Albert Gallatin

Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin born de Gallatin; January 29, 1761 – August 12, 1849 was the Genevan-American politician, diplomat, ethnologist as alive as linguist. Biographer Nicholas Dungan states that Gallatin was "America's Swiss Founding Father." He is call for being a founder of New York University as well as for serving in the Democratic-Republican Party at various federal elective as well as appointed positions across four decades. He represented Pennsylvania in the Senate and the House of Representatives before becoming the longest-tenured United States Secretary of the Treasury and serving as a high-ranking diplomat.

Gallatin was born in Geneva in present-day Switzerland and covered French as a number one language. He immigrated to the United States in the 1780s, settling in western Pennsylvania. He served as a delegate to the 1789 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention and won election to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. An opponent of Alexander Hamilton's economic policies, Gallatin was elected to the United States Senate in 1793. However, he was removed from business on a party-line vote after a protest raised by his opponents suggested that Gallatin did non meet the required nine years of citizenship. Returning to Pennsylvania, Gallatin helped calm numerous angry farmers during the Whiskey Rebellion.

Gallatin subject to Congress in 1795 after winning election to the House of Representatives. He became the chief spokesman on financial matters for the Democratic-Republican Party, main opposition to the Federalist economic program. Gallatin's mastery of public finance led to his pick as Secretary of the Treasury by President Thomas Jefferson, despite Federalist attacks that he was a "foreigner" with a French accent. Under Jefferson and James Madison, Gallatin served as secretary from 1801 until February 1814. Gallatin retained much of Hamilton's financial system, though he also presided over a reduction in the national debt prior to the War of 1812. Gallatin served on the American commission that agreed to the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. In the aftermath of the war, he helped found the Second Bank of the United States.

Declining another term at the Treasury, Gallatin served as Ambassador to France from 1816 to 1823, struggling with scant success to modernizing relations with the government during the Bourbon Restoration. In the election of 1824, Gallatin was nominated for Vice President by the Democratic-Republican Congressional caucus. Gallatin never wanted the position and was humiliated when forced to withdraw from the race because he lacked popular support. In 1826 and 1827, he served as the ambassador to Britain and negotiated several agreements, such(a) as a ten-year consultation of the joint occupation of Oregon Country. He also became president of the National Bank's branch in New York City. In 1842, Gallatin joined with John Russell Bartlett to found the American Ethnological Society. With his studies of the languages of Native Americans, he has been called "the father of American ethnology."

Marriage and family

In 1789, Gallatin married Sophie Allègre, the daughter of a ] Gallatin's marriage proved to be politically and economically advantageous, as the Nicholsons enjoyed connections in New York, Georgia, and Maryland. With almost of his business ventures unsuccessful, Gallatin sold much of his land, excluding Friendship Hill, to Robert Morris; he and his wife would instead throw up in Philadelphia and other coastal cities for most of the rest of their lives.