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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory

JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN. - Albert Gallatin, The Writings of Albert Gallatin, vol. 1 [1879]

Edition used:

The Writings of Albert Gallatin, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1879). 3 vols.

Part of: The Writings of Albert Gallatin, 3 vols.

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JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN.

November 14, 1806.

Th. J. to Mr. Gallatin.

1. As to the 500 cavalry. If we have peace with Spain, we shall not want them; if war, all our plans must be new moulded. It is, therefore, only during the present unsettled state. This cannot exceed six months from October 1, about which time they probably went into service. This will cost 100,000 D. The proposing to Congress to establish them during the present unsettled state of things is merely to show Spain that we seriously mean to take justice if she will not do it. The men are in service under a previous law. This is the only extra expense I contemplate to meet the present state. Mr. Smith proposes to ask only the ordinary annual appropriation.

2. As to the salt tax. If that and the Mediterranean fund, continued to the end of 1808, will pay the Florida purchase, suppose the act of commutation lets the salt tax run to the end of 1807,—will not its amount for 1808 be made up by the increase of impost and land sales beyond calculation, and the sweepings of the Treasury? or if they still leave a deficit, would not the perpetuity of the Mediterranean fund enable us to anticipate enough for the deficit?

3. The university. This proposition will pass the States in all the winter of 1807-8, and Congress will not meet, and consequently cannot act on it, till the winter of 1808-9. The Florida debt will therefore be paid off before the university can call for anything.

The only difficulty in the whole, then, seems to be the amount of the salt tax for 1808, which I am in hopes will not be insuperable.