employed in obtaining the powers necessary
for a system of improvement, should it be thought best." In these words
Jefferson surrendered the vital principle of the Republican party. In
his satisfaction at the only triumph of his administration, the
management of the finances and the purchase of a province without a
ripple on the even surface of national finance, he gave up the very
basis of the Republican theory, the reduction of the government to its
possible minimum, and actually proposed a system of administration
coextensive with the national domain, an increase of the functions of
government, and consequently of executive power.

The annual report of the Treasury, presented December 16, 1808, showed
no diminution of resources. The total receipts for the fiscal year were
nearly eighteen millions. The total receipts for--

Customs reached $26,126,648
On which debentures were allowed
on exportations 10,059,457
-----------
Actual receipts from customs $16,067,191

But this source of revenue was now definitively closed by the embargo,
while the expenditures of the government were increased. Mr. Gallatin
met the situation frankly and notified Congress of the resources of the
Treasury.

RESOURCES FOR 1809

Cash in Treasury $13,846,717.52
Back customs, net 2,154,000.00
--------------
Total resources $16,000,717.52

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 th