The Life of Albert Gallatin

by Henry Adams

“The enclosed copy of a decree dated at Trianon on the 5th of August, 1810, which has never been published nor, to my knowledge, communicated to our ministers or government, was obtained through a private channel.... It bears date the same day on which it was officially communicated to our minister that the Berlin and Milan decrees would be revoked on the first day of the ensuing November, and no one can suppose that if it had been communicated or published at the same time, the United States would, with respect to the promised revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees, have taken that ground which ultimately led to the war with Great Britain. It is indeed unnecessary to comment on such a glaring act of combined injustice, bad faith, and meanness, as the enactment and concealment of that decree exhibits.”

The text of this decree which proved how “His Majesty loves the Americans. Their prosperity and their commerce are within the scope of his policy;” and which was written with the same pen on the same day as that celebrated declaration of Napoleonic affection,—the full text of this decree may be seen attached to Mr. Gallatin’s despatch.[102] Under the pretext of reprisals for American confiscations which had never in fact been made,[103] it confiscated into the imperial treasury, without trial or delay, all American property in France, both that which had been already sequestered and sold, subject to final judgment, and that which was still in the form of merchandise or ships brought into France previous to the 1st May, 1810, the date of Macon’s Act. And it further provided that until November 1, when the Berlin and Milan decrees were to be conditionally revoked, American ships should be allowed to enter French ports, but not to unload, and presumably not to depart, without a permission from the Emperor.

When Mr. Gallatin, at sixty years of age, used language so strong as that just quoted and characterized an act as one of combined injustice, bad faith, and meanness, the world may very reasonably conclude that he was unusually moved. On another occasion he called it “a mean and perfidious act.” There was good reason why he should have been deeply exasperated at the discovery, for of that meanness and perfidy he was principal victim.

What share Mr. Gallatin now had in deciding the action of the President is unknown. In the absence of evidence to the contrary it is to be presumed that he at least acquiesced in the decision of the Cabinet, yet not only is it clear that the letter of Champagny of August 5 was not a compliance with the terms of Macon’s Act; did not revoke or modify Napoleon’s edicts so as that “they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States,” and, therefore, that the President had no legal power to act as though it did; but it is clear, from Secretary Smith’s letter on the subject to General Armstrong, dated November 2, 1810, that the President was aware of the fact and escaped it only by strange subterfuge. Already on the 5th July Mr. Smith had instructed General Armstrong that “a satisfactory provision for restoring the property lately surprised and seized by the order or at the instance of the French government must be combined with a repeal of the French edicts, with a view to a non-intercourse with Great Britain, such a provision Union being an indispensable evidence of the just purpose of France toward the United States.” Yet, on the 2d November, writing to General Armstrong that the President had issued his proclamation against England on the strength of the French revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees alone, Mr. Smith could only justify this evident abandonment of his former and correct ground by adding: “You will, however, let the French government understand that this has been done on the ground that the repeal of these decrees does involve an extinguishment of all the edicts of of France actually violating our neutral rights.... It is to be remarked, moreover, that in issuing the Proclamation it has been presumed that the requisition contained in that letter [of July 5], on the subject of the sequestered property, will have been satisfied;” and the writer goes on to show on what evidence this presumption rested.

That is to say, President Madison did an act which he recognized as one of doubtful propriety, on the ground of two assumptions of fact, neither of which had the smallest foundation. These objections and criticisms were made at the time, and they were semi-officially answered by Joel Barlow in the National Intelligencer of July 9, 1811, by drawing a distinction between “belligerent maritime edicts violating our neutral rights, and edicts authorizing other depredations on the property of our citizens.” The Berlin and Milan decrees, it appears, were maritime; the Rambouillet decree was municipal, not a violation of our neutral rights contemplated by Macon’s Act. Similar British depredations had been disregarded in accepting Erskine’s arrangement.

If this were the case in November, Mr. Madison would have done better not to have said in July that a revocation of the Rambouillet decree was an indispensable evidence of the Emperor’s intentions, and also that he assumed, on the part of the French government, an extinguishment of all its edicts and a restoration of the sequestered property as the ground of his proclamation. Moreover, if this were the case, it is not quite plain why Mr. Gallatin should have declared in 1821 that a knowledge of the secret Trianon decree would have prevented Mr. Madison from issuing that proclamation. The Trianon decree was merely the authority for acts which were notorious.

Although there is not a shadow of evidence to show what Mr. Gallatin’s opinions on this question were, yet the result of the decision was so important in its ultimate bearings upon his fortune that the subject could not be left unmentioned. In Mr. Madison’s private letters of this time there is a disposition clearly evident to subordinate all other considerations to the object of bringing England to terms, and this doubtless was the tendency of public feeling. Acting on this principle, the Administration decided that Champagny’s announcement of the intended revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees was a sufficient fulfilment of the terms of Macon’s Act, and accordingly, on the 1st November, issued the proclamation to that effect. Simultaneously Mr. Gallatin issued a circular to the collectors announcing that after the 2d February, 1811, all intercourse with Great Britain and her dependencies would cease.

In this there was nothing unfair to England. Napoleon had in appearance been compelled to give way, and the United States had a perfect right to make the most of her success. If in doing so she submitted to more robbery, this was no more than she had done when she had attempted similar arrangements with England; it was less than she had done every day for nearly twenty years, in submitting to the impressments of her seamen for the benefit of the British navy. Nevertheless, the ground on which she stood was very weak as regarded argument, for there could be no reasonable doubt then, any more than there was ten years later, that Bonaparte had acted a “mean and perfidious” part, and yet she called upon England to act as though it were an honest one. England rightly enough replied that Napoleon was attempting another fraud to which England would not be a party; thus the situation was rendered more critical than ever, and Napoleon, by a course of conduct which was precisely what Mr. Gallatin described it in 1821, plunged the United States into a war with England on ground that, so far as France was concerned, would not bear examination.

1811.

Though there is reason to regret that Mr. Madison should have made himself so eagerly the dupe of Napoleon, and though there seems to be something surprising in the irritation of Mr. Gallatin on discovering only one among the many instruments of the Emperor’s duplicity, the good faith of the American government cannot fairly be called in question. The situation of the United States as regarded England was intolerable, and Mr. Madison snatched at any fair expedient to escape it. England alleged that the Berlin and Milan decrees were the cause of her orders in council. The United States, by a lucky stroke of legislation, compelled Napoleon to promise revocation of those decrees on a certain day, and then turned that promise against England. England refused belief in it, which was reasonable enough, but in reality had those decrees been the only cause of the orders in council, the alleged revocation would have afforded ample excuse for England’s concession. On both sides the diplomatic veil was transparent. Napoleon, in fact, had not revoked his decrees, as he unblushingly avowed within the next year, while England cared nothing for those decrees, except so far as they were mere municipal regulations; so far as they violated international law on the ocean they were, indeed, quite ineffective. England’s real object was to maintain her clutch on American shipping and sailors.