Background
Educated at private schools in England, he settled in Philadelphia in 1783, where he became one of the most highly paid and respected members of the bar. His reports of the early decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court are still standard. As secretary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1801, he was chief organizer of the Democratic-Republican Party in Pennsylvania. On Oct. 6, 1814, when the finances of the United States were in a precarious condition as a consequence of the War of 1812, he was appointed secretary of the treasury. In two years, aided by the end of the war, he turned a substantial deficit into an operating surplus of $20,000,000. He also hastened the resumption of specie payments throughout the nation, helped create the second Bank of the United States, and fathered the quasi-protective tariff of 1816. He died in Philadelphia, Pa., on Jan. 16, 1817.