and was drawn reluctantly but inevitably into the Presidential contest. No true friend of his could have desired it, for he had nothing to gain by returning into public life at a moment when there was not a single element of principle or dignity involved in the election. Never in the whole course of our history has any Presidential election turned so exclusively on purely personal considerations; never has there been one in which all parties were so helpless. Old association, the prestige of high reputation, and the long control of Treasury patronage combined to make Mr. Crawford the first candidate; he had been the selected favorite of the old triumvirate for many years, and by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison he was regarded as the best representative of the Republican party. The same view was held by Mr. Gallatin, and, on the other hand, Mr. Crawford needed Mr. Gallatin’s active support; thus it was that Mr. Gallatin became in a manner compelled to allow his supposed influence to be used for the election of Mr. Crawford as President, and was buffeted about upon the waves of this stormy and unclean ocean until at length he was glad to find even a mortifying means of escape.
His first step was to visit Washington, and thence he went to inspect his new house at Friendship Hill.
GALLATIN TO HIS DAUGHTER.
New Geneva, 17th September, 1823.
... Notwithstanding all my exertions, you will find it hard enough when you come next spring to accommodate yourself to the privations and wildness of the country. Our house has been built by a new Irish carpenter, who was always head over heels and added much to the disorder inseparable from building. Being unacquainted with the Grecian architecture, he adopted an Hyberno-teutonic style, so that the outside of the house, with its port-hole-looking windows, has the appearance of Irish barracks, whilst the inside ornaments are similar to those of a Dutch tavern, and I must acknowledge that these form a singular contrast with the French marble chimney-pieces, paper, and mirrors. On one side of that mass of stones which Lucien calls “le château,” and in full view as you approach it, is a wing consisting of the gable-end of a log house, with its chimney in front, and I could not pull it down, as it is the kitchen and dining-room where are daily fed two masons and plasterers, two attendants, two stone-quarriers, two painters, a carpenter (besides three who board themselves), Lucien, Albert’s black Peter, and Mr, Made, Mesdlles et les petits Buffle. The grounds are overgrown with elders, iron-weeds, stinking weeds, laurel, several varieties of briers, impenetrable thickets of brush, vines, and underwood, amongst which are discovered vestiges of old asparagus and new artichoke-beds, and now and then a spontaneous apple or peach tree. As to Albert, he has four guns, a pointer, three boats, two riding-horses, and a pet colt, smaller than a jackass, who feeds on the fragments of my old lilacs and althea frutex. His own clothes adorn our parlor and only sitting-room in the old brick house; for the frame house is partly occupied by the Buffle family and partly encumbered by various boxes and Albert’s billiard-table, the pockets of which are made with his stockings....
New Geneva, 15th October, 1823.
... Notwithstanding all my endeavors, more will remain to be done after our arrival next spring than I would have wished. It was impossible for me to attend to anything else for the improvement either of mills, farm, plantation, &c., all of which are in a most deplorable state.... Amidst those cares I have been disturbed by political struggles in which I felt but little interested; but the Federalists, by their repeated assertions in all the papers of the State that I supported their candidate, have compelled me, much against my inclination, to come out with a public declaration intended to show that notwithstanding the occasional aberrations of democracy and the abuse sometimes poured on me from that quarter, it was impossible that I should abandon a cause to the support of which my life has been devoted, and which I think inseparably connected with that of the liberty and amelioration of mankind in every quarter of the globe....
Private reasons led Mr. Gallatin to pass the winter in Baltimore. Here he again met his old enemies the Smiths, and resumed relations with them, not, perhaps, so cordial as in early days, but at least externally friendly. The main interest of the winter, however, turned on the Presidential election. Mr. Crawford had been dangerously affected by a stroke of paralysis, and his friends found themselves obliged to put by his side a candidate for the Vice-Presidency who would disarm opposition and command confidence in case of his chief’s death; they fixed upon Mr. Gallatin, who thus became, in the failure of Mr. Crawford, their leader. From the time this point was decided, Gallatin had no choice but to obey the wishes of his party in other respects; and, as it happened that all Mr. Crawford’s chances turned upon the weight of a nomination by a Congressional caucus, Gallatin was called upon to take a direct share in urging his friends to the work. Thus he was in a manner forced to write a letter urging his old friend Macon to give his support to the caucus; he was also obliged to make a short stay in Washington.
JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN.
Monticello, October 29, 1823.
Dear Sir,—...You have seen in our papers how prematurely they are agitating the question of the next President. This proceeds from some uneasiness at the present state of things. There is considerable dissatisfaction with the increase of the public expenses, and especially with the necessity of borrowing money in time of peace. This was much arraigned at the last session of Congress, and will be more so at the next. The misfortune is that the persons looked to as successors in the government are of the President’s Cabinet, and their partisans in Congress are making a handle of these things to help or hurt those for or against whom they are. The candidates, ins and outs, seem at present to be many, but they will be reduced to two, a Northern and Southern one, as usual. To judge of the event, the state of parties must be understood. You are told, indeed, that there are no longer parties among us; that they are all now amalgamated; the lion and the lamb lie down together in peace. Do not believe a word of it. The same parties exist now as ever did; no longer, indeed, under the name of Republicans and Federalists; the latter name was extinguished in the battle of New Orleans; those who wore it, finding monarchism a desperate wish in this country, are rallying to what they deem the next best point, a consolidated government. Although this is not yet avowed (as that of monarchism, you know, never was), it exists decidedly, and is the true key to the debates in Congress, wherein you see many calling themselves Republicans and preaching the rankest doctrines of the old Federalists. One of the prominent candidates is presumed to be of this party; the other, a Republican of the old school, and a friend to the barrier of State rights as provided by the Constitution against the danger of consolidation, which danger was the principal ground of opposition to it at its birth. Pennsylvania and New York will decide this question. If the Missouri principle mixes itself in the question, it will go one way; if not, it may go the other. Among the smaller motives, hereditary fears may alarm on one side, and the long line of local nativities on the other. In this division of parties the judges are true to their ancient vocation of sappers and miners....
J. B. THOMAS[157] TO GALLATIN.
Washington City, 5th January, 1824.
Dear Sir,—Mr. Lowrie returned from Philadelphia three days ago with the pleasing intelligence that a large majority of both branches of the Pennsylvania Legislature are in favor of a Congressional caucus, and that the measure is daily becoming much more popular in Philadelphia.
... Mr. Ingham has lately returned from Pennsylvania, and, finding public opinion there averse to his wishes, he or some one of the party has prepared an address to the people of Pennsylvania, for the delegation from that State to sign, stating that a partial caucus only could be gotten up, and asking instructions from their constituents. I understand that the address is ingeniously written, and that it has been signed by eleven of the Democratic members of Congress. After this address was signed by all who would act without consulting Mr. Lowrie, a meeting of the delegation was called to deliberate upon the subject. Mr. L. attended, and after endeavoring to operate upon the fears of some who had signed the paper, had the meeting adjourned over till to-morrow (Monday). He will, if possible, procure a further postponement, in the hope that you will be here in a few days. Many of your friends are exceedingly anxious to see you here, and amongst the rest Mr. Lowrie and Mr. Van Buren, who are both efficient men.
Since my return to Washington I mentioned to those gentlemen the conversation I had with you in Baltimore, and had the satisfaction to learn that they approved of all I said.
They are impressed with a belief that your immediate presence here at the present crisis is all-important. I am convinced that nothing could be more gratifying to the prominent men of the Republican party than to receive a visit from you at this time. Mr. Crawford would be delighted to see you. His physicians, four or five in number, have had a consultation to-day, and have pronounced him quite out of danger.
... We have not yet been able to devise a plan by which Mr. Jefferson can be drawn out, nor is it probable that any could be adopted which would be as likely to succeed as that of your addressing him on the subject. If nothing more can be obtained, the letter he has already written you may be of great importance.
In haste, I am, etc.
NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.
Washington, 16th January, 1824.
Sir,—The enclosed has been handed to me by Mr. Cobb, a member of the House of Representatives from Georgia. It is sent to you as the best mode of communicating its contents. I know not to what it relates.
Tender my good-will to Mrs. Gallatin and to any of your children who may be with you.
Mr. Crawford is mending slowly; not yet in a condition to write.
God preserve you and all that are near and dear to you many years, is the sincere wish of
Your old friend.
[Enclosure.]
Mr. Macon,—Mr. Crawford requests me to say to you that he wished you would write to Mr. Gallatin and tell him that it was necessary he should come on to this city, for that his (Mr. Gallatin’s) interests, as well as those of others, were suffering in consequence of his absence.
Thos. W. Cobb.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
Washington, 24th January, 1824.
... I have been working hard in order to be released as soon as possible; this morning I terminated the revision and selection of my correspondence, and hope that my final account will be settled on Monday.... The idea of sending a special mission to England, which is indeed quite unnecessary, has been given up.... I was on Wednesday evening at Mrs. Monroe’s evening, where she appeared for the first time this season. It was as crowded as any Paris rout, and there were several handsome ladies, but most faces of both sexes were new to me. Ten years is an age in Washington; the place seems dull to me.... I hear nothing but election politics, and you know how unpleasant the subject is to me.... Mr. Crawford is mending slowly. His friends are not perfectly easy about his final recovery, and Early adduced this to me as a reason why I should be made Vice-President. My answer was that I did not want the office, and would dislike to be proposed and not elected.
A. STEWART[158] TO GALLATIN.
Washington, 6th February, 1824.
Dear Sir,—A caucus will be held here on the 14th instant to recommend candidates for President and Vice-President.
About 100 Republican members, it is understood, will attend. Mr. Crawford and yourself will be unanimously nominated. I know of but one gentleman unfriendly to your nomination, and he will readily acquiesce in whatever is done.
The election of the Vice-President nominated is considered certain, be the fate of the President what it may.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant.
WALTER LOWRIE TO GALLATIN.
Washington, 10th February, 1824.
Dear Sir,—I have delayed writing till I could write with certainty on the point we had under discussion when we last parted. You will now be nominated for the situation contemplated, and with the information and facts in our possession it does not require the spirit of prophecy to predict that final success will be the result. In the other office more uncertainty prevails. We have a hard and arduous struggle to go through, involving the very existence of the Republican party.
It will be necessary that we should see you before long. At present let me call your attention to one point in which we want your assistance. We are very desirous that Mr. Macon should attend the caucus. He has hitherto resisted all our efforts. A personal interview with you, it is believed, would have been conclusive; that is now too late; but I submit to you whether you could not write him a letter. You will receive this letter to-morrow, Thursday, and on Friday he could receive yours. I know you have more influence with him than any other man except Mr. Jefferson. His long course of public life gives him an importance which he is not otherwise entitled to. The opposition papers boast that he will not attend. In the present crisis if he do not, he will lose the respect and esteem of his friends, and instead of doing his friends a service, he will do himself an injury.
With sincere esteem, yours.
NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.
Washington, 18th February, 1824.
Sir,—I have your letter of yesterday; it is received with as much good-will and kindness as it was written. The fatal night which you mention, and which produced in the end the divisions among the three Republicans who were so both in theory and practice, I stated to the meeting they had beaten me by having the cards packed, and that I never would attend another caucus, nor have I unto this day; and would you now, my old and much esteemed friend, have me to appear in a company when and where any person could tell the truth and say, you are not a man of your word? if I go to the caucus, it would be the first time that it could be said truly to me in my whole life.
No party, as I have often told you, and as I stated at the caucus at Marache’s, can last unless founded on pure principles; and the minute a party begins to intrigue within itself is the minute when the seed of division is sown and its purity begins to decline. There are not, I imagine, five members of Congress who entertain the opinions which those did who brought Mr. Jefferson into power, and they are yet mine. Principles can never change, and what has lately been called the law of circumstances is an abandonment of principle, and has been the ruin of all free governments, and if the Republican party fall in the United States, it is owing to the same cause.
I verily believe that I can render more service toward electing Crawford by not going to the caucus than by going, but I do not believe that I have the influence you suppose; but if you are right, what has produced it? the belief that I follow my own notions.
Two of my friends are here to advise me to attend, and have stopped my writing. I must conclude to you as I do to them; I cannot go.
I would much rather have talked with you on the subject. Remember me to Mrs. Gallatin and all your family, and believe me
Truly and sincerely your friend.
Written in great haste for the mail.
NATHANIEL MACON TO GALLATIN.
Washington, 14th February, 1824.
Sir,—- Your letter of the 12th instant was yesterday in great haste acknowledged. For some time past my situation has been unpleasant indeed; so much so that I have a thousand times or oftener wished myself at home. What situation can be more disagreeable than to have repeatedly to say no to the best friends, and that, too, to the same question! To me it has been painful in the extreme; no one who has not felt the sensation can imagine the distress it produces,—the day is tiresome, and the night tedious; in the morning I desire night, and at night am anxious for the morning,—and to-day is the most perplexing of all; a something, I know not what, oppresses my mind, and yet I am certain that my determination not to attend the caucus is right, and what I ought to do and must do. The great charge against Crawford is intrigue; add to what was written yesterday, that if I go the charge will be renewed, and he said to be the only man who had touched the cord which could move me; and probably the wicked and false adage applied, that every man has his price. Time, I know, would prove the application false as regards us both; but the election might be over first, and the injury done.
Every generation, like a single person, has opinions of its own; as much so in politics as anything else. This opinion is elegantly expressed in the book of Judges, 2d chapter. The opinions of Jefferson and those who were with him are forgot. On reading the chapter the proper and intended inference will be easily made; I hope, however, we shall not suffer as did the children of Israel after the death of Joshua.
Tender in your best manner my respects and regard to Mrs. Gallatin and your family, and believe me
Your unfeigned friend.
GALLATIN TO BADOLLET.
New Geneva, Pennsylvania, 29th July, 1824.
My dear and old Friend,—I have delayed much too long answering your letter of last year. I have ever since been on the wing, uncertain where I would fix myself. The habits of my wife and children, Albert’s excepted, render this a very ineligible place of residence to them; but the impossibility of subsisting on my scanty income in one of our cities, and the necessity of attending to a valuable but mismanaged and unproductive property, have left me no choice; and we are all now here, including James’s wife. My health and that of my daughter are delicate; the other members of the family are well. With the exception of James Nicholson, all my old friends are dead or confined by old age to their homes; there is not in this quarter the slightest improvement in the state of society, or indeed of any kind; but my children are good and very affectionate; neither of my sons, unfortunately, brought up to business. Albert, with considerable and varied talents and acquired knowledge, but as yet wanting perseverance and steadiness; James and Francis more fitted for a court than a wilderness; my wife just as she was twenty-four years ago.
The last seven years I spent in Europe, though not the most useful, were the most pleasant, of my life, both on account of my reception in Geneva, where I found many old and affectionate friends (Hentsch, Dumont, the Tronchins, Butiri, &c.), and from my standing with the first statesmen and men of merit in France and England. Where you do not stand in the way of anybody, instead of collision and envy, you meet with much indulgence if you can fill with credit the place you occupy; and this was a disposition to which I had not been accustomed towards me, and the want of which I now on that account feel, perhaps, more than formerly. These feelings would and ought naturally to have induced me, and you expressed the same wish, to withdraw altogether from public life; and my wife, irksome to her as is her residence here, was of the same opinion. I will briefly state what has brought my name before the people for the office of Vice-President.
During the twelve years I was in the Treasury, I was anxiously looking for some man that could fill my place there and in the general direction of the national concerns, for one indeed that could replace Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and myself. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, only appeared and died; the eccentricities and temper of J. Randolph soon destroyed his usefulness, and only one man at last appeared who filled my expectations. This was Mr. Crawford, who united to a powerful mind a most correct judgment and an inflexible integrity; which last quality, not sufficiently tempered by indulgence and civility, has prevented his acquiring general popularity; but, notwithstanding this defect (for it is one), I know so well his great superiority over the other candidates for the office of President, that I was anxious for his election and openly expressed my opinion. I would not even compare Jackson or Calhoun to him, the first an honest man and the idol of the worshippers of military glory, but from incapacity, military habits, and habitual disregard of laws and constitutional provisions, altogether unfit for the office; the other a smart fellow, one of the first amongst second-rate men, but of lax political principles and a disordinate ambition not over-delicate in the means of satisfying itself. John Q. Adams is a virtuous man, whose temper, which is not the best, might be overlooked; he has very great and miscellaneous knowledge, and he is with his pen a powerful debater; but he wants to a deplorable degree that most essential quality, a sound and correct judgment. Of this I have had in my official connection and intercourse with him complete and repeated proofs, and, although he may be useful when controlled and checked by others, he ought never to be trusted with a place where unrestrained his errors might be fatal to the country. Mr. Clay has his faults, but splendid talents and a generous mind. I certainly prefer Mr. Crawford to him, although he is far more popular; and yet, notwithstanding that popularity, I believe that, particularly since the West is split between him and Jackson, it is impossible that he should be elected, and that the contest is in fact between Crawford and Adams. Almost all the old Republicans (Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison amongst them) think as I do; but they were aware that Mr. Crawford was not very popular, and that the bond of party, which had with great many produced the effect of patriotism and knowledge, being nearly dissolved, neither of the other candidates would withdraw, and they were at a loss whom to unite to him as Vice-President. I advised to nominate nobody for that office, or, if anybody, some person from New York or New England. The last was attached to Adams; there were contentions in New York. The friends of Mr. Crawford thought the persons proposed there too obscure, and that my name would serve as a banner and show their nomination to be that of the old Republican party. I thought and still think that they were mistaken; that as a foreigner, as residuary legatee of the Federal hatred, and as one whose old services were forgotten and more recent ones though more useful were but little known, my name could be of no service to the cause. They insisted, and, being nominated both by the members of Congress and by the Legislature of Virginia, I could not honorably withdraw, though my reluctance was much increased by the dead opposition of Pennsylvania, which is, and nowhere more than in this vicinity, Jackson mad. From all I can collect, I think Mr. Crawford’s election (notwithstanding this mistake) nearly certain, and mine improbable. So much for my apology, which I could not make shorter. I have now said everything, I believe, respecting me which could interest you; and I have only to entreat you not to disappoint the hope you gave me, and to come and spend these unhealthy summer and autumnal months with us, where at least fevers have not yet penetrated, although they prevailed last year everywhere east of Cumberland and west of Wheeling. In summer I must necessarily to preserve health be at rest, and if to effect an interview, probably the last, so dear to both, it is necessary that you should have the trouble and fatigue of the journey, it is but strict justice (if that was any object between us) that the expense should be defrayed by me. Let not that, therefore, stop you, and come once more to see your old friend and refresh your old age by recollections of ancient times. I will add to the stock much that is pleasing from Geneva. Seventeen years of French yoke have united the parties as far as union is practicable in a free country. If there are differences of opinion, they apply to details of administration; the old distinctions, so odious to the people, are done away. To the general council and to that of Two Hundred has been substituted a large elective representative council, where, as far as I could judge, virtue and talents are almost the only titles for admission, where the most obscure and newest names are mixed with the oldest of the Republic, where Dumont, Bellamy, and two Pictets are in opposition to Desarts, D’Yvernois, and most of the old wigs (which have been, however, set aside). But what kind of opposition? I have read many of their debates; and, independent of the interest I felt for questions to others of small and local importance, any one may admire the train of close and logical reasoning they display, and must be delighted with the candor and mutual forbearance which characterize them. They are like discussions conducted amicably but with perfect freedom by members of the same family respecting their common concerns. Nor are the ancient manners much altered. A few amongst the most ignorant and vicious, the remnant of those who disgraced Geneva in 1794, not above three or four hundred, hardly any of the old bourgeoisie, have, I am told, been corrupted by the French whilst in power and their morals have been affected; but those of the great bulk are better than before the revolutions, and they are as pure Genevans, as little Frenchified, as you could desire. Speaking of old bourgeoisie, the distinction does not exist; citoyens, bourgeois and natifs are in every respect, civil and political, on the same footing. And here let me observe how powerful is the moral effect of virtue and knowledge. Whilst Venice, Genoa, Belgium, &c., &c., have been bartered away without scruple or regard to the wishes of the people, not only have Holland and Switzerland escaped unhurt, because they had both a national character and were truly nations, but even little Geneva has been respected and restored to its independence, whilst more than forty imperial cities have been left in the possession of the princes who had usurped them with the permission of Bonaparte. I might say much more, but must reserve it for the time when we meet. In that hope, and with my love to all the members of your family, I remain ever yours.
My wife and James Nicholson send their best compliments. By the by, you owe me nothing. Your sister was too proud to permit me to join in the support of your father, and your brother’s return in 1818 relieved her difficulties. I have not heard from them since that time, and was not in Geneva subsequent to 1817.
Unfortunately for Mr. Gallatin’s candidacy, the rapid spread of General Jackson’s party overthrew all ordinary calculation. Mr. Calhoun’s friends, finding their candidate pressed out of the course, made terms with the Jackson managers, by which Mr. Calhoun received the combined support of both bodies for the Vice-Presidency. This suggested a brilliant stroke of political genius to the fertile brain of Martin Van Buren, who, in those days, was not one of Jackson’s followers. As Jackson’s chances were improved by coalescing with Calhoun, who reduced his claims accordingly, so Mr. Crawford’s chances might be improved by coalescing with Mr. Clay, provided the latter could also be persuaded to accept the position of candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Clay was sounded on this subject early in September, as appears from his private correspondence, and his reply, dated September 10,[159] seems to have been considered as not discouraging, for, on the 25th September, Mr. Van Buren approached Mr. Gallatin with a formal recommendation that he should withdraw. Mr. Gallatin felt relieved at being permitted to escape even in this manner. He withdrew from the canvass. The result was that Calhoun was elected Vice-President by the people; that Jackson, Adams, and Crawford went before the House of Representatives, and that Mr. Clay caused the election of Mr. Adams to the Presidency.
WALTER LOWRIE TO GALLATIN.
Butler, 25th September, 1824.
My dear Sir,—The subject of which this letter treats has given me the most severe pain of mind. The bearer, our mutual friend General Lacock, will inform you of the situation of my family which has prevented me from accompanying him to see you.
From the most authentic information communicated to me by your friends in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, the most serious fears are entertained that Mr. Calhoun will be elected by the electors. Or if he should not, his vote will be so great that his chance in the Senate will be almost conclusive in his favor. On this subject I have not a feeling I would not be desirous that you should know. No man can desire your success more than I do. Still, my dear sir, I believe your chance of success is now almost hopeless, and, assuming that as a fact, what is to be done? The question has been met by a number of our friends, and they have suggested the arrangement which Mr. Lacock will make known to you. This plan has the approbation of as many of our friends as it was possible to consult, all of them your most decided friends. They are, however, afraid of your success, and wish, if possible, to have an arrangement made with Mr. Clay, to which if he would consent, it would go far to secure the election of Mr. Crawford.
After the most deep and anxious reflection I have been able to bestow on the subject, I would advise you to withdraw from the contest. How that should be done, in case you approve of it, I do not know. Your feelings and views of the best manner of doing it would be conclusive with me. The arrangement submitted to Mr. Lacock and myself contemplated your remaining on the ticket till near the election, in case Mr. Clay would consent; and if he would not consent, then for you to remain on the ticket to the last. I confess I do not like this conditional arrangement, and the letter of Mr. Dickinson makes me dislike it more. These points are all open, and I was most desirous of seeing you and getting your views upon them. In case you approve of having your name withdrawn, it occurs to me that the best manner would be in a letter to Judge Ruggles, which might be published a few days after Mr. Lacock’s departure. In that case Clay would not be informed of it till Mr. Lacock would have seen him, and his decision might have been different than if he knew absolutely that you had withdrawn. If you prefer the other, however, that is, to place your withdrawing on the contingency of Mr. Clay’s co-operation, I am perfectly satisfied. Indeed, I feel quite at a loss how to advise in the case. Indeed, in this whole communication I write under the greatest pain and embarrassment. Every step I have taken in regard to your name being placed before the nation was dictated by the purest friendship to you and the clearest sense of duty to my country. To have had any agency in placing you in a situation at all calculated to wound your feelings or give pain to your mind, is to me a source of painful reflection. This, added to the perplexed state of public opinion and the uncertainty of the final result, brings with it a distress of mind I have never heretofore experienced.
I am, my dear sir, with sincere esteem, your friend.
GALLATIN TO MR. LOWRIE.
Fayette County, Pennsylvania, October 2, 1824.
Dear Sir,—Your letter of the 25th of September, received on the 29th, has caused me much perplexity, not from any hesitation as to the principles which should govern my conduct, but from want of sufficient knowledge of the facts.
It is evident that I ought not to decline from mere personal motives and in order to avoid the mortification of a defeat, especially if this should be in any degree injurious to the public cause. There is in a nomination a mutual though tacit pledge of support, on the part of those who nominate, of standing a candidate on the part of the person nominated.
But my withdrawing would be proper in case my continuing to stand should either appear injurious to the election of Mr. Crawford or prevent the election of a proper person to the office of Vice-President. On either the one or the other of those grounds I consider your communications decisive so far as relates to New Jersey and New York. There may be no difficulty with respect to Georgia and any other State where the choice of electors remains with the Legislature. The embarrassment is principally in relation to Virginia and North Carolina. I am sensible that my name is in itself of no weight anywhere; but it is not for me, consulting only my feelings, to decide whether, after the active exertions of committees and individuals in favor of the two candidates nominated at Washington, the withdrawing the name of one on the eve of a popular election and without substituting another in his place, may prove favorable or injurious to the success of the Republican tickets.
With that view of the subject, my answer to Mr. Lacock was that I would leave the decision with the central committee of correspondence for the State of Virginia. To that State I am more particularly bound, as the only one where, to my knowledge, the nomination of Washington was confirmed in full by the Republican members of the Legislature. The committee is their legitimate organ; and from their local situation they also are best able to form an opinion concerning North Carolina, with which last State there was hardly time to consult, and whose arrangements on the subject of the election are not known to me. Our friends in those districts of Maryland which may be favorable to us might also be consulted.
I am still of the same opinion; but considering how little time remains and how much would be lost by corresponding with me, I enclose my declaration that I wish my name to be withdrawn, not directed to Mr. Ruggles, since he is not to judge whether and when it must be used, but intended for publication in the newspapers at the discretion of the committee for Virginia, who will of course consult, if necessary, with Mr. Van Buren on the subject.
There will be no necessity for that consultation if they think it advantageous in the Southern States that my name should be withdrawn prior to the election of electors. They may at once in that case publish my declaration, since it is ascertained that the effect will be favorable in the North. To me that course would be the most agreeable. The publication must at all events be made before the result of the election of electors is ascertained, and prior to their being elected by the Legislature of New York.
In order to avoid delays as far as depends on me, I will enclose copies of my declining and of the substance of this letter both to Mr. Van Buren at Albany and to Mr. Stephenson at Richmond, to be communicated by him to the committee of correspondence, as I do not know their names. But he may be absent, and it will be necessary for you to write not only to Mr. Van Buren, but also to Richmond, enclosing copy of my declining and of such parts of this letter as will put them in full possession of the subject.
The publication of my declining should be made, as far as practicable, simultaneously in the National Intelligencer and principal State papers.
I advised Mr. Lacock against negotiating in person with Mr. Clay, as I thought that it would only encourage him to advise his friends in New York to make no compromise that would not secure him a part, at least, of the votes of that State for President. The only way, it seemed to me, was to convince him, by the choice of the electors there, that he had no chance for that office. This, however, was an opinion on a subject in which I can have nothing more to say.
Of your friendship, sincerity, and patriotic motives I am most perfectly satisfied. My nomination has been a miscalculation, and however painful the results may be to our feelings, having nothing to reproach ourselves with throughout the whole transaction, there is nothing in it save the effect it may have on the public cause that can give us any permanent uneasiness.
I have but one observation to add. From my experience, both when Mr. Jefferson was made Vice-President and when, in 1808, Mr. Clinton was re-elected to the same office, I know that nothing can be more injurious to an Administration than to have in that office a man in hostility with that Administration, as he will always become the most formidable rallying-point for the opposition.
I remain, respectfully and sincerely, your friend and obedient servant.
This chapter of secret political history will hardly stand comparison with what were at least the earnest phases of party politics in the days when Mr. Gallatin was really a leader. Parties had no longer a principle, and it was clearly time for Mr. Gallatin to retire. On the 3d December, when it was certain that no choice had been made by the people, he wrote from New Geneva to his son: “The Republican party seems to me to be fairly defunct. Our principal misfortune was perhaps the want of a popular candidate. The great defect of our system is the monarchical principle admitted in our Constitution.”