e was a part of Hamilton's general scheme. His original
bill was passed, and, after numerous amendments suggested by trial, its
grievances were tempered and the friction removed. In Adams's term it
yielded nearly three millions of dollars. In Jefferson's first term,
before the rise in customs revenue allowed of its abandonment, Mr.
Gallatin drew from this source nearly two millions of dollars, enough to
pay the interest and provide for the extinguishment of a six per cent.
loan of thirty millions; a war budget in itself. But it had been so
entirely set aside that in Jefferson's second term, 1808-1812, it had
fallen to a little over sixty-three thousand; in Madison's first term,
to a little under nineteen thousand dollars. Was it to this Mr. Dallas
referred in that passage of his report, made in 1815, on the financial
operations of the war, in which he expresses his regret "that there
existed no system by which the internal resources of the country could
be brought at once into action, when the resources of its external
commerce became incompetent to answer the exigencies of the time? The
existence of such a system would probably have invigorated the early
movements of the war, might have preserved the public credit unimpaired,
and would have rendered the pecuniary contributions of the people more
equal, as well as more effective." "It certainly," to use the words of
this Mr. Gallatin's oldest and best political friend, "furnishes a
lesson of practical policy." Disagreeable as the necessity was, it could
not be avoided, and Mr. Gallatin met it manfully. Nay more, he seems to
have had a grim satisfaction in proposing the measure to the Congress
which had thwarted him in his plans. In accordance with his suggestions,
Congress, in the extra session of May, 1813, laid a direct tax of
$3,000,000 upon the States, and specific duties upon refined sugar,
carriages, licenses to distillers of spirituous liquors, sales at
auction, licenses to retailers of wines, and upon notes of banks and
bankers. These duties, in the beginning temporary, were calculated to
yield $500,000, and with the direct tax to give a sum of $3,500,000. But
the increasing expenditures again requiring additional sums of revenue,
the duties were made permanent and additional taxes were laid; the
entire revenue for 1815 being raised so as to yield $12,400,000. In the
second term of Mr. Madison the internal revenue brought in nearly eleven
and a half millions. The