James Madison Gallatin

“ The nullification of an Act of Congress had no fascinations for him. Like other foreign-born citizens, in this respect like Mr. Hamilton himself, Gallatin felt the force of his larger allegiance to the Union more strongly than men like Jefferson and Madison, Fisher Ames or Roger Griswold, whose heartiest attachments were to their States, and who were never quite at their ease except on the soil and in the society of their birthplace. Gallatin was equally at home in Virginia, in Pennsylvania, and in New York. ”

“ Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Langdon Cheves, William Lowndes, Felix Grundy, the leaders of the new sect, were none of them more than thirty-five years of age at this time, or about the age at which Mr. Gallatin had entered Congress more than fifteen years before.
The President and his Cabinet did not want war, but, if the people demanded it, they were not disposed to resist. Mr. Madison would not allow his Administration to fall behind the public feeling in its assertion and maintenance of national dignity ”

“ We grow very impatient. We are opposite to Courland....
“12th July, Monday.—Head-wind.... Entered Gulf of Finland.”
Here end Mr. Gallatin’s memoranda of his voyage, and here begins the history of his long diplomatic career. He arrived at St. Petersburg on the 21st July, and set to work with his colleagues to carry out the purposes of the mission.
As now completed, the American commission appointed to negotiate for peace under the mediation of Russia consisted of Mr. Gallatin, Mr. J. Q. Adams, then our minister at St. Petersburg, and Mr. James A. Bayard. ”

“ He had at least an even chance of regaining his ground and carrying out those ideas to which his life had been devoted; the belligerents might return to reason; the war in Europe could not last forever; the country might unite in support of a practicable policy; at all events there was no immediate danger that the government would go to pieces, and heroic remedies were not to be used but as a last resort. So far as Mr. Madison was concerned, the question was not whether he was to be deserted, but in what capacity Mr. Gallatin could render him the most efficient support. ”

“ We give to-morrow a splendid dinner to Monroe at Oeller’s hotel, in order to testify our approbation of his conduct and our opinion of his integrity. Jefferson, Judge McKean, the governor, and about fifty members of Congress will be there; for which I expect the Administration, Porcupine & Co. will soundly abuse us....
Congress adjourned on July 10, and Gallatin at once went to New Geneva with his wife.
On the 20th November he was again in Philadelphia, writing to his wife at her father’s in New York.
Philadelphia, 1st December, 1797.
... Do you not admire our unanimity and good nature? ”

“ Especially in a democracy the people are apt to become impatient of rule, and will at times obstinately refuse to move at the call of a leader, when, if left to themselves, they will blunder through all obstacles, blindly enough, it is true, but effectually. Mr. Gallatin was now an impediment to government, even though it was conceded that the Treasury could not go on without him; that the party contained no man who could fill his place; that if he retired, confusion must ensue. To Mr. Madison the loss would of course be extremely embarrassing ”

“ Gallatin to retire. On the 3d December, when it was certain that no choice had been made by the people, he wrote from New Geneva to his son: “The Republican party seems to me to be fairly defunct. Our principal misfortune was perhaps the want of a popular candidate. The great defect of our system is the monarchical principle admitted in our Constitution.”
1825.
The election of Mr. Adams took place on February 9, 1825. Rumors in regard to the new Cabinet were communicated by Mr. Stewart, the representative of Fayette County, to James Gallatin, at Baltimore, who wrote them to his father. Mr. ”

“ He was aware that there was “much confusion due to the changes of office and the state of the currency, and thought that an active young man could alone reinstate and direct properly that department.”
In June of the same year, while waiting for the Peacock, which was to carry him across the sea, Gallatin wrote Mr. Madison an urgent letter, impressing upon him the necessity of restoring specie payment, and his perfect conviction that nothing but the will of the government was wanted to reinstate the country in its moral character in that respect. ”

“ Gallatin tried to earn a living by teaching French in Harvard College, apparently not without success, but the cold and rigid civilization of New England repelled him, and he made his way to the South. In the backwoods of Pennsylvania and Virginia there seemed to be better chances for a young adventurer. Gallatin engaged in land speculations, and tried to lay the foundation of his fortune in a frontier farm. ”

“ Gallatin was in the Treasury he was continually looking for some man who could take his place in that office, and aid in the direction of national politics; to use his own words, “who could replace Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and himself.” Breckenridge of Kentucky only appeared and died. The eccentricities of John Randolph unfitted him for leadership. William H. Crawford of Georgia, Monroe's secretary of the treasury, alone filled Gallatin's expectations. To a powerful mind Crawford “united a most correct judgment and an inflexible integrity. ”

“ The same day Gallatin wrote confidentially to Nicholson, describing the extreme anxieties he felt: [6] —
"Never was I so overwhelmed with public business. That would be nothing if we went right; but a great confusion and perplexity reign in Congress. Mr. Madison is, as I always knew him, slow in taking his ground, but firm when the storm arises. What I had foreseen has taken place. A majority will not adhere to the embargo much longer, and if war be not speedily determined on, submission will soon ensue." ”

“ I have lived long, sir, in this world, and I have been connected with all sorts of men, of all sects and descriptions. I have been in the public service for a great part of my life, and filled various offices of trust in conjunction with that venerable gentleman, Albert Gallatin. I have known him half a century. In many things we differed; on many questions of public interest and policy we were divided, and in the history of parties in this country there is no man from whom I have so widely differed as from him. ”

“ Even the press in the Middle States was almost wholly in the hands of foreign-born citizens. Had Gallatin gone at once to New York or Philadelphia and devoted himself to the law, for which he was admirably fitted by nature, had he invested his little patrimony in a city house, in public securities, in almost any property near at hand and easily convertible, there is every reason to suppose that he would have been, financially and politically, in a better position than ever was the case in fact. ”

“ Goethe says in his “Elective Affinities” that we cannot escape the atmosphere we breathe. The natural atmosphere of Mr. Gallatin was public life. In November, 1825, Mr. Clay, Adams's secretary of state, offered, and, meeting a refusal, pressed upon Mr. Gallatin the post of representative of the United States at the proposed Congress of American Republics at Panama. Mr. Clay was right in considering it the most important mission ever sent from the United States, and had Mr. ”

“ A government is organized once for all, and until that of the United States fairly goes to pieces no man can do more than alter or improve the work accomplished by Hamilton and his party.
What Hamilton was to Washington, Gallatin was to Jefferson, with only such difference as circumstances required. It is true that the powerful influence of Mr. Madison entered largely into the plan of Jefferson’s Administration, uniting and modifying its other elements, and that this was an influence the want of{269} which was painfully felt by Washington and caused his most serious difficulties ”

“ But he was much beloved by his family. He was never a popular man, nor did he ever have a strong personal following or many attached friends. He stood, with Jefferson and Madison, at the head of his party, and won his place by force of character, courage, application and intellectual power. His eminent and manifold services to his adopted country, his great abilities and upright character, assure him a high position in the history of the United States.
The Writings of Albert Gallatin, edited by Henry Adams, were published at Philadelphia, in three volumes, in 1879. ”

“ Il sert depuis dix ans; il a été aide-major; il veut l’être. Il faut des aides-major qui parlent bien allemand, qui soient actifs, intelligens; il est tout cela. Enfin vous saurez de lui précisément ce qu’il lui faut; c’est en général la permission d’aller vite chercher la mort à votre service. Faites-lui cette grâce, et qu’il ne soit point tué, car il est fort aimable et il est neveu de cette Mme. Calendrin que vous avez vue étant enfant. Mme. sa mère est bien aussi aimable que Mme. Calendrin.
One Gallatin fell in 1602 at the Escalade, famous in Genevan history ”

“ In his entire public life he had never been required to [29] manage so unruly a set of men. The British commissioners were trying, and especially Goulburn was aggressive in temper and domineering in tone; but with them Gallatin had little trouble. Adams and Clay were persons of a different type, as far removed from British heaviness as they were from the Virginian ease of temper which marked the Cabinet of Jefferson, or the incompetence which characterized that of Madison. Gallatin was obliged to exert all his faculties to control his colleagues ”

“ The administration was going to pieces by sheer incapacity. The leaders took alarm and the cabinet was reconstructed, Monroe being called [Pg 297] to the Department of State. But the enemies of Mr. Gallatin still clung to his skirts, determined to drag him to the dust. Duane attacked him in the most dangerous manner. Probably no man in America has ever been abused, vilified, maligned with such deliberate persistency as was Gallatin in the “Aurora” from the beginning of 1811 until the cabinet crisis, when Mr. Madison was compelled to choose between Smith and himself. ”

“ Jefferson, Mr. Gallatin, and Mr. Madison, it was broad as society itself, and aimed at providing for and guiding the moral and material development of a new era,—a fresh race of men. It was not a{492} mere departmental reform or a mere treasury administration that Mr. Gallatin undertook; it was a theory of democratic government which he and his associates attempted to reduce to practice. They failed, and although their failure was due partly to accident, it was due chiefly to the fact that they put too high an estimate upon human nature. ”

“ Madison is for the plan which I have submitted, with the addition of high protecting duties to encourage the manufacturers of the United States. I am as much against war as Gallatin is in favor of it. Thus I have continued in Congress till there is not one of my old fellow-laborers that agrees with me in opinion. I do not know what plan Randolph will pursue. He is against continuing the embargo. ”

“ G., by a timely resistance to their schemes, might have defeated them and rendered the whole cabal as impotent as nature would seem to have intended them to be, for in point of ability (capacity for intrigue excepted) they are utterly contemptible and insignificant.”
Randolph did not know that even as early as the autumn of 1809 Mr. Gallatin had strained his influence to the utmost to offer “timely resistance to their schemes;” and even Randolph, on reflection, doubted “whether Madison will be able to meet the shock of the Aurora, Whig, Enquirer, Boston Patriot, &c., &c. ”

“ On the 23d September he wrote to Lord Bathurst acknowledging the receipt of two private letters, and adding: “You may depend upon our governing ourselves entirely by the instructions which they contain, and upon my continuing to represent to the Americans, as I always have done whenever an opportunity has offered, the very strong opinion which prevails in England against an unsatisfactory peace with America. Of this Mr. Gallatin appears to be the only American in any degree sensible, and this perhaps arises from his being less like an American than any of his colleagues.” ”

“ When young Gallatin took his degree at the College of Geneva in May, 1779, young Adams was arriving with his father at Paris to begin his education as diplomate and scholar in the centre of all that was then most cultivated and stimulating in the world. While Gallatin was wandering with Serre among the Maine woods, Adams was wandering between Paris and St. Petersburg, picking up his education as he went. Had Gallatin remained two years longer at Harvard College, he would have met Adams there. As they grew older they were in opposing ranks as public men. ”

“ Madison would be left in a most unpleasant situation, and would find his personal difficulties vastly increased; Congress and the press would precipitate themselves upon him instead of upon Mr. Gallatin, and he would inevitably be swept away by the torrent. This, however, would be only temporary; the evil would cure itself; faction would produce force to oppose it, and a generation of younger men would invent its own processes to solve its own problems. ”

“ Gallatin led or resisted this acquiescent policy is unknown; at all events, it was the policy henceforth adopted by the opposition, which readily accepted Mr. Madison’s very mild amendments and rapidly transformed itself into a party organization with hands stretched out to seize for itself these dangerous governmental powers. But Mr. Gallatin never changed his opinion that the President was too powerful; even in his most mature age he would probably have preferred a system more nearly resembling some of the present colonial governments of Great Britain. ”