Albert Gallatin. John Austin Stevens
therefore, that in future we will consider such persons as unworthy of our friendship; have no intercourse or dealings with them; withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life which depend upon those duties that as men and fellow citizens we owe to each other; and upon all occasions treat them with that contempt they deserve; and that it be, and it is hereby, most earnestly recommended to the people at large, to follow the same line of conduct towards them.”
If such an excommunication were to be meted out to an offending neighbor, what measure would the excise man receive if he came from abroad on his unwelcome errand?
These resolutions were signed by Mr. Gallatin as clerk, and made public through the press. Resolutions of this character, if not criminal, reach the utmost limit of indiscretion, and political indiscretion is quite as dangerous as crime. The petition to Congress, subscribed by the inhabitants of western Pennsylvania, was drawn by Gallatin; while explicit in terms, it was moderate in tone. It represented the unequal operation of the act. “A duty laid on the common drink of a nation, instead of taxing the citizens in proportion to their property, falls as heavy on the poorest class as on the rich;” and it ingeniously pointed out that the distance of the inhabitants of the western counties from market prevented their bringing the produce of their lands to sale, either in grain or meal. “We are therefore distillers through necessity, not choice; that we may comprehend the greatest value in the smallest size and weight.”
Hamilton, indignant, reported the proceedings to the President on September 9, 1792, and demanded instant punishment. Washington, who was at Mount Vernon, was unwilling to go to extremes, but consented to issue a proclamation, which, drafted by Hamilton, and countersigned by Jefferson, was published September 15, 1792. It earnestly admonished all persons to desist from unlawful combinations to obstruct the operations of the laws, and charged all courts, magistrates, and officers with their enforcement. There was no mistaking Hamilton's intention to enforce the law. Prosecutions in the Circuit Court, held at Yorktown in October, were ordered against the Pittsburgh offenders, but no proof could be had to sustain an indictment.
The President's proclamation startled the western people, and some uneasiness was felt as to how such of their representatives as had taken part in the Pittsburgh meeting would be received when they should go up to the legislature in the winter. Bradford and Smilie accompanied Gallatin; Smilie to take his seat in the state Senate, and Bradford to represent Washington County in the House, where he “cut a poor figure.” Gallatin despised him, and characterized him as a “tenth-rate lawyer and an empty drum.” Gallatin found, however, that although the Pittsburgh meeting had hurt the general interest of his party throughout the State, and “rather defeated” the repeal of the excise law, his eastern friends did not turn the cold shoulder to him. He said to every one whom he knew that the resolutions were perhaps too violent and undoubtedly highly impolitic, but, in his opinion, contained nothing illegal. Meanwhile federal officers proceeded to enforce the law in Washington County. A riot ensued, and the office was forcibly closed. Bills were found against two of the offenders in the federal court, and warrants to arrest and bring them to Philadelphia for trial were issued. Gallatin believed the men innocent, and did not hesitate to advise Badollet to keep them out of the way when the marshal should go to serve the writs, but deprecated any insult to the officer. He thought “the precedent a very dangerous one to drag people such a distance in order to be tried on governmental prosecutions.” Here the matter rested for a season.
At this session of the legislature Gallatin introduced a new system of county taxation, proposed a clause providing for “trustees yearly elected, one to each township, without whose consent no tax is to be raised, nor any above one per cent. on the value of lands,” which he hoped would “tend to crush the aristocracy of every town in the State.” Also he proposed a plan to establish a school and library in each county, with a sufficient immediate sum in money, and a yearly allowance for a teacher in the English language.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The drafting of this letter was, notwithstanding his protest, intrusted to John Jay, one of the strongest of the Federal leaders, and a warm supporter of the Constitution as it stood.
CHAPTER IIIToC
UNITED STATES SENATE
The death of the grandfather of Mr. Gallatin, and soon after of his aunt, strongly tempted him to make a journey to Geneva in the summer of 1793. The political condition of Europe at that time was of thrilling interest. On January 21 the head of Louis XVI. fell under the guillotine, to which Marie Antoinette soon followed him. The armies of the coalition were closing in upon France. Of the political necessity for these state executions there has always been and will always be different judgments. That of Mr. Gallatin is of peculiar value. It is found expressed in intimate frankness in a letter to his friend Badollet, written at Philadelphia, February 1, 1794.
“France at present offers a spectacle unheard of at any other period. Enthusiasm there produces an energy equally terrible and sublime. All those virtues which depend upon social or family affections, all those amiable weaknesses, which our natural feelings teach us to love or respect, have disappeared before the stronger, the only, at present, powerful passion, the Amor Patriæ. I must confess my soul is not enough steeled, not sometimes to shrink at the dreadful executions which have restored at least apparent internal tranquillity to that republic. Yet upon the whole, as long as the combined despots press upon every frontier, and employ every engine to destroy and distress the interior parts, I think they, and they alone, are answerable for every act of severity or injustice, for every excess, nay for every crime, which either of the contending parties in France may have committed.”
Within a few years the publication of the correspondence of De Fersen, the agent of the king and queen, has supplied the proof of the charge that they were in secret correspondence with the allied sovereigns to introduce foreign troops upon the soil of France—a crime which no people has ever condoned.
The French Revolution, which from its beginning in 1789 reacted upon the United States with fully the force that the American Revolution exerted upon France, had become an important factor in American politics. The intemperance of Genet, the minister of the French Convention to the United States on the one hand, and the breaches of neutrality by England on the other, were dividing the American people into English and French parties. The Federalists sympathized with the English, the late enemies, and the Republicans with the French, the late allies, of the United States.
Mr. Gallatin had about made up his mind to visit Europe, when an unexpected political honor changed his plans. The Pennsylvania legislature elected him a senator of the United States on joint ballot, a distinction the more singular in that the legislature was Federalist and Mr. Gallatin was a representative of a Republican district, and strong in that faith. Moreover, he was not a candidate either of his own motion or by that of his friends, but, on the contrary, had doubts as to his eligibility because of insufficient residence. This objection, which he himself stated in caucus, was disregarded, and on February 28, 1793, by a vote of 45 to 37, he was chosen senator. Mr. Gallatin had just completed his thirty-second year, and now a happy marriage came opportunely to stimulate his ambition and smooth his path to other honors.
Among the friends made at Philadelphia was Alexander J. Dallas, a gentleman two years Gallatin's senior, whose career, in some respects, resembled his own. He was born in Jamaica, of Scotch parents; had been thoroughly educated at Edinburgh and Westminster, and, coming to the United States in 1783, had settled in Philadelphia. He now held the post of secretary of state for Pennsylvania.