The acquisition of Louisiana, the large carrying trade which had passed
under the American flag, and the rapid prosperity of the financial and
industrial condition of the country aroused the jealousy of Great
Britain, and determined her to check the further progress of the United
States by war, if need be. The capture of the American frigate
Chesapeake by the man-of-war Leopard, June 22, 1807, was only the first
in a series of outrages which rendered the final collision, though long
delayed, inevitable. Mr. Gallatin at once recognized that the Treasury
could no longer be conducted on a peace basis. "Money," he wrote to
Joseph H. Nicholson, "we will want to carry on the war; our revenue will
be cut up; new and internal taxes will be slow and not sufficiently
productive; we must necessarily borrow. This is not pleasing to me, but
it must be done." Congress was called together for October 26, 1807, and
on November 5, Mr. Gallatin sent in his annual report. There was still
hope that Great Britain would make amends for the outrage, and Congress
was certainly peaceably disposed. In the condition of the Treasury
there was no reason as yet for recommending extraordinary measures. The
revenues for the year passed the sum of seventeen millions; the balance
in the Treasury reached eight and one half millions; the surplus on a
peace footing was twelve millions. Mr. Gallatin recommended that the
duties should be doubled in case war were threatened. He said, "Should
the revenue fall below seven millions of dollars, not only the duty on
salt and the Mediterranean duties could be immediately revived, but the
duties on importation generally be considerably increased, perhaps
double, with less inconvenience than would arise from any other mode of
taxation." Experience had proven that this source of revenue is in the
United States "the most productive, the easiest to collect, and least
burdensome to the great mass of the people." But still the war-cloud did
not break. Mr. Canning contented himself with war in disguise, and by
his Order in Council of November 11, 1807, shut the ports of Europe to
American trade, and wiped away the advantages of the United States as a
neutral power. The United States answered with the act of embargo on
December 22, 1807, completing, as far as it was possible for legislation
to effect it, the blockade of the Treasury Department as regarded
revenues from foreign imports. The immediate effect, however, of these
acts in Great Britain and America was an enormous temporary increase of
importations in the interim from the time of the passage of the act
until the date when it took effect. To aid merchants in this peculiar
condition of affairs an act was passed by Congress, on March 10, 1808,
extending the terms of credit on revenue bonds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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