n. The administration was going to
pieces by sheer incapacity. The leaders took alarm and the cabinet was
reconstructed, Monroe being called to the Department of State. But the
enemies of Mr. Gallatin still clung to his skirts, determined to drag
him to the dust. Duane attacked him in the most dangerous manner.
Probably no man in America has ever been abused, vilified, maligned with
such deliberate persistency as was Gallatin in the "Aurora" from the
beginning of 1811 until the cabinet crisis, when Mr. Madison was
compelled to choose between Smith and himself. Day after day leaders
were devoted to personal assault upon him and to indirect insinuations
of his superiority to Madison, by which the artful editor sought to
arouse the jealousy of the President. The "Atlas at the side of the
President," the "Great Treasury Law Giver," the "First Lord of the
Treasury," the "Dagon of the Philistines," were favorite epithets. He
was charged by turns with betraying cabinet secrets to Randolph, with
amateur negotiation with Erskine, and with subserviency to British gold
in the support of the Bank of the United States. Here is an instance of
Duane's style: "We can say with perfect conviction that, if Mr. Madison
suffer this man to lord it over him, Mr. Gallatin will drag him down,
for no honest man in the country can support an administration of which
he is a member with consistency or a pure conscience." It was charged
upon Gallatin that his friends considered him as the real, while Madison
was the nominal, president. More than this, he was accused of
embezzlement and enormous speculations in the public lands. Gallatin's
party pride must have been strong indeed to have induced him to stay an
hour in an administration which granted its favors to the author of such
assaults upon one of its chosen leaders.

Jefferson wrote to Mr. Wirt in May following, that, because of the bank,
endeavors were made to drive from the administration (of Mr. Madison)
the ablest man, except the President, who ever was in it, and to beat
down the President himself because he was unwilling to part with such a
counselor.

Monroe was appointed secretary of state in Smith's place in April, 1811.
Other changes followed in the cabinet, but brought little relief to Mr.
Gallatin. Financial affairs now occupied his entire attention; on the
one hand was a diminishing treasury; on the other an expenditure
reckless in itself and beyond the demands of the administrati