of our strength." The epoch of strength once reached, Gallatin had no objection to tax, and tax freely, for any good purpose, even including ships-of-the-line. "Although I have been desirous," he wrote some four years later,[1] "that the measure might at least be postponed, I have had no doubt for a long time that the United States would ultimately have a navy." Nothing in his political theories prevented his spending money on defensive armaments or internal improvements or any other honest object, provided he had the money to spend.
The Federalists disagreed with Gallatin rather on a question of fact than of principle. They asserted that the country could not safely disarm; Gallatin, on the other hand, thought that for a few years military helplessness might be risked without too much danger. Time could alone decide which opinion was correct; but in this issue the Federalists could see no suggestion such as Jefferson made, that "sound principles will not justify our taxing the industry of our fellow-citizens to accumulate treasures for wars to happen we know not when." If Congress were to be tied so fast that no provision could ever be made for national defence except in actual presence of war, this "sound principle" should have been announced, according to Federalist theories, not as a detail of administration but as a constitutional amendment.
- ↑ Gallatin to Jefferson, Sept. 12, 1805; Works, i. 253.
