of Canada. His opinion is, of course, that of a partisan.
But it contains much truth, for all that:

The war has been productive of evil and of good; but
I think the good preponderates. It has laid the
foundations of permanent taxes and military
establishments, which the Republicans [as the
anti-Federalist Democrats were then called] had deemed
unfavorable to the happiness and free institutions of
the country. Under our former system we were becoming
too selfish, too much attached exclusively to the
acquisition of wealth, above all, too much confined
in our political feelings to local and state objects.
The war has renewed the national feelings and character
which the Revolution had given, and which were daily
lessening. The people are now more American. They feel
and act more as a nation. And I hope that the permanency
of the Union is thereby better secured.

Gallatin did not, of course, foresee that it would take
a third conflict to finish what the Revolution had begun.
But this sequel only strengthens his argument. For that
Union which was born in the throes of the Revolution had
to pass through its tumultuous youth in '1812' before
reaching full manhood by means of the Civil War.

The benefits conferred on Canada were equally permanent
and even greater. How Gallatin would have rejoiced to
see in the United States any approach to such a financial
triumph as that which was won by the Army Bills in Canada!