"I believed from what I heard he would be rejected," wrote Nicholas two years afterward;1" and that at all events, if he was not, his confirmation would be by a bare majority. During my public service but one event had ever occurred that gave me as much uneasiness: I mean the degradation of the country at that very moment by the abandonment of [the embargo]."

The two events were in fact somewhat alike in character. That Gallatin should become Secretary of State seemed a point of little consequence, even though it were the only remaining chance for honorable peace; but that another secretary should be forced on the President by a faction in the Senate, for the selfish objects of men like Samuel Smith and Giles, foreboded revolution in the form of government. Nicholas saw chiefly the danger which threatened his friends; but the remoter peril to Executive independence promised worse evils than could be caused even by the overthrow of the party in power at a moment of foreign aggression.

The effort of Giles and Smith to control Madison had no excuse. Gallatin's foreign birth, the only objection urged against him, warranted doubt, not indeed of his fitness, but of difficulty in obliging European powers to deal with a native of Geneva, who was in their eyes either a subject of their own or an enemy at war; but neither Napoleon nor King George in the year 1809 showed so much regard to American feelings that the United States needed to 1 W. C. Nicholas to Nicholas MSS.

affect delicacy in respect to theirs; and Gallatin's foreign birth became a signal advantage if it should force England to accept the fact, even though she refused to admit the law, of American naturalization. Gallatin's fitness was undisputed, and the last men who could question it were Giles and Samuel Smith, who had been his friends for twenty years, had trusted their greatest party interests in his hands, had helped to put the Treasury under his control, and were at the moment keeping him at its head when they might remove him to the less responsible post of minister for foreign affairs. Any question of Gallatin's patriotism suggested ideas even more delicate than those raised by doubts of his fitness. A party which had once trusted Burr and which still trusted Wilkinson, not to mention Giles himself, had little right to discuss Gallatin's patriotism, or the honesty of foreign-born citizens. Even the mild-spoken Wilson Cary Nicholas almost lost his temper at this point. "I honestly believe," he wrote in 1811, "if all our native citizens had as well discharged their duty to their country, that we should by our energy have extorted from both England and France a respect for our rights, and that before this day we should have extricated ourselves from all our embarrassments instead of having increased them." The men who doubted Gallatin's patriotism were for the most part themselves habitually factious, or actually dallying with ideas of treason.

Had any competent native American been pressed

for the Department of State, the Senate might still have had some pretext for excluding Gallatin; but no such candidate could be suggested. Giles was alone in thinking himself the proper secretary; Samuel Smith probably stood in the same position; Monroe still sulked in opposition and discredit; Armstrong, never quite trusted, was in Paris; William Pinkney and J. Q. Adams were converts too recent for such lofty promotion; G. W. Campbell and W. H. Crawford had neither experience nor natural fitness for the post. The appointment of Gallatin not only seemed to be, but actually was, necessary to Madison's Administration.

No argument affected the resistance of Giles and Samuel Smith, and during the early days of March Madison could see no means of avoiding a party schism. From that evil, at such a stage, he shrank. While the subject still stood unsettled, some unknown person suggested a new idea. If Robert Smith could be put in the Treasury, his brother Samuel would vote to confirm Gallatin as Secretary of State. The character of such a transaction needed no epithet; but Madison went to Robert Smith and offered him the Treasury. He knew Smith to be incompetent, but he thought that with Gallatin's aid even an incompetent person might manage the finances; and perhaps his astuteness went so far as to foresee what was to happen, — that he should deal with the Smiths on some better occasion in a more

1 Robert Smith's Address to the People, June 7, 1811.

summary manner.

Madison's resemblance to a car

dinal was not wholly imaginary.1

While Robert Smith went to inquire into the details of Treasury business before accepting the offered post, the President consulted with Gallatin, who rejected the scheme at once. He could not, he said, undertake the charge of both departments; the President would do better to appoint Robert Smith Secretary of State, and leave the Treasury as it was Madison seized this outlet of escape. He returned to Robert Smith with the offer of the State Department, which Smith accepted. In making this arrangement Madison knew that he must himself supply Smith's deficiencies; but stronger wills than that of Madison had yielded to party discontent, and he gained much if he gained only time.

The true victim of the bargain was Gallatin, who might wisely have chosen the moment for retiring from the Cabinet; but after declining an arrangement in his favor, he could not fairly desert the President, who had offered to sacrifice much for him, and he was too proud to avow a personal slight as the motive of his public action. Weakened already by the unexpected decline of his influence in the Senate, his usefulness was sure to be still further lessened by the charge of clinging to office; but after weighing the arguments for retirement he decided to remain,2 although he could not, even if he would, forget that

1 First Administration of Jefferson, vol. i. p. 188.

2 Gallatin to Jefferson, Nov. 8, 1809; Adams's Gallatin, p. 408

the quarrel which had been forced upon him must be met as vigorously as it was made.

The War and Navy Departments remained to be filled. Dearborn, who had continued in the War Department chiefly to oblige President Jefferson, retired in the month of February to become Collector of the port of Boston. As his successor, Madison selected William Eustis, of Boston, who had served in Congress during Jefferson's first Administration. Eustis was about fifty-six years old; in the Revolutionary War he had filled the post of hospital surgeon, and since the peace he had practised his profession in Boston. Little could be said of the appointment, except that no other candidate was suggested who seemed better qualified for the place.1

To succeed Robert Smith at the Navy Department, Madison selected Paul Hamilton, of South Carolina. Nothing was known of Hamilton, except that he had been governor of his State some ten years before. No one seemed aware why he had attracted the President's attention, or what qualities fitted him for the charge of naval affairs; but he appeared in due time at Washington,—a South Carolinian gentleman, little known in society or even to his colleagues in the government, and little felt as an active force in the struggle of parties and opinions.

From the outset Madison's Cabinet was the least satisfactory that any President had known. More than once the Federalist cabinets had been convulsed

1 Madison to Henry Lee, February, 1827; Works, iii. 562, 564.