Albert Gallatin (29 January 1761 – 12 August 1849) was the United States Secretary of the Treasury from 14 May 1801 to 8 February 1814, succeeding Samuel Dexter and preceding George W. Campbell. He previously served as a US Senator from Pennsylvania from 2 December 1793 to 28 February 1794 (succeeding William Maclay and preceding James Ross) and as a member of the [[US House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 12th district from 4 March 1795 to 3 March 1801 (succeeding William Findley and preceding William Hoge). An immigrant from Switzerland, Gallatin was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and he also served as ambassador to France and Britain. His achievements include the founding of New York University in 1831, being the forefather of ethnology in America, and having the longest term as Secretary of the Treasury in US history. He was also the last surviving politician of the 18th century on his death at the age of 88 in 1849.
Biography[]
Albert Gallatin was born on 29 January 1761 in Geneva, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland (Geneva only formally joined Switzerland in 1815). A student of Enlightenment and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Gallatin immigrated to the United States in 1780 and served as a garrison commander in Maine during the American Revolutionary War, joining the colonists. In 1782, he secured a faculty position at Harvard College and taught French, and he bought 370 acres of land in Fayette County, Pennsylvania with the money that he had from his salary.
Politics[]
A statue of Albert Gallatin in Washington DC
In 1790, Gallatin was elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly and was elected to the US Senate on 28 December 1793, although he did not have the minimum requirement of nine years' citizenship; Federalists pointed out that he spoke English with a French accent and called him "un-American". In a party line vote of 14-12, he left the senate on 28 February 1794; however, he showed that he could stand up to Alexander Hamilton and his policies, and he became a famous politician. In 1795, Gallatin purchased Wilson's Port after hearing rumors of an exodus of Europeans in reaction to the French Revolutionary Wars, and he named the new town "New Geneva" after his hometown. The 1796-1797 improvements in the European economy did little to help Gallatin, and in 1800 he opened a glass works factory, one of his toughest but most rewarding jobs.
In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury, and his thirteen-year tenure would be the longest for any person in that post. From 1816 to 1823, declining another term as Secretary, he served as minister to France and to Britain from 1826 to 1827, and he negotiated the sharing of Oregon with the British. In 1831, Gallatin helped in the foundation of New York University (NYU) to offer education to the working classes, and his last great effort was the foundation of the American Ethnological Society in 1842, studying the languages of Native Americans and being called "the father of American ethnology" as a result. Gallatin died in 1849, the last surviving Jefferson cabinet member and 18th century senator.