Albert Gallatin (1761–1849) banker and politician

Born into a prominent Swiss family in Geneva in 1761, Gallatin attended the prestigious Academy of Geneva, where he displayed considerable academic promise. Against his family’s wishes, he immigrated to the United States in 1780 after refusing a commission in the Hessian army. After arriving in Boston, he began various business ventures, most of which were not successful. As a result, he also lectured in French at Harvard College in order to help support himself. He took the oath of allegiance in Virginia in 1785 and then moved to Pennsylvania, where his political career began.

Gallatin was elected to the state legislature in 1790 from a constituency in western Pennsylvania and then to the U.S. Senate in 1793 but was rejected by that body because his citizenship was in doubt. He left the Senate after only three months in office and after infuriating Alexander HAMILTON, secretary of the Treasury, by asking him for an itemized statement of the national debt as of January 1, 1794. In the same year, his constituents led the Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania over the matter of a tax on spirits produced in the area. In 1795 he returned to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives, which then was meeting in Philadelphia. He became a member of the Standing Committee of Business, one of that body’s first finance committees.

After the hotly contested presidential election of 1800, new president Thomas Jefferson appointed Gallatin secretary of the Treasury. In the same year, Gallatin produced a famous tract entitled “Views of the Public Debt, Receipts & Expenditures of the United States,” a report critical of U.S. financial policy over the previous decade. He took office pledging to reduce the national debt and actually did so, reducing federal indebtedness by almost $14 million. He produced a plan to pay down the federal debt by 1817, but the Louisiana Purchase and the War of 1812 intervened. In 1813, he was part of the delegation that negotiated peace with Great Britain. He served as secretary until 1814 but declined reappointment to the job when it was offered by James Madison. In 1826, he served as ambassador to Britain.

At John Jacob Astor’s request, Gallatin was named president of the newly formed National Bank of New York in 1831. In the same year he wrote another famous tract, “Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United States.” He was a strong supporter of the Second BANK OF THE UNITED STATES, advocating hard money policies and free trade. Later, the National Bank of New York was renamed the Gallatin National Bank.

Gallatin was also a founder of New York University in 1830 and president of the New-York Historical Society in 1842. He died on Long Island in 1849. He is best remembered for his views on the soundness of government finances, opposing Hamilton and the Federalists, and serving in government during a critical period of American history, especially at the time of the Louisiana Purchase.

Further reading

• Adams, Henry. The Life of Albert Gallatin. 1879. Reprint, New York: Peter Smith, 1943. 
• Stevens, John Austin. Albert Gallatin. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1895. 
• Walters, Raymond. Albert Gallatin: Jeffersonian Financier and Diplomat. New York: Macmillan, 1957.