(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
A Memoir on the North-Eastern Boundary: In Connexion With Mr. Jay's Map (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from A Memoir on the North-Eastern Boundary: In C...)
Excerpt from A Memoir on the North-Eastern Boundary: In Connexion With Mr. Jay's Map
Under those circumstances, a map which had been used by the Hon. John jay, during the negotiation of 1782, and which I had never seen before, was communicated to me and I have obtained the permission of his son, Mr. William jay, to whom it now belongs, to lay it before this Society. It is proper for me to add, that this map, which, since the death of his father, had always remained in the possession of our late President, Mr. Peter A. Jay, had never till now been seen by the present owner, Mr. William jay, to whom it descended with his other papers by the will of his father.
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Views of the Public Debt, Receipts, and Expenditures of the United States (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Views of the Public Debt, Receipts, and Expe...)
Excerpt from Views of the Public Debt, Receipts, and Expenditures of the United States
The firit way is that which has been universal ly adopted in other countries, in statements of that kind. When the amount of the public debt of Great Britain is stated, the nominal amount is always given, without making any de ductions on account of any funds or resources which might be applied to the payment of somec5.
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Suggestions On The Banks And Currency Of The Several United States: In Reference Principally To The Suspension Of Specie Payments (1841)
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
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Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin was a Swiss-American politician, diplomat, ethnologist and linguist.
Background
Gallatin was born on January 29, 1761 in Geneva, Switzerland, to wealthy Jean Gallatin and his wife, Sophie Albertine Rollaz. Gallatin's family had great influence in Switzerland, and many family members held distinguished positions in the magistracy, military, and in Swiss delegations in foreign armies. Gallatin's father, a prosperous merchant, died in 1765, followed by his mother in April 1770. Now orphaned, Gallatin was taken into the care of Mademoiselle Pictet, a family friend and distant relative of Gallatin's father.
Education
Gallatin was sent to boarding school in January 1773.
As a student at the elite Academy of Geneva, Gallatin read deeply in the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire, along with the French Physiocrats; he became dissatisfied with the traditionalism of Geneva. He graduated from the Academy of Geneva in 1779. A young man of the age of the Enlightenment, he was sympathetic to the American Revolution and sailed for America in 1780, happy to be in "the freest country in the universe. "
After a winter as a merchant in Maine, and a brief time with the colonial militia, Gallatin tutored in French in Boston in 1781.
Career
In 1782 Albert Gallatin was appointed a tutor at Harvard College. In 1783 Gallatin and a Frenchman planned to purchase western land and located an area in Virginia. Gallatin carried out surveying, mapped the interior, and registered land titles until an Indian uprising forced him to retreat. He took an oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1785.
In 1786 Gallatin bought a 400-acre farm in western Pennsylvania and devoted himself to farming and land development. But his training and talents were unusual on the frontier, and he quickly became a political leader. In 1788 he was elected as a delegate to a meeting to propose amendments to the new U. S. Constitution. In 1789 he attended the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1790 and reelected the next 2 years. Quickly establishing a reputation for hard work and integrity, Gallatin became a skillful and logical orator. His greatest contribution came in the field of public finance. In 1793 he was elected to the U. S. Senate as a Republican.
However, when Gallatin took his Senate seat, the Federalists challenged his eligibility, based on the fact that he had not applied for citizenship early enough to meet technical citizenship requirements. The Senate ruled against him, and Gallatin returned to Pennsylvania, where the new excise tax on whiskey stills had stirred up the rioting known as the Whiskey Rebellion. Though he opposed the tax, Gallatin also opposed violence and tried to moderate the local militia's use of force. He was largely responsible for persuading his comrades to submit to the new law.
Meanwhile, Gallatin had been elected to Congress again. He entered the House of Representatives in 1795 and became the most knowledgeable Republican on public finance. He proposed the creation of the Ways and Means Committee—Congress's first permanent standing committee— to receive financial reports from the secretary of the Treasury and to superintend government finances. His A Sketch of the Finances of the United States (1796), a moderate, detailed analysis of the Federalist financial program, argued that a public debt was a public curse. Because the debt had grown since 1790, he proposed several new measures.
When James Madison retired in 1797, Gallatin became the Republican spokesman in the House. He opposed the Federalists' warlike measures against France and when the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) to silence domestic political opposition, he resisted with powerful arguments defending basic civil liberties.
With Thomas Jefferson's presidency in 1800 and the triumph of the Republicans, Gallatin was named to head the Treasury Department. He held this position longer than had any other secretary of the Treasury, serving from 1801 to 1814. Pledged to reduce the national debt and eliminate the excise tax, he projected a plan to pay off the debt by 1817, outlined proposals for appropriations for specified purposes, advocated the promotion of manufacturing, and argued for constructing a nationwide network of roads and canals with Federal aid.
For 6 years Gallatin's policies worked. But after 1807 the Embargo Act and other American efforts at peaceful coercion to avoid involvement in the Napoleonic Wars wrecked his policies. Although Gallatin favored rechartering the Bank of the United States in 1811, Congress refused, and America entered the War of 1812 with its monetary system in disarray. The war dealt the final blow to Gallatin's financial system.
President Madison granted Gallatin leave from the Treasury to join John Quincy Adams and James A. Bayard in exploring Russia's offer to mediate in the war. When Great Britain rejected this offer, Madison appointed Gallatin to the commission to negotiate directly with Britain. He became its most influential member. Adams, not much given to praise, rated him as the leading negotiator on both sides. Historian Henry Adams labeled the Treaty of Ghent "the special and peculiar triumph of Mr. Gallatin. "
Gallatin continued in diplomatic service for most of the next decade. He served as American minister to France (1816-1823). In 1818 he joined Richard Rush in London to work out a treaty extending earlier commercial agreements, securing American fishing rights off Newfoundland, drawing the northern boundary between Canada and the United States at the 49th parallel, and leaving the Oregon Territory open for joint occupation.
In 1823 Gallatin returned to the United States. Nominated for vice president on the Republican ticket headed by William H. Crawford, he withdrew when Crawford's manager attempted to substitute Henry Clay as the vice-presidential candidate. After Gallatin spent an interlude as a gentleman farmer, President John Quincy Adams appointed him minister to Great Britain in 1826. Gallatin's public career ended with his final report relating to the Maine boundary dispute.
Settling in New York, Gallatin served as president of the National Bank from 1831 until his retirement in 1839. He unsuccessfully supported the renewal of the charter of the Second Bank of the United States, but he was instrumental in obtaining the resumption of specie payments after their suspension following the economic panic of 1837. Although he criticized high tariffs and advocated free trade, he affirmed Congress's right to levy protective tariffs.
In his last years, Gallatin was prominent in cultural affairs. He became president of New York University's council in 1830. However, he devoted most of his attention to the ethnology of the American Indian and founded the American Ethnological Society in 1842.
Gallatin became active in Pennsylvania politics. He opposed American domination of the North American continent, fearing that it would lead to empire-building, something he thought would be harmful to the nation's republican institutions.
In politics, Gallatin stood for assimilation of Native Americans into European based American society, encouraging federal efforts in education leading to assimilation and denying annuities for Native Americans displaced by western expansion.
Views
Quotations:
"The whole of the Bill is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals. .. It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of. "
"I am not wrong in the belief that its public funds are more secure than those of all the European powers. "
Membership
In 1836 he was elected to the American Antiquarian Society, and in 1843 he headed the New York Historical Society.
Interests
Throughout his career, Gallatin pursued an interest in Native American language and culture.
Connections
In 1789 Gallatin married to Sophia Allegre, who died 5 months later.
On 1 November in 1793, he married to Hannah Nicholson, daughter of the well-connected Commodore James Nicholson. They had two sons and four daughters: Catherine, Sophia, Hannah Marie, Frances, James, and Albert Rolaz Gallatin. Catherine, Sophia, and Hannah Marie all died as infants.