The task of devising what Randolph called a substantial reform fell almost wholly upon Gallatin, who arrived in Washington, May 13, and set himself to the labor of reducing to a system the theories with which he had indoctrinated his party. Through the summer and autumn he toiled upon this problem, which the President left in his hands. When October arrived, and the whole Cabinet assembled at length in Washington, under the President’s eye, to prepare business for the coming session, Gallatin produced his scheme. First, he required common consent to the general principle that payment of debt should take precedence of all other expenditure. This axiom of Republicanism was a party dogma too well settled to be disputed. Debt, taxes, wars, armies, and navies were all pillars of corruption; but the habit of mortgaging the future to support present waste was the most fatal to freedom and purity., Having fixed this broad principle, which was, as Gallatin afterward declared, the principal object of bringing him into office,[50] a harder task remained; for if theory required prompt payment of the debt, party interest insisted with still greater energy on reduction of taxes; and the revenue was not sufficient to satisfy both demands. The customs duties were already low. The highest _ad valorem_ rate was twenty per cent; the average was but thirteen. Reduction to a lower average, except in the specific duties on salt, coffee, and sugar, was asked by no one; and Gallatin could not increase the rates even to relieve taxation elsewhere. Whatever relief the party required must come from another source. The Secretary began by fixing the limits of his main scheme. Assuming four Administrations, or sixteen years, as a fair allowance of time for extinguishing the debt, he calculated the annual sum which would be required for the purpose, and found that $7,300,000 applied every year to the payment of interest and principal would discharge the whole within the year 1817. Setting aside $7,300,000 as an annual fund to be devoted by law to this primary object, he had to deal only with such revenue as should remain. The net receipts from customs he calculated at $9,500,000 for the year, and from lands and postage at $450,000; or $9,950,000 in all. Besides this sum of less than ten million dollars, internal taxes, and especially the tax on whiskey-stills, produced altogether about $650,000; thus raising the income to $10,600,000, or $3,300,000 in excess of the fund set apart for the debt.