Part 6 (1/2)

On July 5 a resolution was moved to appoint a committee to consider the expediency of declaring, by legislative act, the state of relations between the United States and the French Republic. Mr. Gallatin asked if a declaration of war could not be moved as an amendment, but the speaker, Mr. Dayton, made no reply. Mr. Gallatin objected that Congress could not declare a state of facts by a legislative act. But this view, if tenable then, has long since been abandoned. In witness of which it is only necessary to name the celebrated resolution of the Congress of 1865 with regard to the recognition of a monarchy in Mexico. July 6 the House went into committee of the whole on the state of the Union to consider a bill sent down by the Senate abrogating the treaty with France. The bill was pa.s.sed on the 16th by a vote of 47 ayes to 37 nays, Gallatin voting in the negative. The House adjourned the same day.

While thus engaged in debates which called into exercise his varied information and displayed not only the extent of his learning but his remarkable powers of reasoning and statement, Mr. Gallatin never lost sight of reform in the administration of the finances of the government.

To the success of his efforts to hold the Treasury Department to a strict conformity with his theory of administration, Mr. Wolcott, the secretary, gave ample if unwilling testimony. To Hamilton he wrote on April 5, 1798, ”The management of the Treasury becomes more and more difficult. The legislature will not pa.s.s laws in gross; their appropriations are minute. Gallatin, to whom they yield, is evidently intending to break down this department by charging it with an impracticable detail.”

During these warm discussions Gallatin rarely lost his self-control.

Writing to his old friend Lesdernier at this period, he said, ”You may remember I am blessed with a very even temper; it has not been altered by time or politics.”

The third session of the fifth Congress opened on December 3, 1798. On the 8th, when the President was expected, Lieutenant-General Was.h.i.+ngton and Generals Pinckney and Hamilton entered the hall and took their places on the right of the speaker's chair. They had been recently appointed to command the army of defense.

The President's speech announced no change in the situation. ”Nothing,”

he said, ”is discoverable in the conduct of France which ought to change or relax our measures for defense. On the contrary, to extend and invigorate them is our true policy. An efficient preparation for war can alone insure peace. It must be left to France, if she is indeed desirous of accommodation, to take the requisite steps. The United States will steadily observe the maxims by which they have hitherto been governed.”

The reply to this patriotic sentiment was unanimously agreed to, and was most grateful to Adams, who thanked the House for it as ”consonant to the characters of representatives of a great and free people.”

On December 27 a peculiar resolution was introduced to punish the usurpation of the executive authority of the government of the United States in carrying on correspondence with the government of any foreign prince or state. Gallatin thought this resolution covered too much ground. The criminality of such acts did not lie in their being usurpations, but in the nature of the crime committed. There was no authority in the Const.i.tution for a grant of such a power to the President. To afford aid and comfort to the enemy was treason, but there was no war, and therefore no enemy. He claimed the right to himself and others to do all in his power to secure a peace, even by correspondence abroad, and he would not admit that the ground taken by the friends of the measure was a proper foundation for a general law. A committee was, however, appointed, in spite of this remonstrance, to consider the propriety of including in the general act all persons who should commence or carry on a correspondence, by a vote of 65 to 23. A bill was reported on January 9, when Gallatin endeavored to attach a proviso that the law should not operate upon persons seeking justice or redress from foreign governments; but his motion was defeated by a vote of 48 to 37. Later, however, a resolution of Mr. Parker, that nothing in the act should be construed to abridge the rights of any citizen to apply for such redress, was adopted by a vote of 69 yeas to 27 nays. On this vote Harper voted yea. Griswold, Otis, Bayard, and Goodrich were found among the nays. Gallatin succeeded in carrying an amendment defining the bill, after which it was pa.s.sed by a vote of 58 to 36.

Towards the close of January, 1799, a bill was brought in authorizing the President to discontinue the restraints of the act suspending intercourse with the French West India Islands, whenever any persons in authority or command should so request. This was to invite a secession of the French colonies from the mother country. Gallatin deprecated any action which might induce rebellion against authority, or lead to self-government among the people of the islands who were unfit for it.

Moreover, such action would remove still further every expectation of an accommodation with France. The bill was pa.s.sed by a vote of 55 to 37. He objected to the bill to authorize the President to suspend intercourse with Spanish and Dutch ports which should harbor French privateers, as placing an unlimited power to interdict commerce in the hands of the executive. The bill was carried by 55 to 37. On the question of the augmentation of the navy he opposed the building of the seventy-fours.

In February Edward Livingston presented a pet.i.tion from aliens, natives of Ireland, against the Alien and Sedition laws. Numerous similar pet.i.tions followed; one was signed by 18,000 persons in Pennsylvania alone. To postpone consideration of the subject, the Federalists sent these papers to a select committee, against the protests of Livingston and Gallatin. This course was the more peculiar because of the reference of pet.i.tions of a similar character in the month previous to the committee of the whole. The Federalists were abusing their majority, and precipitating their unexpected but certain ruin. One more effort was made to repeal the offensive penal act; the const.i.tutional objection was again pleaded, but the repeal was defeated by a vote of 52 in the affirmative. Mr. Gallatin opposed these laws in all their stages, but, failing in this, persistently endeavored to make them as good as possible before they pa.s.sed. Jefferson later said that nothing could obliterate from the recollection of those who were witnesses of it the courage of Gallatin in the ”Days of Terror.”[8] The vote of thanks to Mr. Dayton, the speaker, was carried by a vote of 40 to 22. On March 3, 1800, this Congress adjourned.

The sixth Congress met at Philadelphia on December 2, 1799. The Federalists were returned in full majority. Among the new members of the House, John Marshall and John Randolph appeared for Virginia. Theodore Sedgwick was chosen speaker. President Adams came down to the House on the 3d and made the usual speech. The address in reply, reported by a committee of which Marshall was chairman, was agreed to without amendment. Adams was again delighted with the very respectful terms adopted at the ”first a.s.sembly after a fresh election, under the strong impression of the public opinion and national sense at this interesting and singular crisis.” At this session it was the sad privilege of Marshall to announce the death of Was.h.i.+ngton, ”the Hero, the Sage, and the Patriot of America.” In the shadow of this great grief, party pa.s.sion was hushed for a while.

Gallatin again led the Republican opposition; Nicholas and Macon were his able lieutenants. The line of attack of the Republicans was clear.

If war could be avoided, the growing unpopularity of the Alien and Sedition laws would surely bring them to power. The foreign-born voter was already a factor in American politics. In January the law providing for an addition to the army was suspended. Macon then moved the repeal of the Sedition Law. He took the ground that it was a measure of defense. Bayard adroitly proposed as an amendment that ”the offenses therein specified shall remain punishable as at common law, provided that upon any prosecution it shall be lawful for the defendant to give as his defense the truth of the matter charged as a libel.” Gallatin called upon the chair to declare the amendment out of order, as intended to destroy the resolution, but the speaker declined, and the amendment was carried by a vote of 51 to 47. The resolution thus amended was then defeated by a vote of 87 to 1. The Republicans preferred the odious act in its original form rather than accept the Federal interpretation of it.

On February 11, 1800, a bill was introduced into Congress further to suspend commercial intercourse with France. It pa.s.sed the House after a short debate by a vote of 68 yeas to 28 nays. On this bill the Republican leaders were divided. Nicholas, Macon, and Randolph opposed it; but Gallatin, separating from his friends, carried enough of his party with him to secure its pa.s.sage. Returned by the Senate with amendments, it was again objected to by Macon as fatal to the interests of the Southern States, but the House resolved to concur by a vote of 50 to 36.

In March the country was greatly excited by the news of an engagement on the 1st of February, off Guadaloupe, between the United States frigate Constellation, thirty-eight guns, and a French national frigate, La Vengeance, fifty-four guns. The House of Representatives called on the secretary of the navy for information, and, by 84 yeas to 4 nays, voted a gold medal to Captain Truxton, who commanded the American s.h.i.+p. John Randolph's name is recorded in the negative.

Notwithstanding this collision, the relations of the United States and France were gradually a.s.suming a kindlier phase. The Directory had sought to drive the American government into active measures against England. Bonaparte, chosen First Consul, at once adopted a conciliatory tone. Preparing for a great continental struggle, he was concentrating the energies and the powers of France. In May Mr. Parker called the attention of the House to this change of conduct in the French government and offered a resolution instructing the Committee on Commerce to inquire if any amendments to the Foreign Intercourse Act were necessary. Macon moved to amend so that the inquiry should be whether it were not expedient to repeal the act. Gallatin opposed the resolution on the ground that it was highly improper to take any measures at the present time which would change the defensive system of the country. The resolution was negatived,--43 nays to 40 yeas.

One singular opposition of Gallatin is recorded towards the close of the session; the Committee on the Treasury Department reported an amendment to the act of establishment, providing that the secretary of the treasury shall lay before Congress, at the commencement of every session, a report on finance with plans for the support of credit, etc.

Gallatin and Nicholas opposed this bill, because it came down from the Senate, which had no const.i.tutional right to originate a money bill; but Griswold and Harper at once took the correct ground that it was not a bill, but a report on the state of the finances, in which the Senate had an equal share with the House. The bill was pa.s.sed by a vote of 43 to 39. It is worthy of note that the first report on the state of the finances communicated under this act was by Mr. Gallatin himself the next year, and that it was sent in to the Senate. The House adjourned on May 14, 1800.

The second session of the sixth Congress was held at the city of Was.h.i.+ngton, to which the seat of government had been removed in the summer interval. After two southerly migrations they were now definitively established at a national capital. The session opened on November 17, 1800. On the 22d President Adams congratulated Congress on ”the prospect of a residence not to be changed.” The address of the House in reply was adopted by a close vote.

The situation of foreign relations was changed. The First Consul received the American envoys cordially, and a commercial convention was made but secured ratification by the Senate only after the elimination of an article and a limitation of its duration to eight years. While the bill was pending in the Senate, Mr. Samuel Smith moved to continue the act to suspend commercial intercourse with France. Mr. Gallatin opposed this motion; at the last session he had voted for this bill because there was only the appearance of a treaty. Now that the precise state of negotiation was known, why should the House longer leave this matter to the discretion of the President? The House decided to reject the indiscreet bill by a vote of 59 to 37. An effort was also made to repeal a part of the Sedition Law, and continue the rest in force, but the House refused to order the engrossing of the bill, taking wise counsel of Dawson, who said that, supported by the justice and policy of their measures, the approaching administration would not need the aid of either the alien, sedition, or common law. The opponents of the bill would not consent to any modification. The last scenes of the session were of exciting interest.

Freed from the menace of immediate war, the people of plain common sense recognized that the friends.h.i.+p of Great Britain was more dangerous than the enmity of France. They dreaded the fixed power of an organized aristocracy far more than the ephemeral anarchy of an ill-ordered democracy; they were more averse to cla.s.s distinctions protected by law than even to military despotism which destroyed all distinctions, and they preferred, as man always has preferred and always will prefer, personal to political equality. The Alien and Sedition laws had borne their legitimate fruit. The foreign-born population held the balance of power; a general vote would have shown a large Republican or, it is more correct to say, anti-Federalist majority. But the popular will could not be thus expressed. Under the old system each elector in the electoral college cast his ballot for president and vice-president without designation of his preference as to who should fill the first place. New England was solid for Adams, who, however, had little strength beyond the limits of this Federal stronghold. New York and the Southern States with inconsiderable exceptions were Republican. Pennsylvania was so divided in the legislature that her entire vote would have been lost but for a compromise which gave to the Republicans one vote more than to the Federalists. Adams being out of the question, the election to the first place lay between Jefferson and Burr, both Republicans. The Federalists, therefore, had their option between the two Republican candidates, and the result was within the reach of that most detestable of combinations, a political bargain. Mr. Gallatin's position in this condition of affairs was controlling. His loyalty to Jefferson was unquestioned, while Burr was the favorite of the large Republican party in New York whose leaders were Mr. Gallatin's immediate friends and warm supporters.

Both Jefferson and Burr were accused of bargaining to secure enough of the Federalist vote to turn the scale. That Mr. Jefferson did make some sacrifice of his independence is now believed. Whether Mr. Gallatin was aware of any such compromise is uncertain. If such bargain were made, General Samuel Smith was the channel of arrangement, and in view of the inexplicable and ignominious deference of Jefferson and Madison to his political demands, there is little doubt that he held a secret power which they dared not resist. Gallatin felt it, suffered from it, protested against it, but submitted to it.

The fear was that Congress might adjourn without a conclusion. To meet this emergency Mr. Gallatin devised a plan of balloting in the House, which he communicated to Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Nicholas. It stated the objects of the Federalists to be, 1st, to elect Burr; 2d, to defeat the present election and order a new one; 3d, to a.s.sume _executive_ power during the interregnum. These he considers, and suggests alternative action in case of submission or resistance on the part of the Republicans. The Federalists, holding three branches of government, viz., the presidency, a majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House, might pa.s.s a law declaring that one of the great officers designated by the Const.i.tution should act as president pro tempore, which would be const.i.tutional. But while Mr. Gallatin in this paragraph admitted such a law to be const.i.tutional, in the next he argued that the act of the person designated by law, or of the president pro tempore, a.s.suming the power is clearly ”unconst.i.tutional.” By this ingenious process of reasoning, to which the strict constructionists have always been partial, it might be unconst.i.tutional to carry out const.i.tutional law. The a.s.sumption of such power was therefore, Mr. Gallatin held, usurpation, to be resisted in one of two ways; by declaring the interval till the next session of Congress an interregnum, allowing all laws not immediately connected with presidential powers to take their course, and opposing a silent resistance to all others; or by the Republicans a.s.suming the executive power by a joint act of the two candidates, or by the relinquishment of all claims by one of them. On the other hand, the proposed outlines of Republican conduct were, 1st, to persevere in voting for Mr. Jefferson; 2d, to use every endeavor to defeat any law on the subject; 3d, to try to persuade Mr. Adams to refuse his consent to any such law and not to call the Senate on any account if there should be no choice by the House.