Dear Sir,—By this opportunity you will receive an account of the strange, if not wicked, proceedings of the Senate. The President has been led astray by some of its members in the belief of a majority in favor of the nomination and retaining you at same time as Secretary of the Treasury. He made this a point on which they split. I came to Washington some few days after the rejection had passed. It was well understood that if he would re-nominate with an understanding to appoint another Secretary, the nomination should be confirmed. It was evident that he was much at a loss; what from personal attachment to you, not knowing what might be your wish and your feelings, and what in the difference of opinion of your own friends, together with a natural dislike to yield to the Senate, he was in great perplexity and hesitation. My decided opinion was to have a nomination made, for, from a letter which you wrote to Mr. Worthington, I was clearly of opinion that you contemplated what would likely happen in the Senate; but many of your friends being entirely unacquainted with your ideas on this subject, there was a difference of opinion between them. I advised Mr. W. to tell Mr. Madison that he had such a letter from you, and to make it known to your friends, which if he had done in time, I believe the President would not have made it a point as he did. I mentioned to him of the letter, but it was too late, for he began to believe that in consequence of the armistice on the continent there would be no negotiation, and, not willing to part with you or to have you withdrawn from the Administration without your own desire, he determined to hold on as he did. He may be right, but I think I would have done otherwise. He certainly suffered much in mind on your account; but I think I should have let the public good take the lead. He may have many reasons which I know nothing of; your own feelings were certainly of weighty consideration with him....
I wonder that you did not impart your ideas to some of your friends; no one, except Mr. Worthington, seemed to know anything about it. I wish I had known half as much, and I would have made use of it to effect. Though I might have run risk to displease you, I should have done good to the country, unless there be no negotiation, in which case you cannot return too soon. On every account you are wanting at Washington....
W. H. CRAWFORD TO GALLATIN.
Paris, 20th April, 1814.
Dear Sir,—...The French papers of yesterday state that you are added to the commission to treat at Gottenburg. Mr. Beasley says that Mr. Adams is also of the commission. I cannot believe that all of you are to proceed to Gottenburg. If you are going, I presume it is in consequence of your having vacated your seat in the Cabinet. I hope this conjecture is unfounded. This is the course which your enemies wished to compel you to adopt. I agree that the treatment you have received would justify the measure, but when I know the gratification which Messrs. Giles, Smith, and Leib will feel from your resignation, I cannot reconcile it to my feelings. All this mischief has grown out of Brent’s mobility or his thirst. The day before I left Washington I called on a number of the Senators and insisted on the danger of delay and urged them to decide the question before they adjourned. They decided every embarrassing question about 4 P.M., when Mr. Brent, as he says, out of complaisance to Mr. King, consented to let the nomination stand over till the next day. They had a decided majority, and Anderson, who voted against them on all the embarrassing questions, declared he would vote for the nomination. I have no doubt that he voted against it in the end. The desire to get Mr. Cheves into the Treasury had some influence upon two or three Senators. I told Mr. Madison that he would be pressed on that point....
A. J. DALLAS TO GALLATIN.
14th February, 1814.
Dear Sir,—If you receive this letter in Europe you will have an opportunity to hear from Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell all the public news of this country; and consequently it would be an unnecessary trouble both to you and to me to enter into a written detail. Your absence has embarrassed everybody. It is a subject of lasting regret that you did not confide to some friend your wishes respecting the course to be taken if the Senate should refuse to confirm your nomination as minister while you retained the office of Secretary, or if the business and casualties of the mission should protract your absence so long as to render it impracticable to keep the Treasury Department open for you. Mr. Bayard asked me whether you had reflected upon the first event as a probable one, and you merely smiled when I repeated his question to you. However, the arrangement is now made in the best manner to evince the President’s attachment and the public confidence by restoring you to the mission when it became indispensable to treat the Treasury Department as vacant. I do not believe that during any part of your public life you enjoyed more general respect and more valuable popularity than at the present crisis. Indeed, your name being restored to the mission has revived the hope of its success, which failed when your name was excluded. I look confidently to your return with additional claims to public gratitude and honors....
Lovers of historical detail may without much difficulty pick from the wreck and ruin of Mr. Gallatin’s administrative policy such fragments as survived their originator and became foundation-stones of the ultimate governmental system. Many such fragments there were, and of the first importance, but it is not by them that Mr. Gallatin is to be measured. No one has ever seriously questioned his supereminence among American financiers. No one who has any familiarity with the affairs of our government has failed to be struck with the evidences of his pervading activity and his administrative skill. His methods were simple, direct, and always economical. He had little respect for mere financial devices, and he labored painfully to simplify every operation and to render intelligible every detail of business. It may be doubted whether he ever made a mistake in any of his undertakings, and whether any work done by him has ever been found inefficient; but it is useless to catalogue these undertakings. His system was not one of detached ideas or of parti-colored design. As their scheme existed in the minds of Mr. 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 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. They failed as Hamilton and his associates, with a different ideal and equally positive theories, had failed before them. Yet, whatever may have been the extent of their defeat or of their success, one fact stands out in strong relief on the pages of American history. Except those theories of government which are popularly represented by the names of Hamilton and Jefferson, no solution of the great problems of American politics has ever been offered to the American people. Since the day when foreign violence and domestic faction prostrated Mr. Gallatin and his two friends, no statesman has ever appeared with the strength to bend their bow,—to finish their uncompleted task.