“It has seemed to me from various circumstances that those who thought they had injured were disposed to destroy, and that they were sufficiently skillful and formidable to effect their object. As I may not, however, perhaps, see their actions with an unprejudiced eye, nothing but irresistible evidence both of the intention and success will make me yield to that consideration.... I do not ask that in the present situation of our foreign relations the debt be reduced, but only that it shall not be increased so long as we are not at war. I do not pretend to step out of my own sphere and to control the internal management of other departments; but it seems to me that as Secretary of the Treasury I may ask, that, while peace continues, the aggregate of the expenditure of those departments be kept within bounds such as will preserve the equilibrium between the national revenue and expenditure without recurrence to loans. I cannot consent to act the part of a mere financier, to become a contriver of taxes, a dealer of loans, a seeker of resources for the purpose of supporting useless baubles, of increasing the number of idle and dissipated members of the community, of fattening contractors, pursers, and agents, and of introducing in all its ramifications that system of patronage, corruption, and rottenness which you so justly execrate.” From this avowal Madison’s difficulties could be understood and his course foreseen. Very slow to move, he was certain at last to quarrel with the senatorial faction that annoyed him. He could not but protect Gallatin, and dismiss Smith. At the end of the vista, however far the distance, stood the inevitable figure of Monroe. Scarcely another man in public life could fill precisely the gap, and none except Armstrong could give strength to the President by joining him. Perhaps Littleton Tazewell, another distinguished Virginian of the same school, would have answered the President’s purpose as well as Monroe; but probably Tazewell would have declined to accept a seat in the Cabinet of a President whose election he had opposed.[125] Madison decided to take the first step. He had reason to think that Monroe repeated his course, at least to the extent of wishing reconciliation. He authorized Jefferson to act as mediator; and the Ex-President, who spared no effort for harmony, hastened to tell Monroe that the government of Louisiana was still at his disposal.[126] Monroe declined the office as being beneath his previous positions, but said that he would have accepted the first place in Madison’s Cabinet, and was sincere in his desire for the success of the Administration; he even pledged his support, and intimated that he had lost favor with John Randolph owing to, his exertions for Madison. When Jefferson reported the result of this interview, the President replied:[127] “The state of Colonel Monroe’s mind is very nearly what I had supposed; his