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POLITICAL PORTRAITS WITH PEN AND PENCIL.

No. XXXIX.

ALBERT GALLATIN.

(With an engraving on steel.)

We are happy to embellish the present Number of the Democratic Review with an engraving of one of the most illustrious of the Patriarchs of the Republican Party, one of its founders, and for a long period one of its most powerful and efficient leaders the only survivor of the cabinets of Jefferson and Madison. To discuss the important public occurrences in which this Nestor of American statesmanship directly and powerfully participated, or with which he was incidentally connected, would be to write the history of the country for no small segment of the period embraced within the annals of its present form of government; and in attempting such a notice as is consistent with the limits of a periodical, we shall in a great measure be confined to a summary of some of the leading events of Mr. Gallatin's political life. Long distant be the day when the departure of the venerable sage and patriot, from the midst of a generation already a posterity to him, to that repose where all the glorious compeers of his earlier career have now preceded him, shall afford the occasion for that more extended memoir, that cannot fail to constitute one of the most interesting contributions to the public history of the country to which his life has been equally an ornament and a benefaction. ALBERT GALLATIN was born at Geneva, in Switzerland, on the 29th of January, 1761, of a family and in a social position of the highest respectability. Having been left an orphan in his infancy, he was educated under the maternal care of an enlightened and distinguished lady, a distant relation and intimate friend of his mother. He pursued his studies with an earnest application of those talents of which all his subsequent career has given such conspicuous evidence, and with all the excellent advantages afforded by the academical institutions of his native

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city; so that when he graduated in 1779, at the university of Geneva, few young men of the day entered upon the stage of the world better prepared, by both the discipline and the acquirements of education, for the performance of an honorable and prominent part there. His historical courses were made under Müller. One of his classmates was the celebrated Dumont, the friend of Mirabeau, and the translator of Bentham.

The little precincts of his native republic afforded no worthy scope for either the energies or the aspirations of a young man just quitting the retirement of academical study, modestly conscious of his own capabilities, and deeply imbued with the bold and liberal spirit of the times. Nor are the instances rare in which Geneva has made noble contributions by the genius of her sons to the service of other states. It will suffice to allude, in passing, to Neckar and Benjamin Constant. Declining offers of advantageous and honorable employment under one of the sovereigns of Germany, and possessed by those political sentiments imbibed with his education, and of which his whole public career has been the expression, it was to the young republic of the west, just then struggling into being, that he turned the preference of his heart, and the eager devotion of his services. Unrestrained by any parental control, though in opposition to the wishes of his family, he emigrated to the United States, bringing with him to the country of his adoption an irreproachable character and the warm regrets of his friends. He arrived in Boston on the 14th of July, 1780. The following letter, which we find in the Sth volume of Sparks' Franklin, page 454, may be worth quoting, for the testimony it furnishes to the spirit in which was taken this decisive step in the life of the subject of this notice:

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"La Rocheguyon, 22d May, 1780. "SIR,-The residence of your grandson at Geneva makes me hope that the citizens of that town may have some claim to your kind attention. It is with this hope that I ask it for two young men, whom the love of glory and of liberty

draws to America. One of them is named

Gallatin, he is nineteen years of age, well informed for his age, of an excellent character thus far, with much natural talent. The name of the other Serre. They have concealed their project from their relatives, and therefore we cannot tell where they will land. It is supposed, however, that they are going to Philadelphia, or to the continental army. One of my friends gives me this information with the request that I will urge you to favor them with a recommendation. I shall share in his gratitude, and I beg you, sir, to be assured of the sentiments with which I have the honor to be, &c.

"LA ROCHEFOUCAULD D'ENVILLE." Soon after his arrival he proceeded to Maine, and resided till the end of 1781 at Machias and Passamaquoddy, where he served as a volunteer under Col. John Allen, commander of the fort at Machias, and made advances to the government for the support of the garrison. In the spring of 1782, he was chosen by Harvard University, through the friendship of Dr. Cooper, instructor in the French language; which situation, however, he left for the south in the following year, soon after the peace. In the winter of 1783-4, he was engaged at Richmond in prosecuting the claim of a foreign house for large advances to the State of Virginia. This brought him into contact with many eminent members of the Executive and Legislature; in his intercourse with whom he gave such evidences of capacity as secured to him a highly favor able consideration, and attracted in particular the attention of Patrick Henry, from whom he received several marks of personal friendship. He predicted that Mr. Gallatin would rise to distinction as a statesman, and strongly advised him to settle in the west,which in those days did not imply a more remote residence than the neighborhood of the Ohio.

In 1784-5, Mr. Gallatin acquired some large tracts of land in the western counties of Virginia, on which, having received his moderate patrimony from

Europe,he intended to form an extensive settlement. He was prevented, by the renewed hostility of the Indians, from carrying this project into execution, and induced to take up a temporary residence within the settlements. In the spring of 1786 he purchased for that purpose a farm on the banks of the Monongahela, in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, on the borders of Virginia. The Indian war having been protracted for several years, he here became so identified with his neigh bors and the associations of the place, that he abandoned his former project, and that which had been intended as his temporary became his permanent home.

In October, 1789, he was, without any effort on his part, elected by the people of the county of Fayette a member of the Convention to amend the Constitution of Pennsylvania; and from that moment he devoted all his faculties to the political career in which he was thrown. In that Convention he united himself to the Democratic party, in opposing all the attempts to intercept the voice of the people, either by the substitution of intermediate electors in lieu of a direct election, or by a representation, in the Senate, founded on the respective wealth of the counties. He was an advocate for the extension of the right of suffrage, with out excepting the African race; and was desirous that it should be founded, not on taxation, but on a longer time of residence than is now deemed sufficient. In the year 1790, he was elected member of the House of Representatives of the State, by the same county, and continued afterwards to be re-elected without any opposition, till he took his seat in Congress. His faculties were perhaps better calculated for prac tical purposes, than for the discussion of speculative opinions, and in a very short time he became the most prominent member of the Legislature. He applied himself principally to the ar rangement of the fiscal concerns of the State, on the basis of a faithful pay ment of all its engagements, and of the annihilation of the State paper money. His quick and indefatigable industry, in making himself thoroughly acquainted with all the subjects under discussion, acquired him an extraordi nary influence in the Legislature, and with members of both parties, though a decided and strenuous supporter of

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