Albert Gallatin was a transatlantic figure and Swiss immigrant who eventually became a congressman from Pennsylvania, secretary of the treasury under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and a U.S. diplomat in Europe. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, on January 29, 1761, Gallatin grew up in affluence but lost both his mother and father at an early age. He was raised by close family friends and educated in the best Enlightenment tradition. When he graduated from the College of Geneva in 1779, his grandmother arranged for him to obtain a military commission in the army the small German state of Hesse-Cassel, destined for service with the Hessians in North America. Gallatin declined that appointment, saying he would not fight for a tyrant. Instead, inspired by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the image of the noble savage in North America (Native Americans) and the ideal of an agrarian life, he ran off with a friend to sail to the United States in 1780. His ship landed in Boston, where the two young Swiss men attempted to sell a consignment of tea they had purchased in France. After that effort brought little profit, Gallatin traveled to the Maine frontier in another mercantile enterprise. This adventure was short-lived, and he traveled back to Boston, where he became a tutor in French at Harvard College in 1782. Soon he moved to western Pennsylvania.

By 1784, Gallatin had become involved in land speculation in the western country and was acting as a land surveyor. He and a partner purchased large tracts in the Ohio River Valley in western Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the following year he began work on a frontier farm and manor that he named Friendship Hill, located on the Monongahela River in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. In 1788 he entered local politics and was elected to represent Fayette County at the state ratifying convention in Harrisburg for the U.S. Constitution, where he advocated a Bill of Rights. In 1789 he was an influential participant in the Pennsylvania state constitutional convention, again advocating guaranteed civil liberties.

In the early 1790s, Gallatin established his political reputation as a legislator representing Fayette County in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. There he often voted with a faction loosely aligned with the Democratic-Republican Party in national politics. In 1793 he played an important role in the establishment of the Bank of Pennsylvania. That same year, the Pennsylvania state assembly elected Gallatin to the U.S. Senate. Because there was some confusion as to when he applied for citizenship, however, senators from the Federalist Party voted to remove him from the nation's upper house in December 1793, asserting that he had not been an "American" for nine years.

Nonetheless, Gallatin remained on the national political stage. In 1794 he acted as an intermediary between western Pennsylvanians involved in the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) and federal troops sent by President George Washington, and he served as a Jeffersonian in Congress between 1795 and 1800. As a result, he was often in the middle of the partisan battles of the era. He openly protested the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) on the House floor and encouraged moderation with regard to France in the wake of the XYZ affair (1797-98). Simultaneously, he launched a glassworks and a gun factory in the frontier town of New Geneva, Pennsylvania, which he had founded.

Gallatin's national influence increased with his appointment as secretary of the treasury in 1801. In that position he symbolized moderate Democratic-Republican practicality on financial issues and therefore became a lightning rod for political criticism throughout his years as secretary (1801-14). Under President Jefferson, his most important role was as advocate for the Bank of the United States. Gallatin and Jefferson disagreed over the bank's legitimacy and necessity, and the treasury secretary worked hard to overcome the president's reluctance to accept the bank's status as national repository and lender. Gallatin's understanding of the bank was akin to Alexander Hamilton's original position on it. Like Hamilton, he believed that the government should maintain some debt and that the bank had clear constitutional legitimacy. In 1804 Jefferson actually signed legislation authorizing new branches of the bank in New Orleans and Washington, D.C., on Gallatin's recommendation. The treasury secretary also disagreed with Jefferson over the president's controversial Embargo of 1807. In 1808 he presented a comprehensive plan for internal improvements that Jefferson rejected on the grounds that the federal government did not have the authority to fund transportation projects. Gallitan's fiscal policies also managed to decrease the national debt.

Gallatin stayed in the cabinet under James Madison and soon became embroiled in controversy over rechartering the Bank of the United States in 1810 and 1811. He steadfastly defended the bank against Democratic-Republican critics and sought to maintain its existence in the face of impending war with Great Britain. But despite his best efforts and Madison's support, Congress voted to kill the bank by a tie-breaking vote cast in the Senate by Vice President George Clinton. This action contributed to financial distress during the War of 1812 (1812-15). In 1813, while still serving in the Treasury Department, Gallatin went to Europe in the hope of beginning peace negotiations. His appointment as a special peace envoy, however, was not confirmed by the Senate because of his position as secretary of the treasury. Gallatin resigned from the cabinet in 1814 and was appointed to the delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Ghent (1814). Later, he served the nation as Minister to France and then as minister to Great Britain. In the 1830s he wrote and published a number of influential essays on banking, financial policy, and tariffs.

Gallatin married twice. He eloped with Sophie Allegre in 1789, but she died a few months later at his home in western Pennsylvania. In 1793 he wed Hannah Nicholson, a city girl who was never comfortable living in the wilds of Friendship Hill and was relieved when Gallitan's political appointments forced the couple to live in the nation's capital. Gallatin had six children in his second marriage, but only three lived to adulthood. He died peacefully at home on August 12, 1849, just a few months after Hannah's death.

Bibliography:

Ray Walters, Jr., Albert Gallatin: Jeffersonian Financier and Diplomat (New York, Macmillan, 1957).

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