New Geneva, 16th October, 1796.
... No, my Hannah, we shall not, so far as it can depend upon ourselves,—we shall not hereafter put such a distance between us. It is perfectly uncertain whether I am elected in Congress or not; but if I am, that shall not prevent the execution of our plans, and I will undoubtedly resign a seat which in every point of view is perfectly indifferent to me, and which is certainly prejudicial to my interest if it does interfere with the happiness of our lives.... Ambition, love of power, I never felt, and if vanity ever made one of the ingredients which impelled me to take an active part in public life, it has for many years altogether vanished away....
New Geneva, November 9, 1796.
... I will not put your patience and good nature to a much longer trial, and I know you will be glad to hear that this is the last letter I mean to write you from this place, and that next Tuesday, the 15th inst., is the day I have fixed for my departure. I have been tolerably industrious since I have been here, settling accounts, arranging some matters relative to the concerns of the copartnership, getting some essential improvements on our farm, getting rid of my tenants, and electioneering for electors of the President. Our endeavors to induce the people to turn out on that day have not been as successful as I might have wished. In this county our ticket got 406 votes, and Adams’s had 66. What the general result will be you will know before I do....
The Presidential election of 1796, which was to decide the succession to Washington, ended in the choice of John Adams over Thomas Jefferson and in a very evenly balanced condition of parties. The constitutional arrangement by which the President was not chosen by the people, but by electors themselves chosen by Legislatures, makes it impossible to decide where the popular majority lay; and the rule that the person having the highest number of electoral votes should be President, without regard to the intentions of the electors, at once began to throw discord into the ranks of both parties. John Adams thought with reason that he had been nearly made the victim of an intrigue to elect Thomas Pinckney; and Aaron Burr, the Republican leader in the North, as Jefferson was in the South, with equal reason believed himself to have been sacrificed as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency by the jealousy of Virginia. Both these suspicions, deeply rooted in sectional feeling, bore fruit during the next few years.
Mr. Gallatin, contrary to his expectation, was re-elected to the House of Representatives by the district which had chosen him two years before, although his long absences from the western country and his opposition to the British treaty threatened to destroy his popularity. After six weeks’ absence at New Geneva during the elections, he returned to Philadelphia to take part in the coming session.
The times were stormy. President Washington, whose personal weight had thus far to a great extent overawed the opposition, was about to leave office, and his successor could hope for little personal consideration. The British treaty and the policy which dictated it had been warmly resented by France. The government of that country was in a state of wild confusion, and its acts were regulated by no steadiness of policy and by little purity of principle. Without actually declaring war, it insulted our agents and plundered our commerce. Its course was damaging in the extreme to the opposition party in America; it strengthened and consolidated the Federalists, and left the Republicans only the alternative of silence or of apology more fatal than silence. Mr. Monroe, our minister to France, recalled by President Washington for too great subservience to French influence, adopted the course of apologizing for France, and was supported by most of his party. Mr. Gallatin wisely preferred silence. The economical condition of the country was equally unsatisfactory. Speculation had exhausted itself and had broken down. Robert Morris was one of the victims, and Mr. Gallatin began to despair of recovering his debt. Things were in this situation when Congress met, and Gallatin, leaving his wife in New York, took his seat; December 5, 1796.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
Philadelphia, 14th December, 1796.
... Every day in this city increases the distress for money, and you may rely upon it that the time is not far when a general and heavy shock will be felt in all the commercial cities of America. This opinion is not grounded upon a slight or partial view of the present situation of affairs. Many will be much injured by it, and frugality is the only remedy I see to the evil. As to ourselves, I look upon Morris’s debt as being in a very precarious situation. He has told me that he could not make any payment to me until he had satisfied the judgments against him. We must do as well as we can, and, although I had rather it was otherwise, it is not one of those circumstances which will make me lose a single hour of rest.... As to politics, we are getting to-day upon the answer to the President’s address. The one reported by the committee is as poor a piece of stuff, as full of adulation and void of taste and elegance, as anything I ever saw. The return of Greene County did not come; but Mr. Miles voted for Jefferson and Pinckney, which made the general vote what you have seen....
After remaining a fortnight in Philadelphia he took leave of absence and went to New York, where he remained till the 1st January. His eldest child, James, was born on the 18th December, 1796, a circumstance which not a little contributed to turn his attention away from politics and to disgust him with the annoying interruptions of domestic life then inseparable from a political career. From this time forward his letters to his wife are chiefly about herself and the child, but here and there come glimpses of public characters and affairs. Party feeling was now running extremely high, and Mr. Gallatin was a party leader, thoroughly convinced of the justice of his views, smarting under bitter and often brutal attacks, which he never returned in kind, and imbued with the conviction that the intentions of a large portion of his political opponents were deeply hostile to the welfare of his country and the interests of mankind. In his letters to his wife he sometimes expresses these feelings in a personal form. It will be seen that he felt strongly; but the worst he said was mildness in comparison to what he had daily to hear.
So far as his Congressional work was concerned he confined himself closely to finance, and, although taking a very considerable share in debate, he avoided as much as possible the discussion of foreign affairs. His most strenuous efforts were devoted to cutting down the estimates, preventing an increase, and, if possible, diminishing the force of the army and navy, and insisting upon the rule of specific appropriations. He had begun to apply this rule more stringently in the appropriation bills of the preceding session, and how necessary the application was is shown by a letter now written by the Secretary of the Treasury, saying that “it is well known to have been a rule since the establishment of the government that the appropriations for the military establishment were considered as general grants of money, liable to be issued to any of the objects included under that Department.” It was only with considerable difficulty that he carried this year his restriction of specific appropriations against the resistance of the Administration party.
In his efforts this year and in subsequent years to cut down appropriations for the army, navy, and civil service, he was rarely successful, and earned much ill-will as an obstructionist. Acting as he did on a view of the duties of government quite antagonistic to those of his adversaries, it was inevitable that he should arouse hostile feeling. Whether his proposed reductions were always wise or not depends of course on the correctness of his or his opponents’ theories; but the point is of little importance to his character as a leader of opposition. The duty of an opposition is to compel government to prove the propriety of its measures, and Mr. Gallatin’s incessant watchfulness gave the party in power a corresponding sense of responsibility.
Mr. Gallatin, too, did his utmost to carry the imposition of a direct tax, in view of the increasing burden of expenditure and of debt. The additional annual expense of $1,100,000 to be met in 1800 weighed not only on his mind but on that of Secretary Wolcott; they agreed that a direct tax was the best resource, and, unless advocated in principle at once, would stand no chance of adoption, but on this point they had both parties against them, and for the present failed.
The session of Congress ended with the 3d March, but a new session was called to meet on May 13, to consider our relations with France. Of this new Congress Mr. Madison was not a member, and Mr. Gallatin more and more assumed the leadership of the party. On questions of foreign policy he left the debate, for the most part, to others, and confined himself to limiting the appropriations and resisting all measures which directly tended to war.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
11th January, 1797.
... And have you really set aside a mother’s partiality and then decided that our boy was a lovely child? You may rely upon it that I shall not appeal from your decision, whether impartial or not; but I feel every day a stronger desire to see him and to judge for myself. Yet I must not begin to fret, for fear you may catch the infection, and the 5th of March is not so far distant but what you, with the comfort you receive from your boy, and I, with my head, though not my heart, full of politics, may wait at least with resignation if not without reluctance....
17th January, 1797.
... I pay no visits; I see nobody; I never dine out; I sit up late, and sleep regularly till nine in the morning; I hardly speak in Congress, and, when I do, a great deal worse than I used formerly; I neither write nor think, only read some miscellaneous works; I am in fact good for nothing when I am not with you....
24th January, 1797.
Most charming nurse of the loveliest and most thoughtful-looking babe of his age (I mean of the age he lives in), your husband is as worthless as ever. Instead of writing to you last night, he sat up two hours examining Judge Symmes’s contract for lands on the Miami, which is now before Congress, and instead of devoting part of this morning to you, he remained in bed till nine o’clock, as usual, and hardly had he done breakfast, dressing, etc., when he was obliged to go to Mr. Wolcott, with whom he has been agreeably employed for more than one hour on the entertaining subject of direct taxes.... It seems to me that I have just now mentioned dressing. Yet it is necessary that you should know that I have not exhibited my new, or rather my only good coat, my new jacket, and my pair of black silk inexpressibles more than once, to wit, last Thursday at the President’s, where I dined and saw him for the first time this year. He looked, I thought, more than usually grave, cool, and reserved. Mrs. W. inquired about you, so that you may suppose yourself still in the good graces of our most gracious queen, who, by the by, continues to be a very good-natured and amiable woman. Not so her husband, in your husband’s humble opinion; but that between you and me, for I hate treason, and you know that it would be less sacrilegious to carry arms against our country than to refuse singing to the tune of the best and greatest of men....
31st January, 1797.
... Your husband was not formed for the bustles of a political life in a stormy season. Conscious of the purity of my motives and (shall I add when I write to my bosom friend?) conscious of my own strength, I may resist the tempest with becoming firmness, but happiness dwells not there. I feel the truth of that observation more forcibly this winter than ever I did before. I feel disgusted at the mean artifices which have so long been successfully employed in order to pervert public opinion, and I anticipate with gloomy apprehension the fatal consequences to our independence as a nation and to our internal union which must follow the folly or wickedness of those who have directed our public measures. Nor are my depressed spirits enlivened by the pleasures of society; I can relish none at a distance from you, and was I to continue much longer my present mode of life I would become a secluded and morose hermit.... Perhaps, however, am I myself to blame, and a more intense application to business might have contributed to render this session less tiresome, but ... disgust at the symptoms of the prevailing influence of prejudice in the public mind have rendered me far more indolent than usual. The latter part of this session will, however, give me more employment than its beginning, as many money questions must necessarily compel me to take an active share....
26th February, 1797.
... I never, I believe, write you anything about our politics and on what takes place in Congress. But we have had nothing very interesting, being employed only in the details of administration. And then you see the substance in the newspapers, though not very correct, as to our speeches and debates. The little anecdotes I reserve for the happy time when we shall meet, and in the mean while I am sufficiently engaged in the scene without spending the moments I correspond with you in thinking on the dry subject....
GALLATIN TO JAMES NICHOLSON.
Philadelphia, 26th May, 1797.
Dear Sir,—I received your political letter, and am not surprised at seeing your irritation upon the perusal of Mr. Adams’s speech. I have felt less because I was not much disappointed. I mean in a pretty long letter to give you a better idea of our present situation than you can possibly derive from a view of our debates. These give only the apparent state of the business, and at this time it is very different from the real one. For the present, as I have not time to enter into details, I will only mention that the complexion of affairs is much less gloomy now than at the beginning of the session, that although the other party have rather a majority in this Congress, and although from party pride, and indeed for the sake of supporting their party through the United States, they may be induced to negative any proposition coming from us, yet there are but few of that party who do not feel and acknowledge in conversation the propriety of treating with France upon the terms we mention. They add, indeed, that it is necessary to obtain at the same time a compensation for the spoliations upon our trade. Upon the whole, I believe that we will not adopt a single hostile measure, and that we will evince such a spirit as will induce Mr. Adams to negotiate on the very ground we propose. I am of opinion that Wolcott, Pickering, Wm. Smith, Fisher Ames, and perhaps a few more were disposed to go to war, and had conceived hopes to overawe us by a clamor of foreign influence and to carry their own party any lengths they pleased. They are disappointed in both points, for we have assumed a higher tone than ever we did before, and their own people will not follow them the distance they expected....
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
Philadelphia, 14th June, 1797.
... As to our debates, they are tedious beyond measure, and we are beating and beaten by turns, although, by the by, our defeats are usually owing to the mistakes of some of our friends, who do not always perceive the remote consequences of every object which comes under consideration.... Your papa has not yet answered my last political letter. I am afraid he thinks me too moderate and believes I am going to trim. But moderation and firmness have ever been and ever will be my motto....
Philadelphia, 19th June, 1797.
... I cannot yet form any very accurate opinion as to the time of our adjournment, although I think it probable that it will be some time next week. William Smith & Co. wish to detain us as long as they can, from a hope, which is not altogether groundless, that some of our members will abandon the field, return to their homes, and leave them an undisputed majority at the end of the session. My own endeavors and those of most of our friends are now applied to despatching with as little debate as possible the most important business which remains to be decided. I brought a motion to adjourn on next Saturday, but I must modify it to this day week; whether it will pass is yet uncertain.... I dine next Thursday at court. Courtland, dining there the other day, heard her majesty, as she was asking the names of the different members of Congress to Hindman, and being told that of some one of the aristocratic party, say, ‘Ah, that is one of our people.’ So that she is Mrs. President not of the United States, but of a faction.... But it is not right. Indeed, my beloved, you are infinitely more lovely than politics.
Philadelphia, 21st June, 1797.
... Mr. Gerry is nominated envoy to France instead of Mr. Dana, who has declined, but it is doubtful whether the aristocratic party in Senate will appoint him. We are very still just now waiting for European intelligence. May it bring us the tidings of general peace! But many doubt it....
23d June, 1797.
... The Senate approved yesterday Mr. Gerry’s nomination, with six dissentient voices, to wit, Sedgwick, Tracy, Reed, Goodhue, Ross, and Marshall. The real reason of the opposition was that Gerry is a doubtful character, not British enough; but the ostensible pretence was that he was so obstinate that he would not make sufficient concessions....
26th June, 1797.
... A vessel has arrived at New York, but we have not yet got the news, although I am sorry to say that from present appearances it seems to be the intention of France to prosecute the war against Great Britain. The aristocrats here give up the point as to that kingdom, and acknowledge that she is gone beyond recovery. The situation of their bank and finances and the mutiny of the fleet seem to have worked a rather late conviction upon their minds. Had they been something less prejudiced in favor of the perpetual power of that country, ours would be in a better situation now. I dined at the President.... Blair McClanachan dined there, and told the President that by G—— he had rather see a world annihilated than this country united with Great Britain; that there would not remain a single king in Europe within six months, &c., &c. All that in the loudest and most decisive tone. It did not look at all like Presidential conversation....
28th June, 1797.
... Mr. Monroe arrived last night.... I spent two hours with him, during which he gave us (Jefferson and Burr, who is also in town) much interesting information, chiefly in relation to his own conduct and to that of the Administration respecting himself and France. It appears that he was desirous, as soon as the treaty had been concluded by Jay, that it should be communicated to him, in order that he might lay it with candor and at once before the Committee of Public Safety; and he apprehends that if that mode had been adopted, France, under the then circumstances, would have been satisfied, would have accepted some verbal explanations, and would not have taken any further steps about it.[36] But he never got the treaty until it appeared in the newspapers in August, 1795 (it was signed in November, 1794). The French government received it, of course, indirectly and without any previous preparations having been made to soften them. Yet did Mr. Monroe, unsupported by the Administration here, without having any but irritating letters to show, for seven months stop their proceedings, giving thereby full time to our Administration to send powers or any conciliatory propositions which might promote an accommodation. But the precious time was lost, and worse than lost; and it is indeed doubtful whether for a certain length of time it will be possible to make any accommodation. The time they chose to recall Monroe was when from his correspondence they had reason to believe that he had succeeded in allaying the resentment of the French. Then, thinking they had nothing to fear from France, and that they had used Monroe so as to obtain every service that he could render, they recalled him, with the double view of giving to another person the merit of terminating the differences and of throwing upon him (Monroe) the blame of any that had existed before. They were, however, deceived as to the fact, for, in spite of his honest endeavors, as soon as the final vote of the House of Representatives in favor of the treaty was known in France (and long before the letters of recall had reached that country) the die was cast. Upon the whole, I am happy to tell you that from my conversation with Monroe, from his manner and everything about him (things which are more easily felt than expressed), I have the strongest impression upon my mind that he is possessed of integrity superior to all the attacks of malignity, and that he had conducted with irreproachable honor and the most dignified sense of duty. Sorry am I to be obliged to add that I am also pretty well convinced that the American Administration have acted with a degree of meanness only exceeded by their folly, and that they have degraded the American name throughout Europe. If you want more politics, read Bache, where you will find a letter from Thomas Paine. I have marked it with his name.... The second mutiny on board the British fleet still subsists, and is considered as being of very serious nature. Adams says that England is done over, and I am told that France will not make peace with that country, but mean to land there.
30th June, 1797.
... We give to-morrow a splendid dinner to Monroe at Oeller’s hotel, in order to testify our approbation of his conduct and our opinion of his integrity. Jefferson, Judge McKean, the governor, and about fifty members of Congress will be there; for which I expect the Administration, Porcupine & Co. will soundly abuse us....
Congress adjourned on July 10, and Gallatin at once went to New Geneva with his wife.
On the 20th November he was again in Philadelphia, writing to his wife at her father’s in New York.
Philadelphia, 1st December, 1797.
... Do you not admire our unanimity and good nature? Yet it is difficult to say whether it is the calm that follows or that which precedes a storm. On the subject of the address, it seems to have been agreed on all hands that something general and inoffensive was the best answer that could be given to the wise speech of our President. He was highly delighted to find that we were so polite, and in return treated us with cake and wine when we carried him the answer....
19th December, 1797.
... Our Speaker has made Harper chairman of several committees, amongst others of that of Ways and Means, and he is as great a bungler as ever I knew, very good-hearted, and not deficient in talents, exclusively of that of speaking, which he certainly possesses to a high degree; but his vanity destroys him. Dana is the most eloquent man in Congress. Sewall is the first man of that party; but, upon the whole, I think this Congress weaker than the last or any former one. The other party have a small majority, and our members do not attend well as usual. Add to that that we are extremely deficient on our side in speakers. Swanwick is sick and quite cast down. I do not believe from his statement, which he has published, that he will be able to pay above twelve shillings in the pound. It is extremely unfortunate for us that he and B. McClanachan have been chosen by our party. Yet, notwithstanding all that, I think that unless the French government shall treat our commissioners very ill, this session will pass on quietly and without much mischief being done. We will attack the mint and the whole establishment of foreign ministers, and will push them extremely close on both points. Even if we do not succeed in destroying those useless expenses, we may check the increase of the evil. I have read Fauchet’s pamphlet on the subject of our dispute with France. There is but one copy, which is in the hands of Administration, and I only could obtain a reading in the House. It is candid, argumentative, well written, and not in the least tainted with the fashionable French declamation. After a pretty full refutation of Pickering’s arguments on many points, blaming, however, the Directory in many things, he strongly advises a reconciliation....
Philadelphia, 2d January, 1798.
... “According to custom, I have been monstrously lazy ever since I have been here, have seen nobody, not even ... Mr. Jefferson, to whom I owe a visit this fortnight past. I mean, however, within a short time to make a powerful effort and to pay half a dozen of visits in one morning.... My greatest leisure time is while Congress sits, for we have nothing of any real importance before us....
11th January, 1798.
... You wonder at our doing nothing, but you must know that, generally speaking, our government always fails by doing or attempting to do and to govern too much, and that things never go better than when we are doing very little. Upon the whole, we remain in suspense in relation to the most important subject that can attract our attention, the success of our negotiation with France, and till we know its fate we will not, I believe, enter into any business with much spirit.
19th January, 1798.
... Our situation grows critical; it will require great firmness to prevent this country being involved in a war should our negotiations with France meet with great delay or any serious interruption. We must expect to be branded with the usual epithets of Jacobins and tools of foreign influence. We must have fortitude enough to despise the calumnies of the war-faction and to do our duty, notwithstanding the situation in which we have been dragged by the weakness and party spirit of our Administration and by the haughtiness of France. We must preserve self-dignity, not suffer our country to be debased, and yet preserve our Constitution and our fellow-citizens from the fatal effects of war. The task is difficult, and will be impracticable unless we are supported by the body of the American people. You know that I am not deficient in political fortitude, and I feel therefore perfectly disposed to do my duty to its full extent and under every possible circumstance. We have made a violent attack upon our foreign intercourse, as it relates to the increase of ministers abroad, of ministerial influence, &c., and we have made it violent because it is of importance that we should begin to assume that high tone which we must necessarily support in case of worse news from France, and because there is no other way to make any important impression upon public opinion....
30th January, 1798.
Indeed I am to blame. I should have written to you two days earlier, and it is no sufficient justification that I have been interrupted every moment I had set aside to converse with you. My mind has, it is true, been uncommonly taken up and agitated by the question now before Congress. The ground is so extensive, the views and principles of the two parties so fully displayed in the debate, so much yet remains to be said and ideas upon that subject crowd so much upon my mind, that I think it important to speak again, and feel afraid that it will not be in my power to do justice to my own feelings and to the cause in which we are engaged. The subject has the same effect upon many others; it keeps Nicholas and Dr. Jones almost in a fever, and it has actually made Brent very sick. It is not that we expect at present to carry the question; it stands so much on party grounds that we cannot expect at once to break upon their well-organized phalanx; but we must lay the foundation in the minds of the disinterested and moderate part of their own side of the House of a change as to the general policy of our affairs. We must show to the President and his counsellors that we understand fully their principles, and we must publish and expose to the people of America the true grounds upon which both parties act in and out of Congress....
3d February, 1798.
... Although I had intended not to write till to-morrow, when I will have time to converse more amply with you, yet having a few minutes to spare this morning I thought you would be glad to hear something of myself and of our Congressional dispute which has interrupted our debates on the foreign ministers. As to myself, I am very well and feel in pretty good spirits. I have been so long used to personal abuse from party that I hardly knew I had lately received any till your letter informed me that you had felt on the occasion; but, upon the whole, that circumstance cannot make me unhappy. We have a new acquisition in our family, Mr. and Mrs. Law (she was, you know, Miss Custis), both very agreeable, and I feel quite rejoiced that there should be some female in our circle in order to soften our manners; indeed, the dispute between Griswold and Lyon shows you what asperity has taken place between members of Congress. The facts you now know from the accounts in the papers, the report of the committee, and Lyon’s defence in this morning’s Aurora. I must only add that there is but little delicacy in the usual conversation of most Connecticut gentlemen; that they have contracted a habit of saying very hard things, and that considering Lyon as a low-life fellow they were under no restraint in regard to him. No man can blame Lyon for having resented the insult. All must agree in reprobating the mode he selected to show his resentment, and the place where the act was committed. As two-thirds are necessary to expel, he will not, I believe, be expelled, but probably be reprimanded at the bar by the Speaker....
The once famous affair of Lyon and Griswold is narrated in every history or memoir that deals with the time, and the facts are given at large in the Annals of Congress. Mr. Gallatin’s comment on Connecticut manners is supported by ample evidence, among which the contemporaneous remarks of the Duc de Rochefoucauld-Liancourt may be consulted with advantage, himself one of the very few thorough gentlemen in feeling who have ever criticised America. General Samuel Smith, of Maryland, whose evidence may be supposed impartial, since his party character was at this time not strongly marked, told the story of Griswold and Lyon to the committee; after narrating a bantering conversation which had been going on in the rear of the House between Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, Roger Griswold, of Connecticut, the Speaker (Dayton, of New Jersey), and others, General Smith continued:
“Mr. Griswold had removed outside of the bar to where Mr. Lyon stood. At this time, having left my seat with intention to leave the House, I leaned on the bar next to Mr. Lyon and fronting Mr. Griswold. Mr. Lyon having observed (still directing himself to the Speaker) that could he have the same opportunity of explanation that he had in his own district, he did not doubt he could change the opinion of the people in Connecticut. Mr. Griswold then said, ‘If you, Mr. Lyon, should go into Connecticut, you could not change the opinion of the meanest hostler in the State.’ To which Mr. Lyon then said, ‘That may be your opinion, but I think differently, and if I was to go into Connecticut, I am sure I could produce the effect I have mentioned.’ Mr. Griswold then said, ‘Colonel Lyon, when you go into Connecticut you had better take with you the wooden sword that was attached to you at the camp at ——.’ On which Mr. Lyon spit in Mr. Griswold’s face, who coolly took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face.”
Some days afterwards, while Lyon was sitting at his desk just before the House was called to order, Griswold walked across the House and beat him over the head and shoulders “with all his force” with “a large yellow hickory cane.” Lyon disengaged himself from his desk, got hold of the Congressional tongs, and attempted to try their power on the head of the Connecticut member, whereupon Mr. Griswold closed with him and they both rolled on the floor, various members pulling them apart by the legs, while the Speaker, justly indignant, cried, “What! take hold of a man by the legs! that is no way to take hold of him!” Being, however, pulled apart by this irregular process, they went on to endanger the personal safety of members by striking at each other with sticks in the lobbies and about the House at intervals through the day, until at last Mr. H. G. Otis succeeded in procuring the intervention of the House to compel a suspension of hostilities. Lyon, though a very rough specimen of democracy, was by no means a contemptible man, and, politics aside, showed energy and character in his subsequent career. Mr. Griswold was one of the ablest and most prominent members of the Federal party, and also one of the most violent in his political orthodoxy then and afterwards.
GALLATIN TO HIS WIFE.
8th February, 1798.
... We are still hunting the Lyon, and it is indeed the most unpleasant and unprofitable business that ever a respectable representative body did pursue. Enough on that subject, for I hear too much of it every day.... I am good for nothing without you. I think and I smoke and I fret and I sleep and I eat, but that is really the sum total of the enjoyments both of my body and soul. I walk not, I visit not, I read not, and, you know, alas, I write not....
13th February, 1798.
... Are you as tired of modern Congressional debates as I am? I suspect you wish your husband had no share in them, and was in New York instead of attending the farcical exhibition which has taken place here this last week; and indeed my beloved Hannah is not mistaken. I feel as I always do when absent from her, more anxious to be with her than about anything else; but in addition to that general feeling I am really disgusted at the turn of public debates, and if nothing but such subjects was to attract our attention it must be the desire of every man of sense to be out of such a body. The affectation of delicacy, the horror expressed against illiberal imputations and vulgar language in the mouth of an Otis or a Brooks, were sufficiently ridiculous; but when I saw the most modest, the most decent, the most delicate man, I will not say in Congress, but that I ever met in private conversation, when I saw Mr. Nicholas alone dare to extenuate the indecency of the act committed by Lyon, and when I saw at the same time Colonel Parker, tremblingly alive to the least indelicate and vulgar expression of the Vermonteer, vote in favor of his expulsion, I thought the business went beyond forbearance, and the whole of the proceeding to be nothing more than an affected cant of pretended delicacy or the offspring of bitter party spirit. And after all that, the question recurs, When shall I go and visit New York? Alas, my love, I do not know it. I am bound here the slave of my constituents and the slave of my political friends. We do not know which day may bring the most important business before us. Every vote is important, and our side of the House is so extremely weak in speakers and in men of business that it is expected that at least Nicholas and myself must stay, and at all events be ready to give our support on the floor to those measures upon which the political salvation of the Union may perhaps eventually depend. I feel it, therefore, a matter of duty now to stay....
23d February, 1798.
... Do you want to know the fashionable news of the day? The President of the United States has written, in answer to the managers of the ball in honor of G. Washington’s birthday, that he took the earliest opportunity of informing them that he declined going. The court is in a prodigious uproar about that important event. The ministers and their wives do not know how to act upon the occasion; the friends of the old court say it is dreadful, a monstrous insult to the late President; the officers and office-seekers try to apologize for Mr. Adams by insisting that he feels conscientious scruples against going to places of that description, but it is proven against him that he used to go when Vice-President. How they will finally settle it I do not know; but to come to my own share of the business. A most powerful battery was opened against me to induce me to go to the said ball; it would be remarked; it would look well; it would show that we democrats, and I specially, felt no reluctance in showing my respect to the person of Mr. Washington, but that our objections to levees and to birthday balls applied only to its being a Presidential, anti-republican establishment, and that we were only afraid of its being made a precedent; and then it would mortify Mr. Adams and please Mr. Washington. All those arguments will appear very weak to you when on paper, but they were urged by a fine lady, by Mrs. Law, and when supported by her handsome black eyes they appeared very formidable. Yet I resisted and came off conqueror, although I was, as a reward, to lead her in the room, to dance with her, &c.; all which, by the by, were additional reasons for my staying at home. Our club have given me great credit for my firmness, and we have agreed that two or three of us who are accustomed to go to these places, Langdon, Brent, &c., will go this time to please the Law family....
27th February, 1798.
... We are pretty quiet at present; G. and L. business at an end. The other party found that L. could not be expelled, on account of the assault committed on him, and the question as to his first misbehavior was already decided in the negative. They concluded, therefore, not to expel G., and we generally joined them on the same principle upon which we had acted in respect to L., and we then proposed to reprimand both; but their anxiety to shelter G. from any kind of censure induced them to reject that proposal—48 to 47—through the means of the previous question....
2d March, 1798.
... I spoke yesterday three hours and a quarter on the foreign intercourse bill, and my friends, who want the speech to be circulated, mean to have it printed in pamphlets, and have laid upon me the heavy tax of writing it. I wish you were here to assist me and correct. Alas, I wish you upon every possible account....
6th March, 1798.
... The task imposed upon me by my friends to write my speech, of which they are going to print two thousand copies, leaves me no time to converse with you. I had rather speak forty than write one speech. I have received your letter, and will expect you anxiously; the roads are very deep, but the weather delightful.... You will receive by this day’s post the papers containing the French intended decree. It will, I am afraid, put us in a still more critical situation. They behave still worse than I was afraid from their haughtiness they would. May God save us from a war! Adieu....
13th March, 1798.
... I feel now as desirous that you should not be on the road during this boisterous, damp weather as I was anxious last week to see you arrived.... I cannot form any conjecture of the plans of our statesmen; they have got a majority, and if they are unanimous among themselves they may do what they please. So far as I can judge and hear, it seems that the other despatches of our commissioners at Paris will not be communicated to us, under the plea that they contain details which might injure their personal safety there; but it is whispered that the true reason is because their contents might injure the party, either because they declare that their powers were not sufficient, or because they intimate that France has no objection to treat with the United States, but has some personal objections to the individuals appointed for that purpose. This last reason, if true, appears to me a very bad plea on the part of France, who have nothing to do, that I can see, with the personal character or politics of the envoys our government may think fit to appoint. But it is perhaps apprehended by our Administration that a knowledge of the fact would injure their own character here by evincing a want of sincerity or of wisdom. I rather think, although it is extremely doubtful, that the arming merchantmen will not take place; but it is probable that the frigates will be armed and a dozen of vessels that may carry from fourteen to twenty guns be purchased, and both placed in the hands of the President to act as convoys and to protect the coast (by coast I mean not only our harbors, but to the extent of one or two hundred miles off) against the privateers, who may be expected to come on a spring cruise to take British goods in our vessels. All this will be very expensive, of little real utility, and may involve us still deeper. It seems to me that it would be wiser to wait at all events, to bear with the loss of a few more captures, and to see whether peace will not be concluded this spring between France and England, an event which to me appears highly probable, and if it does not, what will be the result of the intended invasion. May God preserve to us the blessings of peace, and may they soon be restored to all the European nations!...
GALLATIN TO MARIA NICHOLSON.
Philadelphia, 10th July, 1798.
... I see the prosecutions of printers are going on. I do not admire much the manner in which the new editor of the Time-Piece conducts his paper. Cool discussion and fair statements of facts are the only proper modes of conveying truth and disseminating sound principles. Let squibs and virulent paragraphs be the exclusive privilege of Fenno, Porcupine & Co., and let those papers which really are intended to support Republicanism unite candor and moderation to unconquerable firmness. Pieces may be written in an animated style without offending decency. This is the more necessary at a time when the period of persecution is beginning, and at this peculiar crisis prudence might enforce what propriety at all times should dictate....
The Time-Piece was a newspaper originally edited by Freneau, the poet, who soon associated Matthew L. Davis in the direction. After a few months of editorship, Freneau seems to have retired, and in March, 1798, Davis became the sole responsible editor. The Time-Piece was short-lived, and expired about six weeks after Mr. Gallatin’s letter was written.
The speech on Foreign Intercourse, made on the 1st March, 1798, was that in which Mr. Gallatin rose to a freer and more rhetorical treatment of his subject than had yet been his custom. The motion was to cut off the appropriations for our ministers in Berlin and Holland, which would have limited our diplomatic service to Great Britain, France, and Spain. Mr. Gallatin began by proving, against the Federalist arguments, that the House might lawfully refuse appropriations, and then proceeded to attack the whole system of diplomatic connections and commercial treaties, asking whether, as a matter of fact, we had derived any commercial advantages from the commercial treaties we had made, and entering into an eloquent discussion of the dangers attending increase of executive patronage and influence. “What has become of the Cortes of Spain? Of the States-General of France? Of the Diets of Denmark? Everywhere we find the executive in the possession of legislative, of absolute powers. The glimmerings of liberty which for a moment shone in Europe were owing to the decay of the feudal system.” To Mr. Bayard, who had argued that the executive was the weakest branch of the government and most in danger of encroachment, he replied: “To such doctrines avowed on this floor, to such systems as the plan of government which the late Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Hamilton) proposed in the convention, may perhaps be ascribed that belief in a part of the community, the belief, which was yesterday represented as highly criminal, that there exists in America a monarchico-aristocratic faction who would wish to impose upon us the substance of the British government. I have allowed myself to make this last observation only in reply to the gentleman who read the paper I alluded to.[37] It is painful to recriminate; I wish denunciations to be avoided, and I am not in the habit of ascribing improper motives to gentlemen on the other side of the question. Never shall I erect myself into a high-priest of the Constitution, assuming the keys of political salvation and damning without mercy whosoever differs with me in opinion. But what tone is assumed to us by some gentlemen on this floor? If we complain of the prodigality of a branch of the Administration or wish to control it by refusing to appropriate all the money which is asked, we are stigmatized as disorganizers; if we oppose the growth of systems of taxation, we are charged with a design of subverting the Constitution and of making a revolution; if we attempt to check the extension of our political connections with European nations, we are branded with the epithet of Jacobins. Revolutions and Jacobinism do not flow from that line of policy we wish to see adopted. They belong, they exclusively belong to the system we resist; they are its last stage, the last page in the book of the history of governments under its influence.”
The speech, which was in effect a vigorous and eloquent defence of Mr. Jefferson’s Mazzei letter, although that letter was barely mentioned in its course, is probably the best ever made on the opposition side in the Federalist days, and ranks with that of Fisher Ames on the British treaty, as representing the highest point respectively attained by the representative orators of the two parties. Doubtless Mr. Gallatin saw reason in his maturer age to modify his opinions of commercial treaties, for a large part of the twelve best years of his life was subsequently passed in negotiations for commercial treaties with England, France, and the Netherlands; possibly, too, he modified his hostility to diplomatic connections with Europe, for bitter experience taught him that too little diplomatic connection might produce worse evils than too much; but he never overcame his jealousy of executive power, and never doubted the propriety of his course in 1798. Whether the time is to come when Mr. Gallatin’s views in regard to the diplomatic service will be universally adopted may remain a matter for dispute; the essential point to be remembered is that in 1798 the majority in Congress made a deliberate and persistent attempt to place extraordinary powers in the hands of the President, with a view to the possible necessity for the use of such powers in case of domestic difficulties then fully expected to occur. The extreme Federalists hoped that a timely exercise of force on their side might decide the contest permanently in their favor. They were probably mistaken, for, as their correspondence shows,[38] there never was a time when the political formulas of Hamilton, George Cabot, Fisher Ames, Gouverneur Morris, and Rufus Griswold could have been applied even in New England with a chance of success; but it is none the less certain that a small knot of such men, with no resources other than their own energy and will, practically created the Constitution, administered the government under it for ten years, and at last very nearly overthrew it rather than surrender their power. Fisher Ames, one of their ablest chiefs, thought in 1806 that there were hardly five hundred who fully shared his opinions.[39] It was against the theoretical doctrines and ulterior aims of this political school that Mr. Gallatin was now waging active war.
The difficulties with France were on the point of a tremendous explosion, but he avoided so far as possible every public reference to the subject. As a native of Geneva he had no reason to love France. Unfortunately, the distinction between Geneva and France was not one to which his opponents or the public were likely to pay attention; to them he was essentially a Frenchman, and he could not expect to be heard with patience. Nevertheless, he was not absolutely silent. As the conduct of the French Directory pushed our government nearer and nearer to war, he recognized the fact and accepted it, but urged that if war was necessary the House should at least avow the fact, and not be drawn into it by the pretence that it already existed by the act of France. On the 27th March, Mr. Gallatin spoke on a resolution then before the House in committee, “that under existing circumstances it is not expedient for the United States to resort to war against the French republic,” and after recapitulating the steps of both governments and the last decree of France, he said, “I differ in opinion from the gentleman last up (Mr. Sewall, of Massachusetts) that this is a declaration of war. I allow it would be justifiable cause for war for this country, and that on this account it is necessary to agree to or reject the present proposition, in order to determine the ground intended to be taken. For, though there may be justifiable cause for war, if it is not our interest to go to war the resolution will be adopted.... The conduct of France must tend to destroy that influence which gentlemen have so often complained of as existing in this country. Indeed, I am convinced that at the commencement of her revolution there was a great enthusiasm amongst our citizens in favor of her cause, which naturally arose from their having been engaged in a similar contest; but I believe these feelings have been greatly diminished by her late conduct towards this country. I think, therefore, that whether we engage in war or remain in a state of peace, much need not be apprehended from the influence of France in our councils.”
A few days afterwards, on the 3d April, the President sent to Congress the famous X.Y.Z. despatches, which set the country in a flame, and for a time swept away all effective resistance to the war policy. These despatches were discussed by the House in secret session, and there are no letters or memoranda of Mr. Gallatin which reflect his feelings in regard to them. His policy, however, is clearly foreshadowed by his course before, as it was consistently carried out by his course after, the excitement. Believing, as he did, that America had nothing to fear but foreign war, he preferred enduring almost any injuries rather than resort to that measure. His conviction that war was the most dangerous possible course which the United States could adopt was founded on sound reason, and was in reality shared by a vast majority of his fellow-citizens, who were divided in principle rather by the question whether war could be avoided and whether resistance was not the means best calculated to prevent it. He took clear ground on this subject in a speech made on April 19 in the discussion on war measures:
“The committee is told by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Harper) that if we do not resist, France will go on step by step in her course of aggressions against this country. This is mere matter of speculation. It is possible France may go on in this way. If she goes on to make war upon us, then let our vessels be used in their full power. Let us not, however, act on speculative grounds, but examine our present situation, and, if better than war, let us keep it. The committee has been told that this doctrine is a doctrine of submission. The gentleman calls war by the name of resistance, and they give the appellation of abject submission to a continuance of forbearance under our present losses and captures. I affix a different idea to the word submission. I would call it submission to purchase peace with money. I would call it submission to accept of ignominious terms of peace. I would call it submission to make any acknowledgments unworthy of an independent country. I would call it submission to give up by treaty any right which we possess. I would call it submission to recognize by treaty any claim contrary to the laws of nations. But there is a great difference between surrendering by treaty our rights and independence as a nation, and saying, ‘We have met with captures and losses from the present European war; but, as it is coming to a close, it is not our interest to enter into it, but rather to go on as we have done.’ This I think would be a wise course, and extremely different from a state of submission.”
For these remarks Mr. Gallatin was violently assailed, the Speaker (Dayton) leading the attack. Perhaps the sting lay, however, not so much in what the Speaker called its “tame and submissive language,” as in its implied suggestion that Mr. Jay’s treaty, not a merely passive attitude of protest, was the real act of submission. Whether his policy was correct or not is a matter of judgment in regard to which enough has already been said; but there would seem to have been nothing in his language or in his sentiments that justified the savageness with which he was assailed. In truth, after the X.Y.Z. storm burst, Gallatin was left to bear its brunt alone in Congress, and the forbearance which he exercised in regard to personalities was not imitated by his opponents; Mr. R. G. Harper, then of South Carolina, Mr. H. G. Otis, of Massachusetts, and Speaker Dayton, to say nothing of the Connecticut gentlemen, were as much attached to this kind of political warfare as Mr. Gallatin was averse to it, and, the majority having now fairly settled to their side, they could afford to resort freely to the weapons of majorities everywhere. There was, too, some excuse for the violence of their attacks, for Mr. Gallatin exhibited very extraordinary powers during the remainder of this excessively difficult session. Party feeling never ran so high; he stood exposed to its full force, and by his incessant activity in opposition concentrated all its energy upon himself, until to break him down became a very desirable object, for, though always outvoted on war measures, his influence was still very troublesome to the Administration. On the 5th April of this year, Secretary Wolcott wrote to Hamilton: “The management of the Treasury becomes more and more difficult. The Legislature will not pass laws in gross. Their appropriations are minute; Gallatin, to whom they yield, is evidently intending to break down this Department by charging it with an impracticable detail.”[40] Three weeks later, on the 26th April, Mr. Jefferson wrote from Washington to Mr. Madison: “The provisional army of 20,000 men will meet some difficulty. It would surely be rejected if our members were all here. Giles, Clopton, Cabell, and Nicholas have gone, and Clay goes to-morrow.... Parker has completely gone over to the war party. In this state of things they will carry what they please. One of the war party, in a fit of unguarded passion, declared some time ago they would pass a citizen bill, an alien bill, and a sedition bill; accordingly, some days ago Coit laid a motion on the table of the House of Representatives for modifying the citizen law. Their threats pointed at Gallatin, and it is believed they will endeavor to reach him by this bill.”[41] The citizen’s bill broke down so far as it was aimed at Mr. Gallatin, the Constitution standing in the way; but the feeling behind it was so strong that a serious attempt was made to amend the Constitution itself. Long afterwards Mr. Gallatin recurred to this scheme in a letter to Samuel Breck, dated 20th June, 1843.[42] He said, in reply to an inquiry made by Mr. Breck, “I believe the ‘black cockade’ of 1798 to have been worn exclusively by members of the Federal party, but certainly not by all of them. Many did object to such external badge; to what extent it was adopted I really cannot say, as I have but a general and vague recollection of that slight incident. In some other respects my impaired memory is more retentive, and I have not forgotten acts of kindness. Your mention of Mr. Hare reminds me, and I do recollect with feelings of gratitude, that his father was the principal agent in arresting in Pennsylvania an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, proposed and adopted by the New England States, which was personally directed against me. And I may add that, notwithstanding the heat of party feelings, I was always treated with personal kindness and consideration by Mr. Hare’s father and by his connections,—the Willing, Bingham, and Powell families. It is well known that I think the general policy of the Federal party at that time to have been erroneous; but independent of this, which is a matter of opinion, it certainly became intoxicated. The black cockade was a petty act of folly that did not originate with the leaders; but they committed a series of blunders sufficient alone to have given the ascendency to their opponents, and which at this time appears almost incredible.”
Mr. Gallatin made no blunders. He led his party into no untenable positions. He offered no merely factious or dilatory opposition. Beaten at one point he turned to another, accepting the last decision as final and contesting the next step with equal energy. The Federalists, on their part, gave him incessant occupation. Feeling that the country was with them and that for once there was no hindrance to their giving to government all the “energy” it required in order to accord with their theories, the Administration party in the Legislature, without waiting even for a request from the President, proceeded to enact bill after bill into law, conferring enlarged or doubtful powers on the Executive. Two of these, the most famous, are mentioned in Mr. Jefferson’s letter above quoted,—the alien and sedition laws.
There were in fact two alien laws: one relating to alien enemies, which was permanent in its nature and applied only during periods of declared foreign war; the other relating to alien friends, and limited in operation to two years. This last was the subject of hot opposition and almost hotter advocacy. As enacted, it empowered the President, without process of law, to order out of the country any alien whatever whom “he shall judge dangerous” or “shall have reasonable grounds to suspect” to be dangerous to the public peace and safety; and in case of disobedience to the order the alien “shall, on conviction thereof, be imprisoned for a term not exceeding three years” and be denied the right to become a citizen.
The sedition law, as enacted, was also limited to two years, and expired on the 3d March, 1801. Its first section was calculated to annoy Mr. Gallatin, who had always maintained, in opposition to his opponents, that the famous Pittsburg resolutions of 1792 were not illegal, however ill-advised. These resolutions had been flung in his face during every exciting debate since he had entered Congress. The sedition law enacted, first, that any persons who “shall unlawfully combine with intent to oppose” any measure of government, or to impede the operation of any law, or to prevent any officer from doing his duty, or who shall attempt to procure any unlawful combination, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and punished by fine and imprisonment. Whether the Pittsburg meeting came within the terms of this law was, however, a matter of mere personal interest, about which Mr. Gallatin did not trouble himself, but devoted all his labor to the second section of the bill.
This was certainly vulnerable enough. It enacted that “if any person shall write, print, utter, or publish,” or aid in so doing, any scandal against the government, or either House, or the President, with intent to defame, or to excite hatred or unlawful combinations against the laws, he shall be punished by fine and imprisonment.
The alien law came first under consideration, and Mr. Gallatin took the ground that under the Constitution Congress had no power to restrain the residence of alien friends, this power being among those reserved to the States; and after arguing this point he turned to the clause in the Constitution which debarred Congress from prohibiting “the emigration or importation of such persons as any of the States shall think proper to admit,” and maintained that this provision, so far as it related to immigrants, would be defeated by the law, which gave the President the right to remove such persons even though the States might admit them. His third position was that the law suspended the right of habeas corpus guaranteed by the Constitution except in cases of rebellion and insurrection, and that it violated the clause that “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”
The friends of the bill, Sewall and Otis, of Massachusetts, Bayard, of Delaware, and Dana, of Connecticut, replied to the constitutional objections by deriving the authority of Congress from the power to regulate commerce; from that to lay and collect taxes, to provide for the common defence and general welfare; and ultimately from the essential right of every government to protect itself. Mr. Gallatin made a rejoinder on each of these heads, and reinforced his own arguments by attacking the alleged necessity of the measure and dwelling on the conflict it tended to excite between the general and the State governments. In the debate that followed, Mr. Harper adverted to the plot which he asserted to exist, and of which he intimated that the opposition to this bill was a part, aiming at the betrayal of the country to a French invading army. To this insinuation Mr. Gallatin replied with an exhibition of warmth quite unusual with him; he turned sharply upon Mr. Harper with the question, “Might I not, if I chose to preserve as little regard to decency as that gentleman, charge him at once with a wilful intention to break the Constitution and an actual violation of the oath he has taken to support it?” Mr. Harper’s retort shows the spirit of the majority, of which he was now the acknowledged leader. He neither apologized nor disavowed: “When a gentleman, who is generally so very cool, should all at once assume such a tone of passion as to forget all decorum of language, it would seem as if the observation had been properly applied to that gentleman.” Obviously Mr. Gallatin was driven to the wall; the majority had no idea of sparing him if he laid himself open to their attacks, and indeed, at this moment, to crush Mr. Gallatin would have been to crush almost the last remnant of parliamentary opposition. Mr. Jefferson has himself described the situation at this time in language which, if somewhat exaggerated, is, as regards Mr. Gallatin, essentially exact.[43] “The Federalists’ usurpations and violations of the Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses of Congress, were so great, so decided, and so daring, that, after combating their aggressions inch by inch without being able in the least to check their career, the Republican leaders thought it would be best for them to give up their useless efforts there, go home, get into their respective Legislatures, embody whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and, if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch. All therefore retired, leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as Vice-President.... No one who was not a witness to the scenes of that gloomy period can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook.” Then it was that the Federalist majority, on the 18th May, 1798, amended the standing rules by providing that no member should speak more than once on any question, either in the House or in committee of the whole, an amendment intended to silence Mr. Gallatin. He laughed at it, and, the House very soon becoming convinced of its uselessness, the rule was repealed.
The alien bill passed, after a warm but a short debate, by a vote of 46 to 40, and on the 5th July, ten days before the session closed, the sedition bill came down from the Senate. As the bill then stood, it contained a clause enacting that “if any person shall, by writing, printing, or speaking, threaten” an officer of the government “with any damage to his character, person, or estate,” he shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor and be punished by fine and imprisonment.
Edward Livingston immediately moved that the bill be rejected. In opposition to this motion, and in order to prove the necessity of such extravagant legislation, Mr. Allen, of Connecticut, made an elaborate speech, which is still entertaining and instructive reading. He arraigned the newspapers, and asserted that they showed the existence of a dangerous combination to overturn the government; to this combination Mr. Edward Livingston was a party, as shown by an extract from his speech on the alien bill; the New York Time-Piece was one of its organs, as shown by a tirade against the President; the Aurora, of Philadelphia, as another organ, “the great engine of all these treasonable combinations.” These quotations now read tamely, and it requires a considerable exercise of the imagination to understand how America could ever have had a society to which such writings should have seemed dangerous. Mr. Harper himself, the author of “The Plot,” was obliged to concede that he did not give much weight to the newspapers; in his eyes Mr. Edward Livingston was the real offender, and speeches made in that House were the real objects which the bill aimed to suppress. Mr. Livingston had in fact announced that the people would oppose and the States would not submit to the alien act, and added, in imitation of Lord Chatham’s famous declaration, “They ought not to acquiesce, and I pray to God they never may.” The debate went on in this style, with criminations and recriminations, until Mr. Gallatin rose. He took the ground—the only ground indeed which he could take in the present stage of the bill—that necessity alone could warrant its passage; that the proof of that necessity must be furnished by its supporters; that the proof thus far furnished was by no means sufficient; that the newspaper paragraphs cited by Mr. Allen were not of a nature to require such a measure of coercion; that the expressions used by members in debate could not be reached by the bill; that the bill itself as it then stood was in part useless, in part dependent on the proof of necessity, and had best be rejected.
The House, by a vote of 47 to 36, refused to reject the bill, but when, a few days afterwards, they entered on the discussion of its sections, even Mr. Harper took the lead in advocating considerable amendments. By his assistance and that of Mr. Bayard the bill was remodelled, and especially a clause was inserted allowing evidence of the truth to be given in justification of the matter contained in the libel, and another giving to the jury the right to determine the law and the fact. On the bill as thus amended one day of final debate took place, closed on the part of the opposition by Mr. Gallatin, and by Mr. Harper on behalf of the majority.
Mr. Gallatin’s speech as reported is quite short, and mostly devoted to the constitutionality of the measure. He first answered Mr. Otis, who had argued that Congress had the power to punish libel, because the men who framed the Constitution were familiar with the common law and had given the judiciary a common-law jurisdiction, and that this power was not taken away by the amendment to the Constitution securing the freedom of speech and of the press. The argument indeed answered itself to a great degree, for if the Federal courts had this common law jurisdiction, why enact this measure which had no other object than to confer it on them? But the courts had no such jurisdiction, and Congress had no power to give it, because it was conceded that no such power was specifically given, and yet the Constitution and the laws hitherto made in pursuance thereof had actually specified the offences for which Congress might define the punishment. They must therefore fall back on the “necessary and proper” clause; but, as this was to be used only to carry the specific powers into effect, it could not apply here: “they must show which of those constitutional powers it was which could not be carried into effect unless this law was passed;” and finally the amendment which secured the liberty of speech and of the press had been proposed and adopted precisely to guard against an apprehended perversion of this “necessary and proper” clause. This outline was filled up with concise argument, and comparatively little was said on the merits of the bill, although it was pointed out that the mere expression of an opinion was made punishable by it, and how could the truth of an opinion be proven by evidence? The writing of a paper which might be adjudged a libel was punishable, even though not communicated to any one, and this was the rule under which Sidney suffered. In Pennsylvania the marshal would summon the juries, and the marshal was the President’s creature. To this and the other arguments in opposition Mr. Harper replied, and the bill then passed by a vote of 44 to 41. A week later Congress rose.
So much has already been said of this memorable session that it would utterly exhaust the patience of readers to give any completer sketch of Mr. Gallatin’s activity in legislation on other subjects. His share in measures of finance and in opposition to the abrogation of the French treaties, as well as to the other war measures, may be passed over; but one word must be said on another point.
In March of this year, 1798, a bill for the erection of a government in the Mississippi Territory being before the House, Mr. Thacher, of Massachusetts, moved an amendment that would have excluded slavery forever from all the then existing territory west of Georgia. This amendment was strongly supported by Mr. Gallatin, on the ground that, if it were rejected, Congress really established slavery in that country for all time, but he found only ten members in the House to support Mr. Thacher and himself.
The session of 1798 closed on the 16th July, and Mr. Gallatin returned with his wife to New Geneva. Hard as his position was in public life, it was becoming yet more alarming in his private affairs. The joint-stock company which he had formed, and in which all his available capital was invested, had been obliged to act independently, owing to his long absences, and had been largely controlled by a Genevese named Bourdillon, a man of ability, but more fond of speculation than Mr. Gallatin ever could have been. He had adopted a system of buying and selling on credit, which he carried further than Mr. Gallatin approved, and the company had also entered into the manufacture of glass, an undertaking which promised well, but which required a considerable expenditure of borrowed money at the outset. Meanwhile, the country was still suffering from the collapse of speculation. Robert Morris was quite bankrupt, and Gallatin could recover neither land nor money. Among the Gallatin papers is an autograph which tells its own story in this relation: