... As to our new Administration, the appearances are favorable, but storms must be expected. The party out of power had it so long, loved it so well, struggled so hard to the very last to preserve it, that it cannot be expected that the leaders will rest contented after their defeat. They mean to rally and to improve every opportunity which our errors, our faults, or events not under our control may afford them. As to ourselves, Mr. Jefferson’s and Mr. Madison’s characters are well known to you. General Dearborn is a man of strong sense, great practical information on all the subjects connected with his Department, and what is called a man of business. He is not, I believe, a scholar, but I think he will make the best Secretary of War we [have] as yet had. Mr. Lincoln is a good lawyer, a fine scholar, a man of great discretion and sound judgment, and of the mildest and most amiable manners. He has never, I should think from his manners, been out of his own State or mixed much with the world except on business. Both are men of 1776, sound and decided Republicans; both are men of the strictest integrity; and both, but Mr. L. principally, have a great weight of character to the Eastward with both parties. We have as yet no Secretary of the Navy, nor do I know on whom the choice of the President may fall, if S. Smith shall persist in refusing....
The Navy Department in a manner went begging. General Smith was strongly pressed to take it, and did in fact perform its duties for several weeks. Had he consented to accept the post he would have added to the weight of the government, for General Smith was a man of force and ability; but he persisted in refusing, and ultimately his brother, Robert Smith, was appointed, an amiable and respectable person, but not one of much weight except through his connections by blood or marriage.
The first act of the new Cabinet was to reach a general understanding in regard to the objects of the Administration. These appear to have been two only in number: reduction of debt and reduction of taxes, and the relation to be preserved between them. On the 14th March, Mr. Gallatin wrote a letter to Mr. Jefferson, discussing the subject at some length;[51] immediately afterwards he set out for New Geneva to arrange his affairs there and to bring his wife and family to Washington. His sharp experience of repeated exclusion from office by legislative bodies made him nervous in regard to confirmation by the Senate, and Mr. Jefferson therefore postponed the appointment until after the Senate had adjourned. These fears of factious opposition were natural enough, but seem to have been unfounded. Samuel Dexter, the Secretary of the Treasury under President Adams, consented to hold over until Mr. Gallatin was ready. Mr. Stoddart, President Adams’s Secretary of the Navy, was equally courteous. If the story, told in some of Mr. Jefferson’s biographies, be true, that Mr. Marshall, while still acting as Secretary of State, was turned out of his office by Mr. Lincoln, under the orders of Mr. Jefferson, at midnight on the 3d of March,[52] it must be confessed that, so far as courtesy was concerned, the Federalists were decidedly better bred than their rivals. The new Administration was in no way hampered or impeded by the old one, and Mr. Gallatin himself was perhaps of the whole Administration the one who suffered least from Federal attacks; henceforward his enemies came principally from his own camp. This result was natural and inevitable; it came from his own character, and was a simple consequence of his principles; but, since this internal dissension forced itself at once on the Administration and became to some extent its crucial test in the matter of removals from office for party reasons, the whole story may best be told here before proceeding with the higher subjects of state policy.
Among Mr. Gallatin’s papers is a sort of pamphlet in manuscript, stitched together, and headed in ornamental letters: “Citizen W. DUANE.” It is endorsed in Mr. Gallatin’s hand: “1801. Clerks in offices; given by W. Duane.” It contains a list of all the Department clerks, after the following style:
| Offices. | Names. | Remarks. | |
| Secretary of State’s Offices. | 1400 | Jacob Wagner. | Complete picaroon. |
| 600 | Steph. Pleasanton. | Nothingarian. | |
| 800 | —— Brent. | Nincumpoop. |
Some of Duane’s remarks are still more pointed:
| Offices. | Names. | Remarks. |
| 1500 | John Newman. | Democratic executioner. |
| 800 | —— Golding. | Adamite. |
| 600 | Israel Loring. | Assistant throat-cutter. |
| 1000 | Charles W. Goldsborough. | —Damned Reps. |
| 1000 | Jeremiah Nicolls. | |
| 1700 | A. Bradley, Jr., A.P.M. | —Three execrable aristocrats. |
| 1200 | Robt. T. Howe. | |
| 800 | Tunis Craven. | |
| 1200 | E. Jones. | A notorious villain. |
| 1200 | David Sheldon. | Wolcott’s dear nephew. |
| 1200 | Jos. Dawson. | Hell-hot. |
The pressure for sweeping removals was very great. From the first, Mr. Gallatin set his face against them, and although apparently yielding adhesion to Mr. Jefferson’s famous New Haven letter of July 12, in which it was attempted to justify the principle and regulate the proportion of removals, he urged Mr. Jefferson to authorize the issue of a circular to collectors which would have practically made the New Haven letter a nullity. On the 25th July he sent to the President a draft of this circular:
CIRCULAR TO COLLECTORS.
The law having given to the collectors the appointment of a number of inferior officers subject to my approbation, there is on that subject on which we must act in concert, but one sentiment that I wish to communicate; it is that the door of office be no longer shut against any man merely on account of his political opinions, but that whether he shall differ or not from those avowed either by you or by myself, integrity and capacity suitable to the station be the only qualifications that shall direct our choice.