In June, 1839, Mr. Gallatin resigned his post as president of the National Bank of New York. In 1841 he published a financial essay, which he entitled “Suggestions on the Banks and Currency of the United States,” a paper full of information, but from the nature of the subject not to be compared in general interest with his earlier paper, which is as fresh to-day as when it was written. Mr. Gallatin condemned paper currency as an artificial stimulus, and the ultimate object of his essays was to annihilate what he termed the “dangerous instrument.” He admitted its utility and convenience, when used with great sobriety, but he deprecated its tendency to degenerate into a depreciated and irredeemable currency. This tendency the present national banking law arrests, but the law rather invites than prohibits the stimulus of increased issues. The last word has not yet been said on national currency, which, though the basis of all commercial transactions, has necessarily no other relation to banks than that which it holds to any individual in the community.
Economic questions have interested the highest order of mind on the two continents. Sismondi published a paper on commercial wealth in 1803, and in 1810 a memoir on paper money, which he prepared to show how it might be suppressed in the Austrian dominions; Humboldt made a special study of the sources and quantity of the precious metals in the world, in which Mr. Gallatin aided him by investigation in America. Michel Chevalier was interested in the same subjects; surviving his two masters in the art and witnessing the marvelous effects of the additions made by America to the store of precious metals, he continued the study in the spirit of his predecessors, and favored the world with instructive papers. Mr. Gallatin's contributions to this science are remarkable for minute research and careful deductions.
In 1843 President Tyler tendered the Treasury portfolio to Mr. Gallatin. The venerable financier looked upon the offer as an act of folly to which a serious answer seemed hardly necessary. Yet as silence might be misconstrued, he replied that he wanted no office, and to accept at his age that of secretary of the treasury would “be an act of insanity.” He was then in his eighty-third year. The offer of the post was but an ill-considered caprice of Mr. Tyler.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Cents are omitted as confusing figures.
[11] The first Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury. This was under the Supplementary Treasury Act.
[12] Excess of receipts, notwithstanding the purchase of Louisiana and payments on account of principal and interest of the debt.
[13] These were the banks of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Seven presidents formed the committee. John A. Stevens of New York was chairman, by request of the Secretary of the Treasury. The other members were named by him. The sum advanced to the government was one hundred and fifty millions of dollars in coin.
[14] At Portland, $120,000; Salem, $183,600; Boston, $75,300; Providence, $67,800; Richmond, $49,000; Norfolk, $103,000; Charleston, $354,000.
[15] Report of Secretary Dallas, September 20, 1816.