nd with a division of the nationality of the carrying vessels.
Later, comparative views were demanded of the receipts and expenditures
for each year; the receipts under the heads of Loans, Revenue in its
various forms, and others in their several divisions; the expenditures,
also, to be classified under the heads of Civil List, Foreign
Intercourse, Military Establishment, Indian Department, Naval, etc.
Finally a call was made for a statement of the annual appropriations and
the applications of them by the Treasury. The object of Mr. Gallatin was
to establish the expenses of the government in each department of
service on a permanent footing for which annual appropriations should be
made, and for any extraordinary expenditure to insist on a special
appropriation for the stated object and none other. By keeping
constantly before the House this distinction between the permanent fund
and temporary exigencies, he accustomed it to take a practical business
view of its legislative duties, and the people to understand the
principles he endeavored to apply.

In a debate at the beginning of the session, on a bill for establishing
trading houses with the Indians, Mr. Gallatin showed his hand by
declaring that he would not consent to appropriate any part of the war
funds for the scheme; nor, in view of the need of additional permanent
funds for the discharge of the public debt, would he vote for the bill
at all, unless there was to be a reduction in the expense of the
military establishment; and he would not be diverted from his purpose
although Mr. Madison advocated the bill because of its extremely
benevolent object. The Federal leaders saw clearly to what this doctrine
would bring them, and met it in the beginning. The first struggle
occurred when the appropriations for the service of 1796 were brought
before the House. Beginning with a discussion upon the salaries of the
officers of the mint, the debate at once passed to the principle of
appropriations. The Federalists insisted that a discussion of the merits
of establishments was not in order when the appropriations were under
consideration; that the House ought not, by withholding appropriations,
to destroy establishments formed by the whole legislature, that is, by
the Senate and House; that the House should vote for the appropriations
agreeably to the laws already made. This view was sanctioned by
practice. Mr. Gallatin immediately opposed this as an alarming and
dangerous