... We do not adjourn to-day, but certainly shall to-morrow.... We had last night a very large meeting of Republicans, in which it was unanimously agreed to support Burr for Vice-President....
Between the adjournment of Congress in May and his departure for the western country in July, Mr. Gallatin prepared and published another pamphlet on the national finances, which was his contribution to the canvass for the Presidential election of that year. Mr. Wolcott, the Secretary of the Treasury, in a letter to the Committee of Ways and Means, dated January 22, 1800, had expressed the opinion that the principal of the debt had increased $1,516,338 since the establishment of the government in 1789. A committee of the House, on the other hand, had on May 8 reported that the debt had been diminished $1,092,841 during the same period. Mr. Gallatin entered into a critical examination of the methods by which these results were obtained, and then proceeded to test them by applying his own method of comparing the receipts and expenditures. His conclusion was that the nominal debt had been increased by $9,462,264. Two millions of this increase, however, was caused by unnecessary assumption of State debts. But allowing for funds actually acquired by government and susceptible of being applied to reduction of debt, the nominal increase reduced itself to $6,657,319. And since all these results were more or less nominal, he devoted the larger part of his work to an elaborate and searching investigation into the actual receipts and expenditures of the past ten years.
1801.
The summer of 1800 was again passed in the western country; the last summer which Mr. Gallatin was to pass there for more than twenty years. With the autumn came the Presidential election, and the dreaded complication occurred by which Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr, having received an equal number of electoral votes, became rival candidates for the choice of the House of Representatives. The session of 1800-1801 was almost wholly occupied in settling this dispute. The whole Federalist party insisted upon voting for Burr, and, although not able to elect him, they were able to delay for several days the election of Mr. Jefferson. Mr. Gallatin’s position as leader of the Republicans in the House, and in a manner responsible for the selection of Mr. Burr as candidate for the Vice-Presidency, was one of controlling influence and authority. His letters to his wife give a clear picture of the scene at Washington as he saw it from day to day, but there are one or two points on which some further light is thrown by his papers.
He rarely expressed his opinions of the men with whom he acted. He never expressed any opinion about Colonel Burr. Yet he knew that the Virginians distrusted Burr, and even in his own family, where Colonel Burr was probably warmly admired, there were moments when their faith was shaken. The following letter is an example:
MARIA NICHOLSON TO MRS. GALLATIN.
New York, February 5, 1801.
... As I know you are interested for Theodosia Burr, I must tell you that Mr. Alston has returned from Carolina, it is said, to be married to her this month. She accompanied her father to Albany, where the Legislature are sitting; he followed them the next day. I am sorry to hear these accounts. Report does not speak well of him; it says that he is rich, but he is a great dasher, dissipated, ill-tempered, vain, and silly. I know that he is ugly and of unprepossessing manners. Can it be that the father has sacrificed a daughter so lovely to affluence and influential connections? They say that it was Mr. A. who gained him the 8 votes in Carolina at the present election, and that he is not yet relieved from pecuniary embarrassments. Is this the man, think ye? Has Mr. G. a favorable opinion of this man of talents, or not? He loves his child. Is he so devoted to the customs of the world as to encourage such a match?...
Colonel Burr himself overacted his part. For some private reason Mr. Gallatin was unable to take his seat when Congress met, and it was not till January 12, 1801, that he at last appeared in Washington, to which place the government had been transferred during the summer. The contest, which was to decide the election, took place a month later. Colonel Burr was at New York, about to go up to Albany to perform his duties as member of the Legislature. He felt the necessity of reassuring the minds of his friends at Washington, and he did so from time to time with a degree of off-hand simplicity very suggestive of ulterior thoughts. His first letter to Gallatin is as follows:
AARON BURR TO GALLATIN.