A national university was intended to crown a scheme so extensive in its scope that no European monarch, except perhaps the Czar, could have equalled its scale. Jefferson cherished it as his legacy to the nation,—the tangible result of his “visionary” statesmanship. Five years afterward he still spoke of it as “the fondest wish of his heart,” and declared that “so enviable a state in prospect for our country induced me to temporize and to bear with national wrongs which under no other prospect ought ever to have been unresented or unresisted.”[316] Even in the close presence of bankruptcy or war he could not lay aside his hopes, or abstain from pressing his plan upon the attention of Congress at the moment when the last chance of its success had vanished.
The contrast between the President’s sanguine visions and the reality was made the more striking by Gallatin’s Annual Report, sent to Congress a few days later. The President spoke for the Administration that was passing away, while Gallatin represented the Administration to come. That the secretary leaned toward war was notorious, and that he was Madison’s chief adviser, perhaps to be the head of his Cabinet, was known or suspected by the men who stood nearest to the Secretary of State, and who studied Gallatin’s Report as though it were Madison’s first Annual Message. The more carefully it was studied, the more distinctly it took the character of a War Budget.
Receipts from customs had stopped, but the accrued revenue of 1807 had brought nearly eighteen million dollars into the Treasury; and sixteen millions would remain to supply the wants of Government at the close of the year 1808. Of this sum the ordinary annual appropriations would consume thirteen millions. Starting from this point, Gallatin discussed the financial effect of the alternatives which lay before Congress. The first was that of total or partial submission to the belligerents; “and as, in pursuing that humble path, means of defence will become unnecessary,—as there will be no occasion for either an army or a navy,—it is believed that there would be no difficulty in reducing the public expenditures to a rate corresponding with the fragments of impost which might still be collected.” The second choice of measures was to continue the embargo without war; and in this case the government might be supported for two years with no greater effort than that of borrowing five million dollars. Finally, Congress might declare war against one or both of the belligerents, and in that event Gallatin asked only leave to contract loans. Persons familiar with the history of the Republican party, and with the career of its leaders when in opposition, could not but wonder that Gallatin should ask leave to create a new funded debt for purposes of war. To reconcile the inconsistency Gallatin once more argued that experience proved debt to be less dangerous than had ten years before been supposed:—
“The high price of public stocks and indeed of all species of stocks, the reduction of the public debt, the unimpaired credit of the general government, and the large amount of existing bank-stock in the United States leave no doubt of the practicability of obtaining the necessary loans on reasonable terms. The geographical situation of the United States, their history since the Revolution, and above all present events remove every apprehension of frequent wars. It may therefore be confidently expected that a revenue derived solely from duties on importations, though necessarily impaired by war, will always be amply sufficient during long intervals of peace not only to defray current expenses, but also to reimburse the debt contracted during the few periods of war. No internal taxes, either direct or indirect, are therefore contemplated, even in the case of hostilities carried on against the two great belligerent Powers.”
Such language was an invitation to war. Gallatin carried courage as far as the President carried caution. While Jefferson talked of surpluses and deprecated “painful alternatives,” his Secretary of the Treasury invited Congress to declare war against the two greatest Powers in the world, and promised to support it without imposing a single internal tax.
Madison, upon whose decision even more than on that of Congress the future policy of the Government depended, would not express an emphatic opinion. A glimpse of the chaos that prevailed in the Executive Department was given in a letter from Macon to Nicholson,[317] written December 4, after Macon had offered Resolutions in the House looking to a persistence in the system of embargo and peaceable coercion:—
“Gallatin is most decidedly for war, and I think that the Vice-President [Clinton] and W. C. Nicholas are of the same opinion. It is said that the President [Jefferson] gives no opinion as to the measures that ought to be adopted. It is not known whether he be for war or peace. It is reported that Mr. 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.”
Indecision ruled everywhere at Washington down to the close of the year. Jefferson would say nothing at all; Madison would say nothing decisive;[318] and Gallatin struggled in vain to give a show of character to the Government. December 29 one of the Massachusetts representatives wrote to a correspondent the details of the secretary’s plan:[319]—
“Yesterday I spent an hour with Mr. Gallatin, when he unfolded to me his plan,—a plan which he thinks will finally prevail. It is this: That we immediately pass a non-intercourse Act to take effect, say, June 1 next; and as the bill now reads, that it become null toward that Power which may relax. Send out the Act forthwith to England and to France, together with an Act raising the embargo partially, say, at the same time, and arming, or granting letters of marque, etc. These being made known to Great Britain and France, it is expected that the obstinate Emperor will not alter his course, but it is expected that Great Britain, when she finds the stand we deliberately take,—that we have no rebellion; that Madison and a majority of Democrats are chosen; and that we shall be fighting a common enemy (France) with her,—and when she finds that we intend living without dishonorable purchases of her goods, etc., will study her interest and relax.”
The same day Gallatin wrote confidentially to Nicholson, describing the extreme anxieties he felt:[320]—