Albert Gallatin
of leaving Richmond with some families which he had engaged to establish
on his lands, that he felt justified in asking his old friend to cross
the seas and share his lot. This invitation was accepted, and Badollet
joined him at George's Creek.
The settlement beginning to spread, Gallatin bought another farm higher
up the river, to which he gave the name of Friendship Hill. Here he
later made his home.
The western part of Pennsylvania, embracing the area which stretches
from the Alleghany Mountains to Lake Erie, is celebrated for the wild,
picturesque beauty of its scenery. Among its wooded hills the head
waters of the Ohio have their source. At Fort Duquesne, or Pittsburgh,
where the river takes a sudden northerly bend before finally settling in
swelling volume on its southwesterly course to the Mississippi, the
Monongahela adds its mountain current, which separates in its entire
course from the Virginia line the two counties of Fayette and
Washington. The Monongahela takes its rise in Monongalia County,
Virginia, and flows to the northward. Friendship Hill is one of the
bluffs on the right bank of the river, and faces the Laurel Ridge to the
eastward. Braddock's Road, now the National Road, crosses the mountains,
passing through Uniontown and Red Stone Old Fort (Brownsville), on its
course to Pittsburgh. The county seat of Fayette is the borough of Union
or Uniontown. Gallatin's log cabin, the beginning of New Geneva, was on
the right bank of the Monongahela, about twelve miles to the westward of
the county seat. Opposite, on the other side of the river, in Washington
County, was Greensburg, where his friend Badollet was later established.
Again for a long period Gallatin left his family without any word
whatever. His most indulgent friend, Mademoiselle Pictet, could hardly
excuse his silence, and did not hesitate to charge that it was due to
misfortunes which his pride prompted him to conceal. In the early days
of 1786 a rumor of his death reached Geneva, and greatly alarmed his
family. Mr. Jefferson, then minister at Paris, wrote to Mr. Jay for
information. This was Jefferson's first knowledge of the existence of
the young man who was to become his political associate, his philosophic
companion, and his truest friend. Meanwhile Gallatin had attained his
twenty-fifth year and his majority. His family were no longer left in
doubt as to his existence, and in response to his letters drafts were at
once remitted to him for the sum of five thousand dollars, through the
banking-house of Robert Morris. This was, of course, immediately applied
to his western experiment. The business of the partnership now called
for his constant attention. It required the exercise of a great variety
of mental powers, a cool and discriminating judgment, combined with an
incessant attention to details. Nature, under such circumstances, is not
so attractive as she appears in youthful dreams; admirable in her
original garb, she is annoying and obstinate when disturbed. The view of
country which Friendship Hill commands is said to rival Switzerland in
its picturesque beauty, but years later, when the romance of the
Monongahela hills had faded in the actualities of life, Gallatin wrote
of it that "he did not know in the United States any spot which afforded
less means to earn a bare subsistence for those who could not live by
manual labor."
Gallatin has been blamed for "taking life awry and throwing away the
advantages of education, social position, and natural intelligence," by
his removal to the frontier, and his career compared with that of
Hamilton and Dallas, who, like him, foreign born, rose to eminence in
politics, and became secretaries of the treasury of the United States.
But both of these were of English-speaking races. No foreigner of any
other race ever obtained such distinction in American politics as Mr.
Gallatin, and he only because he was the choice of a constituency, to
every member of which he was personally known. It is questionable
whether in any other condition of society he could have secured
advancement by election--the true source of political power in all
democracies. John Marshall, afterwards Chief Justice, recognized
Gallatin's talent soon after his arrival in Richmond, offered him a
place in his office without a fee, and assured him of future distinction
in the profession of the law; but Patrick Henry was the more sagacious
counselor; he advised Gallatin to go to the West, and predicted his
success as a statesman. Modest as the beginning seemed in the country he
had chosen, it was nevertheless a start in the right direction, as the
future showed. It was in no sense a mistake.
Neither did the affairs of the wilderness wholly debar intercourse with
the civilized world. Visiting Richmond every winter, he gradually
extended the circle of his acquaintance, and increased his personal
influence; he also occasionally passed a few weeks at Philadelphia. Two
visits to Maine are recorded in his diary, but whether they were of
pleasure merely does not appear. One was in 1788, in midwinter, by stage
and sleigh. On this excursion he descended the Androscoggin and crossed
Merrymeeting Bay on the ice, returning by the same route in a snowstorm,
which concealed the banks on either side of the river, so that he
governed his course by the direction of the wind. With the intellect of
a prime minister he had the constitution of a pioneer. On one of these
occasions he intended to visit his old friends and hosts, the
Lesderniers, but the difficulty of finding a conveyance, and the rumor
that the old gentleman was away from home, interfered with his purpose.
He remembered their kindness, and later attempted to obtain pensions for
them from the United States government.
But the time now arrived when the current of his domestic life was
permanently diverted, and set in other channels. In May, 1789, he
married Sophie Allegre, the daughter of William Allegre of a French
Protestant family living at Richmond. The father was dead, and the
mother took lodgers, of whom Gallatin was one. For more than a year he
had addressed her and secured her affections. Her mother now refused her
consent, and no choice was left to the young lovers but to marry without
it. Little is known of this short but touching episode in Mr. Gallatin's
life. The young lady was warmly attached to him, and the letter written
to her mother asking forgiveness for her marriage is charmingly
expressed and full of feeling. They passed a few happy months at
Friendship Hill, when suddenly she died. From this time Mr. Gallatin
lost all heart in the western venture, and his most earnest wish was to
turn his back forever upon Fayette County. In his suffering he would
have returned to Geneva to Mademoiselle Pictet, could he have sold his
Virginia lands. But this had become impossible at any price, and he had
no other pecuniary resource but the generosity of his family.
Meanwhile the revolution had broken out in France. The rights of man had
been proclaimed on the Champ de Mars. All Europe was uneasy and alarmed,
and nowhere offered a propitious field for peaceful labor. But Gallatin
did not long need other distraction than he was to find at home.
CHAPTER II
PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE
Political revolutions are the opportunity of youth. In England, Pitt and
Fox; in America, Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris; in Europe, Napoleon and
Pozzo di Borgo, before they reached their thirtieth year, helped to
shape the political destiny of nations. The early maturity of Gallatin
was no less remarkable. In his voluminous correspondence there is no
trace of youth. At nineteen his habits of thought were already formed,
and his moral and intellectual tendencies were clearly marked in his
character, and understood by himself. His tastes also were already
developed. His life, thereafter, was in every sense a growth. The germs
of every excellence, which came to full fruition in his subsequent
career, may be traced in the preferences of his academic days. From
youth to age he was consistent with himself. His mind was of that rare
and original order which, reasoning out its own conclusions, seldom has
cause to change.
His political opinions were early formed. A letter written by him in
October, 1783, before he had completed his twenty-third year, shows the
maturity of his intellect, and his analytic habit of thought. An extract
gives the nature of the reasons which finally determined him to make his
home in America:--
"This is what by degrees greatly influenced my judgment. After my
arrival in this country I was early convinced, upon a comparison of
American governments with that of Geneva, that the latter is
founded on false principles; that the judicial power, in civil as
well as criminal cases, the executive power wholly, and two thirds
of the legislative power being lodged in two bodies which are
almost self-made, and the members of which are chosen for life,--it
is hardly possible but that this formidable aristocracy should,
sooner or later, destroy the equilibrium which it was supposed
could be maintained at Geneva."
The period from the peace of 1783 to the adoption of the federal
Constitution in 1787 was one of political excitement. The utter failure
of the old Confederation to serve the purposes of national defense and
safety for which it was framed had been painfully felt during the war.
Independence had been achieved under it rather than by it, the patriotic
action of some of the States supplying the deficiencies of others less
able or less willing. By the radical inefficiency of the Confederation
the war had been protracted, its success repeatedly imperiled, and, at
its close, the results gained by it were constantly menaced. The more
perfect union which was the outcome of the deliberations of the federal
convention was therefore joyfully accepted by the people at large.
Indeed, it was popular pressure, and not the arguments of its advocates,
that finally overcame the formidable opposition in and out of the
convention to the Constitution. No written record remains of Mr.
Gallatin's course during the sessions of the federal convention. He was
not a member of the body, nor is his name connected with any public act
having any bearing upon its deliberations. Of the direction of his
influence, however, there can be no doubt. He had an abiding distrust of
strong government,--a dread of the ambitions of men. Precisely what form
he would have substituted for the legislative and executive system
adopted nowhere appears in his writings, but certainly neither president
nor senate would have been included. They bore too close a resemblance
to king and lords to win his approval, no matter how restricted their
powers. He would evidently have leaned to a single house, with a
temporary executive directly appointed by itself; or, if elected by the
people, then for a short term of office, without renewal; and he would
have reduced its legislative powers to the narrowest possible limit. The
best government he held to be that which governs least; and many of the
ablest of that incomparable body of men who welded this Union held these
views. But the yearning of the people was in the other direction. They
felt the need of government. They wanted the protection of a strong arm.
It must not be forgotten that the thirteen colonies which declared
their independence in 1776 were all seaboard communities, each with its
port. They were all trading communities. The East, with its fisheries
and timber; the Middle States, with their agricultural products and
peltries; the South, with its tobacco; each saw, in that freedom from
the restrictions of the English navigation laws which the treaty of