Chapter 5

MEMBER OF CONGRESS

The first session of the fourth Congress began at Philadelphia on Monday, December 7, 1795. Washington was president, John Adams vice-president. No one of Washington's original constitutional advisers remained in his cabinet. Jefferson retired from the State Department at the beginning of the first session of the third Congress. Edmund Randolph, appointed in his place, resigned in a cloud of obloquy on August 19, 1795, and the portfolio was temporarily in charge of Timothy Pickering, secretary of war. Hamilton resigned the department of the Treasury on January 31, 1795, and Oliver Wolcott, Jr., succeeded him in that most important of the early offices of the government. General Henry Knox, the first secretary of war, pressed by his own private affairs and the interests of a large family, withdrew on December 28, 1794, and Timothy Pickering, the postmaster-general, had been appointed in his stead January 2, 1795. The Navy Department was not as yet established (the act creating it was passed April 30, 1798), but the affairs which concerned this branch of the public service were under the direction of the secretary of war. The administration of Washington was drawing to a close. In the lately reconstructed cabinet, honest, patriotic, and thorough in administration, there was no man of shining mark. The Senate was still in the hands of the Federal party. The bare majority which rejected Gallatin in the previous Congress had increased to a sufficient strength for party purposes, but neither in the ranks of the administration nor the opposition was there in this august assemblage one commanding figure.

The House was nearly equally divided. The post of speaker was warmly contested. Frederick A. Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, who had presided over the House at the sessions of the first Congress, 1789-1791, and again over the third, 1793-1795, was the candidate of the Federalists, but was defeated by Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, whose views in the last session had drifted him into sympathy with the Republican opposition. The House, when full, numbered one hundred and five members, among whom were the ablest men in the country, veterans of debate versed in parliamentary law and skilled in the niceties of party fence. In the Federal ranks, active, conscious of their power, and proud of the great party which gloried in Washington as their chief, were Robert Goodloe Harper of South Carolina, Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, Roger Griswold and Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, who led the front and held the wings of debate; while in reserve, broken in health but still in the prime of life, the pride of his party and of the House, was Fisher Ames, the orator of his day, whose magic tones held friend and foe in rapt attention, while he mastered the reason or touched the heart. Upon these men the Federal party relied for the vindication of their principles and the maintenance of their power. Supporting them were William Vans Murray of Maryland, Goodrich and Hillhouse of Connecticut, William Smith of South Carolina, Sitgreaves of Pennsylvania, and in the ranks a well-trained party. Opposed to this formidable array of Federal talent was the Republican party, young, vigorous, and in majority, bold in their ideas but as yet hesitating in purpose under the controlling if not overruling influence of the name and popularity of Washington.

Hamilton watched the shifting fortunes of his party from a distance, and found time in the pressure of a large legal practice to aid each branch of administration in turn with his advice. But though he still inspired its councils, he no longer directed its course. In his Monticello home Jefferson waited till the fruit was ripe for falling, occasionally impatient that his followers did not more roughly shake the tree.

The open rupture of Jefferson with Hamilton was the first great break in the Federal administration; the lukewarmness of Madison, whose leanings were always towards Jefferson, followed.

At the head of the Republican opposition was Madison. Wise in council, convincing in argument, an able and even adroit debater, he was an admirable leader, but his tactics were rather of the closet than the field. He was wanting in the personal vigor which, scorning defense, delights in bold attack upon the central position of the enemy, and carries opposition to the last limit of parliamentary aggression. With this mildness of character, though recognized as the leader of his party, he, as a habit, waived his control upon the floor of the House, and, reserving his interference for occasions when questions of constitutional interpretation arose, left the general direction of debate to William B. Giles of Virginia, a skillful tactician and a ready debater, keen, bold, and troubled by no scruples of modesty, respect, or reverence for friend or foe. Of equal vigor, but of more reserve, was John Nicholas of Virginia--a man of strong intellect, reliable temper, and with the dignity of the old school. To these were now added Albert Gallatin and Edward Livingston. Edward Livingston, from New York, was young, and as yet inexperienced in debate, but of remarkable powers. He was another example of that early intellectual maturity which was a characteristic of the time.

When Congress met, the all-disturbing question was the foreign policy of the United States. The influence of the French Revolution upon American politics was great. The Federalists, conservative in their views, held the new democratic doctrines in abhorrence, and used the terrible excesses of the French Revolution with telling force against their Republican adversaries. The need of a strong government was held up as the only alternative to anarchy. In the struggle which now united Europe against the French republic, the sympathies of the Federalists were with England. Hence they were accused of a desire to establish a monarchy in the United States, and were ignominiously called the British party. Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania gave point to their arguments.

On the other side was the large and powerful party which, throughout the war in the Continental Congress, under the confederation in the national convention which framed and in the state conventions which ratified the Constitution, had opposed the tendency to centralization, but had been defeated by the yearning of the body of the plain people for a government strong enough at least to secure them peace at home and protection abroad. This natural craving being satisfied, the old aversion to class distinctions returned. The dread of an aristocracy, which did not exist even in name, threw many of the supporters of the Constitution into the ranks of its opponents, who were democrats in name and in fact. The proclamation of the rights of man awoke this latent sentiment, and aroused an intense sympathy for the people of France. This again was strengthened by the memory, still warm, of the services of France in the cause of independence. Lafayette, who represented the true French republican spirit, and held a place in the affections of the American people second only to that of Washington, was languishing, a prisoner to the coalition of sovereigns, in an Austrian dungeon.

Jefferson returned from France deeply imbued with the spirit of the French Revolution. His views were warmly received by his political friends, and the principles of the new school of politics were rapidly spread by an eager band of acolytes, whose ranks were recruited until the feeble opposition became a powerful party. Democratic societies, organized on the plan of the French Jacobin clubs, extended French influence, and no doubt were aided in a practical way by Genet, whose recent marriage with the daughter of George Clinton, the head of the Republican party in New York, was an additional link in the bond of alliance.

During the second session of the third Congress Madison had led the opposition in a mild manner; party lines were not yet strongly defined, and the influence of Washington was paramount. In the interim between its expiration and the meeting of the fourth Congress in December, the country was wildly agitated by the Jay treaty. This document not reaching America until after the adjournment of Congress in March, Washington convened the Senate in extra and secret session on June 1, and the treaty was ratified by barely two thirds majority. Imprudently withheld for a time, it was at last made public by Senator Mason of Virginia, one of the ten who voted against its ratification. It disappointed the people, and was denounced as a weak and ignominious surrender of American rights. The merchants of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston protested against it in public meetings. It was burned, and the English flag was trailed in the dust before the British minister's house at the capital. Jay was hung in effigy, and Hamilton, who ventured to defend the treaty at a public meeting, was stoned. To add to the popular indignation that the impressment of American seamen had been ignored in the instrument, came the alarming news that the British ministry had renewed their order to seize vessels carrying provisions to France, whither a large part of the American grain crop was destined. On the other hand, Randolph, the secretary of state, had compromised the dignity of his official position in his intercourse with Fauchet, the late French ambassador, whose correspondence with his government, thrown overboard from a French packet, had been fished up by a British man-of-war, and forwarded to Grenville, by whom it was returned to America. Thus petard answered petard, and the charge by the Republicans upon the Federalists of taking British gold was returned with interest, and the accusation of receiving bribe money was brought close home to Randolph, if not proved.

Hard names were not wanting either; Jefferson was ridiculed as a _sans-culotte_ and red-legged Democrat. Nor was Washington spared. He was charged with an assumption of royal airs, with political hypocrisy, and even with being a public defaulter; a charge which no one dared to father, and which was instantly shown to be false and malicious. It was made by Bache in "The Aurora," a contemptible sheet after the fashion of "L'Ami du Peuple," Marat's Paris organ.

Such was the temper of the people when the House of Representatives met on December 7, 1795. The speaker, Dayton, was strongly anti-British in feeling. He was a family connection of Burr, but there is no reason to suppose that he was under the personal influence of that adroit and unscrupulous partisan. On the 8th President Washington, according to his custom, addressed both houses of Congress. This day for the first time the gallery was thrown open to the public. When the reply of the Senate came up for consideration, the purpose of the Republicans was at once manifest. They would not consent to the approbation it expressed of the conduct of the administration. They would not admit that the causes of external discord had been extinguished "on terms consistent with our national honor and safety," or indeed extinguished at all, and they would not acknowledge that the efforts of the President to establish the peace, freedom, and prosperity of the country had been "enlightened and firm." Nevertheless the address was agreed to by a vote of 14 to 8.

In the House a resolution was moved that a respectful address ought to be presented. The opposition immediately declared itself. Objection was made to an address, and in its stead the appointment of a committee to wait personally on the President was moved. The covert intent was apparent through the thin veil of expediency, but the Republicans as a body were unwilling to go this length in discourtesy, and did not support the motion. Only eighteen members voted for it. Messrs. Madison, Sedgwick, and Sitgreaves, the committee to report an address, brought in a draft on the 14th which was ordered to be printed for the use of the members. The next day the work of dissection was begun by an objection to the words "probably unequaled spectacle of national happiness" applied to the country, and the words "undiminished confidence" applied to the President. The words "probably unequaled" were stricken out without decided opposition by a vote of forty-three to thirty-nine. Opinions were divided on that subject even in the ranks of the Federalists. The cause of dissatisfaction was the Jay treaty. The address was recommitted without a division. The next day Madison brought in the address with a modification of the clause objected to. In its new form the "very great share" of Washington's zealous and faithful services in securing the national happiness was acknowledged. The address thus amended was unanimously adopted. In this encounter nothing was gained by the Republicans. The people would not have endured an open declaration of want of confidence in Washington. But the entering wedge of the new policy was driven. The treaty was to be assailed. It was, however, the pretext, not the cause of the struggle, the real object of which was to extend the powers of the House, and subordinate the executive to its will. Before beginning the main attack the Republicans developed their general plan in their treatment of secondary issues; of these the principal was a tightening of the control of the House over the Treasury Department.

In this Mr. Gallatin took the lead. His first measure was the appointment of a standing Committee of Finance to superintend the general operations of this nature,--an efficient aid to the Treasury when there is accord between the administration and the House, an annoying censor when the latter is in opposition. This was the beginning of the Ways and Means Committee, which soon became and has since continued to be the most important committee of the House. To it were to be referred all reports from the Treasury Department, all propositions relating to revenue, and it was to report on the state of the public debt, revenue, and expenditures. The committee was appointed without opposition. It consisted of fourteen members, William Smith, Sedgwick, Madison, Baldwin, Gallatin, Bourne, Gilman, Murray, Buck, Gilbert, Isaac Smith, Blount, Patten, and Hillhouse, and represented the strength of both political parties. To this committee the estimates of appropriations for the support of the government for the coming year were referred. The next step was to bring to the knowledge of the House the precise condition of the Treasury. To this end the secretary was called upon to furnish comparative views of the commerce and tonnage of the country for every year from the formation of the department in 1789, with tables of the exports and imports, foreign and domestic, separately stated, and with a division of the nationality of the carrying vessels. Later, comparative views were demanded of the receipts and expenditures for each year; the receipts under the heads of Loans, Revenue in its various forms, and others in their several divisions; the expenditures, also, to be classified under the heads of Civil List, Foreign Intercourse, Military Establishment, Indian Department, Naval, etc. Finally a call was made for a statement of the annual appropriations and the applications of them by the Treasury. The object of Mr. Gallatin was to establish the expenses of the government in each department of service on a permanent footing for which annual appropriations should be made, and for any extraordinary expenditure to insist on a special appropriation for the stated object and none other. By keeping constantly before the House this distinction between the permanent fund and temporary exigencies, he accustomed it to take a practical business view of its legislative duties, and the people to understand the principles he endeavored to apply.

In a debate at the beginning of the session, on a bill for establishing trading houses with the Indians, Mr. Gallatin showed his hand by declaring that he would not consent to appropriate any part of the war funds for the scheme; nor, in view of the need of additional permanent funds for the discharge of the public debt, would he vote for the bill at all, unless there was to be a reduction in the expense of the military establishment; and he would not be diverted from his purpose although Mr. Madison advocated the bill because of its extremely benevolent object. The Federal leaders saw clearly to what this doctrine would bring them, and met it in the beginning. The first struggle occurred when the appropriations for the service of 1796 were brought before the House. Beginning with a discussion upon the salaries of the officers of the mint, the debate at once passed to the principle of appropriations. The Federalists insisted that a discussion of the merits of establishments was not in order when the appropriations were under consideration; that the House ought not, by withholding appropriations, to destroy establishments formed by the whole legislature, that is, by the Senate and House; that the House should vote for the appropriations agreeably to the laws already made. This view was sanctioned by practice. Mr. Gallatin immediately opposed this as an alarming and dangerous principle. He insisted that there was a certain discretionary power in the House to appropriate or not to appropriate for any object whatever, whether that object were authorized or not. It was a power vested in the House for the purpose of checking the other branches of government whenever necessary. He claimed that this power was shown in the making of yearly instead of permanent appropriations for the civil list and military establishments, yet when the House desired to strengthen public credit it had rendered the appropriation for those objects permanent and not yearly. It was, therefore, "contradictory to suppose that the House was bound to do a certain act at the same time that they were exercising the discretionary power of voting upon it." The debate determined nothing, but it is of interest as the first declaration in Congress of the supremacy of the House of Representatives.

The great debate which, from the principles involved in it as well as the argument and oratory with which they were discussed, made this session of the House famous, was on the treaty with Great Britain. This was the first foreign treaty made since the establishment of the Constitution. The treaty was sent in to the House "for the information of Congress," by the President, on March 1, with notice of its ratification at London in October. The next day Mr. Edward Livingston moved that the President be requested to send in a copy of the instructions to the minister of the United States who negotiated the treaty, together with the correspondence and other documents. A few days later he amended his resolution by adding an exception of such of said papers as any existing negotiations rendered improper to disclose. The Senate in its ratification of the treaty suspended the operation of the clause regulating the trade with the West Indies, on which Great Britain still imposed the old colonial restriction, and recommended the President to open negotiations on this subject; and in fact such negotiations were in progress. The discussion was opened on the Federal side by a request to the gentlemen in favor of the call to give their reasons. Mr. Gallatin supported the resolution, and expressed surprise at any objection, considering that the exception of the mover rendered the resolution of itself unexceptionable. The President had not informed the House of the reasons upon which the treaty was based. If he did not think proper to give the information sought for, he would say so to them. A question might arise whether the House should get at those secrets even if the President refused the request, but that was not the present question. In reply to Mr. Murray, who asserted that the treaty was the supreme law of the land, and that there was no discretionary power in the House except on the question of its constitutionality, Mr. Gallatin said that Congress possessed the power of regulating trade,--perhaps the treaty-making power clashed with that,--and concluded by observing that the House was the grand inquest of the nation, and that it had the right to call for papers on which to ground an impeachment. At present he did not contemplate an exercise of that right. Mr. Madison said it was now to be decided whether the general power of making treaties supersedes the powers of the House of Representatives, particularly specified in the Constitution, so as to give to the executive all deliberative will and leave the House only an executive and ministerial instrumental agency; and he proposed to amend the resolution so as to read, "except so much of said papers as in his (the President's) judgment it may be inconsistent with the interest of the United States at this time to disclose." But his motion was defeated by a vote of 47 nays to 37 yeas.

The discussion being resumed in committee of the whole, the expressions of opinion were free on both sides, but so moderate that one of the members made comment on the calmness and temper of the discussion. Nicholas said that, if the treaty were not the law of the land, the President should be impeached. But the parts of the treaty into which the President had not the right to enter, he could not make law by proclamation. Swanwick supported the call as one exercised by the House of Commons. On the Federal side, Harper said that the papers were not necessary, and, being unnecessary, the demand was an improper and unconstitutional interference with the executive department. If he thought them necessary, he would change the milk and water style of the resolutions. In that case the House had a right to them and he had no idea of requesting as a favor what should be demanded as a right. Gallatin, he said, had declared that it was a request, but that in case of refusal it might be considered whether demand should not be made, and he charged that when, at the time the motion was made, the question had been asked, what use was to be made of the papers, Gallatin did not and could not reply. Mr. Gallatin answered that whether the House had a discretionary power, or whether it was bound by the instrument, there was no impropriety in calling for the papers. He hoped to have avoided the constitutional question in the motion, but as the gentlemen had come forward on that ground, he had no objection to rest the decision of the constitutional power of Congress on the fate of the present question. He would therefore state that the House had a right to ask for the papers.

The constitutional question being thus squarely introduced, Mr. Gallatin made an elaborate speech, which, from its conciseness in statement, strength of argument, and wealth of citations of authority, was, to say the least, inferior to no other of those drawn out in this memorable struggle. In its course he compared the opinion of those who had opposed the resolution to the saying of an English bishop, that the people had nothing to do with the law but to obey it, and likened their conduct to the servile obedience of a Parliament of Paris under the old order of things. He concluded with the hope that the dangerous doctrine, that the representatives of the people have not the right to consult their discretion when about exercising powers delegated by the Constitution, would receive its death-blow. Griswold replied in what by common consent was the strongest argument on the Federal side. The call, at first view simple, had, he said, become a grave matter. The gist of his objection to it was that the people in their Constitution had made the treaty power paramount to the legislative, and had deposited that power with the President and Senate.

Mr. Madison once more rose to the constitutional question. He said that, if the passages of the Constitution be taken literally, they must clash. The word _supreme_, as applied to treaties, meant as over the state Constitutions, and not over the Constitution and laws of the United States. He supported Mr. Gallatin's view of the congressional power as coöperative with the treaty power. A construction which made the treaty power omnipotent he thought utterly inadmissible in a constitution marked throughout with limitations and checks.

Mr. Gallatin again claimed the attention of the House, as the original question of a call for papers had resolved itself into a discussion on the treaty-making power. In the treaty of peace of 1783 there were three articles which might be supposed to interfere with the legislative powers of the several States: 1st, that which related to the payment of debts; 2d, the provision for no future confiscations; 3d, the restitution of estates already confiscated. The first could not be denied. "Those," he said, "might be branded with the epithet of disorganizers, who threatened a dissolution of the Union in case the measures they dictated were not obeyed; and he knew, although he did not ascribe it to any member of the House, that men high in office and reputation had industriously spread an alarm that the Union would be dissolved if the present motion was carried." He took the ground that a treaty is not valid, and does not bind the nation as such, till it has received the sanction of the House of Representatives. Mr. Harper closed the argument on the Federal side. On March 24 the resolution calling for the papers was carried by a vote of yeas 62, nays 37, absent 5, the speaker 1 (105). Livingston and Gallatin were appointed to present the request to the President.

On March 30 the President returned answer to the effect that he considered it a dangerous precedent to admit this right in the House; that the assent of the House was not necessary to the validity of a treaty; and he absolutely refused compliance with the request. The letter of instructions to Jay would bear the closest examination, but the cabinet scorned to take shelter behind it, and it was on their recommendation that the President's refusal was explicit. This message, in spite of the opposition of the Federalists, was referred, by a vote of 55 yeas to 37 nays, to the committee of the whole. This reference involved debate. In his opposition to this motion, Mr. Harper said that the motives of the friends of the resolution had been avowed by the "gentleman who led the business, from Pennsylvania;" whereby it appears that Mr. Gallatin led the Republicans in the first debate. During this his first session he shared this distinction with Mr. Madison. At the next he became the acknowledged leader of the Republican party.

On April 3 the debate was resumed. This second debate was led by Mr. Madison, who considered two points: 1st, the application for papers; 2d, the constitutional rights of Congress. His argument was of course calm and dispassionate after his usual manner. The contest ended on April 7, with the adoption of two resolutions: 1st, that the power of making treaties is exclusively with the President and Senate, and the House do not claim an agency in making them, or ratifying them when made; 2d, that when made a treaty must depend for the execution of its stipulations on a law or laws to be passed by Congress; and the House have a right to deliberate and determine the expediency or inexpediency of carrying treaties into effect. These resolutions were carried by a vote of 63 to 27.

There was now a truce of a few days. In the meanwhile the country was agitated to an extent which, if words mean anything, really threatened an attempt at dissolution of the Union, if not civil war itself. The objections on the part of the Republicans were to the treaty as a whole. Their sympathies were with France in her struggle for liberty and democratic institutions and against England, and their real and proper ground of antipathy to the instrument lay in its concession of the right of capture of French property in American vessels, whilst the treaty with France forbade her to seize British property in American vessels. The objections in detail had been formulated at the Boston public meeting the year before. The commercial cities were disturbed by the interference with the carrying trade; the entire coast, by the search of vessels and the impressment of seamen; the agricultural regions, by the closing of the outlet for their surplus product; the upland districts, by the stoppage of the export of timber. But the country was without a navy, was ill prepared for war, and the security of the frontier was involved in the restoration of the posts still held by the British.

The political situation was uncertain if not absolutely menacing. The threats of disunion were by no means vague. The Pendleton Society in Virginia had passed secession resolutions, and a similar disposition appeared in other States. While the treaty was condemned in the United States, British statesmen were not of one opinion as to the advantages they had gained by Grenville's diplomacy. Jay's desire, expressed to Randolph, "to manage so that in case of wars our people should be united and those of England divided," was not wholly disappointed. And there is on record the expression of Lord Sheffield, when he heard of the rupture in 1812, "We have now a complete opportunity of getting rid of that most impolitic treaty of 1794, when Lord Grenville was so perfectly duped by Jay."[4] Washington's ratification of the treaty went far to correct the hasty judgment of the people, and to reconcile them to it as a choice of evils. Supported by this modified tone of public opinion, the Federalists determined to press the necessary appropriation bills for carrying the treaties into effect. Besides the Jay treaty there were also before the House the Wayne treaty with the Indians, the Pinckney treaty with Spain, and the treaty with Algiers. With these three the House was entirely content, and the country was impatient for their immediate operation. Wayne's treaty satisfied the inhabitants on the frontier. The settlers along the Ohio, among whom was Gallatin's constituency, were eager to avail themselves of the privileges granted by that of Pinckney, which was a triumph of diplomacy; and all America, while ready to beard the British lion, seems to have been in terror of the Dey of Algiers. Mr. Sedgwick offered a resolution providing for the execution of the four treaties. Mr. Gallatin insisted on and received a separate consideration of each. That with Great Britain was reserved till the rest were disposed of. It was taken up on April 14. Mr. Madison opened the debate. He objected to the treaty as wanting in real reciprocity; 2d, in insufficiency of its provisions as to the rights of neutrals; 3d, because of its commercial restrictions. Other Republican leaders followed, making strong points of the position in which the treaty placed the United States with regard to France, to whom it was bound by a treaty of commercial alliance, which was a part of the contract of aid in the Revolutionary War; and also of the possible injustice which would befall American claimants in the British courts of admiralty.

The Federalists clung to their ground, defended the treaty as the best attainable, and held up as the alternative a war, for which the refusal of the Republicans to support the military establishment and build up a navy left the country unprepared. In justice to Jay, his significant words to Randolph, while doubtful of success in his negotiation, should be remembered: "Let us hope for the best and prepare for the worst." To the red flag which the Federalists held up, Mr. Gallatin replied, accepting the consequences of war if it should come, and gave voice to the extreme dissatisfaction of the Virginia radicals with Jay and the negotiation. He charged that the cry of war and threats of a dissolution of the government were designed for an impression on the timidity of the House. "It was through the fear of being involved in a war that the negotiation with Great Britain had originated; under the impression of fear the treaty had been negotiated and signed; a fear of the same danger, that of war, had promoted its ratification; and now every imaginary mischief which could alarm our fears was conjured up in order to deprive us of that discretion which this House thought they had a right to exercise, and in order to force us to carry the treaty into effect." He insisted on the important principle that 'free ships make free goods,' and complained of its abandonment by the negotiators.

In a reply to this attack upon Jay, whose whole life was a refutation of the charge of personal or moral timidity, Mr. Tracy passed the limits of parliamentary courtesy. "The people," he said, "where he was most acquainted, whatever might be the character of other parts of the Union, were not of the stamp to cry hosannah to-day and crucify to-morrow; they will not dance around a whiskey pole to-day and curse their government, and upon hearing of a military force sneak into a swamp. No," said he, "my immediate constituents, whom I very well know, understand their rights and will defend them, and if they find the government will not protect them, they will attempt at least to protect themselves;" and he concluded, "I cannot be thankful to that gentleman for coming all the way from Geneva to give Americans a character for pusillanimity." He held it madness to suppose that if the treaty were defeated war could be avoided. Called to order, he said that he might have been too personal, and asked pardon of the gentleman and of the House.

The brilliant crown of the debate was the impassioned speech of Fisher Ames, the impression of which upon the House and the crowded gallery is one of the traditions of American oratory. The scene, as it has been handed down to us, resembles, in all save its close, that which Parliament presented when Chatham made his last and dying appeal. Like the great earl, Ames rose pale and trembling from illness to address a House angry and divided. Defending himself and the Federal party against the charge of being in English interest, he said, "Britain has no influence, and can have none. She has enough--and God forbid she ever should have more. France, possessed of popular enthusiasm, of party attachments, has had and still has _too much influence_ on our politics,--any foreign influence is too much and ought to be destroyed. I detest the man and disdain the spirit that can ever bend to a mean subserviency to the views of any nation. It is enough to be American. That character comprehends our duties and ought to engross our attachments." Considering the probable influence on the Indian tribes of the rejection of the treaty, he said, "By rejecting the Posts we light the savage fires, we bind the victims.... I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and shrieks of torture. Already they seem to sigh in the west wind,--already they mingle with every echo from the mountains." His closing words again bring Chatham to mind. "Yet I have perhaps as little personal interest in the event as any one here. There is, I believe, no member who will not think his chance to be a witness of the consequences greater than mine. If, however, the vote should pass to reject, and a spirit should rise, as rise it will, with the public disorders to make confusion worse confounded, even I, slender and almost broken as my hold upon life is, may outlive the government and Constitution of my country." This appeal, supported by the petitions and letters which poured in upon the House, left no doubt of the result. An adjournment was carried, but the speech was decisive. The next day, April 29, it was resolved to be expedient to make the necessary appropriations to carry the treaty into effect. The vote stood 49 ayes to 49 nays, and was decided in the affirmative by Muhlenberg, who was in the chair. But the House would not be satisfied without an expression of condemnation of the instrument. On April 30 it was resolved that in the opinion of the House the treaty was objectionable.

While Mr. Gallatin in this debate rose to the highest rank of statesmanship, he showed an equal mastery of other important subjects which engaged the attention of the House during the session. He was earnest for the protection of the frontier, but had no good opinion of the Indians. "Twelve years had passed," he said, "since the peace of 1783; ever since that time he had lived on the frontier of Pennsylvania. Not a year of this period had passed, whether at war or peace, that some murders had not been committed by the Indians, and yet not an act of invasion or provocation by the inhabitants." In the matter of impressment of American seamen, he urged the lodging of sufficient power in the executive. Men had been impressed, and he held it to be the duty of the House to take notice of it by war or negotiation. In the establishment of land offices for the sale of the western lands he brought to bear upon legislation his practical experience. He urged that the tracts for sale be divided, and distinctions be made between large purchasers and actual settlers--proposing that the large tracts be sold at the seat of government, and the small on the territory itself. He instanced the fact that in 1792 all the land west of the Ohio was disposed of at 1_s_. 6_d_. the acre, and a week afterwards was resold at $1.50, so that the money which should have gone into the treasury went to the pockets of speculators. He also suggested that the proceeds of the sales should be a fund to pay the public debt, and that the public stock should always be received at its value in payment for land; a plan by which the land would be brought directly to the payment of the debt, as foreigners would gladly exchange the money obligations of the government for land. On the question of taxation he declared himself in favor of direct taxes, and held that a tax on houses and lands could be levied without difficulty. He would satisfy the people that it was to pay off the public debt, which he held to be a public curse. He supported the excise duty on stills under regulations which would avoid the watching of persons and houses and inspection by officers, and proposed that licenses be granted for the time applied for.

The military establishment he opposed in every way, attacked the principle on which it was based, and fought every appropriation in detail, from the pay of a major-general to the cost of uniforms for the private soldiers. He was not afraid of the army, he said, but did not think that it was necessary for the support of the government or dangerous to the liberties of the people; moreover, it cost six hundred thousand dollars a year, which was a sum of consequence in the condition of the finances.

The navy found no more favor in his eyes. He denied that fleets were necessary to protect commerce. He challenged its friends to show, from the history of any nation in Europe as from our own, that commerce and the navy had gone hand in hand. There was no nation except Great Britain, he said, whose navy had any connection with commerce. Navies were instruments of power more calculated to annoy the trade of other nations than to protect that of the nations to which they belonged. The price England had paid for her navy was a debt of three hundred millions of pounds sterling. He opposed appropriations even for the three frigates, United States, Constitution, and Constellation,--the construction of which had been ordered,--the germs of that navy which was later to set his theory at naught, redeem the honor of the flag, protect our commerce, and release the country and the civilized world from ignominious tribute to the Mediterranean pirates, who were propitiated in this very session only at the cost of a million of dollars to the Treasury of the United States, and by the gift of a frigate.

In the debate over the payment of the sum of five millions, which the United States Bank had demanded from the government, the greatest part of which had been advanced on account of appropriations, he lamented the necessity, but urged the liquidation. This was the occasion of another personal encounter. In reply to a charge of Gallatin that the Federalists were in favor of debt, Sedgwick alluded to Gallatin's part in the Whiskey Insurrection, and said that none of those gentlemen whom Gallatin had charged with "an object to perpetuate and increase the public debt" had been known to have combined "in every measure which might obstruct the operation of law," nor had declared to the world "that the men who would accept of the offices to perform the necessary functions of government were lost to every sense of virtue;" "that from them was to be withheld every comfort of life which depended on those duties which as men and fellow-citizens we owe to each other. If," he said, "the gentlemen had been guilty of such nefarious practices, there would have been a sound foundation for the charge brought against them." Gallatin made no reply. This was the one political sin he had acknowledged. His silence was his expiation.

The Treasury Department and its control, past and present, was the object of his unceasing criticism. In April, 1796, he said, "The situation of the gentleman at the head of the department [Wolcott] was doubtless delicate and unpleasant; it was the more so when compared with that of his predecessor [Hamilton]. Both indeed had the same power to borrow money when necessary; but that power, which was efficient in the hands of the late secretary and liberally enough used by him, was become useless at present. He wished the present secretary to be extricated from his present difficulty. Nothing could be more painful than to be at the head of that department with an empty treasury, a revenue inadequate to the expenses, and no means to borrow." Nevertheless he feared that if it were declared that the payment of the debt incurred by themselves were to be postponed till the present generation were over, it might well be expected that the principle thus adopted by them would be cherished, that succeeding legislatures and administrations would follow in their steps, and that they were laying the foundations of that national curse,--a growing and perpetual debt.

On the last day of the session W. Smith had challenged the correctness of Gallatin's charge that there had been an increase of the public debt by five millions under the present administration, and claimed that there were errors in Gallatin's statement of more than four and a half millions. Gallatin defended his figures. At this day it is impossible to determine the merits of this dispute.

One incident of this session deserves mention as showing the distaste of Gallatin for anything like personal compliment, stimulated in this instance, perhaps, by his sense of Washington's dislike to himself. It had been the habit of the House since the commencement of the government to adjourn for a time on February 22, Washington's birthday, that members might pay their respects to the President. When the motion was made that the House adjourn for _half an hour_, the Republicans objected, and Gallatin, nothing loath to "bell the cat," moved that the words "half an hour" be struck out. His amendment was lost without a division. The motion to adjourn was then put and lost by a vote of 50 nays to 38 ayes. The House waited on the President at the close of the business of the day. On June 1 closed this long and memorable session, in which the assaults of the Republicans upon the administration were so persistent and embarrassing as to justify Wolcott's private note to Hamilton, April 29, 1796, that "unless a radical change of opinion can be effected in the Southern States, the existing establishments will not last eighteen months. The influence of Messrs. Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson must be diminished, or the public affairs will be brought to a stand." Here is found an early recognition of the political "triumvirate," and Gallatin is the first named.

Gallatin seems to have had some doubts as to his reëlection to Congress. As he did not reside in the Washington and Allegheny district, his name was not mentioned as a candidate, and, to use his own words, he expected to "be gently dropped without the parade of a resignation." In his distaste at separation from his wife, the desire to abandon public life grew upon him. But personal abuse of him in the newspapers exasperating his friends, he was taken up again in October, and he arrived on the scene, he says, too late to prevent it. He had no hope, however, of success, and was resolved to resign a seat to which he was in every way indifferent. "Ambition, love of power," he wrote to his wife on October 16, he had never felt, and he added, if vanity ever made one of the ingredients which impelled him to take an active part in public life, it had for many years altogether vanished away. He was nevertheless reëlected by the district he had represented.

* * * * *

The second session of the fourth Congress began on December 5, 1796. At the beginning of this session Mr. Gallatin took the reins of the Republican party, and held them till its close. The position of the Federalists had been strengthened before the country by the energy of Washington, who, impatient of the delays which Great Britain opposed to the evacuation of the posts, marched troops to the frontier and obtained their surrender. Adet, the new French minister, had dashed the feeling of attachment for France by his impudent notice to the President that the dissatisfaction of France would last until the executive of the United States should return to sentiments and measures more conformable to the interests and friendships of the two nations. In September Washington issued his Farewell Address, in which he gave the famous warning against foreign complications, which, approved by the country, has since remained its policy; but neither the prospect of his final withdrawal from the political and official field, nor the advice of Jefferson to moderate their zeal, availed to calm the bitterness of the ultra Republicans in the House.

The struggle over the answer to the President's message, which Fisher Ames on this occasion reported, was again renewed. An effort was made to strike out the passages complimentary to Washington and expressing regret at his approaching retirement. Giles, who made the motion, went so far as to say that he 'wished him to retire, and that this was the moment for his retirement, that the government could do very well without him, and that he would enjoy more happiness in his retirement than he possibly could in his present situation.' For his part he did not consider Washington's administration either "wise or firm," as the address said. Gallatin made a distinction between the administration and the legislature, and in lieu of the words, wise, firm, and patriotic administration, proposed to address the compliment directly to the wisdom, firmness, and patriotism of Washington. But Ames defended his report, and it was adopted by a vote of 67 to 12. Gallatin voted with the majority, but Livingston, Giles, and Macon held out with the small band of disaffected, among whom it is amusing also to find Andrew Jackson, who took his seat at this Congress to represent Tennessee, which had been admitted as a State at the last session.[5]

The indebtedness of the States to the general government, in the old balance sheet, on the payment of which Gallatin insisted, was a subject of difference between the Senate and the House. Gallatin was appointed chairman of the committee of conference on the part of the House. The reduction of the military establishment, which he wished to bring down to the footing of 1792, was again insisted upon. Gallatin here ingeniously argued against the necessity for the number of men proposed, that it was a mere matter of opinion, and if it was a matter of opinion, it was not strictly necessary, because if necessary it was no longer a matter of opinion. Naval appropriations were also opposed, on the ground that a navy was prejudicial to commerce. Taxation, direct and indirect, and compensation to public officers were also subjects of debate at this session. On the subject of appropriations, general or special, he was uncompromising. He charged upon the Treasury Department that notwithstanding the distribution of the appropriations they thought themselves at liberty to take money from an item where there was a surplus and apply it to another where it was wanted. To check such irregularity, he secured the passage of a resolution ordering that "the several sums shall be solely applied to the objects for which they are respectively appropriated," and tacked it to the appropriation bill. The Senate added an amendment removing the restriction, but Gallatin and Nicholas insisting on its retention, the House supported them by a vote of 52 to 36, and the Senate receded.

Notwithstanding the apparent enthusiasm of the House in the early part of the session, when the tricolor of France, a present from the French government to the United States, was sent by Washington to Congress, to be deposited with the archives of the nation, French influence was on the wane. The common sense of the country got the better of its passion. In the reaction the Federalists regained the popular favor for a season.

Whatever latent sympathy the French people may have had for America as the nation which set the example of resistance to arbitrary rule, the French government certainly was moved by no enthusiasm for abstract rights. Its only object was to check the power of their ancient enemy, and deprive it of its empire beyond the seas. Nevertheless, France did contribute materially to American success. The American government and people acknowledged the value of her assistance, and, in spite of the prejudices of race, there was a strong bond of sympathy between the two nations; and when, in her turn, France, in 1789, threw off the feudal yoke, she expected and she received the sympathy of America. Beyond this the government and the people of the United States could not and would not go. The position of France in the winter of 1796-97 was peculiar. She was at war with the two most formidable powers of Europe,--Austria and England, the one the mistress of Central Europe, the other supreme ruler of the seas. The United States was the only maritime power which could be opposed to Great Britain. The French government determined to secure American aid by persuasion, if possible, otherwise by threat. The Directory indiscreetly appealed from the American government to the American people, forgetting that in representative governments these are one. Nor was the precedent cited in defense of this unusual proceeding--namely, the appeal of the American colonists to the people of England, Ireland, and Canada to take part in the struggle against the British government--pertinent; for that was an appeal to sufferers under a common yoke.

The enthusiasm awakened in France by the dramatic reception of the American flag, presented by Monroe to the French Convention, was somewhat dampened by the cooler manner with which Congress received the tricolor, and was entirely dashed by the moderation of the reply of the House to Washington's message. The consent of the House to the appropriations to carry out the Jay Treaty decided the French Directory to suspend diplomatic relations with the United States. The marvelous successes of Bonaparte in Italy over the Austrian army encouraged Barras to bolder measures. The Directory not only refused to receive Charles C. Pinckney, the new American minister, but gave him formal notice to retire from French territory, and even threatened him with subjection to police jurisdiction. In view of this alarming situation, President Adams convened Congress.

The first session of the fifth Congress began at Philadelphia on Monday, May 15, 1797. Jonathan Dayton was reëlected speaker of the House. Some new men now appeared on the field of national debate: Samuel Sewall and Harrison Gray Otis from Massachusetts, James A. Bayard from Delaware, and John Rutledge, Jr., from South Carolina. Madison and Fisher Ames did not return, and their loss was serious to their respective parties. Madison was incontestably the finest reasoning power, and Ames, as an orator, had no equal in our history until Webster appeared to dwarf all other fame beside his matchless eloquence. Parties were nicely balanced, the nominal majority being on the Federal side. Harper and Griswold retained the lead of the administration party. Giles still led the Republican opposition, but Gallatin was its main stay, always ready, always informed, and already known to be in the confidence of Jefferson, its moving spirit. The President's message was, as usual, the touchstone of party. The debate upon it unmasked opinions. It was to all intents a war message, since it asked provision for war. The action of France left no alternative. The Republicans recognized this as well as the Federalists. They must either respond heartily to the appeal of the executive to maintain the national honor, or come under the charge they had brought against the Federalists of sympathy with an enemy. At first they sought a middle ground. Admitting that the rejection of our minister and the manner of it, if followed by a refusal of all negotiation on the subject of mutual complaints, would put an end to every friendly relation between the two countries, they still hoped that it was only a suspension of diplomatic intercourse. Hence, in response to the assurance in the message that an attempt at negotiation would first be made, Nicholas moved an amendment in this vein. The Federalists opposed all interference with the executive, but the Republicans took advantage of the debate to clear themselves of any taint of unpatriotic motives in their semi-opposition. The Federalists, repudiating the charge of British influence, held up Genet to condemnation, as making an appeal to the people, Fauchet as fomenting an insurrection, and Adet as insulting the government. The Republicans retorted upon them Grenville's proposition to Mr. Pinckney, to support the American government against the dangerous Jacobin factions which sought to overturn it. Gallatin deprecated bringing the conduct of foreign relations into debate, and hoped that the majority would resist the rashness which would drive the country into war; he claimed that a disposition should be shown to put France on an equal footing with other nations. He would offer an ultimatum to France. Harper closed the debate in a powerful and brilliant speech, opposing the amendment because he was for peace, and because peace could only be maintained by showing France that we were preparing for war. So the rival leaders based their opposite action on a common ground. Dayton, the speaker, now embodied Gallatin's idea in another form, and introduced a paragraph to the effect that "the House receive with the utmost satisfaction the information of the President that a fresh attempt at negotiation will be instituted, and cherish the hope that a mutual spirit of conciliation and a disposition on the part of the United States to place France on grounds as favorable as other countries will produce an accommodation compatible with the engagements, rights, and honor of our nation."

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

What, he asked, were these principles? Otis denounced this as an artful attempt to cast a censure, not only on the executive, but on all the departments of government, and Allen of Connecticut declared "that there was American blood enough in the House to approve this clause and American accent enough to pronounce it." The rough prejudice of the Saxon against the Latin race showed itself in this language, and expressed the antagonism which Mr. Gallatin found to increase with his political progress. Both the resolution and the amendment were defeated, 53 nays to 45 yeas. But when the final vote came upon the address, Mr. Gallatin, with that practical sense which made him the sheet anchor of his party in boisterous weather, voted with the Federalists and carried the moderate Republicans with him. The vote was 62 to 36. Among the irreconcilables the name of Edward Livingston is recorded.

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

This was the leading debate of the session. The situation was too grave for trifling. On June 5, two days after the President's reply, resolutions were introduced to put the country in a state of defense. Gallatin struggled hard to keep down the appropriations, and opposed the employment of the three frigates, which as yet had not been equipped or manned. If they got to sea, the President would have no option except to enforce the disputed articles of the French treaty. Gallatin laid down also the law of search in accordance with the law of nations, and pointed out that resistance to search or capture by merchantmen would not only lead to war, but was war. In the remaining acts of the session he was in favor of the defense of ports and harbors, with no preference as to fortification on government territory; in favor of a prohibition of the export of arms; against raising an additional corps of artillery; against expatriation of persons who took service under foreign governments. He opposed the duty on salt as unequal and unnecessary, and sought to have the loan, which became necessary, cut down to the exact sum of the deficiency in the appropriations; and finally, on the impeachment of William Blount, Senator of the United States, charged with having conspired with the British government to attack the Spaniards of St. Augustine, he pointed out the true method of procedure in the preparation of the bill of impeachment and the arraignment of the offender.

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

On January 18, 1798, Mr. Harper, who led the business of the House, moved the appropriation for foreign intercourse. This was seized upon by the opposition to advance still further their line of attack by a limitation of the constitutional prerogative of the President. In addition to the usual salaries of the envoys to Great Britain and France, appropriations were asked for the posts at Madrid, Lisbon, and Berlin, which last Mr. Adams had designated as a first-class mission. The discussion on the powers of the President, and the extent to which they might be controlled by paring down the appropriations, lifted the debate from the narrow ground of economy in administration to the higher plane of constitutional powers. Nicholas opened on the Republican side by announcing that it was seasonable to bring back the establishment of the diplomatic corps to the footing it had been on until the year 1796. In all governments like our own he declared that there was a tendency to a union and consolidation of all its parts into the executive, and the limitation and annexion of the parts with each other as settled by the Constitution would be destroyed by this influence unless there were a constant attention on the part of the legislature to resist it. The appointment of a minister plenipotentiary to Prussia, with which we had little or no commercial intercourse, offered an opportunity to determine this limitation. Harper said that this was a renewal of the old charge that foreign intercourse was unnecessary, and the old suggestion that our commerce ought to be given up or left to shift for itself. Mr. Gallatin laid down extreme theories which have never yet found practical application. He took the question at once from party or personal ground by admitting that the government was essentially pure, its patronage not extensive, or its effect upon the legislative or any other branch of the government as yet material. The Constitution had placed the patronage in the executive. There he thought it was wisely placed. The legislature would be more corrupt than the executive were it placed with them. While not willing at once to give up political foreign intercourse, he thought that it should by degrees be altogether declined. To it he ascribed the critical situation of the country. Commercial intercourse could be protected by the consular system. He then argued that the power to provide for expenses was the check intended by the Constitution. To this Griswold answered that this doctrine of checks contained more mischief than Pandora's box; Bayard, that the checks were all directed to the executive, and that they would check and counter-check until they _stopped the wheels of government_.[6] When the President was manacled and at the mercy of the House they would be satisfied. He held the executive to be the weakest branch of the government, because its powers are defined; but the limits of the House are undefined.

As the debate advanced, Nicholas declared that the purpose of the Republicans was to define the executive power and to put an end to its extension through their power over appropriations. Later he would bring in a motion to do away with all foreign intercourse. Goodrich answered that the office of foreign minister was created by the Constitution itself, and the power of appointment was placed in the President. The House might speculate upon the propriety of doing away with all intercourse with foreign powers, but could not decide on it, for political intercourse did not depend on the sending of ministers abroad. Foreign ministers would come here and the Constitution required their reception. The idea that we should have no foreign intercourse was taken from Washington's Farewell Address, but his words applied only to alliances offensive and defensive. If ministers were abandoned, envoys extraordinary must be sent, a much more dangerous practice; the only choice was between ministers and spies. In conclusion he accused the Republicans of making one continuous attack upon the administration, and charged that the opposition to the appropriation bill was not a single measure, but connected with others, and intended to clog the wheels of government.

The purpose of the Republicans being thus declared by Nicholas and squarely met by the friends of the administration, Mr. Gallatin, March 1, 1798, summed up the opposition arguments in an elaborate speech three hours and a quarter in length. He denied the novel doctrine that each department had checks within itself, but none upon others; he claimed that the principle of checks is admitted in all mixed governments. Commercial intercourse, he said, is regulated by the law of nations, by the municipal law of respective countries and by treaties of commerce, the application of which is the province of consuls. What advantages, he asked, had our commercial treaties given us, either that with France or that with England? He excepted that part of the treaty with Great Britain which arranged our difference with that power, as foreign to the discussion. He claimed that the restriction which we had laid upon ourselves by our commercial treaties had been attended with political consequences fatal to our tranquillity. Washington had advised a separation of our political from our commercial relations. The message of President Adams intimated a different policy and alluded to the balance of power in Europe as not to be forgotten or neglected. Interesting as that balance may be to Europe, how does it concern us? We shall never throw our weight into the scale. Passing from this to the danger of the absorption of powers by the executive, he cited the examples of the Córtes of Spain, the États Généraux of France, the Diets of Denmark. In all these countries the executive is in possession of legislative, of absolute powers. The fate of the European republics was similar. Venice, Switzerland, and Holland had shown the legislative powers merging into the executive. The object of the Constitution of the United States is to divide and distribute the powers of government. With uncontrolled command over the purse of the people the executive tends to prodigality, to taxes, and to wars. He closed with a hope that a fixed determination to prevent the increase of the national expenditure, and to detach the country from any connection with European politics, would tend to reconcile parties, promote the happiness of America, and conciliate the affection of every part of the Union. No such admirable exposition of the true American doctrine of non-interference with European politics had at that time been heard in Congress.

In reply, Harper insisted on the admission that the purpose of the amendment of Nicholas was to restrain the President; that it was a question of power, not of money. Mr. Gallatin admitted the right of appointment, but denied that the House was bound to appropriate. Harper rejoined that the offices did not originate with the President but with the Constitution, and that they could not be destroyed by the action of the House, and, leaving the general ground of debate, made a brilliant attack upon the Republicans as revolutionists, whom he divided into three classes: the philosophers, the Jacobins, and the _sans-culottes_. The philosophers are most to be dreaded. "They declaim with warmth on the miseries of mankind, the abuses of government, and the vices of rulers; all which they engage to remove, providing their theories should once be adopted. They talk of the perfectibility of man and of the dignity of his nature; and, entirely forgetting what he is, declaim perpetually about what he should be." Of Jacobins there are plenty. They profit by the labors of others; tyrants in power, demagogues when not. Fortunately for America there are few or no _sans-culottes_ among her inhabitants. Jefferson, he said, returned from France a missionary to convert Americans to the new faith, and he charged that the system of French alliance and war with Great Britain by the United States was a part of the scheme of the French revolutionists, and was imported into this country. Gallatin and his friends he regarded in the light of an enemy who has commenced a siege against the fortress of the Constitution.

The restricting amendment was lost, and the bill passed by a vote of 52 yeas to 43 nays. Nor is it easy to see how the theory of Mr. Gallatin with regard to diplomatic relations could have been applied successfully with the existing channels of intercourse. Now that the ocean cable brings governments into direct relation with each other, there is a tendency to restrict the authority of ambassadors, for whom there is no longer need, and the entire system will no doubt soon disappear. Mr. Gallatin's speech was the delight of his party and his friends. He was called upon to write it out, and two thousand copies of it were circulated as the best exposition of Republican doctrine.

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

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

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

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

Allen of Connecticut read a passage from the dispatches which envenomed the debate. By it one of the French agents appears to have warned the American envoys that they were mistaken in supposing that an exposition of the unreasonable demands of France would unite the people of the United States. He said, "You should know that the _diplomatic skill_ of France and the _means_ she possesses in your country are sufficient to enable her, with the _French party_ in America, to throw the blame which will attend the rupture of the negotiations on the _Federalists_, as you term yourselves, but on the _British party_, as France terms you, and you may assure yourselves this will be done." Allen then charged upon Gallatin that his language was that of a foreign agent. Gallatin replied that the representatives of the French Republic in this country had shown themselves to be the worst diplomatists that had ever been sent to it, and he asked why the gentlemen who did not come forward with a declaration of war (though they were willing to go to war without the declaration) charge their adversaries with meaning to submit to France. France might declare war or give an order to seize American vessels, but as long as she did not, some hope remained that the state of peace might not be broken; and he said in conclusion "that, notwithstanding all the violent charges and personal abuse which had been made against him, it would produce no difference in his manner of acting, neither prevent him from speaking against every measure which he thought injurious to the public interest, nor, on the other hand, inflame his mind so as to induce him to oppose measures which he might heretofore have thought proper."

The war feeling ran high in the country; "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute,"[7] was the popular cry. On May 28 Mr. Harper introduced a bill to suspend commercial intercourse with France. Gallatin thought this a doubtful measure. Its avowed purpose was to distress France in the West Indies, but he said that in six months that entire trade would be by neutral vessels. In the discussion on the bill to regulate the arming of merchant vessels, he showed that it was the practice of neutral European nations to allow such vessels to arm, but not to regulate their conduct. Bonds are required in cases of letter of marque, and the merchant who arms is bound not to break the laws of nations or the agreements of treaties. Restriction was therefore unnecessary. Government should not interfere. Commercial intercourse with France was suspended June 13.

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

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

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

On July 5 a resolution was moved to appoint a committee to consider the expediency of declaring, by legislative act, the state of relations between the United States and the French Republic. Mr. Gallatin asked if a declaration of war could not be moved as an amendment, but the speaker, Mr. Dayton, made no reply. Mr. Gallatin objected that Congress could not declare a state of facts by a legislative act. But this view, if tenable then, has long since been abandoned. In witness of which it is only necessary to name the celebrated resolution of the Congress of 1865 with regard to the recognition of a monarchy in Mexico. July 6 the House went into committee of the whole on the state of the Union to consider a bill sent down by the Senate abrogating the treaty with France. The bill was passed on the 16th by a vote of 47 ayes to 37 nays, Gallatin voting in the negative. The House adjourned the same day.

While thus engaged in debates which called into exercise his varied information and displayed not only the extent of his learning but his remarkable powers of reasoning and statement, Mr. Gallatin never lost sight of reform in the administration of the finances of the government. To the success of his efforts to hold the Treasury Department to a strict conformity with his theory of administration, Mr. Wolcott, the secretary, gave ample if unwilling testimony. To Hamilton he wrote on April 5, 1798, "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."

During these warm discussions Gallatin rarely lost his self-control. Writing to his old friend Lesdernier at this period, he said, "You may remember I am blessed with a very even temper; it has not been altered by time or politics."

* * * * *

The third session of the fifth Congress opened on December 3, 1798. On the 8th, when the President was expected, Lieutenant-General Washington and Generals Pinckney and Hamilton entered the hall and took their places on the right of the speaker's chair. They had been recently appointed to command the army of defense.

The President's speech announced no change in the situation. "Nothing," he said, "is discoverable in the conduct of France which ought to change or relax our measures for defense. On the contrary, to extend and invigorate them is our true policy. An efficient preparation for war can alone insure peace. It must be left to France, if she is indeed desirous of accommodation, to take the requisite steps. The United States will steadily observe the maxims by which they have hitherto been governed." The reply to this patriotic sentiment was unanimously agreed to, and was most grateful to Adams, who thanked the House for it as "consonant to the characters of representatives of a great and free people."

On December 27 a peculiar resolution was introduced to punish the usurpation of the executive authority of the government of the United States in carrying on correspondence with the government of any foreign prince or state. Gallatin thought this resolution covered too much ground. The criminality of such acts did not lie in their being usurpations, but in the nature of the crime committed. There was no authority in the Constitution for a grant of such a power to the President. To afford aid and comfort to the enemy was treason, but there was no war, and therefore no enemy. He claimed the right to himself and others to do all in his power to secure a peace, even by correspondence abroad, and he would not admit that the ground taken by the friends of the measure was a proper foundation for a general law. A committee was, however, appointed, in spite of this remonstrance, to consider the propriety of including in the general act all persons who should commence or carry on a correspondence, by a vote of 65 to 23. A bill was reported on January 9, when Gallatin endeavored to attach a proviso that the law should not operate upon persons seeking justice or redress from foreign governments; but his motion was defeated by a vote of 48 to 37. Later, however, a resolution of Mr. Parker, that nothing in the act should be construed to abridge the rights of any citizen to apply for such redress, was adopted by a vote of 69 yeas to 27 nays. On this vote Harper voted yea. Griswold, Otis, Bayard, and Goodrich were found among the nays. Gallatin succeeded in carrying an amendment defining the bill, after which it was passed by a vote of 58 to 36.

Towards the close of January, 1799, a bill was brought in authorizing the President to discontinue the restraints of the act suspending intercourse with the French West India Islands, whenever any persons in authority or command should so request. This was to invite a secession of the French colonies from the mother country. Gallatin deprecated any action which might induce rebellion against authority, or lead to self-government among the people of the islands who were unfit for it. Moreover, such action would remove still further every expectation of an accommodation with France. The bill was passed by a vote of 55 to 37. He objected to the bill to authorize the President to suspend intercourse with Spanish and Dutch ports which should harbor French privateers, as placing an unlimited power to interdict commerce in the hands of the executive. The bill was carried by 55 to 37. On the question of the augmentation of the navy he opposed the building of the seventy-fours.

In February Edward Livingston presented a petition from aliens, natives of Ireland, against the Alien and Sedition laws. Numerous similar petitions followed; one was signed by 18,000 persons in Pennsylvania alone. To postpone consideration of the subject, the Federalists sent these papers to a select committee, against the protests of Livingston and Gallatin. This course was the more peculiar because of the reference of petitions of a similar character in the month previous to the committee of the whole. The Federalists were abusing their majority, and precipitating their unexpected but certain ruin. One more effort was made to repeal the offensive penal act; the constitutional objection was again pleaded, but the repeal was defeated by a vote of 52 in the affirmative. Mr. Gallatin opposed these laws in all their stages, but, failing in this, persistently endeavored to make them as good as possible before they passed. Jefferson later said that nothing could obliterate from the recollection of those who were witnesses of it the courage of Gallatin in the "Days of Terror."[8] The vote of thanks to Mr. Dayton, the speaker, was carried by a vote of 40 to 22. On March 3, 1800, this Congress adjourned.

* * * * *

The sixth Congress met at Philadelphia on December 2, 1799. The Federalists were returned in full majority. Among the new members of the House, John Marshall and John Randolph appeared for Virginia. Theodore Sedgwick was chosen speaker. President Adams came down to the House on the 3d and made the usual speech. The address in reply, reported by a committee of which Marshall was chairman, was agreed to without amendment. Adams was again delighted with the very respectful terms adopted at the "first assembly after a fresh election, under the strong impression of the public opinion and national sense at this interesting and singular crisis." At this session it was the sad privilege of Marshall to announce the death of Washington, "the Hero, the Sage, and the Patriot of America." In the shadow of this great grief, party passion was hushed for a while.

Gallatin again led the Republican opposition; Nicholas and Macon were his able lieutenants. The line of attack of the Republicans was clear. If war could be avoided, the growing unpopularity of the Alien and Sedition laws would surely bring them to power. The foreign-born voter was already a factor in American politics. In January the law providing for an addition to the army was suspended. Macon then moved the repeal of the Sedition Law. He took the ground that it was a measure of defense. Bayard adroitly proposed as an amendment that "the offenses therein specified shall remain punishable as at common law, provided that upon any prosecution it shall be lawful for the defendant to give as his defense the truth of the matter charged as a libel." Gallatin called upon the chair to declare the amendment out of order, as intended to destroy the resolution, but the speaker declined, and the amendment was carried by a vote of 51 to 47. The resolution thus amended was then defeated by a vote of 87 to 1. The Republicans preferred the odious act in its original form rather than accept the Federal interpretation of it.

On February 11, 1800, a bill was introduced into Congress further to suspend commercial intercourse with France. It passed the House after a short debate by a vote of 68 yeas to 28 nays. On this bill the Republican leaders were divided. Nicholas, Macon, and Randolph opposed it; but Gallatin, separating from his friends, carried enough of his party with him to secure its passage. Returned by the Senate with amendments, it was again objected to by Macon as fatal to the interests of the Southern States, but the House resolved to concur by a vote of 50 to 36.

In March the country was greatly excited by the news of an engagement on the 1st of February, off Guadaloupe, between the United States frigate Constellation, thirty-eight guns, and a French national frigate, La Vengeance, fifty-four guns. The House of Representatives called on the secretary of the navy for information, and, by 84 yeas to 4 nays, voted a gold medal to Captain Truxton, who commanded the American ship. John Randolph's name is recorded in the negative.

Notwithstanding this collision, the relations of the United States and France were gradually assuming a kindlier phase. The Directory had sought to drive the American government into active measures against England. Bonaparte, chosen First Consul, at once adopted a conciliatory tone. Preparing for a great continental struggle, he was concentrating the energies and the powers of France. In May Mr. Parker called the attention of the House to this change of conduct in the French government and offered a resolution instructing the Committee on Commerce to inquire if any amendments to the Foreign Intercourse Act were necessary. Macon moved to amend so that the inquiry should be whether it were not expedient to repeal the act. Gallatin opposed the resolution on the ground that it was highly improper to take any measures at the present time which would change the defensive system of the country. The resolution was negatived,--43 nays to 40 yeas.

One singular opposition of Gallatin is recorded towards the close of the session; the Committee on the Treasury Department reported an amendment to the act of establishment, providing that the secretary of the treasury shall lay before Congress, at the commencement of every session, a report on finance with plans for the support of credit, etc. Gallatin and Nicholas opposed this bill, because it came down from the Senate, which had no constitutional right to originate a money bill; but Griswold and Harper at once took the correct ground that it was not a bill, but a report on the state of the finances, in which the Senate had an equal share with the House. The bill was passed by a vote of 43 to 39. It is worthy of note that the first report on the state of the finances communicated under this act was by Mr. Gallatin himself the next year, and that it was sent in to the Senate. The House adjourned on May 14, 1800.

* * * * *

The second session of the sixth Congress was held at the city of Washington, to which the seat of government had been removed in the summer interval. After two southerly migrations they were now definitively established at a national capital. The session opened on November 17, 1800. On the 22d President Adams congratulated Congress on "the prospect of a residence not to be changed." The address of the House in reply was adopted by a close vote.

The situation of foreign relations was changed. The First Consul received the American envoys cordially, and a commercial convention was made but secured ratification by the Senate only after the elimination of an article and a limitation of its duration to eight years. While the bill was pending in the Senate, Mr. Samuel Smith moved to continue the act to suspend commercial intercourse with France. Mr. Gallatin opposed this motion; at the last session he had voted for this bill because there was only the appearance of a treaty. Now that the precise state of negotiation was known, why should the House longer leave this matter to the discretion of the President? The House decided to reject the indiscreet bill by a vote of 59 to 37. An effort was also made to repeal a part of the Sedition Law, and continue the rest in force, but the House refused to order the engrossing of the bill, taking wise counsel of Dawson, who said that, supported by the justice and policy of their measures, the approaching administration would not need the aid of either the alien, sedition, or common law. The opponents of the bill would not consent to any modification. The last scenes of the session were of exciting interest.

Freed from the menace of immediate war, the people of plain common sense recognized that the friendship of Great Britain was more dangerous than the enmity of France. They dreaded the fixed power of an organized aristocracy far more than the ephemeral anarchy of an ill-ordered democracy; they were more averse to class distinctions protected by law than even to military despotism which destroyed all distinctions, and they preferred, as man always has preferred and always will prefer, personal to political equality. The Alien and Sedition laws had borne their legitimate fruit. The foreign-born population held the balance of power; a general vote would have shown a large Republican or, it is more correct to say, anti-Federalist majority. But the popular will could not be thus expressed. Under the old system each elector in the electoral college cast his ballot for president and vice-president without designation of his preference as to who should fill the first place. New England was solid for Adams, who, however, had little strength beyond the limits of this Federal stronghold. New York and the Southern States with inconsiderable exceptions were Republican. Pennsylvania was so divided in the legislature that her entire vote would have been lost but for a compromise which gave to the Republicans one vote more than to the Federalists. Adams being out of the question, the election to the first place lay between Jefferson and Burr, both Republicans. The Federalists, therefore, had their option between the two Republican candidates, and the result was within the reach of that most detestable of combinations, a political bargain. Mr. Gallatin's position in this condition of affairs was controlling. His loyalty to Jefferson was unquestioned, while Burr was the favorite of the large Republican party in New York whose leaders were Mr. Gallatin's immediate friends and warm supporters. Both Jefferson and Burr were accused of bargaining to secure enough of the Federalist vote to turn the scale. That Mr. Jefferson did make some sacrifice of his independence is now believed. Whether Mr. Gallatin was aware of any such compromise is uncertain. If such bargain were made, General Samuel Smith was the channel of arrangement, and in view of the inexplicable and ignominious deference of Jefferson and Madison to his political demands, there is little doubt that he held a secret power which they dared not resist. Gallatin felt it, suffered from it, protested against it, but submitted to it.

The fear was that Congress might adjourn without a conclusion. To meet this emergency Mr. Gallatin devised a plan of balloting in the House, which he communicated to Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Nicholas. It stated the objects of the Federalists to be, 1st, to elect Burr; 2d, to defeat the present election and order a new one; 3d, to assume _executive_ power during the interregnum. These he considers, and suggests alternative action in case of submission or resistance on the part of the Republicans. The Federalists, holding three branches of government, viz., the presidency, a majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House, might pass a law declaring that one of the great officers designated by the Constitution should act as president pro tempore, which would be constitutional. But while Mr. Gallatin in this paragraph admitted such a law to be constitutional, in the next he argued that the act of the person designated by law, or of the president pro tempore, assuming the power is clearly "unconstitutional." By this ingenious process of reasoning, to which the strict constructionists have always been partial, it might be unconstitutional to carry out constitutional law. The assumption of such power was therefore, Mr. Gallatin held, usurpation, to be resisted in one of two ways; by declaring the interval till the next session of Congress an interregnum, allowing all laws not immediately connected with presidential powers to take their course, and opposing a silent resistance to all others; or by the Republicans assuming the executive power by a joint act of the two candidates, or by the relinquishment of all claims by one of them. On the other hand, the proposed outlines of Republican conduct were, 1st, to persevere in voting for Mr. Jefferson; 2d, to use every endeavor to defeat any law on the subject; 3d, to try to persuade Mr. Adams to refuse his consent to any such law and not to call the Senate on any account if there should be no choice by the House.

In a letter written in 1848 Mr. Gallatin said that a provision by law, that if there should be no election the executive power be placed in the hands of some public officer, was a revolutionary act of usurpation which would have been put down by force if necessary. It was threatened that, if any man should be thus appointed President he should instantly be put to death, and bodies of men were said to be organized, in Maryland and Virginia, ready to march to Washington on March 4 for that purpose. The fears of violence were so great that to Governor McKean of Pennsylvania was submitted the propriety of having a body of militia in readiness to reach the capital in time to prevent civil war. From this letter of Mr. Gallatin, then the last surviving witness of the election, only one conclusion can be drawn: that the Republicans would have preferred violent resistance to temporary submission, even though the officer exercising executive powers was appointed in accordance with law. Fortunately for the young country there was enough good sense and patriotism in the ranks of the Federalists to avert the danger.

On the suggestion of Mr. Bayard it was agreed by a committee of sixteen members, one from each State, that if it should appear that the two persons highest on the list, Jefferson and Burr, had an equal number of votes, the House should immediately proceed in their own chamber to choose the president by ballot, and should not adjourn until an election should have been made. On the first ballot there was a tie between Jefferson and Burr; the deadlock continued until February 17, when the Federalists abandoned the contest, and Mr. Jefferson received the requisite number of votes. Burr, having the second number, became vice-president.

Mr. Gallatin's third congressional term closed with this Congress. In his first term he asserted his power and took his place in the councils of the party. In his second, he became its acknowledged chief. In the third, he led its forces to final victory. But for his opposition, war would have been declared against France, and the Republican party would have disappeared in the political chasm. But for his admirable management, Mr. Jefferson would have been relegated to the study of theoretical government on his Monticello farm, or to play second fiddle at the Capitol to the music of Aaron Burr.

In the foregoing analysis of the debates and resolutions of Congress, and the recital of the part taken in them by Mr. Gallatin, attention has only been paid to such of the proceedings as concerned the interpretation of the Constitution or the forms of administration with which Mr. Gallatin interested himself. From the day of his first appearance he commanded the attention and the respect of his fellows. The leadership of his party fell to him as of course. It was not grasped by him. He was never a partisan. He never waived his entire independence of judgment. His ingenuity and adroitness never tempted him to untenable positions. Hence his party followed him with implicit confidence. Yet while the debates of Congress, imperfectly reported as they seem to be in its annals, show the deference paid to him by the Republican leaders, and display the great share he took in the definition of powers and of administration as now understood, his name is hardly mentioned in history. Jefferson and Madison became presidents of the United States. They, with Gallatin, formed the triumvirate which ruled the country for sixteen years. Gallatin was the youngest of the three.[9] To this political combination Gallatin brought a knowledge of constitutional law equal to their own, a knowledge of international law superior to that of either, and a habit of practical administration of which they had no conception. The Republican party lost its chief when Gallatin left the House; from that day it floundered to its close.

In the balance of opinion there are no certain weights and measures. The preponderance of causes cannot be precisely ascertained. The freedom which the people of the United States enjoy to-day is not the work of any one party. Those who are descended from its original stock, and those whom its free institutions have since invited to full membership, owe that freedom to two causes: the one, formulated by Hamilton, a strong, central power, which, deriving its force from the people, maintains its authority at home and secures respect abroad; the other, the spirit of liberty which found expression in the famous declaration of the rights of man. This influence Jefferson represented. It taught the equality of man; not equality before the law alone, nor yet political equality, but that absolute freedom from class distinction which is true social equality; in a word, mutual respect. But for Hamilton we might be a handful of petty States, in discordant confederation or perpetual war; but for Jefferson, a prey to the class jealousy which unsettles the social relations and threatens the political existence of European States.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: Lord Sheffield to Mr. Abbott, November 6, 1812. _Correspondence of Lord Colchester_, ii. 409.]

[Footnote 5: Gallatin later described Jackson as he first saw him in his seat in the House: "A tall, lank, uncouth looking individual, with long locks of hair hanging over his brows and face, while a queue hung down his back tied in an eelskin. The dress of this individual was singular, his manners and deportment that of a backwoodsman." Bartlett's _Reminiscences of Gallatin_.]

[Footnote 6: The phrase "stop the wheels of government" originated with "Peter Porcupine" (William Cobbett) and was on every tongue.]

[Footnote 7: Charles C. Pinckney, when ambassador to France, 1796.]

[Footnote 8: Jefferson to William Duane, March 28, 1811. Jefferson's _Works_, vol. v. p. 574.]

[Footnote 9: Jefferson was born in 1743, Madison in 1751, Gallatin in 1761.]