The receipts from importations and land sales would be offset by
deductions for bad debts and extensions of credit to importers. The
expenditures were set at $13,000,000, which would leave in the Treasury
for extraordinary expenditure $3,000,717. The disbursements had been far
beyond the estimates; those for the military and naval establishments
reaching together six millions.
It is not to be supposed that Mr. Gallatin saw this depletion of the
Treasury, this rapid dissipation of the specie,--always desirable and
never more so than in periods of trouble,--without disappointment and
regret. His report to Congress was as outspoken politically as it was
financially, and from a foreign-born citizen to an American Congress
must have carried its sting. "Either America," he wrote, "must accept
the position of commerce allotted to her by the British edicts, and
abandon all that is forbidden,--and it is not material whether this is
done by legal provisions limiting the commerce of the United States to
the permitted places, or by acquiescing in the capture of vessels
stepping beyond the prescribed bounds. Or the nation must oppose force
to the execution of the orders of England; and this, however done, and
by whatever name called, will be war." He recalled to them his advice of
the preceding years in a vein of tempered bitterness: "Had the duties
been doubled on January 1, 1808, as was then suggested, in case of war
the receipts into the Treasury during that and the ensuing year would
have been increased nine or ten millions of dollars." He then proposed
to continue the Mediterranean Fund and to double all existing duties on
importations after January 1, 1809. He informed them that no internal
taxes, either direct or indirect, were contemplated by him even in the
case of hostilities against the two belligerent powers; France having
responded to the Orders in Council by Napoleon's Milan decree, December
17, 1807, which was quite as offensive to the United States as that of
Canning. With true statesmanship Mr. Gallatin nerved the country to
extraordinary exertion by reminding it that the geographical situation
of the United States and their history since the Revolution removed
every apprehension of frequent wars.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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