which presents a lamentable contrast to that of which so much disgraceful and disastrous evidence has of late appeared amongst us. The law of the republic to which Montesquieu devotes a chapter, under the title of "La Belle Loi," is doubtless familiar to many of our readers, by which the children of any bankrupt were held disqualified for all public employment so long as any of their father's debts were left unpaid. Mr. Gallatin brought with him this salutary idea into our public affairs; and the success which attended his labors to infuse it into the minds of both parties, and into the legislation of the country, was perhaps the most important of the many services of which the praise is due to him. In the Legislature of Pennsylvania, he rejected at once the pretence that the depreciation in the price of the public securities, caused by the temporary inability to pay the interest, was a reason for not paying their full amount to the holders. And at the time when this was made the subject of declamation against the funding system, he insisted that funding was only providing for the payment of that which was due; and that the defect of the plan adopted consisted in the conversion of the arrears of interest into a three per cent. stock, which was tantamount to a reduction of fifty per cent. on that part of the debt; in the postponement for ten years of the interest on one third of the principal; and in the assumption of State debts to an arbitrary amount, without having previously ascertained by the settlement of accounts what was actually and justly due to each State. It is well known that this last measure, which was a subject of much contention, was defended partly from political considerations, partly in order to give immediate relief to some of the States who were laboring, as they thought unjustly, under the weight of oppressive taxation. The state of the finances of Pennsylvania was favorable, and Mr. Gallatin found but little difficulty in carry ing his views there into effect. He proposed that the creditors of the State should be paid in full conformity with the pledged public faith, and that for that purpose the State should pay to them the difference (amounting to ore than twenty-five per cent.) be

en the nominal amount of their

just demands, and that which the said creditors would receive from the United States, by subscribing to the assumption of the State debts. This measure, which was carried by a considerable majority, was sustained by all the members of the Republican party, not a single one of whom was known to be personally interested in the result.

Similar views were generally entertained by the same party in Congress; but at that time they counted more men of talent than of business among themselves. They had not sufficiently analyzed the facts, and their movements in that respect had been vague and desultory. It is a curious circumstance, in illustration of this, and of the manner in which almost everything was left to the executive depart ments, that prior to Mr. Gallatin's entrance into Congress, there had been no Committee of Ways and Means in the House of Representatives. The body depended for all information and all investigation of questions connected with the public finances, upon the Treasury Department, in which were in point of fact performed most of the important duties now appertaining to that committee. One of Mr. Gallatin's first acts, in 1795, was to procure its appointment. Mr. Gallatin became thoroughly acquainted with the subject in all its details. He explained his views in "A Sketch of Finances," published in 1796; and during the whole time of his serving in Congress, he embraced every opportunity to impress the necessity of a reduction of all unnecessary expenses, of a system of rigid economy, and of applying, in preference to every other object, all surplus revenue to the reduction of the public debt. This was urged so often, in so many shapes, and with such earnestness, that it gradually became the primary object of the Republican party. On their accession to power in 1801, he was selected-without having a single competitor, either named or thought of by any-for the office of Secretary of the Treasury, principally for the purpose of carrying into effect that policy for which the Republicans had pledged themselves. With what fidelity and success the pledge was redeenied is well known.

The public debt on the first of April, 1801, amounted to $80,000,000, and the annual interest on the same, to

$4,180,000. During the first four years of Mr. Jefferson's administration, an additional debt of $15,000,000 was incurred, for the purchase of Louisiana; and a further sum of £600,000 sterling became due to Great Britain, in satisfaction of British private debts, the payment of which had been as sumed by the treaty of 1794.

Mr. Gallatin, in his first annual report to Congress, proposed a permanent annual appropriation of $7,300,000 on account of the payment of the interest, and gradual reimbursement of the principal of the debt; and that this should have the priority of all others. This amount was subsequently increased to $8,000,000, on account of the purchase of Louisiana. A law to that effect was passed by Congress, who at the same time lessened the revenue by a repeal of all the internal taxes. The only addition to that revenue, till the year 1812, consisted of an additional duty, of two and a half per cent., on goods paying duties ad valorem.

The reimbursements on account of the principal of the public debt, be tween the first of April, 1801, and the first of January, 1812, (including the above-mentioned £600,000 sterling, and $3,750,000, on account of the purchase of Louisiana), amounted to $52,400,000 dollars. And the public debt was, on the last-mentioned day, reduced to $45,120,000, bearing an interest of only $2,220,000, and consisting of the following items, viz.:

with unabated perseverance, Mr. Gallatin was uniformly sustained by public opinion and by Congress. The progress of redemption, slow at first, increases afterwards with great compound rapidity; and a few years more would have been sufficient to effect the reimbursement of the whole debt. The war of 1812, necessarily arrested that progress, and again swelled the debt to more than $120,000,000. But the impulse had been given. The total extinguishment of the debt had become a fundamental principle of the Government. The original plan of Mr. Gallatin was pursued, with no other alteration than an increase of the annual appropriation from eight to ten millions of dollars. And by steadily persevering in that course, the whole debt was extinguished within about twenty years after the conclusion of the peace.

Nothing great can be performed without a singleness of purpose, which disregards all other objects as subordinate. And it may be, that if the redemption of the public debt had been less rapid during Mr. Gallatin's administration, the country might have been better prepared for war when it took place. Mr. Gallatin had, however, the sagacity to know that it would make but little difference in the degree of preparation of national defences and means of contest, for which it is impossible ever to obtain considerable appropriations before the near approach of the danger that may render them necessary. He knew that the money thus well and wisely devoted to the payment of the debt was only rescued from a thousand purposes of extravagance and mal-application, to which all our legislative bodies are so prone, whenever they have the command of surplus funds. It is a lamentable fact, which Mr. Gallatin has been condemned to witness in his old age, that scarcely had the United States been relieved from that burthen, through the operation of the policy originated and established by him, be fore the several States, in their individual capacity, incurred in a few years a debt exceeding in amount that which had been contracted during two wars.

It has always been the concurring testimony of all parties, that the Treasury Department has never been better

His official reports present models of clearness combined with conciseness. His well known Report on Roads and Canals in 1814, presented a valuable mass of accurate statistical knowledge, and gave his views at large on the subject of Internal Improvements of which he was a friend, considered chiefly with a view to strengthen the Union, by facilitating communications and shortening distances. Mr. Gallatin was the sole author of the National Road, intended as a model, and to show that the Alleganies interposed no real barrier between the Eastern and Western States. The credit of the organization of the Coast Survey on scientific principles, is also in a great degree his. In the execution of the law passed for that purpose, Mr. Gallatin made the wise selection of Mr. Hassler to conduct it, and sent him to Europe for the necessary instruments. The full value of this great work remains yet to be appreciated by the people of this country. Nor, in this slight allusion to a few of the great measures through which Mr. Gallatin

has so deeply impressed the stamp of his hand upon the policy and destinies of his country, ought we to omit the Public Lands system, which was devised, digested, and carried into execu tion by him. As the holder of the purse, he at the same time exercised what may almost be termed a controlling influence over most of the other departments of the administration.

As the preservation of peace was a necessary ingredient for the accomplishment of the great object Mr. Gallatin had in view, it cannot be wondered that he should to the last mo ment have been opposed to the war, which public opinion forced on Mr. Madison's administration. But he was from principle a sincere lover of peace; he had entertained almost Utopian hopes, that the geographical position and political institutions of the United States might enable them to preserve it for an indefinite period of time. And the last years of his po litical life, in the diplomatic service of the country, were employed in promot ing that object.

On the offer of the Russian media. tion in 1813, Mr. Gallatin was eager that the opportunity of securing an honorable peace should be taken advantage of; and he retired from the seat in the Cabinet which he had filled with so much honor and usefulness during the Presidencies of Jefferson and Madison, to take part in the negotiations of Ghent, in order to bring his earnest efforts to bear upon that object. He performed an active part, with his distinguished associates, on that occasion. He then proceeded to London where, in conjunction with Messrs. Adams and Clay, he negotiat ed the commercial convention between the two countries, that succeeded the war. The rest of his public life has been passed in the diplomatic service. In all his subsequent missions to England, France, and the Nether lands, whilst sustaining with great force of argument the just rights of the United States, he successfully used his best endeavors in settling as far as practicable existing differences, and in strengthening the bonds of amity and mutual good will between America and foreign countries.

In France, where he resided as minister from 1816 to 1823, (a most interesting period in the history of Europe,

and of the internal affairs of France in particular, and when her capital, from which Englishmen had been so long excluded, became the centre of attraction for the whole civilized world), he paved the way for the existing commercial arrangements, and for the ultimate recognition of the indemnities justly due to American citizens. With in this period he was twice deputed on extraordinary missions: in 1817, to the Netherlands, where he was associated with Dr. Eustis, and in 1818 to England, with Mr. Rush, to which country he was again appointed Minister Plenipotentiary in 1826. In England he succeeded in arranging in a satisfactory manner the difficult question respecting the fisheries; in obtaining the abandonment of the British claim to the navigation of the Mississippi, compensation for the slaves carried away contrary to the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent, and the recognition of the forty-ninth degree of latitude as the boundary between the two countries, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. On other subjects, we may refer with satisfaction and pride to his correspondence with Mr. Canning respecting the West India intercourse, to his statement of the claims of the United States to the Oregon Territory, published by order of Congress, and to his conclusive arguments respecting the North-Eastern Boundary, which it was agreed to refer to arbitration.

His

With respect to the estimation in which Mr. Gallatin was held through out his diplomatic career, we may safely say that no American abroad in that capacity ever maintained a higher position, in every point of view. He was usually looked to as the head of the diplomatic corps, in which he had for colleagues, at the two great capitals of Europe, not a few of the most distinguished men of the times. spotlessness of private character, eminent talents, extent and minuteness of general information, and fine conversational powers, could not fail every where to attach to his person the most distinguished social consideration; while on the part of the governments to which he was accredited, the manly uprightness and good faith character izing all his official conduct, in the full spirit of the American diplomacy, secured him the highest respect and

confidence. A peculiar elegance of courtesy and tact, maintained without compromise of the high-toned republicanism of his political sentiments, also served in no small degree to conciliate the good will and good feeling of all parties, as well to the country as to its representative-of which he had, on more than one occasion, striking and gratifying proofs.

On Mr. Gallatin's last return to the United States, in December, 1827, he chose the city of New York as his residence; and, with the exception of the preparation of the argument, as one of the agents of the United States, to be laid before the king of the Netherlands, which occupied him for the first two years, he has not held any public office.

But his career since that time has been far from inactive. His interest in public affairs did not cease with his having a direct participation in their management. His essay, published in 1840, on the North-Eastern Boundary, in which the fallacies, by which the English had attempted to complicate a very plain proposition, are refuted, was the amusement of his leisure hours; while his essay on the map of Mr. Jay, before the New York Historical Society, recently published, will be the final discussion of a question, rendered by the Treaty of Washington matter of historical instead of diplomatic research.

He has published within that period two elaborate and able pamphlets on the subject of the Currency, which we can cheerfully admit to have been valuable contributions to the general discussion of that subject, though in some particulars their views vary from those of the school, political and economical, supported by ourselves. Mr. Gallatin has been more friendly to the banking system, including a national bank, than we think it has deserved; though it should not be forgotten that his opinions on this point had their origin in a period when the general subject was much less clearly understood, and was regarded by parties in very different lights than, with the aid of the great national experiences through which we have passed, is now the case. Looking only to the healthful use of the system, under pure administration-(and especially in reference to the earlier poverty of the coun