Part 9 (1/2)
Balance in Treasury, January 1 $2,000,000 Receipts from duties and sales of lands as by estimate of November 22, 1811 8,200,000 Loan authorized by law 11,000,000 Treasury notes as authorized by House of Representatives 5,000,000 ---------- $26,200,000
The issue of _treasury notes_ was a novel experiment in the United States; but they were favorably received, and Mr. Gallatin calculated that the full amount authorized by law, $5,000,000, could be put in circulation during the year. The result of a loan seemed more doubtful.
The old six per cents. and deferred stock had already fallen two or three per cent. below par. Mr. Gallatin again recommended the conversion of these securities into a new six per cent. stock, which would facilitate the new loan, and to prevent the necessity of applying, the same years, the large sums required in reimburs.e.m.e.nt of and purchase of the public debt.
On December 1 Mr. Gallatin made his last annual statement.
_Treasury Report for Fiscal Year ending September_ 30, 1812.
RECEIPTS.
Customs, sales of lands, etc. $10,934,946.20 On account of loan of eleven millions, act 14 March, 1812 5,847,212.50 -------------- $16,782,158.70 Balance in Treasury October 1, 1811 3,947,818.36 -------------- $20,729,977.06 ==============
DISBURs.e.m.e.nTS.
Civil Department, foreign intercourse $1,823,069.35 Army, militia, forts, etc. $7,770,300.00 Navy Department 3,107,501.54 Indian Department 230,975.00 ------------- 11,108,776.54 Interest on debt $2,498,013.19 On account of princ.i.p.al 2,938,465.99 ------------- 5,436,479.18 -------------- $18,368,325.07 Leaving in Treasury 30 Sept., 1812 2,361,652.69 -------------- $20,729,977.76
The sums obtained or secured on loans during the year amounted to $13,100,209, and the secretary had the satisfaction to state ”that notwithstanding the addition thus made to the public debt, and although a considerable portion has been remitted from England and brought to market in America, the public stocks (which had at first experienced a slight depression) have been for the last three months, and continue to be, at par.” His last report to the commissioners of the sinking fund of February 5, 1813, stated the usual application of $8,719,773 to the princ.i.p.al and interest of the debt.
In his report of December 1, 1812, Mr. Gallatin announced that a loan of twenty-one millions was needed for the service of 1813. Congress authorized a loan of $16,000,000, having six years to run, and an additional issue of $5,000,000 of treasury notes. Congress adjourned on March 4. Their procrastination and the pressing demands of the War Department nearly beggared the Treasury before the loans could be negotiated and covered into it.
On April 17 Mr. Gallatin wrote to the secretaries of the army and of the navy, and sent a copy of his letters to Mr. Madison with information that the loan had been filled, and the probable receipts of the Treasury from ordinary sources for the year ascertained. These he estimated at $9,300,000. Deducting the annual appropriation for interest on the debt, the sum expended to March 31, and the amount needed for the civil service, there remained for the War and Navy Departments together the sum of $18,720,000.
The loan of $16,000,000 was obtained in the following places:--
States east of New York $486,700 State of New York 5,720,000 Philadelphia, Pa. 6,858,400 Baltimore and District of Columbia 2,393,300 State of Virginia 187,000 Charleston, S. C. 354,000 ----------- $16,000,000
The history of this subscription is not without interest. The extremely small subscriptions in New England and in the Southern States can hardly be explained on any other theory than that of a belief in the collapse of the finances of the United States and a dissolution of the Union, for which the New England States had certainly been prepared by their governing minds.[14]
Books were opened on March 12 and 13, 1813, at Portsmouth, Salem, Boston, Providence, New York, Albany, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Was.h.i.+ngton, Richmond, and Charleston. In the two days the subscriptions only reached the sum of $3,956,400. They were again opened on the 25th of March at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Was.h.i.+ngton. The New England and Southern States seem to have been disregarded because of their indifference in the first instance. The books remained open from March 25 to 31, during which time there were received $1,881,800, a total of $5,838,200.
The pressure fell on the Middle States. In these, fortunately for the government, there were three great capitalists whose faith in the future prosperity of the United States was unimpaired. All were foreigners: David Parish and Stephen Girard in Philadelphia and John Jacob Astor in New York. These now came forward, no doubt at the instance of Mr.
Gallatin, who was a personal friend of each. Parish and Girard offered on April 5 to take eight millions of the loan at the rate of eighty-eight dollars for a certificate of one hundred dollars bearing interest at six per cent., redeemable before December 31, 1825, they to receive one quarter of one per cent. commission on the amount accepted, and in case of a further loan for the service of the year 1813, to be placed on an equal footing with its takers. John Jacob Astor on the same day and at the same place proposed to take for himself and his friends the sum of two million and fifty-six thousand dollars of the loan on the same conditions. These offers were accepted and the loan was complete.
An offer on behalf of the State of Pennsylvania to take one million of the loan was received too late. Altogether the offers amounted to about eighteen millions, or two millions more than the sum demanded. Mr.
Gallatin, clinging to his old plan, endeavored to negotiate this loan at par, by offering a premium of a thirteen years' annuity of one per cent., but found it impracticable. Indeed, the system of annuity, general in England, has never found favor as an investment in the United States.
This was Mr. Gallatin's last financial transaction. A few weeks later, at his own request, he severed his actual connection with the Treasury Department and was on his way to St. Petersburg to secure the proffered mediation of the emperor of Russia between the United States and Great Britain.
Thus ended Mr. Gallatin's administration of the national finances. The hour for saving had pa.s.sed. The imperious necessities of war take no heed of economic principles. The work which the secretary had done became as the rope of sand. It is not surprising that Gallatin wearied of his post; that he watched with vain regret and unavailing sighs the unavoidable increase of the national debt, and that he sought relief in other services where success was not so evanescent as in the Treasury Department. Before the close of Madison's administration, February 12, 1816, the public debt had run up to over one hundred and twenty-three millions,[15] and a sum equal to the entire amount of Mr. Gallatin's savings in two terms had been expended in one. But his work had not been in vain. The war was the crucial test of the soundness of his financial policy. The maxims which he announced, that debt can only be reduced by a surplus of revenue over expenditure, and the accompaniment of every loan by an appropriation for its extinguishment, became the fundamental principle of American finance. Mr. Gallatin was uniformly supported in it by Congress and public opinion. It was faithfully adhered to by his distinguished successors, Dallas and Crawford, and the impulse thus given continued through later administrations, until, in 1837, twenty years after the peace, the entire debt had been extinguished. All this without any other variation from Mr. Gallatin's original plan than an increase of the annual appropriation, to the sinking fund for its reimburs.e.m.e.nt, from eight to ten millions.[16]
The only charge which has ever been made against Gallatin's administration was, that he reduced the debt at the expense of the defenses and security of the country; but, to quote the words of one of his biographers:[17] ”Mr. Gallatin had the sagacity to know that it [the redemption of the debt] would make but little difference in the degree of preparation of national defense and means of contest, for which it is impossible ever to obtain a considerable appropriation before the near approach of the danger that may render them necessary. He knew that the money thus well and wisely devoted to the payment of the debt was only rescued from a thousand purposes of extravagance and mal-application to which all our legislative bodies are so p.r.o.ne whenever they have control of surplus funds.” In our own day the irresistible temptations of a full treasury need no labored demonstration. Friend and foe drop political differences over the abundant fleshpot. The very thought of catering to such appet.i.tes disgusted Gallatin. To Jefferson he frankly said, in 1809, that while he did not pretend to step out of his own sphere and to control the internal management of other departments, yet he could not ”consent to act the part of a mere financier, to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans, a seeker of resources for the purpose of supporting useless baubles, of increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage, corruption, and rottenness which you justly execrate.”
RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES DURING MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION, FROM ELLIOTT'S SYNOPTICAL EXHIBITS.
RECEIPTS.
------------+----------------+---------------+----------------+ Four Years | Customs. | Internal | Direct Taxes. | Ending | | Revenue. | | Dec. 31. | | | | ------------+----------------+---------------+----------------+ 1812 | $38,151,330.15 | $18,674.03 | $28,491.87 | 1816 | 62,813,212.43 | 11,470,507.24 | 8,639,611.38 | |----------------+---------------+----------------+ Madison | 100,964,542.58 | 11,489,181.27 | 8,668,103.25 | ------------+----------------+---------------+----------------+ ----------------+----------------+-------------------+----------------+ Postage. | Public Lands. | Loans and | Dividends | | | Treasury Notes. | Sales of | | | | Bank Stock. | ----------------+----------------+-------------------+----------------+ $85,077.40 | $2,889,466.46 | $15,606,201.30 | - | 364,787.84 | 4,977,570.54 | 94,321,103.73 | - | ----------------+----------------+-------------------+----------------+ 449,865.24 | 7,867,037.00 | 109,927,305.03 | - | ----------------+----------------+-------------------+----------------+
----------------+---------------- Miscellaneous. | Total.
| | ----------------+---------------- $209,309.34 | $56,988,550.55 630,248.16 | 183,217,041.32 ----------------+---------------- 839,557.50 | 240,205,591.87 ----------------+----------------