Albert Gallatin

by John Austin Stevens

On the other side was the large and powerful party which, throughout the war in the Continental Congress, under the confederation in the national convention which framed and in the state conventions which ratified the Constitution, had opposed the tendency to centralization, but had been defeated by the yearning of the body of the plain people for a government strong enough at least to secure them peace at home and protection abroad. This natural craving being satisfied, the old aversion to class distinctions returned. The dread of an aristocracy, which did not exist even in name, threw many of the supporters of the Constitution into the ranks of its opponents, who were democrats in name and in fact. The proclamation of the rights of man awoke this latent sentiment, and aroused an intense sympathy for the people of France. This again was strengthened by the memory, still warm, of the services of France in the cause of independence. Lafayette, who represented the true French republican spirit, and held a place in the affections of the American people second only to that of Washington, was languishing, a prisoner to the coalition of sovereigns, in an Austrian dungeon.

Jefferson returned from France deeply imbued with the spirit of the French Revolution. His views were warmly received by his political friends, and the principles of the new school of politics were rapidly spread by an eager band of acolytes, whose ranks were recruited until the feeble opposition became a powerful party. Democratic societies, organized on the plan of the French Jacobin clubs, extended French influence, and no doubt were aided in a practical way by Genet, whose recent marriage with the daughter of George Clinton, the head of the Republican party in New York, was an additional link in the bond of alliance.

During the second session of the third Congress Madison had led the opposition in a mild manner; party lines were not yet strongly defined, and the influence of Washington was paramount. In the interim between its expiration and the meeting of the fourth Congress in December, the country was wildly agitated by the Jay treaty. This document not reaching America until after the adjournment of Congress in March, Washington convened the Senate in extra and secret session on June 1, and the treaty was ratified by barely two thirds majority. Imprudently withheld for a time, it was at last made public by Senator Mason of Virginia, one of the ten who voted against its ratification. It disappointed the people, and was denounced as a weak and ignominious surrender of American rights. The merchants of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston protested against it in public meetings. It was burned, and the English flag was trailed in the dust before the British minister's house at the capital. Jay was hung in effigy, and Hamilton, who ventured to defend the treaty at a public meeting, was stoned. To add to the popular indignation that the impressment of American seamen had been ignored in the instrument, came the alarming news that the British ministry had renewed their order to seize vessels carrying provisions to France, whither a large part of the American grain crop was destined. On the other hand, Randolph, the secretary of state, had compromised the dignity of his official position in his intercourse with Fauchet, the late French ambassador, whose correspondence with his government, thrown overboard from a French packet, had been fished up by a British man-of-war, and forwarded to Grenville, by whom it was returned to America. Thus petard answered petard, and the charge by the Republicans upon the Federalists of taking British gold was returned with interest, and the accusation of receiving bribe money was brought close home to Randolph, if not proved.

Hard names were not wanting either; Jefferson was ridiculed as a sans-culotte and red-legged Democrat. Nor was Washington spared. He was charged with an assumption of royal airs, with political hypocrisy, and even with being a public defaulter; a charge which no one dared to father, and which was instantly shown to be false and malicious. It was made by Bache in “The Aurora,” a contemptible sheet after the fashion of “L'Ami du Peuple,” Marat's Paris organ.

Such was the temper of the people when the House of Representatives met on December 7, 1795. The speaker, Dayton, was strongly anti-British in feeling. He was a family connection of Burr, but there is no reason to suppose that he was under the personal influence of that adroit and unscrupulous partisan. On the 8th President Washington, according to his custom, addressed both houses of Congress. This day for the first time the gallery was thrown open to the public. When the reply of the Senate came up for consideration, the purpose of the Republicans was at once manifest. They would not consent to the approbation it expressed of the conduct of the administration. They would not admit that the causes of external discord had been extinguished “on terms consistent with our national honor and safety,” or indeed extinguished at all, and they would not acknowledge that the efforts of the President to establish the peace, freedom, and prosperity of the country had been "enlightened and firm." Nevertheless the address was agreed to by a vote of 14 to 8.

In the House a resolution was moved that a respectful address ought to be presented. The opposition immediately declared itself. Objection was made to an address, and in its stead the appointment of a committee to wait personally on the President was moved. The covert intent was apparent through the thin veil of expediency, but the Republicans as a body were unwilling to go this length in discourtesy, and did not support the motion. Only eighteen members voted for it. Messrs. Madison, Sedgwick, and Sitgreaves, the committee to report an address, brought in a draft on the 14th which was ordered to be printed for the use of the members. The next day the work of dissection was begun by an objection to the words “probably unequaled spectacle of national happiness” applied to the country, and the words “undiminished confidence” applied to the President. The words “probably unequaled” were stricken out without decided opposition by a vote of forty-three to thirty-nine. Opinions were divided on that subject even in the ranks of the Federalists. The cause of dissatisfaction was the Jay treaty. The address was recommitted without a division. The next day Madison brought in the address with a modification of the clause objected to. In its new form the “very great share” of Washington's zealous and faithful services in securing the national happiness was acknowledged. The address thus amended was unanimously adopted. In this encounter nothing was gained by the Republicans. The people would not have endured an open declaration of want of confidence in Washington. But the entering wedge of the new policy was driven. The treaty was to be assailed. It was, however, the pretext, not the cause of the struggle, the real object of which was to extend the powers of the House, and subordinate the executive to its will. Before beginning the main attack the Republicans developed their general plan in their treatment of secondary issues; of these the principal was a tightening of the control of the House over the Treasury Department.

In this Mr. Gallatin took the lead. His first measure was the appointment of a standing Committee of Finance to superintend the general operations of this nature,—an efficient aid to the Treasury when there is accord between the administration and the House, an annoying censor when the latter is in opposition. This was the beginning of the Ways and Means Committee, which soon became and has since continued to be the most important committee of the House. To it were to be referred all reports from the Treasury Department, all propositions relating to revenue, and it was to report on the state of the public debt, revenue, and expenditures. The committee was appointed without opposition. It consisted of fourteen members, William Smith, Sedgwick, Madison, Baldwin, Gallatin, Bourne, Gilman, Murray, Buck, Gilbert, Isaac Smith, Blount, Patten, and Hillhouse, and represented the strength of both political parties. To this committee the estimates of appropriations for the support of the government for the coming year were referred. The next step was to bring to the knowledge of the House the precise condition of the Treasury. To this end the secretary was called upon to furnish comparative views of the commerce and tonnage of the country for every year from the formation of the department in 1789, with tables of the exports and imports, foreign and domestic, separately stated, and with a division of the nationality of the carrying vessels. Later, comparative views were demanded of the receipts and expenditures for each year; the receipts under the heads of Loans, Revenue in its various forms, and others in their several divisions; the expenditures, also, to be classified under the heads of Civil List, Foreign Intercourse, Military Establishment, Indian Department, Naval, etc. Finally a call was made for a statement of the annual appropriations and the applications of them by the Treasury. The object of Mr. Gallatin was to establish the expenses of the government in each department of service on a permanent footing for which annual appropriations should be made, and for any extraordinary expenditure to insist on a special appropriation for the stated object and none other. By keeping constantly before the House this distinction between the permanent fund and temporary exigencies, he accustomed it to take a practical business view of its legislative duties, and the people to understand the principles he endeavored to apply.

In a debate at the beginning of the session, on a bill for establishing trading houses with the Indians, Mr. Gallatin showed his hand by declaring that he would not consent to appropriate any part of the war funds for the scheme; nor, in view of the need of additional permanent funds for the discharge of the public debt, would he vote for the bill at all, unless there was to be a reduction in the expense of the military establishment; and he would not be diverted from his purpose although Mr. Madison advocated the bill because of its extremely benevolent object. The Federal leaders saw clearly to what this doctrine would bring them, and met it in the beginning. The first struggle occurred when the appropriations for the service of 1796 were brought before the House. Beginning with a discussion upon the salaries of the officers of the mint, the debate at once passed to the principle of appropriations. The Federalists insisted that a discussion of the merits of establishments was not in order when the appropriations were under consideration; that the House ought not, by withholding appropriations, to destroy establishments formed by the whole legislature, that is, by the Senate and House; that the House should vote for the appropriations agreeably to the laws already made. This view was sanctioned by practice. Mr. Gallatin immediately opposed this as an alarming and dangerous principle. He insisted that there was a certain discretionary power in the House to appropriate or not to appropriate for any object whatever, whether that object were authorized or not. It was a power vested in the House for the purpose of checking the other branches of government whenever necessary. He claimed that this power was shown in the making of yearly instead of permanent appropriations for the civil list and military establishments, yet when the House desired to strengthen public credit it had rendered the appropriation for those objects permanent and not yearly. It was, therefore, “contradictory to suppose that the House was bound to do a certain act at the same time that they were exercising the discretionary power of voting upon it.” The debate determined nothing, but it is of interest as the first declaration in Congress of the supremacy of the House of Representatives.

The great debate which, from the principles involved in it as well as the argument and oratory with which they were discussed, made this session of the House famous, was on the treaty with Great Britain. This was the first foreign treaty made since the establishment of the Constitution. The treaty was sent in to the House “for the information of Congress,” by the President, on March 1, with notice of its ratification at London in October. The next day Mr. Edward Livingston moved that the President be requested to send in a copy of the instructions to the minister of the United States who negotiated the treaty, together with the correspondence and other documents. A few days later he amended his resolution by adding an exception of such of said papers as any existing negotiations rendered improper to disclose. The Senate in its ratification of the treaty suspended the operation of the clause regulating the trade with the West Indies, on which Great Britain still imposed the old colonial restriction, and recommended the President to open negotiations on this subject; and in fact such negotiations were in progress. The discussion was opened on the Federal side by a request to the gentlemen in favor of the call to give their reasons. Mr. Gallatin supported the resolution, and expressed surprise at any objection, considering that the exception of the mover rendered the resolution of itself unexceptionable. The President had not informed the House of the reasons upon which the treaty was based. If he did not think proper to give the information sought for, he would say so to them. A question might arise whether the House should get at those secrets even if the President refused the request, but that was not the present question. In reply to Mr. Murray, who asserted that the treaty was the supreme law of the land, and that there was no discretionary power in the House except on the question of its constitutionality, Mr. Gallatin said that Congress possessed the power of regulating trade,—perhaps the treaty-making power clashed with that,—and concluded by observing that the House was the grand inquest of the nation, and that it had the right to call for papers on which to ground an impeachment. At present he did not contemplate an exercise of that right. Mr. Madison said it was now to be decided whether the general power of making treaties supersedes the powers of the House of Representatives, particularly specified in the Constitution, so as to give to the executive all deliberative will and leave the House only an executive and ministerial instrumental agency; and he proposed to amend the resolution so as to read, “except so much of said papers as in his (the President's) judgment it may be inconsistent with the interest of the United States at this time to disclose.” But his motion was defeated by a vote of 47 nays to 37 yeas.

The discussion being resumed in committee of the whole, the expressions of opinion were free on both sides, but so moderate that one of the members made comment on the calmness and temper of the discussion. Nicholas said that, if the treaty were not the law of the land, the President should be impeached. But the parts of the treaty into which the President had not the right to enter, he could not make law by proclamation. Swanwick supported the call as one exercised by the House of Commons. On the Federal side, Harper said that the papers were not necessary, and, being unnecessary, the demand was an improper and unconstitutional interference with the executive department. If he thought them necessary, he would change the milk and water style of the resolutions. In that case the House had a right to them and he had no idea of requesting as a favor what should be demanded as a right. Gallatin, he said, had declared that it was a request, but that in case of refusal it might be considered whether demand should not be made, and he charged that when, at the time the motion was made, the question had been asked, what use was to be made of the papers, Gallatin did not and could not reply. Mr. Gallatin answered that whether the House had a discretionary power, or whether it was bound by the instrument, there was no impropriety in calling for the papers. He hoped to have avoided the constitutional question in the motion, but as the gentlemen had come forward on that ground, he had no objection to rest the decision of the constitutional power of Congress on the fate of the present question. He would therefore state that the House had a right to ask for the papers.