The commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the New York Historical Society, November, 1844, was an occasion of unusual interest. John Romeyn Brodhead, who had just returned from the Hague with the treasures of New Netherland history gathered during his mission, was the orator of the day. The venerable John Quincy Adams, Mr. Gallatin's old associate at Ghent, was present. After the address, which was delivered at the Church of the Messiah on Broadway, the society and its guests crossed the street to the New York Hotel, where a banquet awaited them. Mr. Gallatin retired early, leaving the chair to the first vice-president, Mr. Wm. Beach Lawrence. After he had left the room, Mr. Adams, speaking to a toast to the archæologists of America, said: “Mr. Gallatin, in sending to me the invitations of the society, added the expression of his desire 'to shake hands with me once more in this world.'” Mr. Adams could not but respond to his request. In his remarks he said:
“I have lived long, sir, in this world, and I have been connected with all sorts of men, of all sects and descriptions. I have been in the public service for a great part of my life, and filled various offices of trust, in conjunction with that venerable gentleman, Albert Gallatin. I have known him half a century. In many things we differed; on many questions of public interest and policy we were divided, and in the history of parties in this country there is no man from whom I have so widely differed as from him. But in other things we have harmonized; and now there is no man with whom I more thoroughly agree on all points than I do with him. But one word more let me say, before I leave you and him, birds of passage as we are, bound to a warmer and more congenial clime,—that among all public men with whom I have been associated in the course of my political life, whether agreeing or differing in opinion from him, I have always found him to be an honest and honorable man.”
In the road to harmony Mr. Adams had to do the traveling. Mr. Gallatin never changed his political opinions. The political career of the two men offered this singular contrast: Adams, dissatisfied with his party, passed into opposition; Gallatin, though at variance with the policy of the administration of which he made a part, held his fealty, and confined himself to the operations of his own bureau.
For a period far beyond the allotted years of man Mr. Gallatin retained the elasticity of his physical nature as well as his mental perspicacity. In middle age he was slight of figure, his height about five feet ten inches, his form compact and of nervous vigor. His complexion was Italian;[28] his expression keen; his nose long, prominent; his mouth small, fine cut, and mobile; his eyes hazel, and penetrative; his skull a model for the sculptor. Thus he appears in the portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart about the time that he took charge of the Treasury Department; he was then about forty years of age. In the fine portrait by William H. Powell, taken from life in 1843, and preserved in the gallery of the New York Historical Society, these characteristics appear in stronger outline. Monsieur de Bacourt,[29] the literary executor of Talleyrand, who was the French Ambassador to the United States in 1840, paid a visit to Mr. Gallatin in that year, and describes him as a “beau vieillard de quatre-vingt ans,” who has fully preserved his faculties. Bacourt alludes to his remarkable face, with its clear, fine cut features, and his “physiognomie pleine de finesse;” and dwells also upon the ease and charm of his conversation.
As his life slowly drew to its close, one after another of the few of his old friends who remained dropped from the road. Early in 1848 Adams fell in harness, on the floor of the House of Representatives; Lord Ashburton died in May. Finally, nearest, dearest of all, the companion of his triumphs and disappointments, the sharer of his honors and his joys, his wife, was taken from him by the relentless hand. The summer of 1849 found him crushed by this last affliction, and awaiting his own summons of release. He was taken to Mount Bonaparte, the country-seat of his son-in-law, at Astoria on Long Island, where he died in his daughter's arms on Sunday, August 12, 1849. The funeral services were held in Trinity Church on the Tuesday following, and his body was laid to rest in the Nicholson vault,[30] in the old graveyard adjoining. The elegant monument erected during his lifetime is one of the attractive features of this venerable cemetery, in whose dust mingle the remains of the temple of no more elevated spirit than his own. The season was a terrible one—the cholera was raging, the city was deserted. In the general calamity private sorrow disappeared, or the occasion would have been marked by a demonstration of public grief and of public honor. As the tidings went from city to city, and country to country, the friends of science, of that universal wisdom which knows neither language nor race, paused in their investigations to pay respectful homage to his character, his intellect, and to that without which either or both in combination are inadequate to success—his labor in the field.
On October 2, 1849, at the first meeting of the Historical Society after the death of Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Luther Bradish, the presiding officer, spoke of him in impressive words, as the last link connecting the present with the past. He dwelt upon the peculiar pleasure with which the presence of Mr. Gallatin was always hailed, and the peculiar interest it gave to the proceedings of the society, and many an eye was dimmed, as he recalled the venerable form, the beautifully classic head, the countenance ever beaming with intelligence, and summed up the long and useful career of the departed sage in these impressive words:—
“The name of Albert Gallatin is emphatically a name of history. Few men have lived in any age whose biographies have been so intimately connected with the history of their country. Living in one of the most interesting periods of the world, a period of great events, of the discussion of great principles and the settlement of great interests, almost the whole of his long and active life was passed in public service amidst those events and in those discussions.... For nearly half a century he was almost constantly employed in the public service; almost every department of that service has received the benefit of his extraordinary talents and his varied and extensive and accurate knowledge. Whether in legislation, in finance, or in diplomacy, he has been equally distinguished in all. In all or in either he has had few equals and still fewer superiors.”
To Jeremy Bentham Mr. Gallatin acknowledged himself indebted, as his master in the art of legislation; but from whatever ground he drew his maxims of government, they were reduced to harmony in the crucible of his own intelligence by the processes of that brain which Spurzheim pronounced capital,[31] and Dumont held to be the best head in America. In that massive and profound structure lay faculties of organization and administration which mark the Latin and Italian mind in its highest form of intellectual development.
His moral excellence was no less conspicuous than his intellectual power. He had a profound sense of justice, a love of liberty, and an unfaltering belief in the capacity of the human race for self-rule. Versed in the learning of centuries, and familiar with every experiment of government, he was full of the liberal spirit of his age. To a higher degree than any American, native or foreign born, unless Franklin, with whose broad nature he had many traits in common, Albert Gallatin deserves the proud title, aimed at by many, reached by few, of Citizen of the World.