Albert Gallatin

by John Austin Stevens

Smilie, Gallatin's earliest political friend, was born in 1742, and was therefore about twenty years his senior. He came to the United States in youth, and had grown up in the section he now represented. His popularity is shown by his service in the state legislature, and during twelve years in Congress as representative or as senator. In any estimate of Mr. Gallatin, this early influence must be taken into account. The friendship thus formed continued until Smilie's death in 1816. From the adviser he became the ardent supporter of Mr. Gallatin.

Blair McClanachan, of Philadelphia County, was elected chairman of the conference. The result of this deliberation was a report in the form of a series of resolutions, of which two drafts, both in Mr. Gallatin's handwriting, are among his papers now in the keeping of the New York Historical Society. The original resolutions were broad in scope, and suggested a plan of action of a dual nature; the one of which failing, resort could be had to the other without compromising the movement by delay. In a word, it proposed an opposition by a party organization. The first resolution was adroitly framed to avoid the censure with which the people at large, whose satisfaction with the new Constitution had grown with the fresh adhesions of State after State to positive enthusiasm, would surely condemn any attempt to dissolve the Union formed under its provisions. This resolution declared that it was in order to prevent a dissolution of the Union and to secure liberty, that a revision was necessary. The second expressed the opinion of the conference to be, that the safest manner to obtain such revision was to conform to the request of the State of New York, and to urge the calling of a new convention, and recommended that the Pennsylvania legislature be petitioned to apply for that purpose to the new Congress. These were declaratory. The third and fourth provided, first, for an organization of committees in the several counties to correspond with each other and with similar committees in other States; secondly, invited the friends to amendments in the several States to meet in conference at a fixed time and place. This plan of committees of correspondence and of a meeting of delegates was simply a revival of the methods of the Sons of Liberty, from whose action sprung the first Continental Congress of 1774.

The formation of such an organization would surely have led to disturbance, perhaps to civil war. During the progress of the New York convention swords and bayonets had been drawn, and blood had been shed in the streets of Albany, where the Anti-Federalists excited popular rage by burning the new Constitution. But the thirty-three gentlemen who met at Harrisburg wisely tempered these resolutions to a moderate tone. Thus modified, they recommended, first, that the people of the State should acquiesce in the organization of the government, while holding in view the necessity of very considerable amendments and alterations essential to preserve the peace and harmony of the Union. Secondly, that a revision by general convention was necessary. Thirdly, that the legislature should be requested to apply to Congress for that purpose. The petition recommended twelve amendments, selected from those already proposed by other States. These were of course restrictive. The report was made public in the “Pennsylvania Packet” of September 15. With this the agitation appears to have ceased. On September 13 Congress notified the States by resolution to appoint electors under the provisions of the Constitution. The unanimous choice of Washington as president hushed all opposition, and for a time the Anti-Federalists sunk into insignificance.

The persistent labors of the friends of revision were not without result. The amendments proposed by Virginia and New York were laid before the House of Representatives. Seventeen received the two thirds vote of the House. After conference with the Senate, in which Mr. Madison appeared as manager for the House, these, reduced in number to twelve by elimination and compression, were adopted by the requisite two thirds vote, and transmitted to the legislatures of the States for approval. Ratified by a sufficient number of States, they became a part of the Constitution. They were general, and declaratory of personal rights, and in no instance restrictive of the power of the general government.

In 1789, the Assembly of Pennsylvania calling a convention to revise the Constitution of the State, Mr. Gallatin was sent as a delegate from Fayette County. To the purposes of this convention he was opposed, as a dangerous precedent. He had endeavored to organize an opposition to it in the western counties, by correspondence with his political friends. His objections were the dangers of alterations in government, and the absurdity of the idea that the Constitution ever contemplated a change by the will of a mere majority. Such a doctrine, once admitted, would enable not only the legislature, but a majority of the more popular house, were two established, to make another appeal to the people on the first occasion, and, instead of establishing on solid foundations a new government, would open the door to perpetual change, and destroy that stability which is essential to the welfare of a nation; since no constitution acquires the permanent affection of the people, save in proportion to its duration and age. Finally, such changes would sooner or later conclude in an appeal to arms,—the true meaning of the popular and dangerous words, “an appeal to the people.” The opposition was begun too late, however, to admit of combined effort, and was not persisted in; and Mr. Gallatin himself, with practical good sense, consented to serve as a delegate. Throughout his political course the pride of mastery never controlled his actions. When debarred from leadership he did not sulk in his tent, but threw his weight in the direction of his principles. The convention met at Philadelphia on November 24, 1789, and closed its labors on September 2, 1790. This was Gallatin's apprenticeship in the public service. Among his papers are a number of memoranda, some of them indicating much elaboration of speeches made, or intended to be made, in this body. One is an argument in favor of enlarging the representation in the House; another is against a plan of choosing senators by electors; another concerns the liberty of the press. There is, further, a memorandum of his motion in regard to the right of suffrage, by virtue of which “every freeman who has attained the age of twenty-one years, and been a resident and inhabitant during one year next before the day of election, every naturalized freeholder, every naturalized citizen who had been assessed for state or county taxes for two years before election day, or who had resided ten years successively in the State, should be entitled to the suffrage, paupers and vagabonds only being excluded.” Certainly, in his conservative limitations upon suffrage, he did not consult his own interest as a large landholder inviting settlement, nor pander to the natural desires of his constituency.

In an account of this convention, written at a later period, Mr. Gallatin said that it was the first public body to which he was elected, and that he took but a subordinate share in the debates; that it was one of the ablest bodies of which he was ever a member, and with which he was acquainted, and, excepting Madison and Marshall, that it embraced as much talent and knowledge as any Congress from 1795 to 1812, beyond which his personal knowledge did not extend. Among its members were Thomas McKean, signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the Continental Congress, Thomas Mifflin and Timothy Pickering, of the Revolutionary army, and Smilie and Findley, Gallatin's political friends. General Mifflin was its president.

But mental distraction brought Mr. Gallatin no peace of heart at this period, and when the excitement of the winter was over he fell into a state of almost morbid melancholy. To his friend Badollet he wrote from Philadelphia, early in March, that life in Fayette County had no more charms for him, and that he would gladly leave America. But his lands were unsalable at any price, and he saw no means of support at Geneva. Some one has said, with a profound knowledge of human nature, that no man is sure of happiness who has not the capacity for continuous labor of a disagreeable kind. The occasional glimpses into Mr. Gallatin's inner nature, which his correspondence affords, show that up to this period he was not supposed by his friends or by himself to have this capacity. In the letter which his guardian wrote to him after his flight from home, he was reproached with his “natural indolence.” His good friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, accused him of being hard to please, and disposed to ennui; and again, as late as 1787, repeats to him, in a tone of sorrow, the reports brought to her of his “continuance in his old habit of indolence,” his indifference to society, his neglect of his dress, and general indifference to everything but study and reading, tastes which, she added, he might as well have cultivated at Geneva as in the new world; and he himself, in the letter to Badollet just mentioned, considers that his habits and his laziness would prove insuperable bars to his success in any profession in Europe. In estimation of this self-condemnation, it must be borne in mind that the Genevans were intellectual Spartans. Gallatin must be measured by that high standard. But if the charge of indolence could have ever justly lain against Gallatin,—a charge which his intellectual vigor at twenty-seven seems to challenge,—it certainly could never have been sustained after he fairly entered on his political and public career. In October, 1790, he was elected by a two thirds majority to represent Fayette County in the legislature of the State of Pennsylvania; James Findley was his colleague, John Smilie being advanced to the state Senate. Mr. Gallatin was reëlected to the Assembly in 1791 and 1792, without opposition.

Among his papers there is a memorandum of his legislative service during these three years, and a manuscript volume of extracts from the Journals of the House, from January 14, 1791, to December 17, 1794. They form part of the extensive mass of documents and letters which were collected and partially arranged by himself, with a view to posthumous publication. Here is an extract from the memorandum:—

“I acquired an extraordinary influence in that body [the Pennsylvania House of Representatives]; the more remarkable as I was always in a party minority. I was indebted for it to my great industry and to the facility with which I could understand and carry on the current business. The laboring oar was left almost exclusively to me. In the session of 1791-1792, I was put on thirty-five committees, prepared all their reports, and drew all their bills. Absorbed by those details, my attention was turned exclusively to administrative laws, and not to legislation properly so called.... I failed, though the bill I had introduced passed the House, in my efforts to lay the foundation for a better system of education. Primary education was almost universal in Pennsylvania, but very bad, and the bulk of schoolmasters incompetent, miserably paid, and held in no consideration. It appeared to me that in order to create a sufficient number of competent teachers, and to raise the standard of general education, intermediate academical education was an indispensable preliminary step, and the object of the bill was to establish in each county an academy, allowing to each out of the treasury a sum equal to that raised by taxation in the county for its support. But there was at that time in Pennsylvania a Quaker and a German opposition to every plan of general education.

“The spirit of internal improvements had not yet been awakened. Still, the first turnpike-road in the United States was that from Philadelphia to Lancaster, which met with considerable opposition. This, as well as every temporary improvement in our communications (roads and rivers) and preliminary surveys, met, of course, with my warm support. But it was in the fiscal department that I was particularly employed, and the circumstances of the times favored the restoration of the finances of the State.