To this end the secretary was called upon to furnish comparative views of the commerce and tonnage of the country for every year from the formation of the department in 1789, with tables of the exports and imports, foreign and domestic, separately stated, and with a division of the nationality of the carrying vessels.
Later, comparative views were demanded of the receipts and expenditures for each year; the receipts under the heads of Loans, Revenue in its various forms, and others in their several divisions; the expenditures, also, to be classified under the heads of Civil List, Foreign Intercourse, Military Establishment, Indian Department, Naval, etc.
Finally a call was made for a statement of the annual appropriations and the applications of them by the Treasury.

The object of Mr.Gallatin was to establish the expenses of the government in each department of service on a permanent footing for which annual appropriations should be made, and for any extraordinary expenditure to insist on a special appropriation for the stated object and none other.

By keeping constantly before the House this distinction between the permanent fund and temporary exigencies, he accustomed it to take a practical business view of its legislative duties, and the people to understand the principles he endeavored to apply.
In a debate at the beginning of the session, on a bill for establishing trading houses with the Indians, Mr.Gallatin showed his hand by declaring that he would not consent to appropriate any part of the war funds for the scheme; nor, in view of the need of additional permanent funds for the discharge of the public debt, would he vote for the bill at all, unless there was to be a reduction in the expense of the military establishment; and he would not be diverted from his purpose although Mr.Madison advocated the bill because of its extremely benevolent object.

The Federal leaders saw clearly to what this doctrine would bring them, and met it in the beginning.

The first struggle occurred when the appropriations for the service of 1796 were brought before the House.