He opposed appropriations even for the three frigates, United States, Constitution, and Constellation,--the construction of which had been ordered,--the germs of that navy which was later to set his theory at naught, redeem the honor of the flag, protect our commerce, and release the country and the civilized world from ignominious tribute to the Mediterranean pirates, who were propitiated in this very session only at the cost of a million of dollars to the Treasury of the United States, and by the gift of a frigate.
In the debate over the payment of the sum of five millions, which the United States Bank had demanded from the government, the greatest part of which had been advanced on account of appropriations, he lamented the necessity, but urged the liquidation.

This was the occasion of another personal encounter.

In reply to a charge of Gallatin that the Federalists were in favor of debt, Sedgwick alluded to Gallatin's part in the Whiskey Insurrection, and said that none of those gentlemen whom Gallatin had charged with "an object to perpetuate and increase the public debt" had been known to have combined "in every measure which might obstruct the operation of law," nor had declared to the world "that the men who would accept of the offices to perform the necessary functions of government were lost to every sense of virtue;" "that from them was to be withheld every comfort of life which depended on those duties which as men and fellow-citizens we owe to each other.

If," he said, "the gentlemen had been guilty of such nefarious practices, there would have been a sound foundation for the charge brought against them." Gallatin made no reply.

This was the one political sin he had acknowledged.