Even to these mild suggestions Congress responded indifferently. It slightly increased the naval appropriations, but it actually reduced the appropriations for the army; and it adjourned without acting on the bill authorizing the President to enroll fifty thousand volunteers. Personal animosity and prejudice combined to defeat the proposals of the Secretary of the Treasury. A bill to recharter the national bank, which Gallatin regarded as an indispensable fiscal agent, was defeated; and a bill providing for a general increase of duties on imports to meet the deficit was laid aside. Congress would authorize a loan of five million dollars but no new taxes. Only one bill was enacted which could be said to sustain the President's policy--that reviving certain parts of the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 against Great Britain. With this last helpless gasp the Eleventh Congress expired.
The defeat of measures which the Administration had made its own amounted to a vote of no confidence. Under similar circumstances an English Ministry would have either resigned or tested the sentiment of the country by a general election; but the American Executive possesses no such means of appealing immediately and directly to the electorate. President and Congress must live out their allotted terms of office, even though their antagonism paralyzes the operation of government. What, then, could be done to restore confidence in the Administration of President Madison and to establish a modus vivendi between Executive and Legislative?
It seemed to the Secretary of Treasury, smarting under the defeat of his bank bill, that he had become a burden to the Administration, an obstacle in the way of cordial cooperation between the branches of the Federal Government. The factions which had defeated his appointment to the Department of State seemed bent upon discrediting him and his policies. "I clearly perceive," he wrote to the President, "that my continuing a member of the present Administration is no longer of any public utility, invigorates the opposition against yourself, and must necessarily be attended with an increased loss of reputation by myself. Under those impressions, not without reluctance, and after perhaps hesitating too long in the hopes of a favorable change, I beg leave to tender you my resignation."