The Life of Albert Gallatin. Adams Henry
of the late war, which every session are objects of particular reference by the two Houses of Congress. These accumulated occupations, again, have been interrupted in their due course by unexpected, desultory, and distressing calls for lengthy and complicated statements, sometimes with a view to general information, sometimes for the explanation of points which certain leading facts, witnessed by the provisions of the laws and by information previously communicated, might have explained without those statements, or which were of a nature that did not seem to have demanded a laborious, critical, and suspicious investigation, unless the officer was understood to have forfeited his title to a reasonable and common degree of confidence. Added to these things, it is known that the affairs of the country in its external relations have for some time past been so circumstanced as unavoidably to have thrown additional avocations on all the branches of the Executive Department, and that a late peculiar calamity in the city of Philadelphia has had consequences that cannot have failed to derange more or less the course of public business.
In such a situation was it not the duty of the officer to postpone matters of mere individual concern to objects of public and general concern, to the preservation of the essential order of the department committed to his care? Or is it extraordinary that in relation to cases of the first description there should have been a considerable degree of procrastination? Might not an officer who is conscious that public observation and opinion, whatever deficiencies they may impute to him, will not rank among them want of attention and industry, have hoped to escape censure, expressed or implied, on that score?
I will only add that the consciousness of devoting myself to the public service to the utmost extent of my faculties, and to the injury of my health, is a tranquillizing consolation of which I cannot be deprived by any supposition to the contrary.
With perfect respect, I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient servant,
The Vice-President of the United Statesand President of the Senate.
14
Gallatin’s Deposition in Brackenridge’s Incidents, vol. ii. p. 186.
15
Incidents, vol. ii. p. 68.
16
Gallatin’s Deposition.
17
See the resolutions as proposed and as ultimately adopted, in Appendix to Gallatin’s speech on the insurrection. Writings, iii. 56.
18
Brackenridge, Incidents, vol. i. p. 90; Findley, p. 144; Gallatin’s Deposition.
19
Incidents, vol. i. p. 90.
20
Incidents, vol. i. p. 91.
21
Badollet, who was at the same time a terribly severe critic of himself and of others, had little patience with Judge Brackenridge, who was perhaps the first, and not far from being the best, of American humorists. Badollet’s own sense of humor seems not to have been acute, to judge from the following extract from one of his letters to Gallatin, dated 18th February, 1790:
“J’ai vu Brakenridge à Cat-fish où j’ai été à l’occasion d’Archey, et je puis déclarer en conscience que de mes jours je n’ai vu un si complet impertinent fat. Peut-être ne seras-tu pas fâché de lire une partie d’une conversation qu’il eut devant moi. Un inconnu (à moi du moins) voulant le faire parler, à ce que je suppose, lui adresse ainsi la parole:
“N. I think, Mr. Brakenridge, you are one of the happiest men in the world.
“B. Yes, sir; nothing disturbs me. I can declare that I never feel a single moment of discontent, but laugh at everything.
“N. I believe so, sir; but your humor…
“B. Oh, sir, truly inexhaustible; yes, truly inexhaustible, – et tout en disant ces mots avec complaisance il tirait ses manchettes et son jabot, caressait son visage de sa main, et souriait en Narcisse, – truly inexhaustible. Sir, I could set down and write a piece of humor for fifty-seven years without being the least exhausted. I have just now two compositions agoing…
“N. Happy turn of mind!
“B. You may say that, sir. I enjoy a truly inexhaustible richness and strength of mind, &c., &c.”
22
“In the report of the commissioners of the United States to the President, it was most erroneously stated that I wanted the committee, viz., the Parkinson’s Ferry members, to remain till the twelve commissioners or conferees should report. The reverse was the fact.” Marginal note by Mr. Gallatin on pp. 98-99 of Brackenridge’s Incidents.
23
Incidents, vol. i. p. 111.
24
Findley, History of the Insurrection, p. 122; Brackenridge, Incidents, vol. i. p. 111.
25
Brackenridge, Incidents, vol. i. p. 112.
26
Writings, vol. i. p. 4.
27
Ibid, p. 9.
28
Findley, History, &c., p. 240.
29
Findley, p. 248.
30
Writings, vol. iii. pp. 8-52.
31
See the Speech of N.P. Banks, of June 30, 1868, Cong. Globe, vol. lxxv., Appendix, p. 385.
32
See, among other expressions to this effect, Lodge’s Cabot, pp. 342, 345.