Albert Gallatin Part 16

The period of temporary political repose, which followed the peace of Vienna and the establishment of the balance of power by the allied sovereigns, was an era in human knowledge. Science made rapid progress, and in its turn showed the broad and liberal influence of the great revolution. In 1842 societies were founded in Paris and London to promote the study of ethnology. Mr. Gallatin would not be behindhand in this important work for which America offered a virgin field. Drawing about him a number of gentlemen of similar tastes with his own, he founded in New York, in 1842, the American Ethnological Society. Among his a.s.sociates were Dr. Robinson, the famous explorer of Palestine, Schoolcraft, Bartlett, and Professor Turner, noted for their researches in the history and languages of the Indian races. Messrs. At.w.a.ter, Bradford, Hawks, Gibbs, Mayer, Dr. Morton, Pickering, Stephens, Ewbank, and Squier were also, either in the beginning or soon after, members of this select and learned inst.i.tution, of which Mr. Gallatin was the central figure. One of its members said in 1871, 'Mr. Gallatin's house was the true seat of the society, and Mr. Gallatin himself its controlling spirit. His name gave it character, and from his purse mainly was defrayed the cost of the two volumes of the "Transactions"

which const.i.tute about the only claim the society possesses to the respect of the scientific world.' To the first of these volumes, published in 1845, Mr. Gallatin contributed an "Essay on the semi-civilized nations of Mexico and Central America, embracing elaborate notes on their languages, numeration, calendars, history, and chronology, and an inquiry into the probable origin of their semi-civilization." In this he included all existing certain knowledge of the languages, history, astronomy, and progress in art of these peoples. A copy of this work he sent to General Scott, then in the city of Mexico after his triumphant campaign, inclosing a memorandum which he urged the general to hand to civilians attached to the army. This was a request to purchase books, copies of doc.u.ments, printed grammars, and vocabularies of the Mexican languages, and he authorized the general to spend four hundred dollars in this purpose on his account. In the second volume, published in 1848, he printed the result of his continued investigations on the subject which first interested him, as an introduction to a republication of a work by Mr. Hale on the "Indians of Northwest America." This consisted of geographical notices, an account of Indian means of subsistence, the ancient semi-civilization of the Northwest, Indian philology, and a.n.a.logic comparisons with the Chinese and Polynesian languages. These papers Mr. Gallatin modestly described to Chevalier as the 'fruits of his leisure,' and to Sismondi he wrote that he had not the requisite talent for success in literature or science. They nevertheless ent.i.tle him to the honorable name of the Father of American Ethnography.

In 1837 Mr. Wheaton, the American minister at Berlin, requested Mr.

Gallatin to put the Baron von Humboldt in possession of authentic data concerning the production of gold in the United States. Humboldt had visited the Oural and Siberian regions in 1829, at the request of the Emperor of Russia, to make investigations as to their production of the precious metals. Mr. Gallatin was the only authority in the United States on the subject. Later von Humboldt wrote to Mr. Gallatin of the interest felt abroad, and by himself, in the gold of the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee, a country which rivaled on a small scale the Dorado of Siberia. The treasures of the Pacific coast were not yet dreamed of.

Mr. Gallatin perfectly understood the range of his own powers. He said of himself:--

"If I have met with any success, either in public bodies, as an executive officer, or in foreign negotiations, it has been exclusively through a patient and most thorough investigation of all the attainable facts, and a cautious application of these to the questions under discussion.... Long habit has given me great facility in collating, digesting, and extracting complex doc.u.ments, but I am not hasty in drawing inferences; the arrangement of the facts and arguments is always to me a considerable labor, and though aiming at nothing more than perspicuity and brevity, I am a very slow writer."

Mr. Gallatin's ma.n.u.scripts and drafts show long and minute labor in their well considered and abundant alterations. Referring on one occasion to his habit of reasoning, Mr. Gallatin remarked, that of all processes that of a.n.a.logy is the most dangerous, yet that which he habitually used; that it required the greatest possible number of facts.

This is the foundation of philology, and his understanding of its method and its dangers is the reason of his success in this branch of science.

The difficulty experienced in establishing any literary or scientific inst.i.tutions in New York was very great. An effort made in 1830, which Mr. Gallatin favored, to establish a literary periodical failed, not on account of the pecuniary difficulties, but from the impossibility of uniting a sufficient number of able cooperators. But Mr. Gallatin's interest in literature was not as great as in science.[26]

In 1841 a national inst.i.tution for the promotion of science was organized at Washington. The cooperation of Mr. Gallatin was invited, but the society had a short existence. In 1843 Mr. Gallatin was chosen president of the New York Historical Society. His inaugural address is an epitome of political wisdom. p.r.o.nounced at any crisis of our history, it would have become a text for the student. In this sketch he a.n.a.lyzed the causes which contributed to form our national character and to establish a government founded on justice and on equal rights. He showed how, united by a common and imminent danger, the thirteen States succeeded in a.s.serting and obtaining independence without the aid of a central and efficient government, and the difficulties which were encountered when a voluntary surrender of a part of their immense sovereignty became necessary as a condition of national existence. He said that the doctrine that all powers should emanate from the people is not a question of expediency.

In this address he summed up the reasons why Washington exercised such a beneficial influence upon the destinies of his country. In a confidential letter to his wife in 1797, he expressed an opinion that the father of his country was not a good-natured and amiable man, but time had mellowed these recollections and softened the asperity of this judgment. Washington had not, he said (in 1843), 'an extraordinary amount of acquired knowledge; he was neither a cla.s.sical scholar nor a man of science, nor was he endowed with the powers of eloquence, nor with other qualities more strong than solid, which might be mentioned; but he had a profound and almost innate sense of justice, on all public occasions a perfect control of his strong pa.s.sions,[27] above all a most complete and extraordinary self-abnegation. Personal consequences and considerations were not even thought of, they never crossed his mind, they were altogether obliterated.' Mr. Gallatin held that "the Americans had a right to be proud of Washington, because he was selected and maintained during his whole career by the people--never could he have been thus chosen and constantly supported had he not been the type and representative of the American people."

The commemoration of the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the New York Historical Society, November, 1844, was an occasion of unusual interest. John Romeyn Brodhead, who had just returned from the Hague with the treasures of New Netherland history gathered during his mission, was the orator of the day. The venerable John Quincy Adams, Mr.

Gallatin's old a.s.sociate at Ghent, was present. After the address, which was delivered at the Church of the Messiah on Broadway, the society and its guests crossed the street to the New York Hotel, where a banquet awaited them. Mr. Gallatin retired early, leaving the chair to the first vice-president, Mr. Wm. Beach Lawrence. After he had left the room, Mr.

Adams, speaking to a toast to the archaeologists of America, said: "Mr.

Gallatin, in sending to me the invitations of the society, added the expression of his desire 'to shake hands with me once more in this world.'" Mr. Adams could not but respond to his request. In his remarks he said:

"I have lived long, sir, in this world, and I have been connected with all sorts of men, of all sects and descriptions. I have been in the public service for a great part of my life, and filled various offices of trust, in conjunction with that venerable gentleman, Albert Gallatin. I have known him half a century. In many things we differed; on many questions of public interest and policy we were divided, and in the history of parties in this country there is no man from whom I have so widely differed as from him. But in other things we have harmonized; and now there is no man with whom I more thoroughly agree on all points than I do with him. But one word more let me say, before I leave you and him, birds of pa.s.sage as we are, bound to a warmer and more congenial clime,--that among all public men with whom I have been a.s.sociated in the course of my political life, whether agreeing or differing in opinion from him, I have always found him to be an honest and honorable man."

In the road to harmony Mr. Adams had to do the traveling. Mr. Gallatin never changed his political opinions. The political career of the two men offered this singular contrast: Adams, dissatisfied with his party, pa.s.sed into opposition; Gallatin, though at variance with the policy of the administration of which he made a part, held his fealty, and confined himself to the operations of his own bureau.

For a period far beyond the allotted years of man Mr. Gallatin retained the elasticity of his physical nature as well as his mental perspicacity. In middle age he was slight of figure, his height about five feet ten inches, his form compact and of nervous vigor. His complexion was Italian;[28] his expression keen; his nose long, prominent; his mouth small, fine cut, and mobile; his eyes hazel, and penetrative; his skull a model for the sculptor. Thus he appears in the portrait painted by Gilbert Stuart about the time that he took charge of the Treasury Department; he was then about forty years of age. In the fine portrait by William H. Powell, taken from life in 1843, and preserved in the gallery of the New York Historical Society, these characteristics appear in stronger outline. Monsieur de Bacourt,[29] the literary executor of Talleyrand, who was the French Amba.s.sador to the United States in 1840, paid a visit to Mr. Gallatin in that year, and describes him as a "beau vieillard de quatre-vingt ans," who has fully preserved his faculties. Bacourt alludes to his remarkable face, with its clear, fine cut features, and his "physiognomie pleine de finesse;"

and dwells also upon the ease and charm of his conversation.

As his life slowly drew to its close, one after another of the few of his old friends who remained dropped from the road. Early in 1848 Adams fell in harness, on the floor of the House of Representatives; Lord Ashburton died in May. Finally, nearest, dearest of all, the companion of his triumphs and disappointments, the sharer of his honors and his joys, his wife, was taken from him by the relentless hand. The summer of 1849 found him crushed by this last affliction, and awaiting his own summons of release. He was taken to Mount Bonaparte, the country-seat of his son-in-law, at Astoria on Long Island, where he died in his daughter's arms on Sunday, August 12, 1849. The funeral services were held in Trinity Church on the Tuesday following, and his body was laid to rest in the Nicholson vault,[30] in the old graveyard adjoining. The elegant monument erected during his lifetime is one of the attractive features of this venerable cemetery, in whose dust mingle the remains of the temple of no more elevated spirit than his own. The season was a terrible one--the cholera was raging, the city was deserted. In the general calamity private sorrow disappeared, or the occasion would have been marked by a demonstration of public grief and of public honor. As the tidings went from city to city, and country to country, the friends of science, of that universal wisdom which knows neither language nor race, paused in their investigations to pay respectful homage to his character, his intellect, and to that without which either or both in combination are inadequate to success--his labor in the field.

On October 2, 1849, at the first meeting of the Historical Society after the death of Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Luther Bradish, the presiding officer, spoke of him in impressive words, as the last link connecting the present with the past. He dwelt upon the peculiar pleasure with which the presence of Mr. Gallatin was always hailed, and the peculiar interest it gave to the proceedings of the society, and many an eye was dimmed, as he recalled the venerable form, the beautifully cla.s.sic head, the countenance ever beaming with intelligence, and summed up the long and useful career of the departed sage in these impressive words:--

"The name of Albert Gallatin is emphatically a name of history. Few men have lived in any age whose biographies have been so intimately connected with the history of their country. Living in one of the most interesting periods of the world, a period of great events, of the discussion of great principles and the settlement of great interests, almost the whole of his long and active life was pa.s.sed in public service amidst those events and in those discussions....

For nearly half a century he was almost constantly employed in the public service; almost every department of that service has received the benefit of his extraordinary talents and his varied and extensive and accurate knowledge. Whether in legislation, in finance, or in diplomacy, he has been equally distinguished in all.

In all or in either he has had few equals and still fewer superiors."

To Jeremy Bentham Mr. Gallatin acknowledged himself indebted, as his master in the art of legislation; but from whatever ground he drew his maxims of government, they were reduced to harmony in the crucible of his own intelligence by the processes of that brain which Spurzheim p.r.o.nounced capital,[31] and Dumont held to be the best head in America.

In that ma.s.sive and profound structure lay faculties of organization and administration which mark the Latin and Italian mind in its highest form of intellectual development.

His moral excellence was no less conspicuous than his intellectual power. He had a profound sense of justice, a love of liberty, and an unfaltering belief in the capacity of the human race for self-rule.

Versed in the learning of centuries, and familiar with every experiment of government, he was full of the liberal spirit of his age. To a higher degree than any American, native or foreign born, unless Franklin, with whose broad nature he had many traits in common, Albert Gallatin deserves the proud t.i.tle, aimed at by many, reached by few, of Citizen of the World.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 22: An account of this expedition may be found in the publications of the Maryland Historical Society.]

[Footnote 23:

WASHINGTON, 29_th May_, 1826.

SIR,--Mr. Stewart communicated to me your answer of 4th April last to the letter which, at my request, he had addressed to you; and I return you my thanks for your kind offer to forward the object in view,--one which is not, however, of a private nature but connected with what is intended to be a National work; and I have delayed writing in order to be able to send at the same time the papers herewith transmitted.

It is at my suggestion that the Secretary of War has, with the approbation of the President, taken measures to collect comparative vocabularies of all the languages and dialects of the Indian tribes still existing within the United States. The circular is addressed to all the Indian superintendents and agents, and to the missionaries with whom the Department corresponds. But they have no agent with the Nottoways, and we are fortunate that you should have been disposed to lend your aid on this occasion.

It is the intention of government that the result of these researches should be published, giving due credit to every individual who shall have a.s.sisted in a work that has been long expected from us, and which will be equally honorable to the persons concerned and to the country.

It had been my intention to contribute my share in its further progress: this my approaching departure for Europe forbids. The inclosed papers, attending to the Notes and to the circular, are so full that I need not add any further explanation, and have only to request that you will have the goodness to transmit whatever vocabulary and other information you may obtain to Colonel Tho. L. McKinney, Office of Indian Affairs, under cover directed to the Secretary of War. Mr. McKinney will also be happy to answer any queries on the subject you may have to propose.

I have the honor to be respectfully, sir, Your most obedient servant, ALBERT GALLATIN

Mr. James Roch.e.l.le, Jerusalem, Southampton County, Virginia.

_Communicated by J. H. Roch.e.l.le, Jerusalem, Virginia._]

[Footnote 24: Among the most distinguished of those who have followed the pathway indicated by Mr. Gallatin was the late George Gibbs, an indefatigable student and an admirable ethnologist. His Chinook jargon was published by the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution.]

[Footnote 25: Mr. du Ponceau became president of the learned societies of Pennsylvania: the Historical Society and the American Philosophical Society.]

[Footnote 26: His favorite novel was _The Antiquary_, which he read once a year. Novels, he said, should be read, the last chapter first, in order that appreciation of the style should not be lost in the interest excited by the story.]

[Footnote 27: Mr. Gallatin's a.s.sertion, which corresponded with that of Jefferson, that Washington had naturally strong pa.s.sions, but had attained complete mastery over them, is quoted by the Earl of Stanhope (Lord Mahon) in his famous eulogy of Washington's attributes.]

[Footnote 28: The Gallatins claim to descend from one Callatinus, a Roman Consul.]

[Footnote 29: _Souvenirs d'un Diplomate._ Paris, 1882.]

[Footnote 30: This was the vault of the Witter family, a daughter of which Commodore Nicholson married.]

[Footnote 31: "In my youth the fashion was to decide in conformity with Lavater's precepts; then came Camper's facial angle, which gave a decided superiority to the white man and monkey; and both have been superseded by the b.u.mps of the skull. This criterion is that which suits me best, for Spurzheim declared I had a _capital_ head, which he might without flattery say to everybody." _Gallatin to Lewis T. Cist of Cincinnati, November_ 21, 1837.]