was taken without Mr. Gallatin's knowledge and approbation.
Such are the traditions of the triumvirate.

The first term of Madison's administration was not eventful. There was
discord in the cabinet. In the Senate the "invisibles," as the faction
which supported Robert Smith, the secretary of state, was aptly termed,
rejected Madison's nominations and opposed Gallatin's financial policy
as their interests or whims prompted. Randolph said of Madison at this
time, that he was "President _de jure_ only." Besides this domestic
strife, the cabinet was engaged in futile efforts to resist the
gradually tightening cordon of British aggression. Erskine's amateur
negotiations, quickly disavowed by the British government, and the short
and impertinent mission of Jackson, who succeeded him and was dismissed
from the United States, well served Canning's policy of delay. Madison,
whose prejudices were as strongly with Englishmen and English ways as
those of Jefferson were with the men and manners of France, averse to
war and withheld also by Gallatin's persistent objections, negotiated
and procrastinated until there was little left to argue about. In
December, 1809, Macon made an effort to pass a stringent navigation act
to meet the British Orders in Council and the French decrees. The bill
passed the House but was emasculated in the Senate, the Republican cabal
voting with the Federalists to strike out the effective clauses. The act
interdicting commercial intercourse with Great Britain and France
expired in May, 1810, and was not revived. A new act was passed, which
was a virtual surrender of every point in dispute. Resistance was
abandoned, and our ships and seamen were left to the mercy of both
belligerents.

Mr. Gallatin's entire energies were bent upon strengthening the Treasury
and opposing reckless expenditures. His most grievous disappointment,
however, was in the refusal of Congress to renew the charter of the Bank
of the United States. He used every possible effort to save this
institution, which, in the condition of the country, was indispensable
to a sound currency and the maintenance of specie payment. But with the
dead weight of Mr. Madison's silence, if not indifference, the struggle
was unequal and the bank fell. The course of Mr. Madison can hardly be
excused. Political history records few examples of a more cruel
desertion of a cabinet minister by his chief. Mr. Gallatin felt it
deeply and tendered his resignatio