With this tendency, the national prosperity and the state of the Treasury had much to do. Dallas carried out his purpose, and in October quitted the Treasury. In retiring, he left with the President a sketch of the condition of the finances such as no previous secretary had been so fortunate as to present. For the year ending Sept. 30, 1816, the receipts amounted to $47,670,000.[149] From the customs, which Dallas had estimated at $21,000,000, duties to the amount of $36,000,000 were received. A surplus of more than $20,000,000 was likely to accumulate in the Treasury before the close of the year.
Old ideas of economy and strict restraints on expenditure could not long maintain themselves in the presence of such an income; but besides the temptation to expand the sphere of government in expenditures, other influences were at work to establish Federalist principles in the system itself. Dallas remained in office chiefly in order to organize the Bank, and to render certain the resumption of specie payments. When he retired, in October, 1816, both objects were practically attained. His administration of the Treasury had then lasted two years. He found the government bankrupt; he left it with a surplus of twenty millions for the year. His measures not only relieved the country from financial disorders equalled only by those of the Revolutionary War, but also fixed the financial system in a firm groove for twenty years. He failed only in his attempt to obtain from Congress a larger degree of protection for domestic industries. Had his scheme of protection been adopted, possibly the violence of subsequent changes in revenue and legislation might have been moderated, and certainly the result could have been no more mischievous than it was.
Dallas retired to private life by his own wish, and the public three months afterward heard with surprise and regret the news of his sudden death. Like most of the men who rendered decisive services during the war, he received no public reward commensurate with his deserts. He fared better than Armstrong, who created the army; but even Gallatin, who shaped the diplomatic result, was content to retire into the comparative obscurity of the mission to Paris; while Perry and Macdonough, whose personal qualities had decided the fortunes of two campaigns and won the military basis on which peace could be negotiated, received no more reward than fell to the lot of third-rate men. In the case of Dallas and Gallatin, the apparent neglect was their own choice. Gallatin might have returned to the Treasury, but declined it; and the President transferred W. H. Crawford from the War Department to the charge of the finances, while Clay was offered the War Department in succession to Crawford.
These arrangements affected Madison but little. He had no longer an object to gain from the disposal of patronage, and he sought to smooth the path of his successor rather than to benefit himself. Few Presidents ever quitted office under circumstances so agreeable as those which surrounded Madison. During the last two years of his Administration almost every month brought some difficulty to an end, or accomplished some long-desired result. The restoration of the finances was perhaps his greatest source of satisfaction; but the steadiness with which the whole country, except New England, recovered prosperity and contentment afforded him a wider and more constant pleasure. The ravages of war left few traces. Even at Washington the new public buildings were pressed forward so rapidly that the effects of fire were no longer seen. The Capitol began to rise from its ruins. The new halls of Congress promised to do honor to Madison’s judgment. Benjamin Latrobe was the architect in charge; and his Representative Chamber, without reproducing that which Jefferson had helped to design, was dignified and worthy of its object. The old sandstone columns were replaced by another material. On the shore of the Potomac, near Leesburg, Latrobe noticed a conglomerate rock, containing rounded pebbles of various sizes and colors, and capable of being worked in large masses. His love of novelty led him to employ this conglomerate as an ornamental stone for the columns of the Hall of Representatives; and the effect was not without elegance.
Several years were still to pass before Congress occupied its permanent quarters, and Madison did not return to the White House; but the traces of national disaster disappeared in the process of reconstruction before he quitted the Presidency.
Surrounded by these pleasant conditions, Madison saw Congress assemble for the last time to listen to his requests. The Message which he sent to the legislature December 3 showed the extinction of party issues, and suggested no action that seemed likely to revive party disputes in any new form. The President expressed regret at the depression in shipping and manufactures, the branches of industry unfavorably affected by the peace. He suggested that Congress should consider especially the need of laws counteracting the exclusive navigation system of Great Britain. He recommended once more the time-worn subjects of the Militia and a National University. He asked for legislation against the Slave Trade, and urged a re-modification of the Judiciary. He requested Congress to create a new Executive department for Home or Interior Affairs, and to place the Attorney-General’s office on the footing of a department. He gave a flattering account of the finances; and his Message closed with a panegyric on the people and their government, for seeking “by appeals to reason, and by its liberal examples, to infuse into the law which governs the civilized world a spirit which may diminish the frequency or circumscribe the calamities of war, and meliorate the social and beneficent relations of peace: a government, in a word, whose conduct, within and without, may bespeak the most noble of all ambitions,—that of promoting peace on earth and good-will to man.”
For the moment, Congressmen were too much interested in their own quarrel to sympathize strongly with panegyrics on the people or their government. The members of the House returned to Washington mortified, angry, and defiant, disgusted alike with the public and with the public service. No sooner were the standing committees announced, December 4, than Richard M. Johnson moved for a special committee on the repeal of the Compensation Law, and supported his motion in an unusually elaborate speech, filled with argument, complaint, and irritation. The committee was appointed,—Johnson at its head; William Findley of Pennsylvania, second; Daniel Webster, third, with four other members. After twelve days’ consideration, December 18, the committee presented a report, written by Webster, defending the Act, but recommending a return to the per diem system, in deference to the popular wish. The scale of the new allowance was left for Congress to determine.
Until this personal quarrel was discussed, no other business received attention. The debate—postponed till Jan. 14, 1817, to save the dignity of the House—lasted, to the exclusion of other business, until January 23. As an exhibition of personal and corporate character, it was entertaining; but it contained little of permanent interest or value. Calhoun, always above his subject, spoke with much force against yielding to popular outcry. “This House,” he said, “is the foundation of the fabric of our liberty. So happy is its constitution, that in all instances of a general nature its duty and its interests are inseparable. If he understood correctly the structure of our government, the prevailing principle is not so much a balance of power, as a well-connected chain of responsibility. That responsibility commenced here, and this House is the centre of its operation.” The idea that the people had “resolved the government into its original elements, and resumed to themselves their primitive power of legislation,” was inconsistent with the idea that responsibility commenced and centred in the House. “Are we bound in all cases to do what is popular?” asked Calhoun. Could the House shift responsibility from itself to the people without destroying the foundation of the entire fabric?
Like most of Calhoun’s speculations, this question could receive its answer only in some distant future. The Compensation Law lowered permanently the self-respect of the House, which had already declined from the formation of the government. “Of that House,” said Richard Henry Wilde of Georgia,[150] “he feared it might be said in the words of Claudian: ‘A fronte recedant imperii.’ Yes, sir, they were receding,—they had receded from the front of empire. That House, formerly the favorite of the American nation, the first and most important branch of the government, the immediate image of the people, had been losing, and continued to lose,—certainly by no fault of theirs, but by the working of causes not for him to develop,—that rank and power in the government originally belonging to them, and which others at their expense had been secretly acquiring.” Yet the House, while repealing the law, refused to admit itself in the wrong. The law was repealed only so far as it applied to subsequent Congresses. Leaving its successors to fix whatever compensation they thought proper for their services, the Fourteenth Congress adhered to its own scale, and took the money it was expected to refund.
Having disposed of this personal affair, the House turned to serious business, and completed its remarkable career by enacting several measures of far-reaching importance.