Alexander James Dallas: Lawyer, Politician, Financier, 1759-1817 [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512813906

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PENNSYLVANIA

LIVES

ALEXANDER JAMES DALLAS

PENNSYLVANIA

LIVES

( Volumes previously published) JOHN WHITE GEARY Soldier-Statesman, 1819-1873 by Harry Marlin Tinckom JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM Botanists and Explorers, 1699-1771 and 1739-1823 by Ernest Earnest JOHN ALFRED BRASHEAR Scientist and Humanitarian, 1840-1920 by Harriet A. Gaul and Ruby Eiseman JAMES BURD Frontier Defender, 1726-1793 by Lily Lee Nixon JOHANN CONRAD BEISSEL Mystic and Martinet, 1690-1768 by Walter C. Klein RICHARD RUSH Republican Diplomat, 1780-1859 by J. H. Powell WILLIAM SMITH Educator and Churchman, 1727-1803 by Albert Frank Gegenheimer

ALEXANDER JAMES DALLAS

ALEXANDER JAMES DALLAS Lawyer—Politician—Financier 1759-1817

By

f

R A Y M O N D WALTERS,

JR.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS PHILADELPHIA '943

Copyright 1943 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Manufactured in the United States of America

LONDON HUMPHREY OXFORD

MILFORD

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

FOREWORD

on the British island of Jamaica during the French and Indian War, educated at Kensington School and by private tutors, Alexander James Dallas, after a brief business career in England and practice of law in the West Indies, migrated to the United States in 1783, the year of the ratification of the treaty establishing her national independence. Because of his background and interests, he was admirably fitted to play the conspicuous role which he filled until his death in 1817 as a participant in many phases of the life of his adopted land. BORN

Probably no period in the history of this country was so replete with significant events as this in which he lived. Among others it embraced the turbulent years of the Articles of Confederation, the adoption of the federal Constitution, the rise of political parties and of Jeffersonian democracy, and the War of 1812. Equally important were the accompanying social, cultural, and economic developments. In all these Dallas had an intense interest, and to each he made positive contributions. His choice of Philadelphia as his home was indeed propitious. When he came there, that thriving city of thirty thousand inhabitants was the most populous in the nation, a center of commercial enterprises of great magnitude, and the recognized cultural metropolis. There lived, among others, Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher; Benjamin Rush, the physician; David Rittenhouse, the scientist; and Thomas Willing, William Bingham, and Robert Morris, business men and financiers. There also were located the University of Pennsylvania and the American Philosophical Society and, during the decade of the nineties, the capital of the new Republic. In this environment Dallas began his career in America. In addition to his practice of law he edited the Columbian Magazine, a monthly miscellany of recognized merit, did considerable hack writing, edited court reports, and participated in a movement to remove the existing legal restrictions against the drama V

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FOREWORD

in Philadelphia. His appointment as Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania eight years after his arrival, a post which he held for more than a decade, was a testimony to his adaptability to his adopted country. During the struggle for the ratification of the federal Constitution he allied himself with the anti-Federalists, and later participated in the organization of the Democratic societies and the formation of the DemocraticRepublican party. An ardent believer in democracy, he supported actively the candidacy of Thomas Jefferson for President in 1800 and was rewarded in 1801 by appointment as United States District Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, a position which he held for thirteen years. In 1814 he succeeded his intimate friend, Albert Gallatin, as Secretary of the Treasury and filled the post with distinction for two years. Although occupied from time to time by political appointments, Dallas established an enviable reputation in the legal profession. During the last decade of his life he allied himself with the conservative wing of the Democratic-Republican party, supporting federal internal improvements, a protective tariff, and a national bank. In this book Raymond Walters, Jr., presents more than a scholarly and readable biography of an influential citizen of Pennsylvania. He has succeeded in integrating his life and achievements with those of his contemporaries who, with him, were unconsciously building what is commonly referred to as the "American democracy." The author of this scholarly study has enriched the history of that period and at the same time brought to public attention the life of an appealing, important Pennsylvanian. ASA

The Pennsylvania State College September 1943.

E.

MARTIN

CONTENTS

ALEXANDER JAMES DALLAS Frontispiece Portrait by Gilbert Stuart m the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia Chapter FOREWORD By Asa E. Martin

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I T H E FORMATIVE YEARS

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II YEARS OF APPRENTICESHIP

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III SECRETARY OF T H E COMMONWEALTH

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IV

ORGANIZING T H E PENNSYLVANIA A N T I FEDERALISTS

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V

T H E FOUNDING OF T H E PHILADELPHIA DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY

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T H E WHISKEY REBELLION A N D ITS AFTERMATH

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VI

VII T H E JAY T R E A T Y A N D T H E ELECTION OF 1796 6j VIII SKIRMISHES IN T H E PRESS A N D COURTROOM IX T H E DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN TRIUMPH X

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A PHILADELPHIA L A W Y E R

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XI CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA

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XII SEEDS OF DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN SCHISM XIII A C O N S E R V A T I V E DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN XIV

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119 133

UNITED S T A T E S A T T O R N E Y FOR EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA

XV

76

147

L A W Y E R A N D LOBBYIST

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T H E CALL T O N A T I O N A L SERVICE

XVII SECRETARY February 1815 OF T H E

TREASURY, October

XVIII SECRETARY OF T H E TREASURY, February October 1816 XIX IN T H E N A T I O N ' S SERVICE XX T H E R E T U R N T O PRIVATE LIFE

175 1814- 189 i8ij201 118 »31

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL N O T E

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INDEX

245

I

THE FORMATIVE YEARS IN THE AUTUMN of 1814 the Very existence of the young American republic was menaced. A British fleet, fresh from its triumph over Napoleon, was sailing to tighten the blockade of the American seacoast. T h e army of the United States was staggering under a series of reverses. British torches had reduced to ashes both the White House and the Capitol at Washington. T h e fall of N e w Orleans seemed imminent. Even more menacing was the peril from within. In N e w E n g land political leaders talked of setting up a separate nation. President Madison's administration was fumbling miserably in its efforts to cope with the crisis. T w o of its most vital arms, the Treasury and W a r departments, had been weakened by a rapid succession of mediocre secretaries. So desperate was the financial position of the United States that late in September the Secretary of the Treasury all but confessed the federal government bankrupt. Since the government and the banks outside of N e w England refused to pay specie on their debts, the nation lacked a circulating medium. In the circumstances, even loyal supporters of the administration had become bitter critics. One member of the war party was heard to exclaim that any man who would accept a seat in the cabinet must be mad. T h e peril from without was removed b y the Treaty of Ghent. Rescue from the peril within was in large measure the achievement of Alexander James Dallas, a Philadelphia lawyer, whom President Madison appointed Secretary of the Treasury in October 1814. Dallas had had little experience in financial administration; but certain features of his record and character impressed the President: He had been one of the chief organizers of the Democratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania, and now was thoroughly devoted to the Madison administration and its war policy. H e had aided his intimate friend Albert Gallatin, then Secretary of the Treasury, in reducing the strain upon the I

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nation's finances which followed the outbreak of war, especially during the floating of the $16,000,000 loan of 1813. He was highly regarded by the Democratic-Republican capitalists of the middle states, who had found him a helpful ally in their as yet unsuccessful campaign for a new national bank. Most important, Dallas manifested qualities of unselfishness and patriotism: T o him the cabinet position was not a means to forward personal ambition but an opportunity to serve his country in a crisis. The expectations aroused by his record and character were more than fulfilled by his stewardship of the Treasury Department from 1814 to 1816. Dallas accomplished results that rank him as one of the ablest of the early secretaries of the Treasury. Through charmingly written reports and persuasive personal solicitation, he put into effect a bold, far-reaching program, attaining success in spite of a recalcitrant banking community, a vacillating President, and a shilly-shallying Congress. His program represented the new objectives of the DemocraticRepublicans of the commercial northern and middle states as contrasted with the agrarian Jeffersonianism of the South. Dallas restated the expanding nationalistic spirit of Alexander Hamilton and called for the return to the federal government of control over the nation's finances. A bare statement of Dallas' achievements during his two years as Secretary of the Treasury affords striking evidence of his ability. He rescued the government from bankruptcy and left it with a large operating surplus. He hastened the resumption of specie payments throughout the nation. He helped create a new national bank which was to give the United States orderly banking for two decades. His advocacy of a protective tariff bore fruit in the legislation of 1816 and laid the foundation for later benefits for American industries. In the same brief, tense period, Dallas rendered the government invaluable services outside his own department. He wrote an Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War, which remains the most logical defense of the Madison administration's

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policies during the War of 1812. Serving as Acting Secretary of War for five months, he put into motion a program designed to preserve peace along the western frontier—the construction of a string of garrisons from Green Bay to St. Louis. By means of his tact and fairness, he reduced the large wartime army to a peacetime basis to the satisfaction of the officers and men; through his resourcefulness he obtained funds to pay off the soldiers even though the Treasury's finances were pinched. He shouldered the responsibilities of three departments when, for a fortnight, he oversaw the work of the State Department in addition to that of the Treasury and War departments. "Few men," a contemporary observed, "have ever done so much for their country in so short a time." These two extraordinary years in the nation's service were the climax of a varied and notable career. Born in the West Indies of distinguished Scottish ancestry, bred among the British gentry, Dallas had settled in Philadelphia as a young man three decades before. He had neither friends nor fortune, and his formal education had been sketchy. But he possessed assets which enabled him to rise rapidly in the first American city of the day: great native talent; tireless energy and assiduity; a zest for wide reading; an attractive appearance, engaging manners, and a fondness for the accepted fashion which found expression in his careful, almost old-fashioned dress; a flair for social entertaining on an open-handed, indeed extravagant scale. Even during the period in which he was struggling to make a place for himself in his adopted land, Dallas had made literary and journalistic contributions of importance. Under his editorship, lasting several years, the Columbian Magazine presented an abundance of essays, verse, novels, and engravings that made it one of the finest of the early American periodicals. While he was editor of the Pennsylvania Evening Herald, that Philadelphia newspaper attracted wide attention for its original material on literary and political subjects. Although his foreign birth and tone of intellectual and social superiority disqualified him for elective office, Dallas had been

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one of the foremost figures in Pennsylvania political life since 1790. As Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1801, he had used his position as the chief adviser of Governors Mifflin and McKean to give the state an efficient, economical administration. Dallas' influence with Mifflin was great; he wrote almost all his letters and official papers, and for several years, during the illness of the chief executive, was the real head of the state government. During the same years Dallas had taken the lead in organizing the political group which became the Jeffersonian DemocraticRepublican party in Pennsylvania. B y allying the mechanics and artisans of Philadelphia with the farmers of the western part of the state, he created a group with which to challenge the dominance of the Federalist party, the instrument of the commercial and professional classes. He helped devise the strategy by which every turn of affairs abroad, every blunder of the national administration at home was made a means of rallying the voters of Pennsylvania to the Democratic-Republican standard. He maintained a steady correspondence with party workers and wrote innumerable addresses to the electorate for campaign purposes. He pleaded his party's cause on the campaign platform and defended its martyrs in the law courts. By assisting in the alliance of the Pennsylvania organization with groups in other states whose principles were similar, he helped form the Democratic-Republican party on a national scale. In the course of his organizing work, Dallas incidentally helped spread among the American people a democratic doctrine which opposed the aristocratic and monarchistic tendencies creeping into this country and stressed the duty of every citizen to take a vigilant interest in his government. After his party won control of Pennsylvania through the election of Governor McKean in 1799, and of the national government through the election of President Jefferson in 1800, Dallas had tried to retire from the hurly-burly of politics. But the activities of a group of radically minded men within the state Democratic-Republican ranks outraged his growing con-

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servatism. The cries of these Radicals for a thorough-going application of the spoils system affronted his notions of sound governmental practice; their efforts to win the farmers and mechanics by demanding drastic revision of the state's judicial and constitutional systems so that lawyers would be unnecessary aroused his loyalty to his own profession. In the state election of 1805 he rallied the groups opposed to the Radicals and saved Pennsylvania from their more extreme proposals. Since 1806 Dallas had taken little part in political activity, aggrieved by President Jefferson's refusal to discountenance the Radicals but firmly loyal to the party he had helped to found. As was the case of all men in public life in the period, Dallas had often been a target for the abuse of rival politicans and opposition newspapers. But contemporary and subsequent investigations of the many efforts to sully his reputation as a public official have all exonerated him completely and shown that his integrity was of the highest. During the decade he was building up the Democratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania, however, his ardor for his cause occasionally led him to make statements that were ambiguous. Throughout his entire career, the interest closest to Dallas' heart remained the law. By the bench and bar throughout the nation he was recognized as an outstanding representative of the men who were making the phrase "a Philadelphia lawyer" synonymous with great legal talents. The four volumes he edited as first reporter of the United States Supreme Court became standard works on every lawyer's bookshelf. His remarkable success as a courtroom pleader and as a lobbyist soliciting favors of legislators and government officials brought him a large and lucrative practice. But his sense of duty to the state and to his party led him to undertake, at considerable financial sacrifice, the defense of the federal government's interests as United States Attorney for eastern Pennsylvania from 1801 to 1814. Dallas' rank as a lawyer was won by his persuasive eloquence, his resourcefulness, and his tenacity, rather than by the origi-

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nality of his thought. Yet he did influence to a considerable degree the development of admiralty law and the American attitude toward the common law. His position on the latter reflected his own changing political philosophy: In the 1790's, like most followers of Jefferson, he fought the inclusion of the common law in American jurisprudence; after he broke with the Pennsylvania Radicals, he became its stout defender. Because of his versatility, energy, devotion, winning personality, and uncommonly high ability, Dallas was able to do so much for his country during a relatively short lifetime that he holds a secure place as one of the first-rate men of secondary rank in the early days of the American republic. Alexander James Dallas was born on June 21, 1759, in Kingston, Jamaica, British West Indies. His father, Dr. Robert Dallas, like many another younger son of the British upper classes during the eighteenth century, had prospered on the lush little sugar-growing island in the Caribbean. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Dallas had built up a lucrative medical practice, represented Kingston in the House of Assembly, and become the owner of an estate called Dallas Castle. This estate testified to Scottish ancestry which the Dallas family traced back as far as 1279 to Baron William of Ripley. The progeny of the Baron took their name from his fief, Strath Dallas—an extensive, heath-covered tract that encompassed the River Lossie in Morayshire, on the edge of the Highlands. Among the descendants of William of Ripley had been a seventeenth-century notable, George Dallas of St. Martin's, Rosshire, who was keeper of the privy seal for James VII and author of a Scottish law book, St. Martiris Styles, published in 1630. Dr. Robert Dallas was one of the numerous children of James Dallas of St. Martin's and his second wife, Barbara Cockburn. The mother of Alexander James Dallas was likewise the possessor of a proud family name. She was Sarah Cormack, daughter of Colonel T . Cormack; and tradition had it that both of her

F O R M A T I V E YEARS

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grandfathers, of Irish descent, had been officers in the Parliamentary army to which the Jamaica forces surrendered in 1685. She was the widow of John Hewitt when she married Dr. Robert Dallas, whose first wife had died. Dr. Robert Dallas and Sarah Cormack Dallas had six children: Robert Charles, Stuart George, Alexander James, Charles Stuart, Henrietta Charlotte, and Elizabeth. Robert Charles Dallas later became a prominent literary figure in the British Isles. The West Indian climate did not agree with Dr. Dallas, and the educational facilities offered in Jamaica did not seem adequate for his children. Accordingly, when Alexander was about five, the Dallas family sailed back to Edinburgh and later moved to London. Dr. Dallas placed his sons in an academy in suburban Kensington conducted by James Elphinston, a fellow Edinburgher noted for his writings on literature and educational theory. The student body of Elphinston's school was made up of the sons of British gentry, together with a sprinkling of heirs of nobility. Here young Alexander was exposed to an unorthodox course of instruction, one designed as an alternative to the classical education of the public schools which were then under heavy fire. Education, Elphinston believed, should develop the pupil's "reasoning faculties." All boys preparing for a profession required "the qualifications of gentlemen"—notably, a thorough grounding in English, French, Latin, and Greek. As secondary subjects they should be taught dancing, history, geography, penmanship, and arithmetic; later, philosophy, mathematics, drawing, and fencing. Of all the languages, English should receive the most emphasis in the young Briton's course of study. Finding no grammar in that language which suited him, Elphinston composed one for use in his school. Naturally the value of such a program was questioned by conservatives. Dr. Alexander Carlyle, the Scottish divine, declared that Elphinston's "Jacobinite seminary" starved the student's body and mind. The famous Dr. Samuel Johnson, a close friend of Elphinston, lamented the lack of "a nice critical skill in the languages" in students at such a school. Of the schoolmaster

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himself, Dr. Johnson thought his "inner part is good, but his outer part is aukward. . . . I should not put a boy to him, whom I intended for a man of learning. But for the sons of citizens, who are to learn a little, get good morals, and then go to trade, he may do very well." Family tradition has it that young Alexander's ability attracted the attention of two distinguished men of letters who occasionally visited the school. Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who entrusted his grandson, Temple Franklin, to Elphinston's tutelage during the years he represented colonial governments in England, is said to have invited Alexander to his home frequently. Dr. Johnson presented the boy with a copy of his Rambler. In 1769, when Alexander was ten years old, his father died. After a brief widowhood, his mother married a Captain Sutherland of the British navy. Captain and Mrs. Sutherland took the two Dallas girls, Charlotte and Elizabeth, with them to live in the seacoast town of Devonport, close to Plymouth. The boys remained at school in Kensington, seldom visiting their mother and sisters. Young Alexander usually passed his vacations in London at the home of his mother's sister, Mrs. Gray. It was Alexander's ambition to become a lawyer. Upon completing his studies at Elphinston's academy about the age of eighteen, he entered his name at the Inner Temple. When he joined his mother and sisters to pass the summer, he learned that the state of the family's finances ruled out such a course. The testamentary trustees of the Dallas estate had mismanaged the property; Mrs. Sutherland's expensive tastes made it impossible for her to live within the income available. Soon afterward Alexander returned to London and entered the employ of Gray and Jackson, the mercantile house of his uncle, Mr. Gray. Working as a clerk and accountant, he developed powers of concentration and endurance which were to prove most useful in later years. During some periods he worked nearly twenty-four hours a day. Alexander's commercial career lasted about two years. The affairs of Gray and Jackson had become so tangled that his

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uncle found it necessary to wind up his business and leave England. Returning to Devonport in the autumn of 1779, the jobless youth found that Mrs. Sutherland and her family were planning to leave the following spring for Jamaica in the hope that they would fare better there. He decided to go with them. While waiting for the fleet to sail, Alexander divided his winter between study, society, and romance. H e read ancient and modern literature under the direction of a tutor. He wrote poetry for the amusement of himself and his friends; he entered into the social whirl of Devonport. But this winter was most memorable because it marked the beginning of the beautiful, life-long romance of Alexander and Maria Dallas. When Alexander visited Devonport two years before, he had met a girl of thirteen named Arabella Maria Smith. Maria, as she was called, resided with her grandmother, Mrs. Barlow, and a spinster aunt. Miss Barlow, in one of the great Devonport houses. T h e Barlows prided themselves on descent from the aristocracy of Cornwall. The Barlow and Sutherland families were neighbors, and a girlhood friendship had grown up between Maria Smith of the Barlow household and Charlotte Dallas of the Sutherland household. When she first became acquainted with this London brother of Charlotte, Maria considered him "an arrogant, impetuous young man" and, as she recalled years afterward, she and Charlotte locked themselves in their rooms for hours to avoid him. Coming back to Devonport that autumn of 1779, at the age of twenty, Alexander fell wildly in love with the girl next door, now just under sixteen. He proposed immediate marriage. Maria discovered that he was "much improved" and yielded to his protestations that she was "old enough to be beloved." The view was not concurred in by Maria's aunt. This love, exclaimed Miss Barlow, was "but the fancy of a very young girl for the first gentleman who persuaded her that she was a woman." There were, the young couple had to grant, very real objections to a speedy marriage. Foremost among these was the absence from England of Maria's father, Major George Smith, who was

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the commander of Fort George in Jamaica. T h e consent of Major Smith was stipulated by Miss Barlow as the first condition which must be met before the couple could be married. Other conditions, agreed to after much entreaty, were that Alexander should receive his part of the Dallas estate, return to England, finish his studies in the Temple, and be admitted to the bar. This, it was supposed, would take three years. By that time Maria would be eighteen, old enough to be his wife. Alexander made a start toward carrying out his part of the bargain. In the spring of 1780, along with his mother and sisters, he sailed with the fleet for Jamaica. But the romantic affairs of his sister Charlotte prevented him from fulfilling his agreement. While they were in port at the Barbados, Charlotte met, fell in love with, and married George Anson Byron, commander of the frigate Proserpine. Charlotte begged Alexander to return to England with her and her husband on the Proserpine so that she would have a member of her family to accompany her until she had been received by the family of Captain Byron. Captain Byron's father was Admiral Byron and became later the granduncle of the poet, Lord Byron. Alexander eagerly accepted Charlotte's suggestion. Thus, three months after he had bade Maria farewell, he was back at Devonport pleading with her to marry him and to go with him to Jamaica. Again Miss Barlow stood in the way. She drew for her niece a frightening picture of what life would be like in "unhealthy Jamaica" and forbade Alexander ever again to come to the Barlow home. A t the same time she urged Maria to accept a proposal of marriage recently tendered her b y a gentleman of standing in the navy, Sir Edward Pellew, later Lord Exmouth. In spite of Miss Barlow, Alexander held clandestine meetings with Maria. A t first he urged her to run away with him to Scotland to be married; but Maria recalled the pall that had been cast over the Barlow household by the elopement of her mother and father. Alexander thereupon contrived a scheme which overcame Maria's objections. H e engaged lodgings in the village of

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Alphington, near Exeter, thus becoming legally a resident of the place. He arranged with the curate of the church there to read the banns for him and Maria on three successive Sundays and to hold their marriage ceremony some morning before twelve o'clock. This strict conformity with High Church canonical law made Maria feel that she was not really eloping. Early in the morning of September 4, 1780, Maria stole away from home with a maid, met Alexander, and drove to Alphington. There Alexander's younger brother Charles, now in the British army, awaited them to give the bride away. Alexander was just twenty-one at the time, Maria scarcely sixteen. During the week the young couple spent honeymooning at Alphington, they received a letter of forgiveness from Miss Barlow. She also sent her niece her clothes and a hundred guineas with which to face the world. From Alphington Alexander and Maria went to London, where they were received by Charlotte and her husband, Captain Byron, who were now living in a mansion in Grosvenor Square. Three months later they sailed for the West Indies. The young husband and wife had a joyful reunion with both their families when they reached Jamaica in the spring of 1781. For the first time since infancy Maria saw her father, Major Smith. Her mother had died years before; and the Major, a youthfully handsome though dissolute man, was living on a mountain estate with a quadroon woman. Alexander's mother received the young couple cordially at her country place and insisted upon their staying with her. They also visited Alexander's brother Stuart, who was managing Dallas Castle for the creditors of the estate. For a time it looked as if the Dallases might be very happy in Jamaica. Through family influence, Alexander was admitted to the bar. The Governor of the island sent him a commission as a Master in Ordinary of the Court of Chancery. But in time discord arose in the family. Although Alexander was on cordial terms with both his mother and his brother, Mrs. Sutherland would not speak to Stuart because he worked for the creditors

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of the estate. A prediction Miss Barlow had made that Maria would find her mother-in-law "heartless and artful" turned out to be literally true. Young Mrs. Dallas was horrified at the w a y Mrs. Sutherland treated her Negro slaves, indignant at the fashion in which she forced her daughter, Elizabeth Dallas, a girl of less than fourteen, into a marriage with a man of property and social position on the island. T h e £ 7,000 Alexander had hoped to receive from his father's estate had dwindled to virtually nothing. T o cap it all, Maria was seized by yellow fever and then ague. This combination of family friction, disappointing financial prospects, and ill health caused the young couple to contemplate returning to England. A chance occurrence, however, turned their thoughts in another direction. While Maria lay ill, word came that her father had had a sunstroke. Hurrying to Major Smith's mountain estate, Alexander found that his father-in-law had died. It was while Alexander was in the mountains, making arrangements for the burial, that he met Lewis Hallam, J r . T h e younger Hallam, like his famous father, was an actor-manager, and his theatrical company had been playing in Kingston. H e had come to the mountains for the benefit of his health. Inevitably the conversation turned to the unhealthful climate of Jamaica. Hallam had toured the principal American cities with his father's American Company off and on since 1752, and he spoke glowingly of the United States. H e pointed out that the voyage to America was much shorter than to England; a winter there would restore Mrs. Dallas' health, and then the couple could decide whether to return to Jamaica or to England. As soon as he returned to Mrs. Sutherland's, Alexander discussed the possibilities with his wife. If they returned to England, he might study divinity so that he could accept a curacy in Ireland which the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Carlisle, had offered him. Meanwhile, Maria would have to live with the Barlows at Devonport until her husband completed his education and was in a position to support her. If they went to America,

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as Hallam had suggested, Alexander might shortly be able to make a living in the practice of law. The obstacles to the latter alternative were that they had no American friends to smooth their way nor money to live on until they were established. The prospect of returning to Devonport and her aunt disturbed Maria; and it was she who contrived a way out of their dilemma. When he died, her father had owned six Negroes which legally were now hers. Maria ordered them sold, realizing about $2,000 in cash. Meanwhile, Alexander collected as much as he could of what was due him from his father's estate. With $3,000 and letters to Philadelphia financiers—one of credit on Robert Morris, one of introduction to William Bingham—they hoped to make their way in America. On April 10, 1783, Alexander and Maria embarked for the United States, relieved to depart from Jamaica after two unhappy years. Maria was so ill that she had to be carried aboard ship on a cot; but during the long voyage her health steadily improved. Almost two months later, June 7, they landed in N e w York. They proceeded at once to Philadelphia, where they engaged lodgings in a boarding house on Front Street near Arch. Alexander and Maria were prompt in their decision to make America their permanent home. On June 17, 1783, before Plunket Fleeson, presiding judge of the City Court of Philadelphia, Alexander James Dallas took the oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

II

YEARS OF APPRENTICESHIP THE United States of America, with which Alexander James Dallas and his wife cast their lot in June 1783, was a mere infant in the family of nations. The long war which the American colonies fought for their independence had been terminated by Cornwallis' surrender only twenty months before. The three million inhabitants of the young nation were thinly spread throughout an area stretching fifteen hundred miles along the Atlantic seaboard and eight hundred miles westward into trackless wildernesses. Most of the population was concentrated in a fine thread of settlements that ran, with frequent breaks, from Maine to Georgia. Of America's few cities, Philadelphia in 1783 was most likely to attract an ambitious young man such as Dallas. The discerning French traveler La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt called it, a few years later, not only the finest city in the United States but indeed one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Its population of about thirty thousand was the largest in the country. The political capital of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia was likewise the economic capital of western N e w Jersey and northern Delaware. It was already famous for the splendor and what critics called the "crucifying" costs of its drawing rooms and dancing assemblies. This was the home of three of the best-known American intellectuals of the day: Benjamin Franklin, the philosopher; Benjamin Rush, the physician; and David Rittenhouse, the scientist. Its merchants and financiers—William Bingham, Thomas Willing, and Robert Morris among them—were assiduously building up great fortunes. Friendless though they were, young Mr. and Mrs. Dallas possessed gifts which enabled them readily to make a place for themselves in Philadelphia life. At twenty-four, Dallas was physically attractive, with a tall, erect figure and an open, winning countenance. His manners were courtly; he was recognized as widely

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read and a man of parts. Maria Dallas was the type of young matron capable of helping a husband get on in the world. Her background in the British gentry made her socially acceptable; and she later was acclaimed a charming hostess. Soon after settling in Philadelphia Dallas discovered that his hope of immediately earning a living as a lawyer was impracticable. The courts had enacted a rule requiring two years' residence in Pennsylvania as a requisite for entrance upon practice. For Dallas, this enforced delay was a blessing in disguise. Never having had formal legal training, he profitably devoted some of his energies to the study of American and Pennsylvania jurisprudence. T o support himself and his wife in the meantime, Dallas found employment as a clerk and accountant. His way was smoothed by the chance that the principal rooms of the boarding house in which he lodged were occupied by Jonathan Burrall, commissioner for settling the accounts of the Commissary and Quartermaster's Department of the Revolutionary army. He persuaded Burrall that his experience in Gray's London office would make him useful in the Commissioner's office. The modest salary he received for this work enabled him to rent a house of his own before the end of the year. Dallas had been in America only a few months when he made a modest entry into the public life of his adopted state. Late in 1783 Lewis Hallam, Jr., arrived from Jamaica, eager to open a season of drama in Philadelphia. He found his purpose blocked by an act of the Pennsylvania legislature which forbade the presentation of theatrical entertainments. Despondently he turned to Dallas for advice. The problem held particular interest for Dallas, for he had long been a devotee of the theatre. As a boy he had often seen David Garrick at the famous Drury Lane Theatre in London. He had memorized many passages from Shakespeare and was familiar with the work of later English playwrights. For Hallam, Dallas drew up a petition begging the legislature to repeal the prohibitory law. With political shrewdness, he

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proposed in the memorial that the assembly levy a tax on theatrical presentations and appoint a censor to regulate "every article" of them. Dallas and Hallam gathered an impressive number of signatures to the petition and presented it to the legislature on January 21, 1784. A month later the committee to which the assembly referred it reported in favor of repeal. In the meantime, however, Hallam's petition evoked four protesting memorials, including one from the Religious Society of Friends. On February 18 the assembly, ignoring party lines for religious and moral considerations, voted against repeal, 41 to 21. Although Hallam published a "card" in the newspapers thanking the assembly minority for its support, and seemed willing to bow to the decision of the majority, he and Dallas promptly devised a scheme by which they might present dramatic entertainments without violating the letter of the law. Before setting it in motion they obtained from Jared Ingersoll, son of the famous Connecticut Loyalist and himself a leader of the Philadelphia bar, an opinion that their project was legal. Then on April ι Hallam reopened the Philadelphia theatre with a series of monologues, of which a Lecture on Heads was the principal feature. Dallas helped to arrange the Lecture and wrote some of the other "strictures upon the most eminent Dramatic Authors, serious, comic and satire" which Hallam recited. The authorities did not interfere with these performances, but public support was so meager that Hallam left for Baltimore after making only seven stage appearances. Although the undertaking failed to re-establish the theatre in Philadelphia, it did prove of tangible benefit to Dallas, for in the course of it he formed friendships with many Pennsylvania leaders which proved valuable in later years. By the middle of 1785 Dallas' period of waiting for admission to the bar was over. On July 13 he was admitted as an attorney in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; on August 3 he was admitted to practice in the courts of the county and city of Philadelphia. In becoming the thirty-fourth member of the Philadelphia bar, he joined a group whose names illuminate the

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e a r l y pages of A m e r i c a n legal history. A m o n g the l a w y e r s w e r e J a m e s W i l s o n , a scholarly S c o t w h o was helping build the g o v ernmental structure of the A m e r i c a n union as a congressman f r o m Philadelphia; W i l l i a m L e w i s , an irascible, self-educated C h e s t e r C o u n t y Q u a k e r w h o s e keen reasoning and g i f t f o r sarcastic, sonorous, torrential o r a t o r y made his contemporaries f o r g i v e his rough manners and slovenly appearance; E d w a r d T i l g h man, scion of a M a r y l a n d f a m i l y eminent in politics and the l a w , a p r o d u c t of the English M i d d l e T e m p l e w h o possessed, in the w o r d s of a colleague, "the most accurate legal judgment of any man of his d a y " ; J o n a t h a n D . Sergeant, native of N e w J e r s e y and graduate of P r i n c e t o n and the U n i v e r s i t y of Pennsylvania, w h o had s h o w n u n f l a g g i n g c o n c e r n f o r democratic principles during l o n g and arduous service as a continental congressman; W i l l i a m B r a d f o r d , a native Philadelphian w h o w a s w i n n i n g a reputation f o r the moderate, classical tone of his c o u r t r o o m debates; and Dallas' particular friend, J a r e d Ingersoll, w h o had studied the English court system f o r several years b e f o r e settling in Philadelphia w h e r e his gracious, urbane o r a t o r y and wholehearted devotion to the l a w q u i c k l y w o n him leadership in the p r o f e s sion. T h e Pennsylvania bar w a s equally distinguished, numbering a m o n g its members T h o m a s M c K e a n , a Chester C o u n t y S c o t c h Irishman w h o as chief justice of the state ruled his c o u r t w i t h a sometimes autocratic but a l w a y s able hand; and E d w a r d Shippen, son of an eminent Pennsylvania judge, w h o s e education at the M i d d l e T e m p l e and w i d e experience as a l a w y e r w e r e helping him to establish a reputation as a " s a f e and learned" associate justice of the state S u p r e m e C o u r t . D u r i n g his first five years as a l a w y e r , Dallas had a difficult time in making a living f r o m his profession. F r o m 1785 to 1790 w e find records of o n l y f o u r Pennsylvania S u p r e m e C o u r t cases in w h i c h he w a s engaged as an attorney. H i s practice comprised minor cases in the c i t y and c o u n t y courts and routine office w o r k on wills and c o n v e y a n c e s . M e a n w h i l e , he w a s seizing e v e r y opportunity to advance himself socially as w e l l as professionally. W i t h Mrs. Dallas' skillful assistance, he entertained important

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persons at Saturday evening dances and suppers, affairs so lavish —a political enemy charged years later—that he spent an entire month's income on a single party. While waiting for clients during these lean years, Dallas devoted his free time to activities which enhanced his prestige and his purse—editing and writing for political, literary, and legal publications. Most frequently he was employed by William Spotswood, owner of one of Philadelphia's seven newspapers and its single monthly magazine. It was probably in February 1787, or soon after, that Dallas became editor of Spotswood's semiweekly Pennsylvania Evening Herald. Under his direction the newspaper reflected Dallas' lively interest in literature and politics. He filled its columns with poems and with essays on such men as Shakespeare and Dr. Johnson, giving it a literary tone rare among American newspapers of the day. Besides the usual "foreign and domestic intelligence" clipped from journals in other cities, the Herald published fairly complete reports of the debates of the Pennsylvania legislature, a feature which won it a wide following in political circles throughout the state. In keeping with this policy, when the Pennsylvania convention for the ratification of the federal Constitution convened in Philadelphia on November 21, 1787, Dallas attended the sessions and reported its deliberations for the Herald. His summaries of the first five days of the convention were brief, but beginning with the session of November 27 they approached the fullness of stenographic reports. Indeed, his later reports required all the space the Herald could spare in six issues to record the debate of a single eventful day. These accounts so well satisfied public interest that they were reprinted by two of the Herald's competitors, the Pennsylvania Packet and the Independent Gazetteer. At the session of November 24 James Wilson, the only member of the convention who had also been a member of the federal Constitutional Convention, made a long speech in which he described the general principles which underlay the federal Constitution. His remarks struck Dallas as meriting fuller report

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than was possible in the columns of the Herald. Accordingly he arranged with a printer, Thomas Bradford, to publish from his notes the "substance" of Wilson's speech. This was issued in pamphlet form, without Dallas' name, on November 26. Meanwhile, the Herald's limitations of space were causing Dallas' reports to fall far behind the proceedings of the convention. T o give his readers more-up-to-the-minute news, Dallas on December 5, 1787, began to publish, in addition to his detailed accounts, brief reports seasoned with editorial comment. Some of these told of noisy demonstrations staged by Federalists packed in the galleries, of delegates on the floor dealing in personalities and recriminating one another with "indecent language." Others reported that opponents of the Constitution were charging that the convention had been called so hastily that only one-sixth of the people of the state had voted for delegates. Still others described the circulation of a petition calling for the adjournment of the convention until the following spring when the back-country anti-Federalists would have more time to organize. That Dallas' formal reports gave full accounts of speeches against the Constitution as well as of those in its favor irritated the Federalist leaders; that his informal accounts told of their maneuverings and highhanded conduct exasperated them. These leaders were cramming the newspapers with lengthy pro-Constitution arguments and using every device in their power, even interference with the mails, to suppress journals which published articles opposed to the Constitution. The Federalists went to considerable length to silence Dallas. One method they used was to cast doubt upon the accuracy of his reports. Anonymous writers protested to the Herald that he had misquoted the convention speeches of James Wilson and Benjamin Rush. Thomas Lloyd, the Federalists' official reporter of the convention, wrote to the Independent Gazetteer that Dallas had "grossly misrepresented" what Wilson had said. Rush told friends that Dallas was "imprudently misrepresenting the proceedings & Speeches" of the convention.

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Dallas did his utmost to meet the Federalist imputations. He sought out and assured Rush that he had no thought of offense. He wrote to the Independent Gazetteer declaring that Lloyd's charges against him were a "gross falsehood." T o this the Federalist reporter retorted that "a misrepresentation is not the less a misrepresentation because it is done unintentionally." But a comparison of Dallas' and Lloyd's reports of Rush's speech suggests that Lloyd's charge was a Federalist attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill, for there is little real difference between the two. The Federalists found another method more effective in stopping the publication of Dallas' reports. While they were being serialized, nearly a hundred Herald readers canceled their subscriptions. Alarmed, Spotswood discharged Dallas as editor and discontinued his reports, without explanation, with the issue of January 5, 1788. The final published report covered the session of November 30, 1787. As Spotswood himself admitted, the "studied impartiality" of the political pieces in the Herald resulted in a circulation boycott which obliged him to sell the journal at the end of January. So effective was the Federalist pressure upon other printers that Dallas' formal reports of the first nine days of the debates, and his informal accounts of other aspects of the sessions, incomplete as they are, remain the fullest record of the Pennsylvania convention we possess. The official minutes give merely a skeleton outline of the proceedings, and a shorthand report of the deliberations published by Thomas Lloyd includes only the proConstitution speeches of Thomas McKean and James Wilson. Dallas found steadier employment on another of Spotswood's publications, the Columbian Magazine. When he became its editor in the spring or summer of 1787 the Columbian was less than a year old, but it had already had a succession of editors including Mathew Carey, able Irish printer and publisher, and Francis Hopkinson, distinguished author, musician, and judge. Dallas' editorship, lasting through May 1789, covered the period of the magazine's widest influence and finest flowering.

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The Columbian was easily the most attractive and ambitious monthly miscellany published in America up to that time. It was well printed; its pages were brightened by excellent copperplate engravings of American town and rural scenes, inventions, and maps. The standard of its contents was high; most of it was original and all of it carefully edited. Unlike other magazines of the period, the editor and some of the contributors were paid. While Dallas was editor, the Columbian presented material on a wide variety of subjects from the pens of the leading literary men of the day. Jeremy Belknap, the Boston divine, was the author of a historical novel which was serialized, and a series of biographies of early Americans. Benjamin Rush contributed pieces on the duties of a physician and improvement in the practice of medicine. William Byrd's description of the Dismal Swamp was first published in the Columbian. Other contributors of material, original and reprinted, included James Wilson, David Ramsay, Linnaeus, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams. The articles embraced religion, love and marriage, popular psychology, the past and its lessons for the present, geography, science and invention, manufactures, and agriculture. These possess enduring interest, for they mirror the thought and outlook of the time. There is little interest, however, in the love stories, reprinted from European publications, and the poems from American pens, used as "filler." Dallas himself occasionally contributed to the magazine. As the articles were unsigned for the most part, his work cannot be identified positively. However, since he often tried his hand at writing verse and dramatic monologue, it seems likely that he was the author of the poetic address, appearing in the Columbian for July 1787, delivered by Lewis Hallam, Jr., preceding a performance given at the Theatre in Southwark in Philadelphia for the benefit of the American captives of the Algerine pirates. It is even more probable that Dallas was the author of the Columbian's frequent articles on law. In the June 1787 issue he published a burlesque account of an imaginary law case, Tabathy Biggie v. Isaac Squab, supposed to have been heard in the Su-

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preme Court of Pennsylvania. Signing himself "Oliver PuzzleCause," the reporter explained that "the want of discernment in the world of clients, leaves me, tho' an old practitioner, pretty much at my leisure in the courts of law; and as I abominate even the appearance of idleness, I generally employ myself in noting the remarkable cases that are litigated by more successful advocates." Though he was joking here, Dallas had actually begun spending free moments in taking notes on litigations heard in the Pennsylvania courts. He published accounts of six cases heard in the state Supreme Court and the Philadelphia courts in a department called "The Law Budget," appearing in the Columbian during 1788. Between September 1788 and August 1790 he also contributed five reports of cases heard in Pennsylvania and Delaware courts to the American Museum, the monthly miscellany Mathew Carey had founded to compete with the Columbian. The publication of these reports was received so cordially by the Pennsylvania bench and bar that Dallas became convinced there was need for the systematic collection and publication of Pennsylvania court decisions in book form. Up to that time only one volume of law reports had been published in the United States, a small collection of Connecticut cases. Most of the Pennsylvania justices kept manuscript notes and commonplace books which were fraternally consulted; but these were of small service to the large body of the profession. In publishing a volume of decisions, Dallas hoped to "facilitate the labours of the student, by appraising him of those points which have already been discussed and decided," and to furnish "some hints for regulating the conduct of Referees, to whom, according to the present practice, a very great share of the administration of justice is entrusted." Moreover, he had already become enough of a booster for his adopted state to hope that his reports would "tend to shew the pure and uniform system of jurisprudence that prevails in Pennsylvania; of which, however, the best evidence is her flourishing condition at home, and her respectable character abroad."

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Following the tradition of Lord Coke, who had not disdained to publish reports of cases while he was Chief Justice of Great Britain, Dallas gathered together all the data he could lay his hands on. T h e material available for the provincial years was painfully limited. From Edward Burd, prothonotary of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and William Bradford, the attorney general, he borrowed the manuscript notes of Edward Shippen and Joseph Reed covering thirty-two Supreme Court cases between 1754 and 1776. The data were so fragmentary that in most of these early cases Dallas could give only an outline of the counsels' arguments together with the barest statement of the decision. For the years after Pennsylvania became a state, a great deal more material was accessible. Thomas McKean, chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and Edward Shippen, president of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, made available to Dallas notes of cases in courts under their jurisdiction; William Rawle and other attorneys lent their notes. For these more recent cases a fairly complete summary of the counsels' arguments could be given; for a few, the formal opinion of Chief Justice McKean could be published; but for none was the opinion of any of the associate justices available. T o insure the accuracy of the reports, Dallas submitted each one to the presiding judge of the court which had heard the case. Financing the publication of the volume proved to be a thorny problem. As early as the summer of 1788 Dallas had drawn up a prospectus appealing for subscriptions at one guinea a copy, payable one-half in advance, the balance on delivery. Copies of this prospectus in Dallas' handwriting, together with sample pages of the printing, were circulated among government officials and members of the bar. Dallas was greatly aided by Bradford and Burd, who personally canvassed their professional colleagues when the courts were sitting. Bradford, feeling a responsibility f o r the success of the project because he had encouraged Dallas to undertake it, also wrote to friends in N e w

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York and New Jersey urging them to gather subscriptions in their neighborhoods. After a postponement or two caused by the slowness with which subscriptions were received, the book was published late in June 1790. In the preface to the Reports of Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Courts of Pennsylvania Before and Since the Revolution, as Dallas called his volume, he included a statement signed by the five Supreme Court justices approving the work and testifying to his "learning, integrity and abilities." Their high opinion of the volume was shared by other leaders in the law. In acknowledging a copy that Chief Justice McKean sent him, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of Great Britain, remarked that the Reports "do credit to the Court, the bar, and the reporter. They show readiness in practice, liberality in principle, strong reason and legal learning; the method too is clear and the language plain." With the publication of the Reports, Dallas' period of apprenticeship came to an end. During seven lean years of law practice, political reporting, magazine editing, hack writing, and clerical work, he had made a living, had acquired a wide circle of influential friends, and had become accustomed to American ways of life. His great native talents had been deepened and broadened. He was now ready for work of importance. His chance was not long in coming.

III

SECRETARY OF THE COMMONWEALTH ONE day late in 1790 Dallas received an unexpected visit from Edward Fox, a close friend of Thomas Mifflin, the Quaker merchant and Revolutionary W a r general who had just been elected Governor of Pennsylvania. Fox revealed that Mifflin had been impressed with certain essays Dallas had written for the Philadelphia press and was anxious to meet their author. A cordial interview between Dallas and Mifflin followed. Shortly afterward the Governor-elect offered Dallas the position of Secretary of the Commonwealth in his administration. Dallas accepted the offer immediately, and on December 24, 1790, a week after Mifflin's inauguration, began his work. T h e appointment was made official on January 19, 1791, when Mifflin notified the legislature of his choice. The responsibilities Dallas thus assumed were vague because the secretaryship was a recently created position. For $1333.32 a year, the Secretary, under the terms of the new state constitution, was to keep the seals of the Commonwealth and affix them to documents signed by the Governor, to collect certain fees, and to take the bonds of all state officers. In actual practice, Dallas became Mifflin's personal assistant in the administration of the state's affairs. He bore messages from the chief executive to the legislature; he conducted the executive department's correspondence with the Governor's appointees in every county —prothonotaries, clerks, recorders, registers, and lieutenants of the militia. Dallas' first act as Secretary was to dispatch a circular letter to all state officers requesting that they correspond with him frequently and make a full report of their activities every three months. This policy brought a new efficiency to the administrative arm of the government. Within a few years Dallas used the undesignated powers of his position to make himself, next to the Governor, the most

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powerful official in the state government. In doing this he was aided by the warm ties of friendship which developed between Mifflin and himself and Mrs. Dallas. Moreover, the Governor had deficiencies which caused him to lean heavily upon his Secretary. Mifflin's military record, his oratorical ability, and his engaging personality made him the most popular figure in Pennsylvania political life; but he lacked capacity for the great responsibilities which the state constitution concentrated in his hands. He was incapable of taking the lead in the formulation of policy. His knowledge of the law was fragmentary. He had no literary talents. An easy-going man, he did not like to tackle large quantities of detailed work. His health was habitually poor; and as years went by, his over-indulgence in drink became chronic. Governor Mifflin recognized his dependence on the advice and help of Dallas, and upon re-election in 1793 and 1796 promptly reappointed him Secretary. The two men worked so closely until Mifflin's retirement in 1799 that it is difficult to say what part of the work of the executive department was Mifflin's and what was Dallas'. It is clear that virtually all letters sent by Mifflin as Governor were written by the Secretary. Probably all of Mifflin's messages to the legislature and his official papers were also the product of Dallas. For the first five years of the period their administration approximated a partnership. About 1796, when the Governor's heavy drinking required it, Dallas became the real head of the administration. Mifflin was so "seriously indisposed" that he could not attend the ceremonies of his third inauguration, and the oath of office had to be administered to him at his home. The executive department records from 1796 to 1799 indicate how frequently the Governor was absent from his office, with Dallas performing his duties for him. Many of the documents were signed simply: "By the Governor, A. J . Dallas, Secretary." The actual state of affairs became so generally recognized that Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott wrote to Alexander Hamilton on April 1, 1799, that "the Governor is habitually intoxicated every day, and most commonly

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every fore noon. Dallas and Judge McKean possess the efficient powers of the government." A host of difficult problems arose in the nine years during which Mifflin was Governor and Dallas Secretary of the Commonwealth. Among these were determination of the course which the Commonwealth should pursue in its relation with the newly organized federal government; settlement of Pennsylvania's financial and land claims against the United States government; enforcement in the port of Philadelphia of American neutrality in the war between France and the allied powers; enforcement in western Pennsylvania of the federal excise law; and enforcement in eastern Pennsylvania of the federal tax levied to meet the costs of the undeclared war with France. Ranking high among the accomplishments of these years was the inauguration of an ambitious program for the improvement of river navigation and the construction of roads and canals. Since the state treasury was depleted, the government granted franchises to private companies willing to undertake such projects. As Secretary of the Commonwealth, it was Dallas' duty to advertise for and receive the bids of persons or groups desiring franchises. For three of the most important of these corporations he served as a manager. On June 26, 1792, Governor Mifflin named him one of seven patentees to form a corporation to construct a turnpike from Philadelphia to Lancaster. Completed two years later, this project marked the beginning of the turnpike movement in the United States. On July 2, Dallas was elected one of the twelve managers of the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal Company, which was to construct a canal connecting the two rivers. The following day Dallas and sixteen others, as directors of the Conewago Canal Company, contracted with the state to improve the Susquehanna River. Probably no duty occupied more of Dallas' attention than the supervision of the militia. Under state law, virtually every white male citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five had to serve in the militia and be mustered annually for drill and parade. In the eastern part of the state the militia was largely

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a social and political affair; but in the western· part, where the Indians were a constant menace, it was a vital organization. During the summers of 1792, 1793, and 1794, when the Indians, encouraged by British traders on the Great Lakes, were swooping down on settlers in western Pennsylvania and the Northwest Territory, Dallas carried on a heavy correspondence with militia lieutenants and other officials in the disturbed areas. He broached several plans for co-operation of the state and federal governments in subduing the savages, but the federal government remained apathetic. When Governor Mifflin responded to President Washington's request for the help of the Pennsylvania militia in putting down the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, he appointed Dallas paymaster general. Accompanying the troops on their westward march, Dallas was kept busy transmitting funds to the families of the militiamen. His duties became even more vexing after the insurrection had been quieted. For months he was engaged in supervising the collection of $ 16 due from each militiaman who had failed to report for duty. In January 1795, he proposed to the legislature certain amendments to the militia law which he believed would expedite further mobilizations of the troops. Another task which engaged Dallas as Secretary was the quieting of Indian claims to the lands bordering along Lake Erie —the so-called Erie Triangle—and the opening of the district for settlement. On February 3, 1791, Dallas and other representatives of the state government witnessed the surrender to the state of all quitclaims held by the Seneca Indians for this land. Depredations by Indians continued, however, and it was not until Anthony Wayne's victory over the savages at Fallen Timbers three years later that the Triangle could be opened for sale. During 1794, 1795, and 1796, Dallas handled the official correspondence with militia lieutenants relating to the establishment of law and order in the district and with commissioners relating to the sale of township lots. For six successive summers, from 1793 to 1798, Dallas helped

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Governor Mifflin conduct the state government's valiant though vain fight against the epidemics of yellow fever which ravaged Philadelphia. T o convince the legislature and the people of the state that the administration was doing everything it could, Dallas in the autumn of 1798 gathered from health and hospital officials data about the epidemic of that year and had them published in pamphlet form. The same predilection for legal editing which had led Dallas to publish his Reports caused him, while Secretary of the Commonwealth, to undertake the publication of four volumes of state laws. Some half-dozen collections of Pennsylvania laws had been published during the provincial and revolutionary periods, but they were now out of date. In 1792 Dallas arranged with Governor Mifflin to publish a volume containing all laws passed between 1781 and 1790 which were still in force. For this he was to receive $450 plus the printing costs. Dallas carefully collated the copy with the original laws, made cross references of legislation on the same subject, and prepared a concise, comprehensive index. "The nature of the work precludes any claim to literary honor," he wrote when the volume was published in June 1793, "but I hope that I shall not be found undeserving the humble praise of accuracy." Subsequently, in August 1795 and April 1801, he published two additional volumes of state laws, one covering the years 1790 to 1795, the other the years 1795 to 1801. More creative was a volume of Pennsylvania laws passed between 1700 and 1781 which Dallas published, also with official sanction, in March 1797. T o each law Dallas appended a brief commentary on the circumstances of its passage, and on the judicial decisions and legislative amendments which affected it. In a sizable appendix were published colonial charters and public records which still had pertinence. The fruit of this labor was given wide circulation throughout Europe as well as the United States. La RochefoucauldLiancourt, the French philanthropist, digested Dallas' volumes

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for inclusion in his famous Travels through the United States of North America, published in 1798. In November 1799, because of the back-country distrust of Philadelphia, the state capital was transferred to the pleasant German inland town of Lancaster. A month later Thomas Mifflin, having served the constitutional limit of three terms, retired as Governor. Chief Justice Thomas McKean succeeded to the gubernatorial chair largely through the support of Dallas, who by this time had become a great power in the political affairs of the state. Partly to pay a political debt, partly because he needed his experienced advice, McKean reappointed Dallas as Secretary of the Commonwealth. Dallas continued as Secretary for sixteen months. He served as the principal adviser of Governor McKean, and wrote certain of the Governor's messages to the legislature. Apparently, however, his role in guiding the day-to-day activity of the executive department was not so great during this period as it had been during Mifflin's governorship. One reason for this was that McKean had more administrative ability than his predecessor; another was that Dallas spent much of his time at Philadelphia attending to his private law practice and allowed the Deputy Secretary to perform the routine duties of the office at Lancaster. But in the intra-party warfare which consumed much of the attention of the McKean administration, Dallas took a constant and deep interest. In March 1801, as Dallas was approaching his forty-second birthday, he resigned the secretaryship to accept appointment by President Jefferson to the important position of United States District Attorney for eastern Pennsylvania. In accepting his resignation, Governor McKean declared that he did so "not only with reluctance but with the greatest regret; . . . not more on account of his talents than his fidelity." Dallas revealed the pride he felt in his service as Secretary of the Commonwealth as he relinquished the duties of the office on April 27. "The consciousness of having endeavoured, for a period of eleven years, faithfully to discharge an important

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trust, and the reflection that the fury of party, while it assailed me in every other quarter, has never found or fabricated a pretext to arraign my official conduct," he told McKean, were "sources of pride and pleasure" to him.

IV

ORGANIZING THE PENNSYLVANIA ANTI-FEDERALISTS he was named Secretary of the Commonwealth, Dallas had taken little part in political activity; after his appointment, politics became his most absorbing avocation. From 1791 to 1801 much of his time was devoted to attending party conferences and public meetings, to writing circulars and letters, to defending members of his own political faith in lawsuits. Though his participation was more intermittent after that period, his interest remained keen until his death. At the time Dallas entered upon the political scene, party lines were vaguely drawn. Nevertheless, a group known as the Federalists had become dominant in state and national life. Nationally the leaders of this party were President George Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton; in Pennsylvania, three Philadelphians guided its activities: United States Senator Robert Morris, Congressman Thomas Fitzsimons, and Judge James Wilson of the federal Supreme Court. Because their following came from the well-organized, articulate commercial and professional classes of the East, the Federalists exerted a power out of proportion to their numbers. In Pennsylvania their predominance was based upon their success in maneuvering, through extra-legal methods, the ratification of the federal Constitution in 1788 and the promulgation of a new state constitution in 1790. Their control of the state's delegation in the federal Senate and House of Representatives was complete. They had an overwhelming majority in both houses of the state legislature. Nominally, at least, Governor Mifflin was a Federalist. Dallas was quietly opposed to Federalism when he became Secretary of the Commonwealth in 1790; and during the next two years he became outspoken in his hostility. The reasons for his attitude undoubtedly were mixed. The Federalist principles

BEFORE

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of aristocracy and a strongly centralized national government were objectionable to him. Perhaps the prospect of offering combat to so dominant a party appealed to his sporting instinct. Most important was the friendship he had developed with Dr. James Hutchinson. Dr. Hutchinson was a remarkable figure in more ways than one. "Fat enough to act the character of Falstaff without stuffing," a friend described him, while a political rival called him "a bag of blubber . . . greasy as a skin of oil." He was a leading Philadelphia physician, professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, and secretary of the American Philosophical Society. Falstaffian in physique, he was like Falstaff in being witty and the cause of political wit in ambitious young men. When Dallas became acquainted with him, Dr. Hutchinson was one of the most active workers in a small band of Philadelphians ardently resisting the Federalist party and all it represented. Others prominent in the group were George Bryan, Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice; Blair McClenachan, Irishborn merchant; and Jonathan D. Sergeant, leading lawyer and former continental congressman. Followers in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Reed, residuary legatees of the old state Constitutionalist party, these democratically minded men had ineffectually opposed the adoption of the new federal and state constitutions. After Judge Bryan's death in 1791, the mantle of leadership of the group fell upon Dr. Hutchinson's stocky shoulders. This was fortunate for the anti-Federalist cause, for the physician had long been working on a plan to win control of the state government and ultimately of the federal government. The first part of his scheme was to organize into an effective voting force the mechanics, artisans, and small tradespeople of Philadelphia who had no reason to like the Federalist program. Of this class he paid particular attention to the many immigrants, chiefly from Ireland, who had been pouring into the city since the Revolution. Meanwhile, the doctor was also organizing opposition to the

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Federalist party throughout the state. Pennsylvania was a fertile field for such effort, for its unusually liberal law granted the right of suffrage to all freemen over twenty-one years of age. And, as the Connecticut Federalist, Oliver Wolcott, observed with distaste, the people of Pennsylvania, collected from all nations under heaven, were fired with a zeal for liberty and raised strong objections to every measure of the federal government. The farther inland one looked, the brighter were the prospects for Dr. Hutchinson's plan. In the populous commercial and farming counties of the east, inhabited largely by conservative Quakers and Germans, the anti-Federalists usually could muster only a trifling minority at election time. In agricultural central Pennsylvania the conservative and politically inexperienced Germans were about evenly divided on the Federalist program; as yet they had developed no anti-Federalist leaders. Almost unanimously anti-Federalist, however, were the politically adept Scotch-Irish west of the Allegheny Mountains; and, considering how widely their population was scattered, they were well organized. Constantly menaced by Indian raids, handicapped by an unfavorable balance of trade with eastern merchants, poor means of transportation, and the scarcity of money, these pioneering farmers kept seeking remedies in state councils. T o gain attention for their petitions, they had found it advantageous to ally themselves with the democratically inclined groups of the East. Indeed, they had supplied some of the prime movers in the old Constitutionalist party—notably the indomitable William Findley and John Smilie. It was these westerners that Dr. Hutchinson took particular pains to cultivate. He made the acquaintance of their leaders when they visited Philadelphia and corresponded with them when they were at home. As Dallas grew intimate with Dr. Hutchinson, he joined in furthering his schemes. Both were born politicians; and the work they carried on during the first years of the 1790's gives

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them title as co-founders of the Democratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania. B y reason of his position as Secretary of the Commonwealth and close adviser to G o v e r n o r Mifflin, Dallas became effective in organizing the anti-Federalists on a statewide basis. His office in the State House was a center f o r men having business with the state government. His official c o r respondence kept him in touch with leaders in every county. It was easy f o r him to combine official business with an inquiry about local political conditions or to interject an item about the plans of the Philadelphia anti-Federalist group. Like Dr. Hutchinson, Dallas found it fruitful to cultivate the westerners. In 1792 he began writing to Assemblyman Albert Gallatin, the able young scion of an aristocratic Swiss family w h o had recently settled on the Pennsylvania frontier in the hope of realizing there his dream of a Rousseauesque democracy. Sometimes Dallas' letters had no more immediate purpose than the one he wrote requesting "a sentimental, philosophical, botanical history of y o u r survey of the waters of the Monongahela." More often political overtures crept in. On M a y 2, 1792, he inquired about the dangers of Indian raids in the western counties, about the acceptability to westerners of the possible appointment of General Arthur St. Clair as Secretary of W a r of the United States. H e asked Gallatin to give his best wishes to other western leaders such as Smilie, James Findley, and Alexander Addison. About the same time he sent Assemblyman William Findley copies of newspaper articles attacking the Federalist program. T h u s Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson carefully prepared to challenge the Federalists at the first real opportunity—the presidential and congressional elections of 1792. T h e i r prospects had been brightened b y certain occurrences during the three years of the Federalist administration. Hamilton's system of a national bank, assumption of state debts, funding of the debt, and excise on distilled liquors had stirred up wide resentment in Pennsylvania. A financial panic induced b y speculation in national bank

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shares had brought general disquiet. T h e defeat of General St. Clair's army by the Indians in November 1791 had aroused the westerners. Despite these political omens, the shape of the coming presidential election was still so vague when the followers of Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson joined a group of back-country antiFederalist assemblymen in a caucus during the spring of 1792, that they determined to make no plans for it until the situation became clarified. But the outlook for the congressional election was distinct enough to encourage them to draw up a ticket f o r that at once. A recently enacted law provided that Pennsylvania's thirteen congressmen should be voted f o r on a statewide slate. Accordingly the caucus drew up a congressional ticket composed of both avowed anti-Federalists and Federalists friendly to some of their aims. This the anti-Federalist assemblymen were to circulate among their constituents during the coming summer. N o public announcement of the ticket was made and, indeed, an air of secrecy enveloped the whole caucus. In mid-summer, before Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson announced the anti-Federalist ticket to their fellow townsmen, they had a chance to challenge the dominant party in dramatic fashion in the streets of Philadelphia. B y a twist of circumstances, these skirmishes were fought not upon the record the Federalists had made in power but upon a side issue—how candidates for Congress and the electoral college should be nominated. T h e question was raised by the inner circle of Philadelphia Federalists who had devised a scheme by which they believed they could completely fill both delegations with their own men. According to this plan, public meetings were to be held in each county under Federalist auspices to select delegates to a statewide convention at Lancaster. T h e convention would frame congressional and electoral tickets to be voted on—or, as they hoped, ratified—at the autumn elections. T o obtain assent to their scheme and to choose delegates to represent Philadelphia, the Federalists called a meeting f o r the evening of J u l y 19 in the assembly chamber of the State House. Attend-

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ance was so poor, however, that no action was taken and a new meeting was announced f o r J u l y 25. T h e response was better on the second t r y , approximately five hundred persons attending. A m o n g those present were Dallas and D r . Hutchinson, alert to detect any evidence of a Federalist "plot." A s soon as J u d g e Wilson, the chairman, had outlined the convention plan, Dallas jumped up to voice criticism. This created spirited discussion and delayed the proceedings. A n attempt b y the Federalist leaders to elect delegates to the convention was finally blocked on the grounds that the hour was too late to take action. During the next day or two the anti-Federalists decided openly to organize the convention scheme. T h e y succeeded in rounding up so many of their followers to attend the third meeting on J u l y 27 that the affair had to be moved outside to the State House yard. As soon as the session began, Dallas took the offensive by moving that the plan f o r appointing delegates be dropped entirely. T h e suggestion was resisted b y William Lewis, the prominent Federalist lawyer, and J u d g e Wilson. T w i c e the question was put to a vote, and both times, it seemed to Dr. Hutchinson w h o was present as a very interested observer, the vote was two to one in f a v o r of Dallas' stand. N e v e r theless, on each occasion Samuel Powel, the Federalist speaker of the state Senate who was acting as chairman, declared that the vote had been carried f o r delegates. T h e anti-Federalists demanded a division, which Powel refused to order. T h e antiFederalists hissed. Confusion ensued. T h e meeting was precipitatedly adjourned. Convinced that they had a good chance of killing the convention scheme, the anti-Federalists now pushed their opposition vigorously. Thanks to their organizing efforts, a c r o w d of more than t w o thousand—probably the largest political meeting held in the state since 1779—met in the State House y a r d on J u l y 30. W h e n Powel attempted to reassume the chairmanship, the anti-Federalists protested, calling f o r the appointment of Chief Justice Thomas M c K e a n . M c K e a n was a Federalist, but

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he was on friendly personal terms with Dallas and other antiFederalist leaders. The Chief Justice was placed in the chair. Dr. Hutchinson opened the meeting with a speech in which he declared that the convention plan was an attempt to "dupe the people." He urged that everything done at the previous meeting be expunged from the record. The motion was carried almost unanimously. Now the anti-Federalists proposed a nomination plan of their own: A committee of correspondence should be appointed to invite political leaders throughout the state to propose names of citizens who would make suitable congressmen and presidential electors; all names were to be submitted to the public without comment, for "the deliberate consideration and unbiased suffrage of the people." The plan was adopted; and Dallas, Dr. Hutchinson, John Barclay, McKean, Wilson, Hilary Baker, and Jared Ingersoll were appointed to the committee. Judge Wilson, who disapproved heartily of this device to sidetrack his convention scheme, declined to serve. The Federalists chose to regard the July 30 meeting as an "unauthorized affair" and called another meeting for three o'clock of the next afternoon, July 31. This was an extremely inconvenient hour for the tradesmen and mechanics who furnished the strength of the anti-Federalist forces; but by this time the followers of Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson could quickly corral their following. There ensued another turbulent session in the State House yard. The crowd was so noisy while the vote for a chairman was being taken that it was difficult to determine which side had the majority. But meanwhile anti-Federalists continued to stream into the yard. Fearing that they would soon be hopelessly outnumbered, the Federalist leaders retired to the west part of the yard and attempted to place Robert Morris in the chair. The anti-Federalists rushed forward, seized the chair and table and broke them into pieces. Further violence was barely prevented. Finally convinced that they could not obtain public endorse-

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ment of their convention scheme, the Federalists on August 2 and 4 held private meetings at Epple's Tavern, at which resolutions were adopted calling for the election of delegates by each county. In answer to this appeal, thirty-three delegates representing ten of Pennsylvania's twenty counties convened at Lancaster on September 20. Both electoral and congressional tickets were drawn up. Seven of the thirteen men nominated on the latter ticket were ones whom the anti-Federalists also had nominated at their caucus the preceding spring. Meanwhile, the committee of which Dallas was a member proceeded with its correspondence scheme. On August 3 it dispatched 520 copies of a circular letter to citizens in every county and to the foreman of every grand jury. The results of this canvass were announced in the Philadelphia press late in September: Replies had been received from 17 of the 20 counties; 44 men had been proposed as congressional candidates, 91 men as presidential electors; the documents accumulated during the poll were open to public inspection. The committee's claim that its poll was nonpartisan appears valid, for both Federalist and anti-Federalist names were included in the lists. At the very time the committee was soliciting nominations, two of its members—Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson—were quietly organizing anti-Federalist support for the congressional ticket drawn up by their party caucus the preceding spring. The fact that they had privately framed a ticket of their own did not prevent them from denouncing the Federalists for drawing up one publicly at Lancaster. The convention and its work should be the main target of anti-Federalist attack, Dallas told his correspondents in the many letters he wrote explaining the party line during September. The delegates were "self-created. . . . Let it be well understood that they not only assembled without any legitimate authority, but when they met were involved in disputes, and, finally, separated dissatisfied and despondent." He also sent copies of an address to the electorate to be distributed "as extensively and expeditiously as possible." This anti-Federalist campaign literature branded the Federal-

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ists as "the Gentlemen" and "the Aristocrats of 1792" who had been "the Tories of 1776." The funding system sponsored by Secretary Hamilton, it declared, was similar to that which formed the basis of the British monarchy and aristocracy. The anti-Federalists gave themselves no party name, but some of their literature, with a nod toward the Revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine, referred to their candidates as the "Friends of the Rights of Man." In obtaining circulation for their point of view, they were aided enormously by three newspapers which were now regularly hammering away at the Federalist system—Philip Freneau's National Gazette, Benjamin Franklin Bache's General Advertiser and John Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser. As the campaign progressed, the Federalists spiritedly met their opponents' attack. Early in September a writer styling himself "Cerberus" sent the newspapers an "exposure" of the anti-Federalist caucus and a denunciation of its congressional ticket. One of their handbills declared that the anti-Federalists, "having in vain opposed the ratification of the federal constitution, are now aiming a deadly blow at its administration, and attempting to bring a government into discredit." Smilie, a candidate on the anti-Federalist ticket, was savagely denounced for participating in a Fayette County meeting which passed a resolution condemning the excise. T o Dallas and his group, the results of the October congressional elections were extremely encouraging. True, they did not provide a clear-cut display of strength between the parties because seven candidates were run on both tickets. But the antiFederalists, ill-organized as they still were, elected three of their six candidates whom the Federalists did not support. T o Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, already on strained terms with Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton, the results of the Pennsylvania election boded well for the future of anti-Federalism. "The vote of this state," he observed, "can generally turn the balance." Once the congressional elections were out of the way, the

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November poll for presidential electors became the concern of the Pennsylvania anti-Federalists. Since late spring it had been generally understood that Washington would run for re-election as President. When Secretary Jefferson endorsed his candidacy, the scattered groups throughout the nation opposed to the party in power followed his cue. But many of them determined to do their utmost to replace John Adams in the vicepresidency with a man whose point of view was closer to their own. It was probably to discuss this object that Dallas journeyed to N e w York City early in September. There he spent much time in the circle of George Clinton and his anti-Federalist colleagues, Aaron Burr, the Livingstons, and Commodore James Nicholson. Dallas discovered that the Clintonians were inclining toward Senator Burr as a vice-presidential candidate. H e assured the N e w Yorkers that Burr would receive the support of the Pennsylvania anti-Federalists. When word of this reached Secretary Hamilton, he wrote many of his friends begging them to rally the Federalist following in support of Adams. Nevertheless, the Pennsylvania anti-Federalists did not exert themselves very much during the presidential campaign. Finding that most of the voters considered the question of Adams' displacement of little moment, Dr. Hutchinson unenthusiastically told his followers that they "owed it to their friends in the other states" to make an effort to get rid of the V i c e President. Not until late October did the anti-Federalists issue a ticket to oppose the one the Federalists had drawn up at Lancaster; on it appeared the names of Dallas and other antiFederalist stalwarts. The result of the November poll was what they must have expected: T h e vote was very light; not a single man on their ticket was elected; Adams won every electoral vote but one in Pennsylvania. Just the same, Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson must have derived satisfaction from the general results of the 1792 elections. Through their efforts the anti-Federalist groups scattered throughout Pennsylvania had been organized well enough to

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achieve noteworthy victories in less than two years. In the congressional elections, their first trial of strength with the longdominant Federalists had resulted in a draw. In the presidential election, they had struck Federalist prestige a serious blow by preventing Vice-President Adams from obtaining a unanimous vote from their state. Now what they needed was a burning issue with which to rally the masses of Pennsylvania.

ν THE FOUNDING OF THE PHILADELPHIA DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY EVEN as Dallas and the Pennsylvania anti-Federalists were contentedly reviewing the results of the 1792 elections, events were taking place in Europe which led to a sharpening of party lines in the United States, the transformation of the anti-Federalists into Democratic-Republicans, and the knitting of the minority group into a tighter organization. In September 1792 a republic was established in France; and by the following January, Americans from Savannah to Boston were toasting its ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In January 1793 the French guillotined Louis X V I ; and by April the Federalists were shedding poetic tears over the event. In February Great Britain joined the European monarchs in their crusade to stamp out democracy and republicanism in France; and by June Thomas Jefferson was observing that the war "has brought forward the Republicans & Monocrats in every state so openly, that their relative numbers are perfectly visible." T h e chasm between the Federalists and the anti-Federalists was widened by the arrival in Charleston, early in April 1793, of Edmond Charles Genet, the first minister of the French republic. T h e opponents of Federalism in the South Carolina city gave a rousing welcome to the dashing young representative of republicanism and democracy. Genet's journey north to Philadelphia was marked by a round of banquets, bonfires, floods of rum, and torrents of oratory. Anxious that this enthusiasm should not drive the United States into war on France's side, President Washington issued a proclamation of neutrality. Thereafter the Federalists were pro-British; and the anti-Federalists,—or Democratic-Republicans as they came to be called, —were pro-French. Dallas, Dr. Hutchinson, and their group determined that Genet's reception in Philadelphia should cap all the others. A 43

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demonstrative welcome in the national capital would serve as a token of American esteem for the new sister republic. More important, the activity it would inspire would help the antiFederalists organize for the autumn gubernatorial election. Governor Mifflin was coming up for re-election then, and they were anxious to re-enforce their claims upon his favor. With the help of the National Gazette, General Advertiser, and American Daily Advertiser, the anti-Federalist leaders skillfully whipped up enthusiasm for the new minister. When Genet landed at Grays Ferry on May 16, great crowds turned out to meet him and escort him into town. That evening a town meeting was held at the State House to appoint a committee to draft an address of welcome. Both Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson were named to the committee; the other six members were also prominent Philadelphians, most of them anti-Federalists, all of them avowed friends of Republican France. The address, as drawn up by this committee, was presented to a large assemblage in the State House yard on the afternoon of May 17. It hailed the cause of France as "important to every republic, and dear to the human race," but scrupulously avoided calling for an American breach of neutrality. The United States, it was hoped, might be able even in a state of peace "to demonstrate the sincerity of her friendship, by affording every useful assistance to the citizens of her sister republic." After these sentiments had been approved by the meeting, a delegation of fifty-two persons, including Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson, was appointed to deliver them to Genet. Followed by a great crowd, this grand committee marched in double file to the City Tavern, where the minister had his lodgings. In tolerably good English Genet told them that France's cause was "the cause of mankind and must prevail." His words were received with great shouts by the committee inside the tavern and the crowd outside. While fervor for republicanism and democracy surged through the capital, Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson acted to translate it into more enduring form. Within two weeks of Genet's

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arrival they had stimulated the organization of the Democratic Society of Philadelphia, roughly patterned after the Jacobin Club of Paris but more closely after the old Constitutional Society which had been a mainstay of the old Pennsylvania Constitutional party. T w o organizations with Democratic-Republican aims had recently been founded in the United States—the German Republican Society of Philadelphia, and the NorfolkPortsmouth Republican Society of Norfolk, Virginia. Principal promoters of the Democratic Society though they were, Dallas and Dr. Hutchinson were content to direct its activities from the sidelines. For window dressing they induced prominent Philadelphians who had been active in the welcome to Genet to take its principal offices. David Rittenhouse, although his infirmities prevented him from attending any of the meetings, accepted the presidency. Charles Biddle was a reluctant vice-president, Peter S. Du Ponceau one of the secretaries. T h e backbone of the organization, however, was furnished by the old anti-Federalist group. Artisans, mechanics, and other men of the less prosperous economic classes made up the bulk of its membership. Actual leadership was provided by antiFederalist professional men and merchants—Blair McClenachan, Benjamin Franklin Bache, Jonathan D. Sergeant, Dr. Hutchinson, Dallas, and others. As a member of the Society's important committee of correspondence, Dallas was in a position to do much in shaping the policies of the organization. At the meeting of July 3, 1793, he submitted a statement explaining the purpose of the Society to the general public. In this paper, which the organization accepted and had published in the press, Dallas adroitly attempted to convert popular interest in the struggle going on in Europe into enthusiasm for local political affairs. If the European confederacy succeeded in defeating France, he declared, there was good reason to fear that the United States, "the only remaining depository of Libert)', will not long be permitted to enjoy in peace the honors of an Independent . . . Republican government." But the menace to our republicanism came not alone

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from abroad. The fruits of our Revolution were already being taken too much for granted. The spirit of freedom and equality was already eclipsed by "the pride of Wealth and the arrogance of Power." A vigorous restatement of republican principles and the circulation of it among the people of Pennsylvania were "the best antidotes to any political poison, with which the vital principles of civil liberty might be attacked." Dallas closed with the hope that the Society might establish among the citizens "a fraternal confidence" and erect a standard "to which, in danger and distress, the Friends of Liberty may successfully resort." Dallas' committee of correspondence constantly worked to make the Society an instrument for organizing anti-Federalists throughout the state and nation into a cohesive political group. Acting under the terms of the organization's charter—which Dallas drafted—the committee issued a circular letter in July inviting correspondence with all other societies established on similar principles in the United States. T o anti-Federalists within Pennsylvania, it pointed out that a well-knit federation of permanent societies in each county would prove highly useful in coming elections. The committee's goal was not fully realized, however. Not a single Pennsylvania county organized a society in time for the 1793 election. Partially responsible for this was the yellow fever plague that visited Philadelphia in the summer of 1793, carrying away two of the group's stalwarts, Dr. Hutchinson and Sergeant, and causing the Society to suspend its activities for the time being. Indeed, the attention of Philadelphians was so monopolized by the epidemic that there was little campaigning by either party before Governor Mifflin's easy re-election over the Federalist candidate, Frederick A . Muhlenberg. What most thwarted the success of the Society's organizing efforts was Genet's own conduct. The reception he had received from the American friends of France went to the young man's head. " I live in the midst of continual parties," he wrote his government. "Old man Washington is jealous of my success, and of the enthusiasm with which the whole town flocks

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to my house." Ignoring the neutrality proclamation, at Philadelphia and other ports he supervised the conversion into privateers of English ships captured by the French. Late in May the federal government began to prod the Pennsylvania authorities into keener vigilance, bringing the minister and Secretary Dallas into frequent conflict. In spite of Genet's insolence, Dallas tried to remain on friendly terms with him out of regard for the nation and the cause he represented. Typical of his difficulties in so doing was the affair of the Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati. This organization of Revolutionary W a r officers, of which Governor Mifflin was president, invited Genet to attend its Fourth of July banquet. W h e n Genet learned that several French-born members of the Cincinnati with pro-royalist sympathies were to attend, he sought Dallas' assistance. Dallas helped him frame a gracious, shrewdly phrased letter of declination which was sent to the Governor. Three days after Dallas rendered Genet this service, an event occurred which caused the Secretary to break his relations with the insufferable Frenchman. A n English brig which had been captured b y the French was being fitted out at Philadelphia as a privateer under the name of the Little Democrat. O n the evening of July 6 Dallas learned that the Little Democrat was to sail early the next morning. He immediately got in touch with Governor Mifflin. T h e Governor directed him to stop the ship's departure at all costs, calling out a part of the militia if necessary. Dallas suggested that if he called on Genet he might be able to obtain co-operation. Mifflin approved the idea. When Dallas arrived at Genet's house at about eleven o'clock that night he found the minister entertaining three friends. One withdrew, leaving Dallas to state his mission before two strangers. He urged that Genet avoid the necessity for a display of force by the state government by ordering that the ship be held in port until President Washington, then en route from Mount Vernon, reached Philadelphia. T h e case could then be considered by the highest federal authorities.

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Dallas had scarcely finished when Genet exclaimed that "the proceedings were very extraordinary, improper and unjust." Angrily he declared that he had been ill-treated by the federal officials in contrast with the sentiments the American people as a whole held for France. Declaiming against the Federalists and their enmity for "France and liberty," Genet said something about publishing his correspondence with the administration for the edification of Congress, something about appealing to the American people over the head of their President. He refused point-blank to delay the departure of the Little Democrat. He added, in a manner Dallas considered "intemperate," that "he hoped no attempt to seize her would be made; for, as she belonged to the [French] Republic, she must defend the honor of her Flag, and would certainly repel force by force." Dallas hurried to Governor Mifflin that same night to report the interview. Next morning he repeated the details to Secretary of State Jefferson. Genet, upon meeting with Jefferson, repeated substantially what he had said to Dallas. A few days later, in flat violation of the wishes of the American authorities, the Little Democrat put to sea. If the American friends of France had not already been disillusioned about Genet, this episode did the trick. Jefferson, Dallas, Dr. Hutchinson, all were thoroughly disgusted. Shortly before his death, Dr. Hutchinson told Jefferson that Genet's conduct had "totally overturned" the democratic interest in Philadelphia. T o Dallas the conduct of Genet seemed "really extravagant." As he confided in a letter to his friend Albert Gallatin, "Every step that Genet has taken seems a greater display of vanity than talents, and leaves us who love his cause to deplore that he was deputed to support it." The enthusiastic reception given Genet had deceived the young man into believing that the friends of republican France would support any act he performed in its name. Dallas detected in the Frenchman's ranting about the rights of man a particular concern for his own fortunes. He was puzzled by Genet's announcement that he would appeal to

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Congress through the President. Such an act, it seemed to him, would serve only to bring about an investigation of the minister's own conduct by Congress. The Federalists hastened to make political capital of Genet's indiscretion. Prompted by Secretary Hamilton, John Jay and Rufus King attempted to make the minister's allusion to "an appeal from the President to the people" seem a heinous offense in an article they published in the N e w York Diary on August 12. They repeated the story in the New York Advertiser on December 2, this time adding that Dallas, far from being alienated from Genet, had visited the minister's residence in N e w York "two months or more" after the Little Democrat interview. Meanwhile, the Democratic-Republicans did everything they could to offset the effects of Genet's loose tongue. Their Virginia leader, James Madison, induced various county meetings in his state to adopt resolutions declaring their devotion to the Constitution, to the cause of peace, to Washington—and expressing gratitude and sympathy to France. This line was followed by the Democratic clubs throughout the country. In early December, when the Federalist press barrage had become heavy, Dallas felt compelled to explain publicly just what Genet had said to him. After submitting a copy of his statement to Jefferson, he sent it to the American Daily Advertiser, which published it on December 9. In this long paper Dallas utilized his abilities as a lawyer and a writer to give an account that was accurate and yet would not concede ground to the Federalists. Graphically and explicitly he reported his interview with Genet and the events leading up to it. But on the subject which the Federalists had blown up to a national issue—the minister's "threat to appeal from the President to the people"—Dallas became foggily legalistic. G o v ernor Mifflin believes, Dallas said, that in reporting the interview to him, I made use of the word appeal . . . in this manner, 'that if the business was laid before Congress, Mr. Genet did not receive

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satisfaction, on behalf of his nation, he would publish his appeal, withdraw, and leave the governments themselves to settle the dispute.' T h e word appeal appears, however, . . . more applicable to those facts which represent that Mr. Genet, controverting the justice and force of the treaty, 8cc., declared a determination to address Congress on the subject; but, in either place, if it is not construed to import that I heard a declaration from Mr. Genet 'that he would appeal from the President to the People,' I am content to admit the expression as mine. Out of this smokescreen of verbiage, several conclusions emerge. Dallas did not deny categorically the Federalists' pet phrase, either because he knew that he had used it in reporting the interview to Governor Mifflin or because he was not positive that he had not used it. Moreover, he believed, as he had earlier told Gallatin, that what Genet had really meant was that he planned to appeal to the people through Congress. Equivocal and muddy as the denial was, it disconcerted the Federalists. In N e w York John Jay found some people defended Dallas' statement, while others called it "subterfuge and harder names." Jay himself thought it "as artful as the subject and his Design would well admit." Herman LeRoy branded it a "Jesuitical publication," while Egbert Benson considered that Dallas had "positively denied" the appeal statement. L'affaire Genet died soon after the publication of Dallas' statement. Upon the request of the American officials including Jefferson, Genet was removed from his ministry toward the close of 1793. In Congress Madison began his attack on Great Britain for her refusal to enter a commercial treaty with us, giving the Federalists more vital issues to discuss than what Genet had or had not said to Dallas. Once Genet had been forgotten, Dallas was again able to help the Philadelphia Democratic Society widen its influence. His talents as a writer were most useful in whipping up pro-French feeling. Early in 1794 he served, along with Dr. George Logan, Benjamin Franklin Bache, and Peter S. Du Ponceau, on a committee which drafted a letter of sympathy to the French National Assembly. W h e n on May 1 the Democratic Society joined

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w i t h the German Republican Society in celebrating the victories of the French armies, Dallas helped to write the toasts which supplied l o f t y sentiments f o r the rounds of liquor quaffed b y the Philadelphia Democrats. A s a member of the correspondence committee, Dallas continued to organize Democratic-Republican sentiment in other parts of the state and nation. T h e Society developed a lively correspondence with similar organizations as far-flung as V e r mont and South Carolina. Dallas must have felt particular pleasure when residents of Washington, in western Pennsylvania, formed a Democratic Society early in 1794 and became the first group in the state to correspond regularly with the mother society in Philadelphia. Late in the spring of 1794 Dallas pondered what service the Democratic Society might render the Democratic-Republican cause in the congressional elections of that year. A t the meeting of June 12 he proposed an address to the citizens of the United States which w o u l d discuss the recent policies of the federal administration and call upon the public " t o deliberate and decide, at the approaching elections, how far their Representatives are entitled to their public confidence, b y approving the good, and dismissing the bad." T h e suggestion was approved b y the Society, and Dallas was named, along with Bache, D u Ponceau and Dr. Michael Leib, to prepare such an address. But before they got their plans under w a y , a rebellion flared in western Pennsylvania which, by a curious combination of

circum-

stances, nearly wiped out the Democratic Society and delivered a staggering blow to the cause it represented.

VI

THE WHISKEY REBELLION AND ITS AFTERMATH WHEN, in the summer of 1794, the Scotch-Irish farmers w h o inhabited the rugged mountains and narrow valleys of western Pennsylvania took up arms to prevent enforcement of the federal excise law, they provided Dallas with a completely new experience and a host of political and administrative problems. For a man bred in England and long a resident of Philadelphia, the journey to the frontier as military aide to Governor Mifflin was an adventure at once thrilling and unnerving. T h e efforts he made to quell the revolt of these rough and ready pioneers taxed his abilities and patience. Moreover, because the uprising was in large part fomented by Democratic-Rcpublicans, he had to work hard to repair the damage it had done to the prestige of the political party he had helped to create. As Secretary of the Commonwealth, Dallas was in a strategic position to watch the discontent that had been agitating the seventy thousand Pennsylvanians west of the Alleghenies since 1791, when Congress, acting on the recommendation of Secretary Alexander Hamilton, laid an excise on distilled liquors. Save f o r a few individuals who enjoyed lucrative posts as collectors and inspectors, the westerners were almost unanimously opposed to the law. In effect, the excise was a tax on their currency, for their only medium of barter for supplies from the east was whiskey they distilled from their grain and carried across the mountains on pack horses. Besides, the government required that the tax be paid in currency, of which they had little. Since the great proportion of the whiskey produced in the United States was distilled in their region, they believed the tax violated the constitutional provision that all excises be applied uniformly throughout the nation. Another of their grievances was that persons prosecuted f o r violating the law were carted 350 miles to be tried in the federal Circuit Court at Philadelphia. 52

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There was, however, division of opinion among the westerners as to how they should obtain relief. T h e more conservatively minded, especially numerous in the Federalist strongholds of Pittsburgh and Washington, favored seeking redress through orderly means—preferably through modifications of the law. F o r the most part this opinion was shared by the Democratic-Republican leaders, including Albert Gallatin, William Findley, John Smilie, and Hugh Henry Brackenridge. While the excise was but a bill in congressional committee, Gallatin had induced the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to pass a resolution against it. But the bulk of their following, drawn from the rural population which felt the operation of the excise acutely, was disposed to oppose the measure with violence. E v e r since its passage, western Pennsylvania was astir with riots, attacks on enforcement officers, and protest meetings. In some of these meetings Gallatin, Findley, and Smilic had taken prominent roles; and although their counsel was usually for moderation, their participation tended to link their names with the extremists. T h e disturbances reached violent heights during 1794. One reason for the quickening of indignation was the apparent determination of Secretary Hamilton to use the agitation as an excuse for demonstrating the power of the federal government before a modification of the law, permitting western excisebreakers to be tried nearer home, went into effect. In late M a y the federal court at Philadelphia issued in wholesale lots processes for the trial of distillers who had not complied with the law. Another factor in crystallizing western resentment was unwittingly provided by the activity of Dallas and the eastern Democratic-Republicans. Early in 1794 western DemocraticRepublicans, responding to the appeal of the Philadelphia Democratic Society to establish federated groups, founded several societies, including one at Mingo Creek and one at the town of Washington. These organizations afforded a forum f o r the westerners, and the topic they centered on was their tax grievance.

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Like most eastern Democratic-Republicans, Dallas sympathized with the hardships of the westerners but feared the consequences of their more turbulent demonstrations. The Philadelphia Society named him to a committee to write the sister group at Washington counseling moderation. Remedy for their grievances, Dallas' committee told the westerners, ought to come through constitutional means—repeal of the law. This could be accomplished by electing men opposed to the excise at the approaching congressional election. As a state official, Dallas was obliged to take a more positive stand late in July. Governor Mifflin was away from his office when news reached Philadelphia that rioters had interfered with the United States mails. Acting in his stead, Dallas on July 24 gave orders that state officials in the disaffected areas should immediately take every legal step necessary to enforce the law. Such measures were too moderate to satisfy the Federalist leaders. If the federal government struck vigorously at the western rioters, they reasoned, the eastern Democratic-Republicans and the Philadelphia Democratic Society could be brought into disrepute. In four newspaper articles Secretary Hamilton skillfully employed partisan invective to prepare the nation for the use of military force. Indeed, it was whispered in Philadelphia, Hamilton favored such measures in order to establish the principle that a standing army was necessary to enforce the laws. What should be done about the riots came to an issue at a conference called by President Washington for Saturday, August 2, 1794. Dallas joined the group of high federal and state officials who assembled in the stately presidential mansion on Market Street that warm summer day. The Pennsylvania delegation included Governor Mifflin, Chief Justice McKean, Attorney General Ingersoll, and Dallas. Representing the federal government were the President, Secretary Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General William Bradford. President Washington opened the conference by painting the emergency in lurid colors. "The most spirited & firm measures

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were necessary," he declared, "to rescue the State as well as the general government from the impending danger, for if such proceedings were tolerated there was an end to our constitution and laws." He expressed "his determination to go to every length that the Constitution and Laws would permit, but no further." Necessarily the actions of the federal government would be slow, since it must wait for a United States justice to certify that the courts could not cope with the western situation. He asked Governor Mifflin if he could not act to suppress the revolt under Pennsylvania law. An awkward pause ensued. Then Dallas heard Bradford read from his own Pennsylvania Laws an act of 1783 which authorized the Governor to call out the militia in time of crisis. Dallas immediately pointed to a note indicating that the act had been repealed. In answer to a question from Bradford, Dallas said that he believed that Governor Mifflin, like the President, would have to wait for a judicial certificate before calling out the militia. The subsequent discussion revealed a chasm between the federal and the state authorities. The former thought military measures must be taken immediately; the latter felt that the situation could still be handled through ordinary judicial processes. Dallas pointed out that the state courts had successfully punished earlier rioters against the excise. He quoted Judge Alexander Addison as assuring him that "if the business was left to the courts, the rioters might be prosecuted and punished, and the matter easily terminated; but that a resort to a military force would unite in the resistance the peaceable as well as the riotous opponents of the excise, upon the Idea that the military was intended to dragoon them equally into submission." Hamilton retorted that Judge Addison himself was one of the most "insidious" promoters of opposition to the law. The conference ended with the issue unresolved. Dallas and the other state officials went away heavy-hearted, convinced that, although they had done everything they could do "with delicacy" to prevent it, Washington would almost certainly call out the militia.

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During the next week the Pennsylvania and the federal administrations each put their position on record through an exchange of letters. In Governor Mifflin's name Dallas wrote t w o letters to President Washington, while Secretary Hamilton enunciated the national government's attitude in a reply signed b y Secretary of State Edmund Randolph. In his first letter, dated August 5, Dallas repeated the points he had made at the conference: the state courts were satisfactorily handling all infractions of the excise law; the calling out of the militia by the state would have grave political consequences. His letter evoked from the federal administration a response that accused Governor Mifflin of being unco-operative and of seeing Pennsylvania "in a light too separate and unconnected." In a letter dated August 7, Hamilton conceded that a resort to force might cement existing opposition. But, he maintained, it would be even more dangerous not to act in the present emergency since thereby "the Constitution, the Government, the principles of social order and the bulwarks of private right and security" would be sacrificed. In conclusion, he listed numerous outrages committed by "banditti" interfering with the enforcement of the excise in the western counties. Dallas, in behalf of Governor Mifflin, replied in a tone of injured innocence. Pennsylvania, he assured President Washington in a letter dated August 12, was anxious to co-operate with the federal government in any w a y that it could. H e pointed out that f e w of the cases of "outrage" cited in the letter had been reported at the August 2 conference. However, if an emergency did exist, Washington could act far more effectively than Mifflin. Under an act of Congress, the President was empowered to call out the militia to "suppress insurrections"; but the Governor had no such power under Pennsylvania law. This was substantially a confession that repressive measures in the west were necessary. But Dallas and Mifflin were determined that Hamilton should not use the crisis as an excuse to create a permanent standing army. Dallas' letter pointed out that Congress had authorized the use of military force in peacetime only to sup-

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press insurrections; troops ought never to be called out or used for any other purpose. While these letters were being exchanged with little satisfaction to either side, both governments were taking steps to quell the uprising. On August 14, United States Supreme Court Justice James Wilson issued a certificate declaring that the courts were no longer able to enforce the law in western Pennsylvania. Three days later the federal government sent the governors of Pennsylvania, N e w Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia orders to call out 12,500 militiamen and prepare them f o r a march into the west. On August 8, Washington dispatched three commissioners to the most turbulent district to try to negotiate a settlement of the insurrection. Though Dallas had a "painful anticipation" of the consequences of the President's proclamation, on August 7 he issued a statement in Governor Mifflin's name declaring that the state would give complete co-operation to the federal government in carrying out its suppressive program. Chief Justice McKean and William Irvine, the central Pennsylvania congressman, were commissioned to represent the state in negotiations with the rebels. Soon after he and McKean reached Pittsburgh, Irvine became impressed by the "real grievances" of the westerners. He wrote Dallas that he thought it would be well if President Washington would suspend operation of the excise until the next session of Congress; "the people on the west of the mountain," he declared, "labour under hardships if not real grievances that are not known, or at least not understood in other parts of the United States." He added that he and M c K e a n were doing their utmost to reach an understanding with the insurgents. This encouraged Dallas, and he urged the commissioners to persevere. "There are some malevolent spirits that would rather have the nation dominated by a display of Governmental power, than b y an honorable, though amicable arrangement," he told Irvine on August 30, "but, in general, the steps that have been taken are highly satisfactory to the People."

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Weeks passed; rioting continued; and countless conferences between the commissioners and delegates from the insurgents' protest meetings came to nothing. By early September Dallas and Governor Mifflin had reluctantly resigned themselves to the fact that military force would be necessary to bring the rebellion to an end. But in raising the quota of 5,200 militiamen requested by the national government, Dallas found his prediction to be all too correct—the men of Pennsylvania resented being ordered to march against their fellow citizens. So great was their opposition that the state had to resort to a draft. Difficulty in filling the requisition was reported by the inspection officers of nearly every county. In central Pennsylvania towns riots were staged and liberty poles raised in protest. Governor Mifflin made a tour of the principal eastern towns explaining the necessity of military action. Nevertheless, barely four-fifths of the state's quota was filled. Plans for the use of the militia remained vague up to the last minute. The state troops were to mobilize at the central Pennsylvania town of Carlisle late in September; but what was to happen then was not clear. Dallas hoped that the rebellion would collapse at the display of federal armed strength and that it would be unnecessary to send the full forces beyond this point. From about September 17 to 22, he and Governor Mifflin were busy issuing marching orders and making last-minute arrangements for the supply of the state's troops. Dallas' appointment by the Governor as Paymaster General for the expedition increased his concern in the preparations. On the morning of September 22, Governor Mifflin, Secretary Dallas, and their entourage left Philadelphia. Riding westward through the Pennsylvania countryside, then basking in glorious Indian summer weather, they made the journey in easy stages. Their itinerary took them from one county seat to another, where the Governor delivered speeches setting forth the purpose of the expedition. In a Presbyterian church at Reading, for example, a large crowd assembled, of whom, Dallas estimated, at least two-thirds were Pennsylvania Germans who

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did not understand a word Mifflin said. The Secretary rejoiced that, although the county was hostile to the mobilization of the militia, the speech made a distinctly favorable impression. On October 2 the Governor and his party reached Carlisle, where they were welcomed by the clatter of cavalry and the booming of artillery. Mifflin responded with a fiery speech. T w o days later, amid the ringing of bells and more martial pageantry, President Washington and Secretary Hamilton arrived at Carlisle. Although only a small part of the Pennsylvania quota had put in its appearance, Washington seemed pleasantly surprised by the extent of the state's preparations. Hamilton admitted to Dallas that Pennsylvania's exertions had exceeded "the most sanguine hopes" of the federal government. While at Carlisle, the President conferred with delegates from one of the insurgents' meetings. They assured him that order had already been restored in the west and that it would be unnecessary for the forces to proceed farther. In moderate yet firm tones, Washington replied that the evidences of submission were not yet convincing and the march must go on. Leaving Carlisle on October 14, the right wing of the army, with which Dallas traveled, for six days threaded its way through the mountains to the village of Bedford. Dallas had never seen such country before, and it moved him deeply. One vast mountain upon mountain, or one continued range of wilderness and forest, alternately fixed the attention [he wrote his wife]. But my mind was overcome by awe. . . . Nature and Nature's God were everywhere visible. . . . The army, while we continued in the low-lands, appeared astonishingly numerous; the men that composed it appeared, from their port and equipments, gigantic; and every horse moved with the solemnity and stature of an elephant. The moment these objects came in contact with the mountains and the forests, they diminished in apparent size and number. On the top of Tuscarora, our army appeared like a race of dwarfs, and our cavalry like a race of mules. At Bedford the troops rested for four days to prepare for the even more difficult march ahead. Many of the illiterate sol-

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diers, Dallas observed, used the respite to catch up on their correspondence. They paid 2 pence a letter to men who turned out form letters which were sent to their families. Dallas himself was an excellent correspondent, taking time out from his work as paymaster to write his wife long, vivid, amusing letters every day or two. The right wing had scarcely resumed the climb up the mountains from Bedford when rains set in. Heavy fog and penetrating sleet made the rocky roads muddy—delaying the wagon trains, laming and sickening the horses. Camping facilities were often unspeakable. After trying, for one unhappy night to sleep in a tent, Dallas availed himself of the officers' privilege of sleeping in private houses or taverns along the way. Most of these houses were rickety and poorly constructed. Judge Richard Peters, a fellow traveler and an incorrigible punster, told Dallas that it was the most hospitable country through which he had ever passed because all the inhabitants kept open house. However, as Dallas wrote to his wife, we have escaped being drenched and frozen, and therefore it would be ungrateful to note the smaller inconveniences we have encountered. . . . Little to eat, only whiskey to drink, bad cooks, noisy companions, a wet room, and stinking beds are not pleasant subjects to brood upon; and yet, as long as the weather continues as it is, I shall cheerfully accept them in lieu of colds, fevers, agues, pleurisies, etc., and the catalogue of calamities to which the army is constantly exposed. I am not in ursuit of military fame, and the value which you place on my fe increases the natural anxiety to preserve it. . . . That I should be tired of the jaunt is not extraordinary, for I never promised myself much gratification in commencing or pursuing it; but the same solicitude for its termination prevails among the most frolicsome and patriotic heroes of the army.

E

Undoubtedly some of this disgruntled feeling arose from rumors daily reaching the army that the rebellion had collapsed and the leaders were fleeing down the Ohio River to escape arrest. At Bonnet's camp on October 31 Dallas mused gloomily

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that "fifteen thousand men have been marched three hundred miles without a symptom of opposition, and they are, at this moment, in the heart of the enemy's country, with plenty around them of everything except avowed enemies." T h e end of these tribulations was nearer than Dallas realized. Early in November Secretary Hamilton and Governor Lee of Virginia, who had been directing the army since Washington's departure for Philadelphia a fortnight before, concluded that the resistance was indeed broken. T h e Pennsylvania forces were to end their march at Budd's Ferry and light troops were to be sent out to round up the insurrectionists still at large. As soon as this decision was reached, the impatient Dallas started back for Philadelphia. During the course of the expedition, the attitude of Dallas had undergone wide fluctuations. As he traveled westward, he had conceded that the violence of the insurgents made the march necessary and had hoped that by putting it down the government's prestige at home and abroad would be enhanced. But when the expedition was almost over, he reflected that it had been "protracted in a manner that appears to me wantonly extravagant." What still troubled him was his suspicion that the motives of the Federalists directing the expedition were political. He was alarmed when a Federalist general handed around a list of persons "who were to be destroyed at all events." High on the list was the name of his good friend Albert Gallatin. One day, at table with some officers, Dallas said that he believed that the army was acting only in support of the civil authority and was not going to establish law on its own account. An aide-de-camp of Governor Mifflin named Ross half drew a dagger and swore that any man who uttered such sentiments ought to be daggered. These fears of Dallas were later quieted by President Washington. From what he heard the President say at dinner at a Mr. Montgomery's in Carlisle, he became convinced that Washington's attitude was "so elevated, so firm, and yet so prudent and humane" that he was "charmed with his determination to

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join us." Subsequently he was pleased when Washington, on leaving the troops, announced to them that the military force was to be employed "in strict subordination to the civil authority." Hamilton took pains to adopt the attitude of his chief, and soon it became fashionable among officers who were Federalists to express the same sentiments. Toward the insurgents, Dallas' attitude changed from moderate sympathy to outspoken hostility as the expedition progressed. At Carlisle he told William Findley, one of the delegates from the insurgents, that he believed the whole rebellion could be settled easily by the surrender of the leaders, a pledge of allegiance to the laws of the United States by the westerners, and acquiescence to the listing of the stills in the district. But soon the leaders of the insurrection seemed to him "banditti," who in their meetings with government officials were "violent" and "deceptive." H e did not believe that any faith could be placed in their protestations of remorse. "Nothing but fear and coercion . . . will ensure their submission," he reflected. The smiling countenances which some assumed when they conferred with the federal authorities were "not sufficient to conceal the hypocrisy of their hearts." When four of "the notorious rioters" were seized and carted off to a Philadelphia jail, he felt they "merit the punishment that awaits them." He even felt angry with his political allies, Gallatin, Findley, and Smilie. These men were "inconceivably obnoxious as the original perpetrators of the doctrines which have eventually produced these violences." H e was convinced, however, that they were "safe in point of law." Back in Philadelphia, Dallas promptly remembered that he was a Democratic-Republican politician and forgot his bitterness toward the western leaders of his party. There was reason for him to be forgiving. His own preoccupation and that of others in the Democratic Society's committee of correspondence had prevented them from organizing the DemocraticRepublican following for the congressional election. Nonetheless, the Philadelphia Democratic-Republicans had won a heart-

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ening victory while Dallas was away with the militia. On October 14 their candidate, John Swanwick, had defeated the Federalist leader, Thomas Fitzsimons, for the city's seat in the House of Representatives. In other parts of the state, all things considered, the minority party had fared quite well. During the next few months the alarmed Federalists attempted to counteract these gains by casting aspersions on the action Mifflin and Dallas had taken during the insurrection. One of their most vigorous journalists, William Cobbett, asserted in his Philadelphia newspaper, Porcupine's Gazette, that the Pennsylvania officials had "tampered with the militia to prevent them from turning out, or at least . . . [had] designedly neglected the proper means for obtaining the quota which had been called for by the President." T o squelch this charge promptly, Dallas had Albert Gallatin sponsor a resolution in the state House of Representatives requesting him, as Secretary, to submit copies of all communications which had passed between the federal and state governments during the insurrection. Four days after the resolution was passed, on January 6, 1795, Dallas sent the House the requested papers, together with a report on all action taken by the state government. The report was so complete and logical that it silenced criticism for the time being. Another effort of the Federalists to discredit the minority party proved more availing. T o Secretary Hamilton it seemed that the new Democratic-Republican successes had been brought about by the "demoniacal" Democratic societies. Largely through his influence, President Washington in November 1794 sent Congress a message declaring that the insurrection in the west had been fomented by these "self-created" societies. The denunciation proved a severe blow to all the Democratic groups. The Philadelphia Society issued lengthy addresses of selfdefense in November and December but found its reputation so damaged by the President's statement that it quietly went out of existence in the latter part of 1795. There is no record of Dallas having taken any part in the activities of the Philadelphia Society after his return from the

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western expedition. Perhaps what he saw on the march made him fear the lawless spirit which the organization had unintentionally helped to stimulate. Perhaps he sensed that the Society had become a handicap rather than an aid to the Democratic-Republican party and, like other politically shrewd members, severed his connection f o r that reason. T h r o u g h his leadership in the Philadelphia Democratic Society, Dallas contributed importantly to the cause of Democratic-Republicanism in the state and nation. B y means of the Philadelphia Society, he helped to promote a movement which spread to some f o r t y societies in every part of the country and had a definite influence on American political thought. This democratic philosophy checked the aristocratic and monarchistic tendencies beginning to appear in the United States. It advanced f o r later flowering the doctrine that it is the right and duty of the individual to take a constant interest in his g o v ernment.

VII

THE JAY TREATY AND THE ELECTION OF 1796 a year Dallas was employing his ready tongue and pen to help the Democratic-Republican party regain the ground it had lost as a result of President Washington's denunciation of the Democratic societies. His opportunity grew out of the President's unhappy selection of Chief Justice John J a y as special envoy to Great Britain in 1794. Jay's mission was threefold: to obtain fulfillment of the terms of the peace treaty of 1783, especially the evacuation of the western forts still held b y the British; to insist upon recognition of our rights as a neutral in the war then going on between Great Britain and France; ana ro negotiate a trade treaty. WITHIN

T h e terms of the treaty which J a y sent back fell far short of his objectives. T h e British renewed their promise to evacuate the western forts but refused to renounce their "right" to ignore the Canadian-American boundary in carrying on their f u r trade with the Indians in the northwestern United States. Other matters unsettled since 1783—pre-Revolutionary debts owed by Americans to British creditors, compensation to Americans for slaves stolen by the British during the war, and the boundary between Maine and N e w Brunswick—were left for subsequent negotiation. T h e treaty surrendered the principle of our rights as a neutral nation in respect to contraband in return f o r a pledge of subsequent indemnification; no agreement was reached to prevent Britain from continuing to impress our seamen into her navy. For ten years Britain and the United States were to treat each other as "most favored nations." Our vessels, however, were forbidden to export from the United States sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton—this in return for the limited entry of our vessels into the British West Indies. Although the Federalist leaders were dismayed when they learned these terms in the spring of 1795, they pushed ratifica65

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tion of the treaty on the ground that it alone would save the United States from war with either Great Britain or France. Late in June the Senate, meeting in special session behind closed doors, ratified the measure by a bare two-thirds majority. While the treaty awaited President Washington's signature, a disgruntled senator gave the full text to Benjamin Franklin Bache, w h o published it in his Aurora-General Advertiser on July i. Immediately cries of indignation went up on all sides. T h e commercial provisions displeased the merchants of the North; the provisions about stolen slaves alarmed the planters of the South; the great concessions to Great Britain angered the friends of France. In Pennsylvania the only persons who saw any merit in Jay's work were die-hard Federalists and a few westerners who believed that Indian raids might be diminished through a better understanding with Britain. T h e Democratic-Republicans perceived that their party's prestige would be enhanced if President Washington could be dissuaded from signing the treaty. Accordingly, in all parts of the country they hastened to organize popular resentment through the press and public meetings of protest. T o this effort Dallas lent wholehearted support. Within five weeks of publication of the treaty, he wrote some half-dozen papers stating the case against the measure. Some of these were adopted by public meetings in Philadelphia; all of them were given wide circulation in the party press. Most pretentious of Dallas' writings was a twenty-two-thousand-word essay called Features of Mr. Jay's Treaty, published anonymously in five parts in the American Daily Advertiser between July 18 and August 7. Dallas expressed the hope that his work would not "be regarded as an instrument of faction, nor made the foundation of slander and abuse," for the issue at stake was "too momentous to be treated as the football of contending factions. . . . T h e question is not a question between party and party, but between nation and nation." Dallas marshaled his objections systematically, as if he were arguing a case in court. H e had six principal reasons for disap-

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proving the treaty. F o r one, the manner in which the J a y mission was initiated and conducted was not such as to inspire public confidence. T h e selection of an Anglophile like J a y had been unfortunate, to say the least. T h e envoy's "dangerous confidence in the intuitive faculties of his o w n mind" and the "inexhaustible f u n d of his diplomatic information" had made it easy f o r the British to drive him " f r o m the ground of an injured, to the ground of an aggressing party; he made atonement f o r imaginary wrongs before he was allowed justice f o r real ones." T h e "mysterious" fashion in which the administration had pushed the treaty through the Senate appeared to have been based "upon a vain assumption that the treaty could remain a secret till it became obligatory as a l a w . " Dallas' second point was that nothing had been settled b y the treaty. It provided merely that long-standing differences between the United States and Great Britain were to be arbitrated. "Does not the history of treaties," he asked, " p r o v e that whenever commissioners have been appointed b y the parties to take all the subjects of their dispute ad referendum, . . . the matter terminates in creating, not in settling, differences?" A third objection was that the treaty granted G r e a t Britain and her citizens commercial, military, and legal benefits f o r which the United States did not receive adequate concessions. In comparing the advantages each nation would derive, Dallas struck upon an item that was to take on greater significance as the years passed. Cotton, he pointed out, was an American staple. W a s it right, he demanded, to prohibit exportation of a product w e raised in our o w n territory so that we might have a small share in the British W e s t Indian trade? Fourth, Dallas went on, the treaty was actually "an instrument of party," f o r it fulfilled the determination the Federalists had often expressed in Congress that we should ally ourselves with Great Britain. Fifth, it was a breach of our neutrality because it gave tremendous aid to Britain in conducting its w a r with France. F o r a neutral nation so to "alter a situation of one of the belligerent

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powers as to enable him more advantageously to prosecute hostilities against his adversary" is to violate the law of nations. Finally, Dallas objected, the treaty would seriously harm our affairs at home and abroad. Its provisions were such that the moment Britain was able to produce a quarrel between France and ourselves, America would again be the colony of Britain. A s a virtual alliance with a monarchical nation, the treaty endangered our o w n republican institutions. In a variety of w a y s its terms violated the Constitution of the United States. In the course of the essay Dallas insisted that the only issue raised b y the treaty was one of "policy and interest between commercial rivals." He denied that the rejection of the treaty would inevitably mean war f o r the United States; but, even if it did, he still favored rejection. Great Britain was patently hostile to us, and the treaty was too high a price to pay f o r peace with her. France, on the other hand, was more congenial because she was a republic and would effectively aid us with arms should w e become her ally in war. W h i l e the Features was being serialized, Dallas published several shorter pieces opposing the treaty. One, called View of the Commerce of the United States, appeared in the Federalist Philadelphia Gazette on J u l y 28 as the work of "Americanus." T o convince merchants that, in operation, the J a y treaty would seriously harm their business, Dallas considered the conditions of American commerce topically. In one column he succinctly described the current situation, illuminating his general statement b y specific figures; in a parallel column he estimated what conditions would be if the treaty went into effect. In each case the contrast emphasized the disadvantages of the treaty. Dallas was probably the author of t w o other vigorous attacks on the treaty published in the Aurora late in J u l y . Signed b y " A m e r i canus," these papers echoed the arguments made in the Features, and indeed one of them is little more than a synopsis of the more ambitious w o r k . Dallas was also tempted to undertake a reply to an able defense of the treaty which Alexander Hamilton, J o h n J a y , and

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Rufus King brought out under the name "Camillus." When James Madison heard of his design, he sent Dallas hearty encouragement and a long discussion of the faults of the treaty as he saw them; but the course of events prevented Dallas from making any use of these suggestions. Of the papers Dallas published against the treaty, the Features and the View were the ablest, the former being possibly the strongest indictment of Jay's work to appear while the measure was under discussion. The arguments he offered chimed in with those of other antitreaty essays, but he stated them with a degree of systematic and legal force that was unparalleled. Both of the major essays were reproduced in newspapers throughout the nation. During 1795 and 1796 Mathew Carey reprinted the Features in pamphlet form in three editions, the View in two editions. The Features was also published by the Boston house of Hall and Nancrede. In the Democratic-Republican effort to arouse opposition to Jay's work through public meetings, Dallas played an equally notable part. Demonstrations had been staged in the leading cities from Boston to Savannah; and the inner circle of the Philadelphia group was determined that the one in the national capital should surpass all the rest. A few days after the Features began appearing in the press, Dallas and his colleagues appealed to their fellow citizens to attend a meeting, on the afternoon of July 23 at that time-honored rallying-point, the State House, to consider "the propriety of expressing their sense" on the J a y treaty. Attendance was solicited through a handbill which described France as "our avowed Friend" and Great Britain as "the universal Foe of Liberty" who had made Americans "the guiltless victims of her Infernal malice." At the meeting the Democratic-Republicans resorted to the same devices they had used in welcoming Genet two years before. They appointed a committee of fifteen leading citizens to draft a memorial begging President Washington not to sign the Jay treaty and to report it at another meeting two days later. Besides Dallas, the committee included Thomas McKean,

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Blair McClenachan, John Swanwick, John Barker, and William Coats. Accounted a great success was the assemblage on Saturday afternoon, July 25, in the State House yard. Democratic-Republican newspapers estimated the attendance at 6,000; the Federalist Oliver Wolcott could see only 1,500—"the ignorant and violent class of the community." Thomas Lee Shippen, member of one of Philadelphia's first families, presided; and other dignitaries sat on the platform. The tone of respectability was raised even higher when Dallas introduced Chief Justice McKean, who took a bow. The major portion of the session was devoted to two readings by Shippen of the memorial ostensibly drafted by the committee but actually written by Dallas. It began by assuring President Washington that the citizens of Philadelphia were "sincerely and affectionately attached" to him "from a sense of the important services you have rendered the United States, and a conviction of the purity of the motives that will forever regulate your public administration." It promised that "whatever may be the issue of the present momentous question, . . . [we] will faithfully acquiesce in the regular exercise of the delegated powers of the government." The objections advanced against the treaty were those which Dallas had stated elaborately in his Features. All were phrased so as not to ruffle the sensitivities of the man to whom they were addressed. Nothing was said about the "mysterious" fashion in which the treaty had been initiated and passed through the Senate. There was no emphasis on the claims of republican France upon the affections of Americans. After each paragraph was read a vote was taken, the crowd cheering and swinging hats in the air to indicate approval. N o more than two hands were raised in dissent to any section. By the time the memorial was presented to President Washington, '413 citizens had signed it. The meeting had a riotous anticlimax. After a harangue by Blair McClenachan, several hundred of the crowd stormed the

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residences of the British minister and consul and of William Bingham, the Pennsylvania Federalist leader; in front of each they burned copies of the treaty. T o Dallas, the conduct of these extremists seemed "reprehensible and odious." While the American public debated and demonstrated for and against the treaty, while President Washington hesitated to sign it, George Hammond, the British minister, grew anxious. He was planning to return to London, and he wished the treaty to be among his finished business. Chance played into his hands, and incidentally drew Dallas' name into the political limelight once again. The British frigate Cerberus had captured a French ship bearing dispatches written to the French government by its .minister in America, Joseph Fauchet. Perceiving their political value, the British government sent the dispatches to Hammond. The minister showed them to Secretary of the Treasury Wolcott, who in turn brought them to the attention of President Washington. The dispatches were indeed remarkable. In one of them, dated October 31, 1794, Fauchet wrote that at the time of the Whiskey Rebellion Secretary of State Edmund Randolph had suggested that he, Fauchet, "buy" some American politicians who could use their influence to turn the events in the west to France's advantage. Fauchet mentioned only two politicians: Governor Mifflin, whose opinion of Secretary Hamilton and his program "was known to be unfavorable"; and Secretary Dallas, who "possessed great influence in the popular [Democratic] Society of Philadelphia, which in turn influenced those of other states." The French minister concluded his report with exclamatory sighs: "Thus with some thousands of dollars the [French] Republic could have decided on civil war or peace. Thus the consciences of the pretended patriots of America already have their prices." The inference was that if Fauchet had had the money to grease the palms of Randolph, Mifflin, and Dallas, they would have turned the Whiskey Rebellion into a civil war for the benefit of France. The dispatches had just the effect upon President Washing-

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ton that Hammond and Wolcott had hoped. On August 14 the President signed the Jay Treaty. Indignant at the intriguing fashion in which the charges had been made against him, Randolph submitted his resignation as Secretary of State, and Washington promptly accepted it. To vindicate himself, Randolph prepared a lengthy account of his conduct as a member of Washington's cabinet. While he was writing his Vindication, Wolcott declared in a letter to Alexander Hamilton that Dallas was "councillor in all his councils, and will, of course, prune away many indiscretions, and render a bad case as plausible as the nature of it will permit." Partial corroboration of Randolph's Vindication came from Fauchet in a none-too-lucid statement issued upon his return to France. The retiring minister affirmed Randolph's honesty and explained that the men the former Secretary had advised him to bribe were flour merchants who might be able to keep him informed of British intrigue in the west. Neither Dallas nor Mifflin offered any formal defense of themselves. The nearest either of them came to doing so was a statement Dallas sent to the New York Argus on December 23, 1795, soon after the first publication of the complete text of the Fauchet dispatch. Dallas indicated that he believed the text absolved Mifflin and himself of the imputations which had been whispered about them. By this time his political position and that of the Governor had become so secure that an ambiguous statement was enough to make the public forget their connection with the Fauchet episode. In another way, however, the aftermath of the Jay treaty seriously affected Dallas' political fortunes during the next year or two. On August 12, 1795, President Washington sent the Philadelphia committee a politely phrased reply to Dallas' memorial. He was signing the treaty, he told them, after contemplating the welfare of the United States as a whole and barring "personal, local or partial considerations." As far as Dallas was concerned, that ended the treaty as a political issue. Although he differed with the President on many matters, he always ad-

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mired W a s h i n g t o n f o r his "elevated, firm and p r u d e n t " spirit. M o r e o v e r , he had been sincere w h e n he w r o t e in the

Features

that he hoped the treaty w o u l d not become "the football o f c o n t e n d i n g factions." H e favored seeking n e w questions u p o n w h i c h to challenge the Federalists. In taking this stand, Dallas f o u n d himself in conflict w i t h a p o w e r f u l b o d y o f Democratic-Republicans headed b y

John

B e c k l e y of V i r g i n i a . Clerk of the federal House of Representatives, B e c k l e y w a s determined that at the approaching election "old W a s h i n g t o n , " as he sneeringly termed the President, should be replaced b y T h o m a s Jefferson. F o r this purpose he used his position as Clerk o f the H o u s e to organize D e m o c r a t i c - R e p u b lican congressmen, and, through them, party members in all sections of the c o u n t r y . H e became, indeed, a sort of e a r l y - d a y national chairman of the D e m o c r a t i c - R e p u b l i c a n party. It seemed t o B e c k l e y that the best w a y to advance his party's cause was to continue the battle against the Jay treaty. Surreptitiously, during the winter of 1795-96, he undertook to organize sentiment so that the H o u s e of Representatives w o u l d forbid the administration to put the treaty into operation. In his campaign, he did not spare the name of W a s h i n g t o n . " T h e vital b l o w [the President had] aimed at the Independence & best interests of his c o u n t r y " b y signing the treaty, he told friends, "marked him in indelible character as the head o f a British faction." In this m o v e m e n t Dallas did not join. W h e t h e r B e c k l e y asked him to do so is not clear, but at any rate his disapproval of such a scheme was obvious enough to cause the Clerk of the H o u s e to brand him, in a letter to Madison, as a "trimmer," a man in w h o m his g r o u p could not confide. It was p r o b a b l y because of B e c k l e y ' s machinations that D a l las temporarily w i t h d r e w f r o m active party w o r k . H e w a t c h e d Bache's Aurora

needle the President f o r having "violated the

constitution" and having "infringed upon the p o w e r s o f the people" b y signing the treaty. H e read a series of essays that Beckley w r o t e under the name " A Calm O b s e r v e r , " c h a r g i n g

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that the President had stolen from the government and deserved to be impeached. He watched the effort of his friend Gallatin in the House of Representatives to block the operation of the treaty during the spring of 1796. Dallas made apparent his disapproval of such tactics in a letter to the New York Argus in December 1795. A Federalist lawyer, calling himself "William Wilcocks," had charged that Dallas was the "Valerius" who had been attacking the federal administration in articles in the Aurora. "I think it proper unequivocally to declare," Dallas wrote to the Argus, "that I am not the writer or author of these essays; nor of any other anonymous essays, letters or paragraphs which have appeared in Mr. Bache's Gazette in relation to the officers or the administration of the general government." As a consequence of his estrangement with the Beckley group, Dallas was not active in the elections of 1796—the first time he had been on the sidelines during a campaign in half a dozen years. Nominally the chairman of the state committee of correspondence was Dr. Michael Leib; actually, the brunt of the work of organization was assumed by Beckley. Gallatin, McKean, William Irvine, and David Rittenhouse all joined in the party's activities as in the past. But Dallas could not help taking a keen interest in the elections that autumn. Governor Mifflin came up for re-election in October. This time the Federalists, recognizing Mifflin's tight hold on the masses throughout the state, declined to oppose him even though they realized that Dallas had made a thoroughgoing Democratic-Republican of the affable old general. The issue of the November presidential poll, however, remained in doubt until the last moment. As soon as President Washington announced that he would not run for a third term in mid-September, Dallas saw his party colleagues launch a vigorous campaign to elect Thomas Jefferson to the presidency and Aaron Burr to the vice-presidency over the Federalists' candidates, John Adams and Thomas Pinckney. Under Beckley's direction, they made full use of the organization Dallas

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had built up in Pennsylvania—sending printed campaign literature, handwritten voting cards, and even special canvassing agents to most parts of the state. The results were reason for Democratic-Republican gratification but hardly jubilation—a bare plurality for the party's electoral ticket of 12,306 to 12,181. In the electoral college Pennsylvania cast 14 votes for J e f ferson i j for Burr, 2 for Pinckney, and 1 for Adams. Adams was elected president by a total vote of 71 to 68 for Jefferson. The burning issue of the presidential campaign of 1796 was the J a y treaty. Dallas' work against that measure added to its general unpopularity. He accordingly contributed in no small degree to the Democratic-Republican party's first victory in ä presidential election in Pennsylvania and to the great gains i* made in the nation.

VIII

SKIRMISHES IN THE PRESS AND COURTROOM THE differences Dallas had with John Beckley and the Democratic-Republican hierarchy were soon forgotten. By the summer of 1798 he was serving, along with Beckley, as a pallbearer at the funeral of John Swanwick, Democratic-Republican congressman from Philadelphia; by the spring of 1799 he was being toasted at party banquets; and by 1800 he was being cheered at Fourth of July picnics as "the man who by the integrity of his deportment awes his enemies into respect." Dallas reassumed his leadership of the Pennsylvania Democratic-Republicans because his powers as a lawyer and organizer were precisely what they needed to take advantage of Federalist weaknesses. At the end of 1796 the Federalists were in a sorry situation. They had just elected a president by a margin of only three electoral votes. Their ranks were split into two factions—one headed by John Adams, the other by Alexander Hamilton. It seemed likely that they would lose the next presidential canvass. This prospect drove the Federalists to desperate measures. During the next four years they passed a sedition act which would impose severe penalties on any person opposing the federal administration. They enacted a stringent naturalization law and an act that looked to the wholesale deportation of aliens because most recent immigrants had been flocking to the Democratic-Republican banner. They came perilously close to declaring war on France, principally because that nation was the favorite of the Democratic-Republicans. T o meet the costs of this expected war, they levied an onerous tax on property. In the opposition that the Democratic-Republicans offered to this program, Dallas played his part with vigor and ability. His most notable work was done in the courtroom in three outstanding cases—one in which he defended a Democratic-Republican

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editor against the reprisals of the Federalist administration; another in which he defended party workers who had attempted to organize opposition to the Alien Law among Philadelphia churchgoers; and a third, the famous Fries case, in which his adroit defense of a Pennsylvania auctioneer helped win over the population of the German-speaking counties to the ranks of democracy. The first case was that of Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, whose scalding personal attacks on the Federalist leaders through the columns of his Philadelphia Aurora convinced the party in power that he must be silenced. In June 1798 Bache was haled before Judge Richard Peters on a charge of having libeled President Adams and the federal administration "in a manner tending to excite sedition and opposition to the law." As this was a month before Congress passed the Sedition Law, action was brought under the common law. Dallas urged that the case be dismissed, citing a principle he had heard Judge Samuel Chase expound a short time before in the case of United States v. Worrall: that the United States, as a federal government, possessed no common law. Now it happened that Judge Peters had sat on the bench beside Judge Chase during the case Dallas cited and had heartily dissented in the decision. Accordingly, he ruled that Bache be bound over for trial in the federal Circuit Court the following winter and exacted a stiff bail for his appearance. The epidemic of yellow fever which visited Philadelphia in the late summer of 1798 caused the death of Bache, and the indictment died with him. With the financial assistance of the Democratic-Republican inner circle, Bache's widow, Margaret H. Bache, resumed publication of the Aurora in November. The actual editing was performed by Bache's former assistant, William Duane, who promptly made his control of the newspaper nominal as well as actual by marrying the widow Bache. American-born and Irish-bred, Duane had had a checkered journalistic career in England and India before settling in Philadelphia. Soon he was

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showing himself an even more resourceful and outspoken Democratic-Republican editor than Bache. Inevitably Duane found himself in need of Dallas' legal counsel. His first brush with the Federalists occurred on the morning of Sunday, February 9, 1799—the day before the Democratic-Republicans were planning to bring up repeal of the Alien Law in Congress. Accompanied by three friends, including Dr. James Reynolds, a physician, Duane went to St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Fourth Street, Philadelphia, while a service was in progress. The four men carried placards calling upon natives of Ireland in the congregation to remain in the churchyard after the service to sign a memorial to Congress begging repeal of the Alien Law. Some of the posters they placed against the wall of the church, others on the gates at the edge of the yard. As the congregation streamed out of church, Duane and his colleagues spread copies of the memorial across a tombstone and began soliciting signatures. Before they had collected many, a group of ardent Federalists from the congregation surrounded them and tried to force them from the yard. The Federalists concentrated their attack upon Dr. Reynolds, knocking him down and kicking him. As the physician struggled to his feet, he drew a pistol and brandished it before James Gallagher, Jr., leader of the Federalist group. At this moment policemen arrived and hustled the four memorialists away to the Mayor's office. Dr. Reynolds was charged with an attempt to murder Gallagher, the others with riot and assault. When the case came to trial a fortnight later in a crowded courtroom in the State House, Dallas, as counsel for the defendants, dominated the proceedings. During the examination of witnesses and in his chief speech, he brought out that there had been no riot until the Federalists charged upon the memorialists; that it was customary to collect signatures for petitions after services in the churchyards in Ireland; that the memorial was moderate and respectful in tone. Certain members of the congregation testified that they had wanted to sign the petition; and the priest said that he did not consider the

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posting of notices in the yard disrespectful to the Church. Dallas suggested that the real reason his clients were being prosecuted was that they had criticized the Federalist program. " A c c o r d i n g to the politics of the present d a y , " he declared, " a n y man w h o wishes to exercise the right of free opinion . . . is marked out f o r party obloquy." Such a state of affairs m a y convert the right of petition, which is guaranteed b y the Constitution, into a criminal act. Upon the one aspect of the case he considered not purely political—the conduct and testimony of Gallagher, the prosecution's chief witness—Dallas heaped burning sarcasm and ridicule. This hotheaded hero, he said, "sees D r . Reynolds keeping at bay five or six persons, w h o menaced him . . . and he tells y o u with a voice of triumph and elation that, after D r . Reynolds was on the ground, he kicked him three times. . . . H e takes upon himself to say that is wrong which men, at least as well informed as himself, and as free, say is right." Indeed, Dallas concluded, the blame f o r the whole riot rested not upon the defendants, but upon "the unwarrantable conduct of M r . Gallagher." Joseph Hopkinson, prosecutor f o r the Commonwealth, f o l lowed with a rather lame defense, complaining that Dallas' strictures upon Gallagher were unfair. It was the admission of foreigners, he declared, that had produced political parties in this country. It took the jury only half an hour to decide that it had found Dallas' eloquence the more persuasive. Its verdict of not guilty was greeted with cheers b y the crowd in the State House. T h u s the Federalists lost another skirmish in their campaign to strike at the Democratic-Republican party through the foreign-born in its ranks. Another important case b y which Dallas won converts to democracy b y his ability in the courtroom arose f r o m the measure the Federalists enacted in June 1798 to meet the costs of the expected w a r with France—a direct tax on land, houses, and slaves. Since there were f e w slaves in Pennsylvania, the state's quota fell almost entirely on land and houses. W h e n federal agents began to assess the house tax in the G e r -

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man counties of Berks, Northampton, and Montgomery, in January 1799, the inhabitants showed hot resentment. Many did not even know that the tax had been passed. T o most of them the assessment, determined by the number and size of the windows, smacked of the hearth tax they had so detested back in Germany. In some townships armed bands prevented the assessors from performing their duties. As opposition developed, John Fries of Bucks County emerged as its leader. A burly auctioneer with a sonorous voice and a ready wit, Fries delivered harangues against the tax as he traveled from village to village to preside at country-store vendues. When the United States marshal arrested residents of Northampton County who had resisted the tax, Fries organized a party of fifty horsemen, marched on Bethlehem, and liberated the prisoners in custody there. In alarm, President Adams issued a proclamation calling upon the rioters to submit to the laws and had Governor Mifflin send state militiamen to scour the seething district for offenders. Fries was captured, hustled off to Philadelphia, and indicted for treason. While the auctioneer languished in jail, his friends proposed to Dallas that he and Jared Ingersoll act as Fries' counsel. Dallas' impressive courtroom manner and political influence, they felt, would greatly aid the prisoner's cause. Ingersoll declined because of his position as Attorney General of Pennsylvania. The friends of Fries then engaged William Lewis, a prominent Quaker and Federalist, in Ingersoll's stead. Apparently they neglected to tell Lewis that they were also negotiating with Dallas, for when Dallas finally accepted their offer a clash ensued. The irascible Lewis disliked having another lawyer as his equal in a case, and especially Dallas whom he disliked personally. When he heard of Lewis' attitude, Dallas, following the prevalent gentleman's code, challenged him to a duel. Lewis abandoned his Quaker principles to accept. Fortunately William Rawle, United States Attorney for Pennsylvania, intervened and there were mutual retractions. Lewis graciously told

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Dallas that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to collaborate with him on the case. Because of the political issues and human interest involved in the case, there were bitter articles in the press and excited talk in the streets as Fries came to trial in the federal court in Philadelphia on April 30, 1799. O n the bench sat United States Supreme C o u r t Justice James Iredell and federal Judge Richard Peters. Samuel Sitgreaves, Rawle's assistant in the prosecution, opened the proceedings b y presenting witnesses to support the government's contention that Fries was guilty of treason because he had levied w a r against the United States. H e then entered into the record a statement Fries had made before Judge Peters confessing that he had been in the party w h i c h rescued prisoners f r o m the federal marshal. Dallas followed with an eloquent defense of Fries that lasted seven and a half hours. H e carefully drew a distinction between treason and riot. Citing numerous English precedents, he contended that to have committed treason Fries would have had to lead a well-organized conspiracy extending throughout the w h o l e disaffected area. But the one lawless act charged against the prisoner—participation in the raid at B e t h l e h e m — was an isolated incident, at worst a case of riot. T h e r e f o r e , if Fries were guilty of any crime, it was riot, not treason. T h e whole uprising in eastern Pennsylvania, Dallas maintained, was not a " w a r against the United States," but a spontaneous uprising against an unpopular and misunderstood law. In the conduct of Fries, Dallas saw extenuating circumstances. W i t h an eye on the t w o German-speaking members of the jury, he pointed out that since the law was written in English, which Fries could not read, Fries did not at the time comprehend the seriousness of his acts; and that as soon as President Adams' proclamation was issued and the true nature of his malefaction was made apparent to him, the auctioneer had become quiescent. N o r did Dallas overlook the sentimental side of the case. H e

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DALLAS

referred to the honorable record Fries had made in the Revolutionary War and in the Whiskey Rebellion. He spoke of his wife and children. The death penalty in such a case, Dallas maintained, "is inconsistent with the humanity, the tenderness of life, which are the characteristics of the American people, and especially of the people of Pennsylvania." "The only question, however, now to be decided," he concluded, "is whether the offence proved is the offence charged, treason against the United States." He believed that he had raised a doubt as to whether that was the case. "If you doubt, it is the principle of law, as well as of humanity, you must acquit." Dallas' distinction between riot and treason was brushed aside by Judges Iredell and Peters in their charges to the jury. T o resist a law by force with intent to defeat its execution entirely, they declared, amounts to levying war—which is treason. After three hours of deliberation, the jury on May 9 gave the decision the jurists had virtually demanded—a verdict of guilty. When the court met to pronounce sentence on Fries, Dallas and Lewis promptly moved for a new trial. Before the hearings began, they asserted, one of the jurors had been heard to express the opinion that Fries ought to be hanged. Moreover, there had not been enough names of residents of Fries's own country on the panel from which the jury had been drawn. After some bickering among themselves, the jurists granted the motion. Fries came to trial a second time almost a year later—April 29, 1800. Again the place was the federal court in Philadelphia; again Dallas and Lewis were the counsel for the defense. This time, however, Jared Ingersoll assisted Rawle in the prosecution, and the eccentric Samuel Chase sat on the bench with Judge Peters. In the interval between the trials, Dallas had worked up an argument to show that a fundamental difference existed between the uprising in which Fries was involved and the Whiskey Rebellion. He believed that the prosecution had convinced the jury that these two affairs were similar in character and that this point had led to Fries's conviction a year earlier.

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A s it turned out, Dallas had no opportunity to use his new argument. When he entered the courtroom on the second day of the trial, Lewis hurried up to tell him that the jurists had just furnished the lawyers and the jury with copies of an opinion as to what was the law in respect to treason. Lewis then turned to the bench and defiantly announced that, since the trial had been prejudged, he was withdrawing from the case. After making certain that he understood correctly what had been going on, Dallas announced that he, too, was retiring. Judge Peters urged them both to continue, promising that their defense would not be restricted in any way. The two lawyers acquiesced. The next day Judge Chase made it apparent that he was not willing to fulfill his colleague's offer. If they addressed the jury on the question of the law of treason, he warned Dallas and Lewis, they would jeopardize their reputations as counselors-atlaw. Discouraged, the lawyers that evening visited Fries in prison. They told him that the facts of the case were beyond dispute, that if the court persisted in prejudging the law there was no hope for his acquittal. If he insisted upon it, they told him, they would continue to act as his counsel, but they thought it better for their own reputations as lawyers that they withdraw. They pointed out that two courses were open to Fries: Either he could obtain other counsel; or he could continue the trial undefended, and they would submit a strong petition to President Adams for a pardon. They recommended the latter course; and Fries, after some consideration, agreed. The next morning Dallas and Lewis withdrew from the case. In the circumstances, the trial was short and its result inevitable. Rawle apologetically summed up his case, Fries spoke briefly in his own behalf, and Judge Chase delivered an address to the jury in which he virtually declared the prisoner guilty of treason. It took the jury only two hours to decide Fries was guilty. On May 2, Judge Chase sentenced him to be hanged. As Dallas and Lewis had anticipated, there was an immediate surge of public sympathy for the condemned auctioneer. T o

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take advantage of it, Fries sent a contrite petition for a pardon to President Adams. A few days later, the President, through his son and Charles Lee, Attorney General of the United States, requested Dallas and Lewis to submit the arguments they had planned to use in the second trial. The two lawyers complied in a joint statement which maintained that Fries had been mistried and that a new trial ought to be ordered. Their arguments moved President Adams. On May 23, against the strongly urged advice of two members of his cabinet, Timothy Pickering and Oliver Wolcott, he issued a proclamation pardoning Fries and all other persons involved, inasmuch as the uprising had "been speedily suppressed, without any of the calamities usually attending rebellion." The resentment created by the Federalists' "window tax" and the Fries case rankled long among the inhabitants of the German-speaking counties of Pennsylvania. By his championing of their cause, Dallas helped win them over to Democratic-Republicanism in time for the crucial elections of 1799 and 1800. The effectiveness of Dallas' opposition to the Federalists during these embattled years was attested by the attacks that members of the party in power made upon him in their press and in the legislative halls. Along with such other DemocraticRepublican leaders as Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Albert Gallatin, Thomas Mifflin, and Thomas McKean, he became a favorite object for the vituperative shafts of their journalistic warriors. Typical of the calumnies leveled against him was that published in Noah Webster's New York Minerva on December 20 and 26, 1796. It had been disclosed that John Barclay had irregularly borrowed $113,000 from the Bank of Pennsylvania, of which he was president. As Barclay was a Democratic-Republican, and the bank had been created largely through the efforts of his party, the Minerva asserted that the whole Pennsylvania Democratic-Republican hierarchy was guilty of embezzlement. Dallas, the paper said, had personally overdrawn $8,000. To clear his name of the ugly charge, Dallas sent Webster a cer-

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tificate from the cashier of the bank stating that the report was "completely false" and showing that on December 14 he had in the bank a balance of $1,032.12. Only after Dallas had threatened to take the matter into court did Webster reveal that the source of his baseless story was Thomas Eddy, a Quaker merchant of Philadelphia. The Federalist journalist who attacked Dallas most persistently and most maliciously was William Cobbett, a young Englishman who had recently set himself up in Philadelphia as the publisher of a newspaper called Porcupine's Gazette. During July 1797 "Porcupine," as Cobbett came to be known, published a series of articles reviewing Dallas' career that was a curious compound of fact and scurrilous innuendo. Dallas was described as a Jamaica "Creole" whose education in England "must have been perverted by the natural depravity of his mind." He was represented as coming to Philadelphia as a "hireling"; as making himself known "by the Billingsgate invective of his writing"; as being named by Governor Mifflin as Secretary of the Comonwealth "to fetch and carry . . . for him"; and as having become "a French advocate with a very liberal salary" and at the same time "bowing and fawning the last winter, at the house of the British Minister, who might easily command his services if he chose to open his purse." Cobbett's articles went on to picture Dallas as possessing an "inflammatory disposition," as being "prone to pleasure and vanity" and as doing 'what no one but a convict, to save his devoted neck, would have condescended to do." Dallas, himself long suffering, had a respite from these tirades when Chief Justice McKean, who was also a victim of "Porcupine's" shafts, issued a warrant for the arrest of Cobbett in the fall of 1797 on charges of libel. But the Chief Justice conducted the hearing in such a highhanded fashion that the jury refused to indict. Cobbett at once resumed his attacks on DemocraticRepublican leaders. In May 1798 he was again describing Dallas as a "wretch," "the tool of Genet," a "Creole" and a "stipendiary lawyer of France." Relief came when the journalist, worried

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by finances and disgusted by the continuing successes of the Democratic-Republicans, returned to the more congenial atmosphere of his native England. Dallas had barely celebrated the disappearance of Cobbett when he found himself the target of still another Federalist scribbler. In the December 18, 1799, issue of his Philadelphia Gazette of the United States, John Fenno charged Dallas with being "perhaps the most artful, successful and viperous foe to our general government." As Secretary of the Commonwealth, said Fenno, Dallas had unduly controlled the appointments ol Governor Mifflin; as Paymaster General of the militia, he had converted to his own use some $20,000 of the state's money, with which he had lived extravagantly and speculated in western Pennsylvania lands. These serious charges were not allowed to go unanswered for long. The Aurora replied that Dallas had influenced only one appointment, and "that person had profound political differences with himself"; that his manner of living was "decently elegant," befitting his family background; and that he was "domestically liberal but not extravagant." Hoping to scotch the nasty charge of fraud, Dallas obtained from the state Comptroller General—who incidentally was a Federalist—a statement of the finances of the western expedition, showing them to be in good order. This should have ended the discussion. But the Federalists perceived in the subject an issue through which they might strike a telling blow at the leader of Pennsylvania democracy. On January 27, 1800, they caused the state House of Representatives to appoint a committee to investigate Fenno's charges. Six weeks later the committee issued a report which completely absolved Dallas. The final settlements of his accounts as Paymaster General had been delayed because the legislature kept changing its instructions as to how they should be rendered. He and the Assistant Paymaster had drawn for themselves precisely what was due them—$8,891.35. "The trust confided to Mr. Dallas, at so interesting a crisis," the committee concluded,

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"was important and hazardous. . . . He discharged it with diligence and fidelity." By a vote of sixty-four to ten, the House on March 14, 1800, accepted this favorable report. His patience exhausted by the inconvenience that the Gazette of the United States article had caused him, Dallas sued Fenno for libel. When the case came to trial in November 1800, the printer-publisher did not appear to defend himself. The jury returned a verdict of $2,500 damages, which was subsequently reduced to $1,000 because of a legal technicality. Dallas was jubilant. He hoped that this verdict would serve as an example to other printers. For a time, at least, his wish was fulfilled. A n episode of this period which deserves mention here was the challenge flung by Dallas when a Federalist official tried to make political capital of the turn in European affairs. In October 1798, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering sent the governors of the various states copies of a pamphlet which excoriated France for the policy she was currently pursuing toward the republic of Geneva. Since Governor Mifflin was "seriously indisposed" at the time, Dallas acknowledged receipt of the pamphlet by his chief and undertook to reply to the personal letter Pickering had sent with it. Dallas confessed that although he had once admired France as "an object of delight and respect," since she had in the last few years abandoned the high idealism of the Revolution for a program of territorial expansion for mundane reasons, he had come to regard her as "an object of disgust and dismay." Nevertheless, he added, he did not believe it was the duty of the Secretary of State to distribute pamphlets on foreign affairs among the governors of the states. How would Pickering have felt, he demanded, if someone had sent him an anti-British pamphlet and declared in an accompanying letter that the facts it contained were enough "to convince all, who are not wilfully blind, of the perfidy and violence of the Government to which they relate"? "As a Fellow Citizen," Dallas concluded, "I would rather see an amendment [to your letter], than utter a reproof."

IX

THE DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN TRIUMPH As Governor Mifflin's third and constitutionally last term neared its close in 1799, Dallas looked around for a fitting successor. He knew that he was unavailable himself because of his foreign birth and because he had no personal following among the voters, but he was anxious that the new Governor continue him as Secretary of the Commonwealth and help him intrench the Democratic-Republican power in Pennsylvania. In his intimate, long-time friend Thomas McKean, Dallas found such a man. Then sixty-five years old, McKean had become known as a learned, energetic judge during the twentytwo years he had served as Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He had been a conspicuous figure in state politics ever since the Revolution. During the decade Dallas was building up the Democratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania—notably during the struggle over nominating plans in 1792, in the course of the welcome to Genet in 1793, in the demonstrations against the Jay treaty in 1795—McKean had lent his name to the efforts of the minority group. As a consequence, in the public mind he was now a thoroughgoing Democratic-Republican and Jeffersonian. In reality, McKean's democracy was mostly a mantle worn for political advantage. All his life he had shown himself so susceptible to shifts in the political wind that enemies aptly described him as a weathercock. During the Revolution, though out of sympathy with the Pennsylvania constitution, he was counted a radical Whig; in 1789 and 1790 he co-operated with the Federalists in supporting the new federal and state constitutions. The growing anti-Federalist influence in Pennsylvania during the 1790's caused him to ally himself with the Democratic-Republicans. Moreover, McKean's tastes were aristocratic; he believed in strong government and feared the ex88

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cesses to which popular movements sometimes lead. His austere, tactless manner and his overweaning vanity made him a poor practical politician. When the Democratic-Republicans met in caucus at Lancaster on March 1, 1799, Dallas enthusiastically presented McKean's name for the gubernatorial nomination. The more radical members of the party inner circle, of whom Congressman Michael Leib and William Duane were the leaders, demurred. Dubious of the genuineness of McKean's democracy, they proposed Peter Muhlenberg of the distinguished Pennsylvania German family. But in the end Dallas had his way. With a great show of harmony, McKean was nominated unanimously, while Dallas, Muhlenberg, Dr. Leib, and four others were named as a committee to manage the campaign. A week earlier the Federalists had picked as their candidate United States Senator James Ross, whose connections in the western part of the state, they hoped, would attract the voters of that traditionally Democratic-Republican stronghold. The Federalists offered to continue Dallas as Secretary of the Commonwealth if he would throw his support to Ross, but he refused. Realizing that the election might determine the outcome of the presidential election in 1800, as well as the control of state affairs for years to come, both parties fought with unprecedented vigor. From early April to the eve of the election in October the Democratic-Republican campaign committee was alert and active, issuing addresses to the voters and directing party workers. Its circulars, largely the product of Dallas' experienced hand, extolled McKean as an able, vigilant judge, a Revolutionary militia commander, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence who had been a "strenuous supporter of the republican cause." The circulars charged that Ross was inexperienced; that while holding his only important office, a United States senatorship, he had supported an increase in the federal debt, heavy taxes to build a large army and navy, and other "evils of the Federalist system."

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As in the past, Dallas used his correspondence as Secretary of the Commonwealth to supplement the committee's work. "Pray how shall we fare in your County?" he asked William Irvine in the postscript of a letter sent in June. " W e rely on the activity of all men of property and influence in the [Democratic-]Republican interest." T o these appeals party workers responded wholeheartedly. In many towns they set up trees and posts as "liberty poles" —a device borrowed from Revolutionary War times—after Secretary Dallas had assured several magistrates that they were perfectly legal if erected peacefully. Around these poles they staged Democratic-Republican rallies. The spirit of both parties, as revealed in their press, grew increasingly bitter as the campaign progressed. In his Aurora, Duane struck viciously at Ross, questioning even his religious orthodoxy. Cobbett's Porcupine's Gazette and other newspapers made vitriolic assaults on McKean. The Federalist attacks came in such heavy barrages that during August and September Dallas' committee fired back with three addresses to the voters. The committee branded as false assertions that McKean was a native of Ireland, a Roman Catholic, a "traitor," an aristocrat or a Jacobin; denied that he had been "overbearing and haughty" as a judge or had agitated for a break in relations with Great Britain. Compared with the other campaign literature, these addresses by Dallas' committee were remarkable for their restraint. As the results of the election slowly reached Philadelphia after October 10, the Democratic-Republicans joyfully found that they had captured Pennsylvania for the first time in a state election. McKean won only twelve of the twenty-six counties, but nevertheless had a state plurality of 6,669. His party gained control of the House of Representatives and left the Federalists a margin of only two in the Senate. There were important additions to the Democratic-Republican ranks—the German counties of Berks, Northampton, and Northumberland, won over largely because of the Federalists' "window tax" and the Alien

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and Sedition Laws. Even though the Federalists still held Philadelphia City and such conservative counties as Chester and Lancaster, the results there gave the Democratic-Republicans hope f o r the future. W h e n the victory was celebrated at party gatherings throughout the state, the work of Dallas and his committee was exuberantly toasted. A banquet at Pottsgrove, f o r example, acclaimed them as "moderate men in trying circumstances." A Philadelphia celebration voted a fulsome resolution: " F o r their talents and activity, their temper, manliness, and contempt of slander, manifested in the progress of the late election . . . [the committeemen are] entitled to the thanks of the people of Pennsylvania." F o r all their elation, the Pennsylvania Democratic-Republican hierarchy realized that their margin in the election was so slender that they would have to work hard to carry the state f o r Jefferson and Burr who, party leaders throughout the country had already tacitly agreed, were to be their presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the election the next year. T o consolidate their forces in preparation, they adopted an avowed program of political proscription. On December 18— the day after McKean's inauguration—Dallas, as Secretary of the Commonwealth, notified twenty-four officeholders w h o had opposed the Democratic-Republican ticket that the G o v ernor regretted that he could not "consistently with his general arrangements of Office continue, or renew, the Commissions which you now hold." During the following year more than a hundred dismissals were made on similar grounds. When an officeholder like Daniel Brodhead, who had been Surveyor General since 1789, showed himself reluctant to quit, Dallas wrote him that, since "you have endeavored to thwart his good intentions," the Governor "has desired me to inform you, he has no further occasion for your services." T h e vacancies thus created were filled with such men as Hugh Henry Brackenridge, who, f o r his services to the party in the western part of the state, was appointed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

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It is clear that this purge was the idea of Governor McKean rather than of Dallas. McKean claimed credit for the policy in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, whereas a year later Dallas told Albert Gallatin he believed that only sparing use ought to be made of political removals. Nevertheless, Dallas seems to have offered no objections while he weeded Federalists from the ranks of state officeholders. The proscription filled the Federalists with gloom. United States Senator Uriah Tracy of Connecticut, traveling across Pennsylvania during the summer of 1800, complained that "McKean's administration has brought forward every scoundrel who can read and write into office, or expectations of one. . . . The Democrats are, without doubt increasing, and the prospect is that the next approaching State election will be much more Jacobinical than the last." Late in August, Congressman Fisher Ames of Massachusetts predicted that "Pennsylvania will be managed eventually by Governor McKean and Governor Dallas, to throw its weight" to Jefferson. The Federalists' alarm was increased by the realization that Burr's Democratic-Republican organization was undermining the strength of Alexander Hamilton's following in N e w York. And it looked to the political wiseacres as if Pennsylvania and N e w York would be the pivotal states in the November election! In a desperate attempt to stem the surging DemocraticRepublican tide, the Federalists sponsored a characteristically extreme measure—a plan which would permit thirteen men to determine the outcome of the forthcoming presidential election. Under the terms of a bill that James Ross introduced into the United States Senate in 1800, after the electoral votes of the several states had been read to Congress they were to be turned over to a committee consisting of six representatives chosen by the House and six senators chosen by the Senate. Meeting behind closed doors, with the Chief Justice of the United States as its presiding officer, the members of this committee could summon and examine any men and papers they

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desired. Upon the basis of their findings they were to decide which electoral votes should be counted and which thrown out. Three senators were so horrified by this unconstitutional proposal that they furnished copies of it to William Duane, who published it in his Aurora on February 19, 1800. Editorially Duane denounced the Federalist caucus which had framed Ross's bill and the caucus system itself by which, he claimed, a group of nine Federalist senators was dictating the actions of the upper house. The Aurords publications stirred up such a storm of protest that the powerful little band quickly dropped Ross's bill. But determined to punish the man who had exposed their scheme, on March 14 they reported through a committee that Duane's publication of the bill was a "high-handed breach of the privileges of the Senate" and that his editorial comment was "false, defamatory, scandalous and malicious . . . tending to defame the senate." The editor was ordered to appear at the bar of the Senate to defend his conduct. For legal advice Duane turned to Dallas and Dr. Thomas Cooper, a brilliant British-born physician and lawyer who had become an ardent Jeffersonian during his six years' residence in the United States. The three men drew up a plan which shows the hand of Dallas, for it embodied legal strategems that he had previously used with success. Duane was to address a letter to Vice-President Jefferson requesting that he be permitted to have counsel and summon witnesses in defending himself before the Senate. Dallas and Cooper hoped that the Senate would refuse the request so that Duane could assume the role of martyr and refuse to appear. But, if the request were granted, the lawyers would challenge the Senate's jurisdiction over the case and leave Duane undefended. By appealing over the head of the Senate to the bar of public opinion, Duane might escape punishment as John Fries had. The Senate disappointed the first hope of Dallas and Cooper by agreeing to allow Duane to have counsel and summon witnesses. Thereupon the editor wrote to the lawyers, formally asking them to serve as his counsel. Both men declined in let-

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ters phrased so as to influence public opinion. Dallas declared that the Senate had already decided that Duane's publication was "false, malicious, etc., and that it amounted to a breach of the legislative privileges of that body." Therefore he would not be permitted to question the Senate's jurisdiction or to justify the publication by proving that its charges were true. T o act as a counsel under such conditions would be degrading to his profession and himself. Cooper's reply followed the same general lines, but his tone was more strident. The case had been prejudged by the Senate, he wrote, and he would not degrade himself by appearing before that body with a gag in his mouth. Thanks to the strategy of Dallas and Cooper, Duane escaped Federalist vindictiveness. He sent copies of their letters to Jefferson and declined to wait upon the Senate further. The Senate voted him guilty of contempt and issued a warrant for his arrest. Duane evaded arrest by absenting himself from his office when the sergeant-at-arms of the Senate came to serve the warrant. The editor was brought to trial in the federal Circuit Court the following October on the charge of having committed "sedition against the United States." Dallas, who again represented him, adopted a delaying action and pleaded that he had not had time enough to gather evidence. A postponement was granted and so no further action could be taken until after the election of 1800. The Federalist press did its utmost to make political capital out of the part Dallas and Cooper had taken in the Duane case. The Philadelphia Gazette, for example, branded Dallas' letter "impudent." The lawyers had refused to serve, said this journal, because the Senate had imposed limitations upon them which made it impossible for them to insult the upper house with their "oily impudence." Some of the Federalist leaders were even more furious. If Dallas had not occupied an important public office and if the tone of his letter had been less moderate, it is quite likely that they would have had him arrested. They had no such reasons,

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h o w e v e r , to restrain themselves in the case of Cooper. His letter had been shrill; moreover, he had come to the United States quite recently and enjoyed small political influence. T h e Federalists dug up a f e w words critical of President Adams and the federal government which he had published in 1797 and used them as the basis f o r a suit f o r sedition. Cooper was fined and given a term in jail. T h e Federalist plot to tamper with the presidential election had barely been thwarted by Duane's exposure when the t w o parties became engaged in a battle to capture the electoral vote of Pennsylvania. This, curiously enough, was fought not at the polls but in the halls of the state legislature. T h e shift of battleground made it impossible f o r Dallas to serve DemocraticRepublicanism through w o r k on a committee of correspondence, but his position as a respected member of the bar and as a party leader enabled him in some measure to influence the outcome. T h e Democratic-Republicans were anxious that the timehonored custom of choosing electors b y a general ticket be continued; the Federalists, now that they were the minority party, desired election b y districts. T h e Federalist-controlled Senate and the Democratic-controlled House were deadlocked on this issue when the legislature adjourned early in 1800. E a g e r that Pennsylvania should cast its votes f o r Jefferson, G o v e r n o r M c K e a n called the assembly into special session in N o v e m b e r 1800. It was then too late f o r the parties to o f f e r tickets on the second Tuesday in November as they had in earlier elections; but, it was generally agreed, the legislature might legally choose the electors itself. Each party had a plan as to h o w this should be done. T h e Federalists favored a concurrent vote—the election of eight electors by the House, seven b y the Senate. In this w a y , through their control of the Senate, they expected to obtain at least seven electors. T h e DemocraticRepublicans, on the other hand, desired a joint vote—both houses, sitting together, should pick the electors. T h r o u g h their dominance of the larger House of Representatives, they hoped

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to make the Pennsylvania delegation solidly DemocraticRepublican. In support of their party's plans a group of Philadelphia Federalist lawyers published in the newspapers a pronouncement that a concurrent vote was the only constitutional manner in which to choose electors because the Senate was a component part of the legislature. This opinion Dallas hastened to dispute through a letter nominally addressed to his friend Thomas Leiper and published in the Aurora on November 10. Though agreeing that the Senate was a component part of the assembly, Dallas argued that this meant merely that the Senate must direct the manner in which the electors should be chosen, not "actually concur in or choose them." He cited seven points in the state and federal constitutions which authorized a joint vote and maintained that this was the method which ought to be adopted. Several Federalists tried to controvert his legal reasoning in newspaper articles during the next few days. T o answer them, Dallas published a second letter to Leiper on November 15 in which he enumerated additional constitutional reasons for a joint vote. The appointment of seven electors by one house and eight by the other, he insisted, would be neither a concurrent vote nor a joint vote, but a process without name or precedent. Disputation of legal reasoning was beyond the capacities of most of the Federalist writers who undertook to reply to Dallas in the following weeks. Most were content merely to attack him on personal grounds. One writer, styling himself " A Constitutionalist," asserted in the Philadelphia Gazette that "Dallas is known to be so enveloped in the mill of party that he cannot, or will not, perceive the truth. Little confidence being placed in the rectitude of his political character, his abilities serve but as a caution against such artful statements as he may think proper to make." Subsequently the Gazette, without mentioning Dallas by name, referred to him inferentially as "a smooth-tongued hypocritical demagogue" who was "hood-winking" the assembly by "canting suggestions."

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While the legislature remained deadlocked over the two plans, committees from both houses tried to effect a compromise. From their conferences late in November emerged a scheme which provided that each house should name eight candidates for electorships; from these names the two houses should choose fifteen by joint ballot. It was obvious that this procedure would give the Democratic-Republicans at best a margin of only one in the Pennsylvania delegation; yet in the end Dallas used his influence for its adoption. By this time he had grown despondent about Jefferson's chances. Counting up the electoral votes of the other states, reported and anticipated, he concluded that, if Pennsylvania did not choose any electors, the Federalist Thomas Pinckney would receive sixty-six votes to sixty-five for Thomas Jefferson. If the compromise plan were adopted, it was likely that a tie between Jefferson and Pinckney would result. The consequence, Dallas believed, would be that the federal House of Representatives would refuse to break the tie and the Senate would elect a president to serve for a year. This seemed to him to be better than to have another Federalist president for four years. Accordingly, he advised the DemocraticRepublican assemblymen to agree to the compromise. This decision of Dallas hastened Pennsylvania's choice of electors. On December 1 the compromise plan was agreed upon. Three days later the two houses, meeting in joint session, selected eight Democratic-Republican and seven Federalist electors. Therefore the electoral vote hardly provided a true expression of the will of the voters of Pennsylvania. Governor McKean, who of course was not impartial, estimated that threefifths of the Pennsylvanians would have voted for a JeffersonBurr electoral ticket if permitted to do so. But the state's vote did contribute in part to the majority of eight which the Jefferson-Burr ticket won in the electoral college. Late in December, Dallas began to fear that Jefferson might yet be deprived of the presidency. Reports reached him that the Federalists were scheming to take advantage of the circumstance that, under the peculiar provisions of the Constitution

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at that time, both Jefferson and Burr had the same number of electoral votes. T o break the tie and elect one or the other of them President, it would be necessary to throw the election into the House of Representatives. Here the Federalists might do one of two things. They might create a delay so that no President could be selected by March 4, and then, by act of Congress, make a Federalist President pro tem of the House President of the United States. Or, with the connivance of the New York wing of the Democratic-Republican party, they might have the House elect as President Aaron Burr, whom they regarded as less hostile to their principles than Jefferson. The idea of a Federalist President by act of Congress horrified Dallas. Although on intimate terms with Burr, he did not approve of the New Yorker's intrigues with the Federalists. Anxious to forestall the Federalists' plans, early in January 1801 Dallas had himself appointed chairman of a committee to keep in touch with Democratic-Republicans in Pennsylvania and other states regarding the contest in the House. Early the next month he journeyed to the muddy, desolate new capital on the Potomac to confer with party leaders. He lodged at a Georgetown boarding house favored by Pennsylvania DemocraticRepublican congressmen, and discussed with them how the Federalist plot could be defeated. Dallas started back to Philadelphia before the House, on February 1 1 , began its balloting to break the tie vote. Laid up with injuries sustained in a stagecoach accident on the homeward journey, he received almost daily reports on the balloting from Albert Gallatin, who was directing the Jeffersonians. One of these notes, written on February 12, reported a rumor then circulating through Washington that the DemocraticRepublicans had seized the Philadelphia city arms. "By all means preserve the city quiet . . . ," Gallatin begged Dallas. "Anything which could be construed into a commotion would be fatal to us." Dallas wrote Gallatin that everything was quiet in Philadelphia, but warned that if the Federalists "attempt to give us a President by law, [it] will irritate and inflame the calm-

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ness and coolness among us." Again he urged Gallatin to hold the Democratic-Republicans fast against the attempts to count out Jefferson. Dallas' apprehension turned out to be groundless. On February 19 he learned that two days earlier, on the thirty-sixth ballot, the Federalist front had given w a y and Jefferson had been elected President b y ten states to four. T h e joy of the Philadelphia Democratic-Republicans found expression in a parade through the streets of the city on March 4, 1801, the day J e f ferson was inaugurated at Washington. Dallas headed the section composed of civil officers. A gala entertainment and banquet, which he helped to manage, followed at the Union Hotel. Dallas had good reason for personal elation on this day of Democratic triumph. A decade before, he had joined a small group at Philadelphia then feebly opposing the dominant Federalist party. H e had helped organize the artisans and mechanics of the city, many of them recent immigrants, into an effective political force. H e had cemented an alliance with the antiFederalists of western Pennsylvania and co-operated with Democratic-Republican groups in other states. He had directed campaign tactics, written party literature, spoken at public meetings, and appeared in the courtroom in behalf of Democratic-Republicanism. T o Dallas and Albert Gallatin more than to any others, J e f ferson owed a debt f o r organizing the Democratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania. Gallatin's work was done mostly in the national arena and dealt with problems of statesmanship. Dallas confined himself almost entirely to the Pennsylvania scene, and practical politics was his forte. Soon after his inauguration President Jefferson fittingly rewarded both men: Gallatin, w h o had shown in Congress a genius f o r finance comparable to Hamilton's, he made Secretary of the Treasury. Dallas, foremost lawyer in the Pennsylvania Democratic-Republican ranks, he made United States Attorney f o r eastern Pennsylvania.

χ A PHILADELPHIA LAWYER THE scene was the old State House yard in Philadelphia during the summer of 1807. The speaker was the Honorable Alexander James Dallas, exhorting a large assemblage of citizens to protest the recent attack of the British Leopard on the American frigate Chesapeake. "Gentlemen of the jury—" he began. A murmur of amusement swept over his audience. Instantly the speaker turned his verbal slip to oratorical gain. "Yes," he insisted, "I say gentlemen of the jury, now empaneled in the presence of your countrymen to hear and determine the issue thus violently forced upon us by Great Britain." The episode has significance because it reveals the inner Dallas. Public office and party politics absorbed much of his time and energy, but the law was his true love. And in his beloved profession he attained success and distinction of the kind most pleasing to him. He was the author of four classic volumes reporting the early decisions of the Pennsylvania and United States Supreme Courts, a participant in a score of noteworthy political trials and important constitutional cases, the holder of high state and national offices which drew heavily upon his legal acumen and training. Although Dallas began practising at the Pennsylvania bar in 1785, his real progress in the law did not start until 1791. That was the year of his appointment as Secretary of the Commonwealth. J t was likewise the year when the United States Supreme Court held its first sessions in Philadelphia, and Dallas, along with twenty-two other members of the Pennsylvania bar, was granted the right to plead before it. His development was so steady that a decade later, when he was appointed United States Attorney, he was recognized as one of the leading lawyers of the country. His success was based upon a combination of natural talent, intense application, and happy circumstance. Not the least of these 100

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was his good fortune in settling in Philadelphia just when he did. T h e bustling c i t y on the Delaware was the political capital of both Pennsylvania and the United States during the 1790's; its great trading houses and banks made it the nation's commercial metropolis well into the following century. Because of these same factors, Philadelphia was the most important legal center in the country. In the State House, the present-day Independence Hall, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court sat f o r long terms each year. In the C i t y Hall, a stone's throw away at Fifth and Chestnut streets, were the quarters of the United States Supreme Court. L a w was in the very air of Philadelphia. T h e quality of this legal air was determined b y the outstanding bar of the city, a group of men w h o were making the expression "a Philadelphia l a w y e r " descriptive of a first-rate practitioner. Jared Ingersoll, with w h o m Dallas collaborated on so m a n y cases that they were almost partners, was winning ever greater prestige b y his persuasive courtroom addresses that "glided into the affections" of juries. William Lewis had become nationally k n o w n for his unsurpassed knowledge of commercial law and the booming brilliance of his oratory. Edward Tilghman and his cousin, William Tilghman, were giving new evidence of their scholarly, penetrating minds. William Rawle, a Philadelphia Quaker w h o had been trained at the Middle Temple, was using his blandly courteous courtroom manner to establish an enviable record as a private practitioner and United States A t torney, while devoting his spare moments to serious study of art, literature, and philosophy. A m o n g the younger members of the bar were the talented conservative, Joseph Hopkinson, w h o w o n popular fame as the author of "Hail! Columbia"; and Joseph B. McKean, a man of average legal talents w h o was making the most of the fact that his father was Chief Justice of the state t o further his o w n unbounded ambitions. Competition and close contact with such men as these stimulated Dallas to develop his own native talents as highly as possible. Another factor in Dallas' rise to legal pre-eminence was what La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt called his "universally recognized

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profound knowledge in the laws." Unlike most of his colleagues, Dallas had not had the benefit of training at the Middle Temple, the University of Pennsylvania, or Princeton; nor did he serve an apprenticeship in the office of an established practitioner. Rather, in the spirit of that earlier adopted son of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, he taught himself the fundamentals of his profession. One way Dallas learned the law was by reporting it. In collecting and editing material for his volumes of Reports and Pennsylvania Laws he acquired an exceptional knowledge of the law of his own state. This he increased by publishing, at his own financial risk, three additional volumes of Reports in 1798, 1799, and 1807. Like the first Reports, they contained decisions of the high Pennsylvania courts. But inasmuch as Congress had made no provision for the publication of federal court decisions, Dallas devoted most of his space in the later volumes to decisions of the United States Supreme Court and the federal Circuit Court of Pennsylvania. Thus he acquainted himself with the still embryonic federal law and incidentally, as the first United States Supreme Court reporter, increased his reputation nationally. The quality of the Reports was restricted by the circumstances under which their editor labored. Dallas had to depend chiefly upon friends on the bench and bar and among the court functionaries for copies of the justices' opinions. Most of the cases he reported were those heard in Philadelphia. It follows therefore that, in many instances, his accounts were lacking in fullness of detail. Nevertheless, in the absence of other accounts, students of the law still turn to the Reports of Dallas as the principal source of information on the work of the United States Supreme Court from its organization through 1800 and the Pennsylvania courts from the earliest times through 1806. Whatever their shortcomings by present-day standards of legal reporting, Dallas' Reports were warmly welcomed by his contemporaries. Lawyers and jurists in every section of the country kept them in a conspicuous place on their bookshelves and cited them constantly in court. The respect they felt for

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them was well expressed by John Adams in 1799, at a time when Dallas and the President were on opposite sides of the political fence. " I prize them highly," President Adams declared, "on account of their intrinsic merit and worth." Although in the period following publication of the first volume "the spirit of party has been disposed to call in question the integrity of every man and action, I have never heard an insinuation against the fidelity of these reports." T h e Reports enjoyed a steady though not large sale. T h e first volume was out of print before 1803, and persistent demand occasioned a second edition in 1806. T h e latter three volumes sold slowly in spite of Dallas' efforts to promote them nationally. Since Judge William Cranch, who took up the publication of United States Supreme Court reports at the point where Dallas left off, barely cleared his expenses, it seems unlikely that Dallas received much financial return from his volumes. In handling his cases, Dallas made the fullest possible use of his legal knowledge and skill. He took infinite pains in preparing his briefs and papers, crossing out and rewriting, times without number, until he achieved the effect he desired. T o such work he would devote long periods without break. He possessed the gift of concentration; he was able to think and write almost anywhere no matter what external distractions appeared. ''Able" was the word most contemporaries applied to Dallas' addresses. Thomas Sergeant, a young lawyer who greatly admired Dallas, found his speeches "learned, ingenious, excursive, at many times eloquent." But they suffered to an extreme degree from a failing common to legal oratory of that day. T h e eighteenth-century barrister was fond of speaking hours on end; in important cases Dallas frequently took several days to present his case. As a result, some critics found his arguments "somewhat diffuse, marked by repetitions, his diction somewhat too choice." One friend pardoned this "diffuseness and redundancy" by explaining that Dallas' "multifarious avocations did not afford him time to condense his arguments." A measure of his courtroom success arose from the graces that

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nature had lavished upon Dallas. Of these gifts he scrupulously made the most. His striking appearance, friends commented, would have made him stand out in a crowd of thousands. About six feet tall, and in his later years inclined to corpulence, Dallas walked erectly with a light, dignified step. He dressed according to the dictates of high fashion. Every morning he had his abundant hair carefully curled, stiffened with pomatum and white powder. It hung down some eight inches over his coat collar, in a rose-knotted "club." Like most barristers of his day, he wore clothes of subdued colors. His flowing overcoat was usually olive colored. His close-bodied coat was a deep brown covering an ample white vest, relieved by an edging of crimson velvet and a white cravat. Ordinarily his knee breeches were olive colored, brightened with small gold knee-buckles. His boots were wide enough at the top to reveal a bit of white silk stocking. Dallas' manners were as cultivated and pleasing as his person. His bright bluish-gray eyes looked directly into the faces of those with whom he was talking. His conversation was animated and adapted to command the attention of his hearers. "In everything he did," an acquaintance observed, "he was the embodiment of gracefulness." Dallas knew how to display his appearance and manners to advantage in the courtroom. David P. Brown, a colleague of the Philadelphia bar, considered his voice sweet and cultivated, though lacking in power and range; not well adapted to excited declamation, but admirably fitted for persuasion. T h e future Supreme Court justice, Joseph Story, hearing Dallas argue a case in 1808, was impressed by his "strong, robust figure," but thought his voice "shrill and half-obstructed." Story noticed that Dallas was "ready, apt, loquacious, but artificial," that he grew warm b y method, and cooled in the same manner. In a word, Dallas was able to think quickly on his feet and was master of the arts of the actor. T h e cases which took Dallas into court were typical of the practice of a successful lawyer of the period. Suits involving

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usury and debts concerned him with an even regularity. Litigation over land titles and estates provided constant employment. Occasionally a case of murder, bribery, counterfeiting, or robbery cropped up to give variety to his work. Some of his cases involved questions of such fundamental importance that the court rulings on them have become arches in American constitutional law. This was the formative period of our jurisprudence, when every able judge and lawyer was actively guiding its growth. Until Jefferson's accession to power in 1801, Dallas labored untiringly and with some success to fashion American law according to Democratic-Republican principles. A true disciple of Jefferson, he emphasized the rights of the states; he held to a strict construction of the federal Constitution; and he expressed distrust of the English common law. Dallas notably espoused the doctrine of state rights while representing the state of Georgia in two important cases considered by the United States Supreme Court between 1792 and 1794. His part in the first was necessarily routine. When the case of Chisholm v. Georgia came up for argument on February 5, 1793, Dallas and Jared Ingersoll submitted a written remonstrance on behalf of Georgia which declared that under a strict interpretation of the Constitution the federal Supreme Court did not have the power to consider a suit between a state and citizens of another state. The court invited any member of the bar to answer the argument Attorney General Edmund Randolph offered against the remonstrance; but Dallas and Ingersoll, obeying the "positive instructions" given them by Georgia, said nothing. Although the Supreme Court overruled the doctrine of the superior rights of a sovereign state in this suit, Dallas seized the chance to expound the thesis more actively in another case Georgia had pending in the courts about the same time. Under a law passed during the Revolution, that state had claimed title to property within her boundaries belonging to a British subject named Brailsford. When Brailsford challenged the legality of Georgia's contention, a federal Circuit Court ruled that a state

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could not be admitted as a defendant in a suit over "sequestered lands." Georgia thereupon engaged Dallas and Ingersoll to resist this challenge to her sovereign rights. By obtaining a temporary injunction against the Circuit Court ruling from the Supreme Court, the lawyers succeeded in delaying action on the issue for two years. Finally, in February 1794, they were obliged to fight out the case before the highest court on the basic issue—Georgia's constitutional right to the land. T h e y cited numerous authorities to prove that, as a sovereign state, Georgia had a right, under her Revolutionary confiscation law, to transfer to herself property belonging to an enemy alien. T h e y denied that the claim was based on "sequestration"—although the law under which the transfer of Brailsford's property had been made had used that term. T h e y denied that the 1783 treaty with Great Britain or the federal Constitution had any bearing on the case. Only the law of nations, they insisted, could be cited to prove what were the obligations of a sovereign state like Georgia. This Democratic-Republican argument failed to impress the court or the special jury which sat to weigh the arguments. T h e judges ruled that by its own admission Georgia had consummated the transfer of the land by a sequestration law. Since the act of sequestration does not give the sequestrator property rights, the jury ruled that Brailsford still retained ownership of the land. That these t w o defeats had not lessened one whit Dallas' faith in strict construction became clear four years later, during the period the Jeffersonians called "the Federalist reign of terror." Indeed, during 1798, in four important litigations he showed himself willing to follow his fellow Democratic-Republicans to the logical consequences of this belief—a hostility toward the English common law and a fondness for legal codes similar to those of the French. In the first of these cases, United States v. Worrall, Dallas defended Robert Worrall against charges that Worrall had attempted to bribe the federal Commissioner of the Revenue.

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W h e n the trial opened in April 1798, in the Circuit Court at Philadelphia, Dallas moved that the court refuse to consider the case. T h e tenth amendment, he urged, implies that every p o w e r belonging to the federal government is a "matter of definite and positive grant." T h e r e f o r e , "all the judicial authority of the Federal Courts, must be derived, either f r o m the Constitution of the United States, or from the Acts of Congress made in pursuance of that Constitution." T h e Constitution was silent on the question of bribing a commissioner of the revenue. Undoubtedly, Dallas granted, Congress possessed the power to make such an act a crime; but since it had not done so, "the crime is not recognized b y the federal code, constitutional or legal, and consequently is not a subject on which the judicial authority can operate." A n argument of the prosecution—that Worrall could be prosecuted in the federal courts bccausc his alleged bribery was a violation of the English common law—drew f r o m Dallas a sharp protest. T h e common law, he declared, had not been recognized b y the Constitution. If Congress wished to adopt the common law into the federal code, bit by bit, it might do so; but until it did, the common law provided no basis f o r prosecution in the federal courts. T h i s argument found f a v o r with the presiding judge, Samuel Chase. " T h e United States, as a Federal government, have no common law," he declared in his opinion, "and, consequently, no indictment can be maintained in their Courts, f o r offences merely at the common law." Dallas' victory was but a moral one, however. J u d g e Richard Peters, w h o sat on the bench with Chase, insisted that the United States did possess a common law, and according to it the punishment of misdemeanors might be enforced by judicial proceedings as well as legislative act. T h e t w o justices compromised b y imposing a mild sentence on Worrall. Despite its equivocal outcome, because of the dissent of J u d g e Chase, the case provided a remarkable precedent. Previously all the other Supreme Court justices had assumed jurisdiction under the common law. His partial v i c t o r y encouraged Dallas to press the doctrine

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that the United States had no common law in subsequent cases. In June 1798, as we have seen, he used it while defending Benjamin Franklin Bache against a charge of "seditious libel," only to have Judge Peters brush it aside as inadmissible. T h e following December he again used it and the strict-construction argument in the celebrated impeachment trial of United States Senator William Blount. Dallas' connection with the Blount case dated back to 1797, when the integrity of the Democratic-Republican Senator from Tennessee was first called into question. On J u l y 3 of that year President Adams sent both houses of Congress a confidential message suggesting that Blount had engaged in treasonable activities. T h e chief specifications against him, as subsequently developed, were twofold: He had participated in a conspiracy, nurtured by British officials, to seize Florida and Louisiana from Spain; and he had bribed or intimidated American Indian agents to excite the Cherokees and the Creeks to war on the Spanish. In support of the charges, President Adams submitted copies of a damning letter that Blount had written to one James Carey. T h e case at once took on a political aspect. Treasonable or not, such activities as those with which Blount was charged were condoned b y the Democratic-Republicans of the west, who were anxious for the development of their section. On the other hand, the Federalists, traditionally hostile to western interests, determined to unseat the Senator and punish him. Within a f e w days they pushed an impeachment of Blount through the House; in the Senate they obtained the appointment of a committee to investigate the President's charges. T o ward off these attacks, Blount turned to Dallas and Jared Ingersoll. T h e lawyers, it would appear from the subsequent developments of the case, became convinced that there was enough basis f o r President Adams' charges to make it strategically unwise to fight the Federalists on the facts of the case. Upon their advice, Blount declined to reply when William Bradford, president pro tem of the Senate, asked him whether he had written the letter to Carey.

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Blount's best hope, it seemed to Dallas and Ingersoll, lay in disputing the constitutional right of Congress to impeach legislators. T o this end they appeared at the bar of the Senate on J u l y 8 and tried to persuade that body to take no further steps toward expelling their client until he had been tried on the House's impeachment charges. If Blount were convicted, they argued, his removal f r o m office would be an integral part of his sentence. But this delaying action failed. A f t e r hearing the lawyers' plea, the Senate voted twenty-five to one to expel Blount. Legal circlcs throughout the land watched with keen interest when the Senate convened as a court to try Blount on the House's charges, on December 17, 1798, f o r this was the first instance of impeachment brought under the federal Constitution. Again Dallas and Ingersoll represented the defendant, while an able battery of congressmen—including Robert Goodhue Harper of Maryland and James Λ . Bayard of Delaware—had been selected by the House to present its case. T h e result was a brilliantly argued trial. Dallas, whose address consumed the whole session of January 4, 1799, bore the brunt of the argument f o r the defense; Ingersoll concerned himself principally with elaborating some of his co-counsel's points. T h e argument offered by Dallas centered upon a distinction between a civil officer and a legislator of the United States. Civil officers, he pointed out, derive their commissions from the Constitution or the President; their duties are to execute or expound the laws. Legislators, on the other hand, are deputies of the people, permitted to make laws but not to carry them out. W h e n an executive or a judicial officer errs, the Constitution provides that he may be impeached. W h e n a legislator errs, the body of which he is a member may expel him, or the people may refuse to re-elect him. Blount had already been punished through the former means. Since he is no longer a senator, the Senate should not now be trying him. Dallas' position obviously rested on a strict construction of the Constitution. T o strengthen it, he elaborated his favorite doctrine. T h e Constitution, he declared, was created primarily

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to enable the people in the various states to cope effectively with the problems they faced as a nation. Crimes and misdemeanors unconnected with national objects must be prosecuted and punished under the laws of the state in which they are committed. A n argument offered by Bayard that the impeachment of any person in or out of public office who committed a crime or a misdemeanor was warranted by the English common law led Dallas to repeat that "the United States as a Federal Government has no common law." Besides the reasoning that he had advanced in United States v. Worrall, he made use of an appeal to history which Judge Chase had set forth in his opinion in that case. When the American colonies were first settled, each colony brought from England as much of the common law as was applicable to its circumstances. No colony adopted all of the English common law; as a result, the common law varied greatly from colony to colony, and now varies from state to state. Those who tell us that the United States has a common law must tell us from which state it was derived. If they say it was derived from England, they must tell us whether it is feudal or modern English common law, and whether it must forever change as the common law changes in England. The reasoning of Dallas and Ingersoll impressed the Senate. On January 14, 1799, it voted fourteen to eleven to dismiss the impeachment of Blount. Because of the form in which the vote was taken, the Senate ascribed no reason for its decision. The test of time has tended to confirm the central thesis of Ingersoll and Dallas. Nine federal officers, including a president and six judges, have since been impeached; but no effort has since been made to impeach a legislator. Although the issue has not been unequivocally decided, it is now the accepted view that a member of Congress is not a civil officer and therefore is not liable to impeachment. In at least this respect Dallas' yeomanlike resistance to the English common law and a broad interpretation of the Constitution has been of enduring value.

XI CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA ABOUT the turn of the nineteenth century fashionable Philadelphians, anxious to leave posterity some record of their features, were wont to climb into their great-wheeled coaches and ride out to the neighboring village of Germantown. T h e r e , in a barn which he had transformed into a studio, the celebrated Gilbert Stuart painted their portraits. Among Stuart's patrons during these busy years were the prominent lawyer, Alexander James Dallas, and his wife, Arabella Maria Dallas. In a life-size bust portrait of Dallas, Stuart's deft brush caught the vigorous, appealing quality of his subject's personality. T h e freshness of his complexion and the sparkle of his bluish-gray eyes made Dallas look far younger than his forty-one years. His powdered hair, black coat, white neck-cloth, and cambric b o w tie edged with lace mark him as a conservative, a man who has held fast to the manners of the best Colonial society. It is interesting to compare this painting with a copperplate medallion portrait of Dallas made about the same time by Fevret de Saint-Memin, a gifted French refugee then living in Philadelphia. Because Saint-Memin's engraving is a profile view, it accentuates Dallas' tendency to corpulence—his double chin, jowls, and portly figure—and reveals his heavy eyebrows, aquiline nose, and thin lips. Nevertheless, the impression it leaves on the spectator is almost the same as that given b y Stuart's portrait —that of a gentleman of the eighteenth century who has prospered and lived well. Mrs. Dallas, in the half-length portrait Stuart painted of her, appears as an attractive matron of thirty-seven, a gracious patrician. H e r long, narrow face with its angular features bespeaks a woman of aristocratic breeding; the gentle smile of her dark brown eyes suggests charming generosity. In her fluffy powdered hair is a black ribbon. H e r black velvet dress is cut low, with folds o f white tulle filling in the neck. Above this is a narIII

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row neckband of black velvet; on her bosom rests a miniature. The proud couple in Stuart's portraits of 1800 were already the founders of a large family which was to make its mark in American history. Three of their children died in infancy; but three boys and three girls lived to assume high positions in the public and social life of the republic. The oldest son, named Alexander James Dallas after his father, entered the navy in 1805 when he was only fourteen. George Mifflin Dallas, who was named after Governor Thomas Mifflin, was born in 1792. Trevanion Barlow Dallas was born in 1801. The three daughters were Sophia Burrell, born in 1786; Maria Charlotte; and Matilda, born in 1798. As attested by these paintings, the Dallases had come a long way socially since they settled two decades before as a friendless young couple in a Front Street boarding house. Their rise is vividly illustrated by their change of residences. Before they had been in Philadelphia a year they were able to rent a house of their own, farther south on Front Street. Large quarters were necessary, for according to the practice of the day, a lawyer's office was in his home. About 1797, when Dallas was rising rapidly at the bar, he and his family moved to 276 Market Street, just on the edge of town, where they became the neighbors of Judge Thomas Smith of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and William Rawle, the barrister. Early in 1806, when Dallas' position as one of the leading lawyers of the city had become secure, they bought a mansion valued at $10,000 at 98 South Fourth Street, the residence of the late Edward Shippen, Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. South Fourth Street was one of the most fashionable residential streets of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Dallas' next-door neighbor was Benjamin Rush, the distinguished physician. Like most affluent citizens, the Dallases maintained a place in the country to which they could retreat during the stifling Philadelphia summer. Early in the 1790's they bought a house several miles from the city, on the Schuylkill River. In the spring of 1804 they acquired a more pretentious countryseat on the same river, which they named Devon. Although it cost them $10,000,

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t h e y considered it a great bargain, f o r the previous o w n e r had spent $30,000 on improvements. Commanding an excellent v i e w of the river, the place impressed Dallas as "the most beautiful spot, the most highly improved in Houses, Outhouses, gardens, &C-," that he knew of. It was Dallas' custom to g o in to town f r o m Devon each day to attend to business; Mrs. Dallas made the country place the family headquarters f r o m late spring until the leaves turned in October. In their magnificent winter and summer homes, M r . and Mrs. Dallas indulged their fondness f o r entertaining political and business leaders. A l o n g with the Binghams, the Chews, the McKeans, and the Clymers, they contributed to the "frenzy-like prodigali t y " of Philadelphia that caused visitors f r o m other cities to marvel. Indeed, so liberal was their hospitality that it was generally understood that they had difficulty in making ends meet financially. But the Dallases derived their greatest j o y f r o m moments spent with their o w n children and intimate friends. Years later G e o r g e Dallas happily recalled that he and his brothers and sisters regarded their father as "their most delightful companion, instructor and pride." Often, of an evening, friends of the children came to the Dallas home to join in songs and games then popular, such as conundrums, conversation cards, musical pantomimes, " H o w D o Y o u Like It?," and " S o Does the M u f t i . " E v e n when Father Dallas was preparing an important law case, he would desert his office f o r fifteen or twenty minutes to enter heartily into the game going on in the adjoining parlor. E v e r y evening between ten and eleven o'clock, the older members of the family would gather f o r a cold snack before retiring. T h e family's friends were largely drawn f r o m the circle Dallas met as a l a w y e r and public officer. Of the barristers, the closest were Peter S. Du Ponceau, Jared Ingersoll, and his son, Charles Jared Ingersoll. Dallas shared D u Ponceau's keen interest in European literature and historical research. W i t h the Ingersolls, he spent many hours over the shoptalk of the Philadelphia bar. During Dallas' years as Secretary of the Commonwealth, w a r m

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ties developed between the members of his family and G o v e r n o r Mifflin. In writing to a friend, Mifflin once characterized Dallas as "an amiable, intelligent and faithful Friend," Mrs. Dallas as a " w o r t h y and prudent woman." Sometimes, when the G o v e r n o r and the Secretary had business to discuss on a Sunday, the G o v e r n o r invited Mrs. Dallas and her daughters to accompany M r . Dallas to his country-seat and make a social affair of it. Mifflin presented to the Dallases the fine portrait of himself painted by Gilbert Stuart. M r . and Mrs. Dallas did not limit their friendships to persons of their own political faith. Jonathan Dayton, Federalist Senator f r o m N e w Jersey, and Mrs. Dayton stayed at the Dallas home when they visited Philadelphia. Their daughter spent the winter of 1806-07 with the Dallases, and came to be considered one of the family. T h e Dayton home at Elizabethtown, N e w Jersey, provided a stopping-place f o r Mr. and Mrs. Dallas on their f r e quent trips to N e w Y o r k and their occasional expeditions to Boston. But this friendship was abruptly ended when Dayton became involved in Aaron Burr's western intrigues. A a r o n Burr himself was a frequent guest of the Dallases around the turn of the century. It was to their residence on Market Street that he fled after his duel with Alexander Hamilton in 1804. Several months later Dallas wrote G o v e r n o r Bloomfield of N e w Jersey, urging that the prosecution of Burr f o r the death of Hamilton be quashed. Burr said later that Dallas had behaved toward him, during the whole episode, "with an independence, and open, active zeal" which he did not expect and to which he had no personal claim. But from Burr's political intrigues before and after the duel, Dallas remained completely aloof. N o friendship of the Dallases was deeper or more enduring than that with Mrs. and Mrs. Albert Gallatin. T h i s intimacy was based not alone on a fraternal feeling and common belief in Democratic-Republican principles between Dallas and Gallatin; a strong mutual regard existed between their wives as well. T h e Dallases became acquainted with Albert Gallatin early in the

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1790's, when the young Swiss was leading a lonely widower's existence in Philadelphia as a state assemblyman. Gallatin rarely forgot politics long enough to enjoy the company of ladies, but he did form a friendship with the Secretary of the Commonwealth and his charming wife. In the spring of 1793, Mr. and Mrs. Dallas invited Gallatin, w h o had just been elected a United States Senator, to join them and another friend on a pleasure trip to Albany. T h e party left Philadelphia b y stagecoach late in May, pausing to view the Passaic Falls in N e w Jersey. In N e w York Mrs. Dallas invited several young women, daughters of friends, to accompany them on the boat ride up the Hudson River to Albany and the Mohawk Falls. A s the trip progressed, the susceptible Gallatin found his attention claimed more and more by one of the young ladies, Hannah Nicholson, daughter of Commodore James Nicholson, a N e w York Democratic-Rcpublican leader. Soon after getting back to Philadelphia, Gallatin returned to N e w York and married Miss Nicholson. Mr. and Mrs. Dallas were delighted with the development and invited the newlyweds to pass the next winter at their home. T h e Gallatins accepted, taking up residence with them late in December. T h e y remained until March, during which period Gallatin was waging his unsuccessful fight to retain his seat in the Senate. From this time on, the Dallas house became the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Gallatin whenever they were in Philadelphia. A f t e r the Gallatins moved to Washington in 1801, it became a convenient stopping place for them on their frequent trips to visit Mrs. Gallatin's family in N e w York. When the Gallatins* son James was attending school in Germantown, the Dallases kept a watchful eye on him and had him come to Devon to enjoy "strawberry feasts" with them. Reciprocally, the Gallatin home was Dallas' headquarters whenever he went to Washington to plead before the Supreme Court. Often Mrs. Dallas and daughter Maria would go along with him to enjoy the social life of the capital. In addition to friendships, his old love of the theatre provided

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Dallas with surcease from the cares of professional work. His son George recalled that he "habitually repaired from the court room, as soon as its business was adjourned in the evening, to the theatre, where he remained about half an hour, in the farthest corner of a distant box, giving himself wholly to the relaxation." Sometimes Dallas sought release through authorship. His love of the drama led him to try his hand at playwriting, including a sentimental comedy apparently intended to induce Americans to regard the erstwhile "Loyalists" with more sympathy. Sometimes, as he had done for Hallam in earlier years, he wrote addresses, prologues, and epilogues for actors whom he admired. In 1799, according to William Cobbett in his Porcupine's Gazette, he collaborated with a Dr. Stock in writing a tragicomedy called the "Wedding in Wales," which was presented at the Philadelphia Theatre. Dallas also contemplated the writing of history. He went so far as to outline a history of Pennsylvania, and jotted down a list of sources he might use. But he was much too busy at his other tasks to complete his ambitious design. Dallas' position in the community led him to join a number of societies with patriotic, social, and cultural aims. In 1789 he was chosen a member of St. George's Society, an organization of men who looked back proudly on their British ancestry. In 1791 he was elected to the celebrated American Philosophical Society, at that time a small but very active group holding frequent meetings to advance the arts and sciences. Apparently he could find time to attend only an occasional meeting. In 1793, possibly as a result of his friendship with the Irish members of the Democratic-Republican group, Dallas was elected a member of the Hibernian Society. The following year he was elected to the board of trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, on which he served until his death. At various times Dallas was associated with some half-dozen corporations making internal improvements in Pennsylvania. In 1792, when it was the policy of the state government to encourage the construction of roads and canals through the chartering

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of private companies, he was named a director of four such corporations. In 1793 he subscribed to a company planning to cultivate vineyards in Pennsylvania, an effort doomed to failure f o r climatic and geographic reasons. Early in 1802 he accepted membership on a committee to solicit subscriptions for the Pennsylvania Improvement Company, a corporation to improve inland communication and to engage in banking. But this enterprise expired soon after its formation, for the legislature refused to grant it a charter or to subscribe for any of its stock. Dallas participated in these undertakings chiefly out of a sense of duty as a public official. The capitalists who formed the majority of their directorates and who subscribed heavily to their stock remained in the companies to reap whatever rewards they could. Dallas, on the other hand, never took more than a f e w shares and resigned soon after the enterprise had been set in motion. Yet Dallas was not immune to the craze for speculation in frontier lands which gripped his generation. In 1784, scarcely a year after his arrival in Pennsylvania, he took out a warrant f o r four hundred acres in Westmoreland County; during the next decade he took out warrants for sixteen hundred acres more in Huntingdon, Northumberland, and Franklin counties. In 1794 and 1796 Dallas and Jarcd Ingersoll became partners in several big plunges into the land market. Impressed by the enormous profits that speculators were making in Georgia, the t w o men, along with Albert Gallatin, authorized John Wereat to act as their agent in purchasing lands in that state. Acting in their name, Wereat on November 12, 1794, begged the Georgia legislature to sell a large tract of its western land which earlier had been granted to the South Carolina Company, but on which sale had never been completed. Wereat offered to pay the same amount which the company had agreed to pay. Apparently Wereat exceeded his authority, f o r the three partners promptly disowned any connection with the offer, and the negotiations ended abruptly. This setback did not keep Dallas and Ingersoll out of the mar-

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ket for long. In December 1794 they jointly took out warrants for eight thousand eight hundred acres of Pennsylvania land. In the spring of 1796 they formed a land company with Dunning McNair, a western Pennsylvanian, and James Wilkinson, the slippery brigadier general. Jointly Dallas and Ingersoll put up $4,000 so that the company could buy fifty tracts of land in Allegheny County. It is doubtful whether in the end Dallas profited from his speculations in land. What became of his holdings in Westmoreland, Huntingdon, Northumberland, and Franklin counties remains obscure. In March 1800, less than six years after their purchase of the eight thousand eight hundred acres, Dallas and Ingersoll returned them all to the state, besides an additional three hundred acres they seem to have picked up elsewhere. Dallas' partnership in the Allegheny County land company was most troublesome and least profitable of all. A few years after the company was formed, McNair bought out Wilkinson's holdings. He proved a stubborn and unco-operative partner. First Dallas and then Ingersoll would write him asking that he let them know what was the condition of their land, and what steps their company still had to take to complete its title to it. T o these requests McNair, if he bothered to answer at all, replied evasively or carpingly. Invariably he charged that the lawyers were not doing their share in the partnership. By 1808, Dallas and Ingersoll were so disgusted with the enterprise that they informed McNair that they would sell their claims in the company for the $4,000 they had originally invested, plus interest. Inasmuch as when Dallas died he left no real estate besides his residences, it is likely that he sold all his western land claims. Surely it must have been the memory of such experiences as the one with McNair which caused him, in writing to Thomas Cooper in 1813, to explode; " I . . . abominate land speculations."

XII

SEEDS OF DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN SCHISM days after the House of Representatives completed the balloting which made Thomas Jefferson President of the United States, Dallas expressed concern for the future of the Democratic-Republican party. "Plans are already being formed to overturn their power," he warned Albert Gallatin, "and constant vigilance will be necessary to preserve it. Compare the situation of the Federalists in 1798 with their present situation, and we find a party can never be too high to fall." Shrewd politician though he was, Dallas proved a poor prophet in this instance. Never again did the Federalists seriously dispute the supremacy of the Democratic-Republicans in Pennsylvania or in the nation. Nevertheless, trouble was in store for the Democratic-Republican cause. It came not, as Dallas predicted, from the Federalists, but from within the DemocraticRepublican ranks. In state after state—Delaware, N e w York, Pennsylvania—party schism appeared during the next four years. In none of these was the split wider, the dissension more bitter, than in Dallas' own state. While they had been the minority party, some of the Democratic-Republicans in Pennsylvania might mutter among themselves about the activities of the "black folks belonging to Dallas & Co.," about the way certain Federalists got preferment from Governor McKean by "flattering the Old Chief's vanity." Publicly, however, they made it appear that their ranks were united solidly behind their leaders, Dallas, Gallatin and McKean. But once they were in power, long-submerged jealousies bobbed to the surface. They abandoned the fiction of unity. Gallatin packed off to Washington to concern himself with national problems; but Dallas in Philadelphia and McKean in Lancaster were left to face bitter intraparty strife. Soon Dallas found himself on cool terms with ranking members of the party: Dr. 119 FOUR

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George Logan, Quaker physician-farmer who often played host to Thomas Jefferson; Tench Coxe, able political economist who wrote much of Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures, and who had been active as a Democratic-Republican worker since President Adams discharged him as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Peter Muhlenberg who had a versatile record as Episcopalian priest, Revolutionary War general, Congressman and United States Senator-elect; and those twin firebrands of radical democracy, William Duane and Dr. Michael Leib. For his own future and that of his party, Dallas' estrangement with Duane and Leib was the most serious. During the three years in which Duane had owned the Aurora, the energetic Irish-American had developed a talent for hard-hitting partisan journalism that made his newspaper the bible of DemocraticRepublicans in Pennsylvania and in many other states. Flushed by his success, he began indulging his own antipathies through editorial comment that was often nothing more than scurrilous libel. Personally ambitious, Duane became vindictive when his desires were thwarted. His patron saint, Thomas Jefferson, considered him an honest and sincere Republican but sadly admitted that his passions were stronger than his prudence. His close friend, Leib, was a native Philadelphian of German descent, a physician trained under the great Dr. Benjamin Rush. Leib's Apollo-like figure, powdered hair, ultrafashionable dress, and habit of using perfume belied his staunch belief in democratic principles. He first formally identified himself with the anti-Federalist group in 1793, when the German Republican Society, which he helped to organize, joined in the welcome to Citizen Genet. In the years that followed, his considerable talents as an orator and manipulator were exercised in the state assembly, in Congress, and in party meetings, with resultant prestige among Pennsylvania Democratic-Republicans. In debate Leib displayed steadfast Jeffersonianism, selfish ambition, avarice, and viciousness when crossed. Keen in retort, he was not a close reasoner; as an acquaintance observed, his spitfire eloquence "produced effect rather by the velocity of his missiles than the

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weight of his metal." In the interests of party harmony, Leib and Duane had acceded to Dallas' selection of McKean for governor in 1799; but from 1801 onward they were ready to challenge the Dallas-McKean leadership. One reason for the hostility of Duane and Leib to Dallas was their craving for patronage. Their followers had been passed over in 1799 and 1800 when McKean and Dallas were filling the state offices just purged of Federalists. This made them all the more determined to capture some of the national spoils available after Jefferson's inauguration. They tried, without success, to obtain the secretaryship of the navy for a Philadelphia naval veteran and shipping merchant, William Jones. They looked covetously on the offices within the gift of Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury. Duane hurried to Washington and submitted to Gallatin a list of Treasury Department clerks with appended comments which made it clear that he thought virtually all should be turned out. He was particularly anxious that the Federalist who held the collectorship of the port of Philadelphia should be replaced with a deserving Democratic-Republican. Leib also questioned the Secretary about vacancies in the Treasury Department, pointing out that "some of our friends are desirous of appointment." Dallas did a good deal to block the Radicals' aspirations. In response to a query from Gallatin, he outlined a policy on appointments which he believed would carry out the spirit of Jefferson's inaugural address. When in power, the Federalists had "unwarrantably, and fatally for themselves, pursued a system of public intolerance, and admitted none but their avowed adherents to a participation in the honors and emoluments of office." Jefferson's administration, Dallas advocated, should gradually restore the balance between the two parties. Federalists who had used their office to campaign against Jefferson and the republican system should be removed at once; but otherwise, natural causes would remove enough Federalist officeholders to give the Democratic-Republicans half of the national offices by the end of Jefferson's first term.

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Such moderation, Dallas maintained, would benefit both the party and the nation. Gradually so many men, including "honest Federalists," would be attracted to the Democratic-Republican standard that the party could "overwhelm and overawe" all opposition at future elections. Any other policy, he believed, would keep the nation divided by party; "every Federalist will become a Conspirator; every [Democratic-]Republican will be a tyrant; —and every general election will involve the hazard of a civil war." Dallas himself practised the prudent policy he preached. Although he occasionally suggested to Gallatin that certain men be granted appointments and favors, his proposals were prompted by personal friendship or the public good rather than by political motives. For a while the national leaders were sufficiently impressed by Dallas' counsel to be very sparing in the removals which they made in Pennsylvania. Gallatin urged such caution upon Jefferson, and the President agreed. The only political plum that the Radicals received for some time was part of the public printing allotted to Duane. Later they were given a number of offices, but not before they had become embittered toward Dallas for delaying their plans. The followers of Duane and Leib were further irritated by the fact that Dallas was amply rewarded for his party services by both national and state governments. On July ζ 6, 1801, about the time he was given two federal offices—the United States attorneyship and the commissionership of bankrupts—Governor McKean named him Recorder of Philadelphia, an office somewhat judicial in character, for its occupant helped preside at the Mayor's Court. Jealously, the Radicals in the Philadelphia common and select councils joined the Federalists in voting a protest against the appointment on the ground that the state constitution forbade any person to hold simultaneously both a state judgeship and a federal office. The matter was carried to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court the following autumn. After prolonged deliberation, the Court unanimously ruled in favor of Dallas,

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declaring that the recordership was not a judgeship in the sense defined in the constitution. Undaunted, the Radicals in January 1802 again combined with the Federalists to pass through the state legislature a bill forbidding any man to hold appointments under both state and federal governments. T h e measure was vetoed a month later by G o v e r nor M c K e a n . His comment was that, having "persuaded a G e n tleman, not less distinguished f o r probity than talents" to accept the recordership while serving as federal attorney, he was "not happy enough to discern any collision or incompatibility" between the t w o offices. T h e bill, M c K e a n declared, was not only "unnecessary and inexpedient, but in the precedent, alarming to all persons holding office during good behavior. . . . T h e L e g islature cannot vacate or impair a contract solemnly made between the Commonwealth and an individual." T h e Radical assemblymen forthwith overrode the Governor's negative. Dallas took the defeat with good grace. On February 14 he resigned the recordership, remarking that he was willing to yield to the legislature since it appeared to be fighting f o r a principle. H e added a warning to the Democratic-Republicans that, if they allowed themselves to become disunited and jealous, the Federalists would return to power. T h e episode of the recordership greatly widened the gulf between Dallas and the Radicals. A more fundamental cause f o r the breach was Dallas' o w n growing conservatism. H e n o w held a federal office that satisfied his ambitions. H e enjoyed a lucrative law practice and had come to identify himself with the legal profession. W i t h an assured social position, he enjoyed the companionship of men of education, wealth, and proud ancestry. A s he entered middle life, he grew more anxious to retain what he already had than to venture into uncharted paths. H e had spent years in rallying the people, and he was tired of it. Dallas showed his conservatism most strikingly in his attitude toward the attack on the judiciary set a f o o t in Washington and Lancaster after Jefferson's inauguration. M a n y DemocraticRepublicans believed that one of the most effective aids to the

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Federalists in carrying out their program had been their grip on the courts. T o reduce this Federalist power President Jefferson suggested that the judiciary system be reformed. With this notion Dallas sympathized. But some of the more radical Democratic-Republicans extended their dislike of the courts much further—to judges, lawyers, the entire judicial and legal systems per se. In Pennsylvania, the followers of Duane and Leib began to rally the farmers and mechanics—"the poor" against the professional class—"the rich." They decried the independence of the judiciary, asserting that the bench should be responsible at all times to the people and their chosen representatives. They demanded that justice be made "speedy, cheap and safe" by granting justices of the peace jurisdiction over more types of cases. They called for the abolition of the common law—a British and therefore monarchical institution—because only men with legal training understood it, whereas all who could read could comprehend statutory law. Frequently they referred to lawyers as "knaves," members of a profession that ought to be abolished. With such talk Dallas, the barrister, could not agree. So conflicting were his loyalties to his profession and to his party that, as the Radical program developed, he found himself now opposing, now co-operating with it. Dallas' solicitude for the bench first appeared in 1802. When some congressional Democratic-Republicans moved to reform the judicial system by abolishing the federal Circuit Courts and unseating the circuit judges, Dallas joined all the other members of the Philadelphia bar—Democratic-Republicans as well as Federalists—in drawing up a memorial to Congress, warning that great public inconvenience would result. In forwarding the memorial on behalf of their colleagues, Dallas and Joseph B. McKean, the Pennsylvania Attorney General, wrote a letter strongly reiterating this view. The letter and memorial were presented to Congress by Federalist Senator Ross. While the bill was pending, Dallas wrote long and carefully considered letters, amplifying his views on the subject, to two friends powerful in Washington. The first was addressed to

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Wilson Cary Nicholas of Virginia, leader of Jefferson's forces in the Senate, who had asked Dallas what he thought of the proposed reform. In his reply, dated January 4, 1802, Dallas granted that, under the flexible interpretation of the Constitution necessary for a growing country, Congress could modify or even extinguish the judicial system. Nevertheless, he told Nicholas, advocates of the abolition of Circuit Courts should show that they were not moved merely by party considerations, that they did not wish to endanger the independence of the judiciary, and that the benefits from the Circuit Courts "are far from being an equivalent for the expenses of the institution." Dallas doubted that they could prove these things, particularly the last. His own experience had convinced him that Pennsylvania had derived enormous advantages from its Circuit Court. T o give the work it was now performing back to the already overburdened state courts, as the proponents of judiciary reform proposed, would result in delay, uncertainty, and inconvenience in the administration of justice. Therefore, he thought, if the present system must be changed, the essentials should be preserved, and only "some amendments" made. Dallas repeated these arguments in a letter to Vice-President Burr a month later. This time he emphasized his disapproval of the precipitate and partisan fashion in which the Federalists had created the Circuit Court system and were resisting its repeal. However, he added, he also regretted the "intemperate" attitude which many Radical Philadelphia Democratic-Republicans had taken toward the memorial of the Philadelphia bar. In acknowledging the letter, Burr suggested that Dallas draw up an outline of what he considered a suitable system of courts and jurisdictions. Dallas started to formulate such a plan; but, realizing that it would have little chance with Congress in its present temper, he abandoned the effort. Dallas' opposition to drastic judicial reform had a slight influence on the debates in Congress. As ultimately settled, the Circuit Courts were retained, but the office of Circuit Court justice was abolished. Supreme Court judges were required to ride the

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circuit as they had before 1801. Repercussions in Pennsylvania were far more pronounced. The Aurora, which had campaigned for thoroughgoing changes in the court system, treated Dallas with an ominous silence, and the Radicals became convinced that he must be watched suspiciously. Yet a year later, when the Radicals began an assault on the Pennsylvania judiciary, Dallas co-operated with them wholeheartedly. This was because the first object of their attack was Alexander Addison of Westmoreland County, whose conduct as president of the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for the Western District had also exasperated such Democratic-Republican jurists as Thomas McKean and Hugh Henry Brackenridge. A Scotch-Irishman of greater ability than tact, Addison had fallen into the habit of delivering pro-Federalist harangues as his addresses to the jury—a custom that did not increase his popularity on his ardently Democratic-Republican circuit. The straw that broke the back of Democratic-Republican tolerance of Addison was his highhanded treatment of a county judge. During a trial in December 1800, Addison made one of his characteristic charges to the jury. John B. C. Lucas, a Frenchborn Democratic-Republican who sat on the bench with him as county judge, attempted to reply. Lucas had barely uttered the words "Gentlemen of the jury" when Addison ordered him to be silent, asserting that only the president judge possessed the right to address the jury. He suggested obliquely that if Lucas disobeyed, he might be imprisoned. This ruling was illegal; but Lucas, who was a newcomer to the bench and untrained in the law, meekly acquiesced. Addison repeated his summary treatment of Lucas at a trial in June 1801. By this time Lucas had learned that the president judge was exceeding his power. At the instance of Lucas and his friends, Democratic-Republicans in the western circuit in January 1802 petitioned the Assembly to remove Addison from office—for, under the state constitution, judges of the common pleas guilty of misdemeanors in office could be removed through impeachment. The House of Representatives impeached Addison in March.

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Dallas was so disgusted with Addison's truculent Federalism that when he was asked to present the case against the judge during the trial before the Senate, with Joseph B. McKean as his assistant, he readily accepted the commission. When the hearings began at Lancaster on January 17, 1803, he learned that he had no mean adversary in Addison, who was acting as his own counsel. The defendant's able presentation of his case and deft cross-examination of witnesses stirred Dallas to exhibit the full scope of his abilities as a courtroom debater. In his chief address, which took the greater part of two days to deliver, Dallas countered with stinging references to the Federalist judge's stubborn opposition to the political developments of the last decade, references which appealed to the predominantly DemocraticRepublican Senate. Under the state constitution, Dallas asserted, Addison's position as a president judge was comparable to that of the presiding officer of a legislative body. His function was simply to declare its sense, never to direct it. Therefore, in depriving Lucas of his right and duty as an associate judge to speak to the jury on any subject before the court, he had committed a misdemeanor and shown himself unfit to be a judge. If further proof of the latter conclusion were needed, Dallas continued, it was furnished by the plea Addison had made that he was ignorant of the law as it related to an associate justice's rights. "Lawyers are accustomed to hear, that ignorance of the law is no excuse, even in a common farmer who has never opened a law book," he exclaimed. "What shall we say of a presiding judge, emphatically a legal character, . . . setting up the plea of ignorance as a justification of such an outrage? Of what was he ignorant? of the fundamental laws of the state! of the provisions of the constitution!" These very provisions Addison, as a member of the state Constitutional Convention of 1790, had helped to frame! Excellent though Dallas' prosecution was, it alone did not determine the outcome of the trial. The senators had long before made up their minds that the haranguing Federalist must be re-

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moved from the bench, and remove him they did by a twenty to four vote taken on January 26. However, they acceded to a plea Dallas had made in his address—that the only additional punishment given Addison be disqualification from again holding a judgeship in any Pennsylvania law court. This successful prosecution so buoyed the Radicals that within a year they were turning calculating eyes toward the state Supreme Court. Here three venerable Federalists, appointees of Governor Mifflin, continued to lay down the supreme law of Pennsylvania. Although the jurists had studiously avoided partisan activity, the Radicals grew eager to replace them with men of their own political faith. T o accomplish their purpose they tortured a minor litigation into a cause celebre. Back in 1802 a peppery Philadelphia merchant named Thomas Passmore sued two insurance brokers for compensation for property he had lost at sea. While the suit was pending, he posted in a public tavern a paper allegedly libeling the defendants. Dallas entered the affair when he was engaged to bring Passmore to trial for contempt of court in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the ground that by posting the paper the merchant had tended to prejudice those who were to decide his propertyloss case. The Supreme Court fined Passmore and sentenced him to a term in prison. Encouraged by the unseating of Judge Addison, Passmore early in February 1803 appealed to the House of Representatives to impeach the judges who had handed down the recent ruling against him—Chief Justice Edward Shippen and Associate Justices Jasper Yeates and Thomas Smith. Since all three were Federalists, the House Radicals listened sympathetically to his plea. On March 20 the House adopted a report that the judges had "exercised a stretch of power, in this case, not warranted by the constitution and laws of our country; and that if such an abuse is tolerated and acquiesced in by the legislature, there is reason to fear that the safety and personal liberty of the citizens will be annihilated." Subsequently articles of impeachment were drawn up against the judges.

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O n c e again the House impeachment committee requested Dallas to prosecute the case before the Senate. T o its surprise, he declined. T w o factors undoubtedly determined his decision: His own participation in the Passmore affair had convinced him that the judges were in the right; and he had g r o w n fearful that the Radicals aimed not merely to remove the Federalist jurists but to destroy the whole legal profession. His feelings w e r e shared b y other conservative Democratic-Republicans. Joseph B. M c K e a n , Moses L e v y , E d w a r d Tilghman, and William T i l g h man were among the many other lawyers w h o also declined to serve as prosecutor. G o v e r n o r M c K e a n declared that the House's policy had "created a disgust in the mind of every sensible & honest man." Brackenridge, the lone Democratic-Republican on the Supreme Court bench, was so opposed to the impeachment that he protested against it to the House, and evoked f r o m that body a demand f o r his removal which the G o v e r n o r flatly refused to honor. Unable to find a competent Pennsylvania barrister to undertake the prosecution, the House committee engaged an able y o u n g Delaware lawyer, Caesar A . R o d n e y . Meanwhile, to the consternation of the Radicals, Dallas agreed to join Jared Ingersoll in the defense of the judges. It was not until January 7, 1805, that the Senate convened at Lancaster as a court of impeachment. Most of the forensic burden

f o r the prosecution

was

borne

by

Assemblyman

Nathaniel Boileau, R o d n e y ' s assistant. E m p l o y i n g what Dallas considered " f r o t h y , figurative harangues," Boileau introduced a parade of witnesses to show that Passmore had not libeled the insurance brokers, and that if he had committed any contempt of court, he had subsequently purged it. B y imprisoning Passmore, he maintained, the three judges had acted in an "arbitrary, cruel and oppressive manner"; f o r this high misdemeanor they ought to be removed f r o m office. These arguments Dallas systematically disputed. B y crossexamining the witnesses, he cast grave doubt upon Passmore's contention that he had not committed libel and had absolved

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himself of the contempt charges. In two addresses, which consumed nearly six days of trial, Dallas insisted that the Supreme Court possessed the right to punish contempts because they were offenses not against the personal feelings of the judges but against the administration of justice. This principle, he declared, —and men who could remember his courtroom battles of a decade earlier must have gasped as he said it—is rooted in the English common law, which is "a birth-right and inheritance" of the people of Pennsylvania. It was introduced by William Penn, and as the Pennsylvania constitutions of 1776 and 1790 contain nothing incompatible with it, it still remains in effect. From an enormous stack of books, Dallas read scores of testimonials to the common law from the pens of great jurists and other public men. Shrewdly he emphasized those of American and Irish jurists, and made much of the recognition Jefferson had given the system in his Notes on Virginia. If the English common law were to be annulled, he went on, and only laws enacted by the assembly were to be recognized, legal chaos would ensue. Dallas granted that the legal system under which Passmore had been cited for contempt was currently being attacked by the Radicals. Such political considerations, he insisted, had no place in the trial. "Your constitution declares that you shall pass no ex post facto law. . . . You will not inflict punishment for that which has not yet, by the law or the Constitution, been declared or marked as an offence." The only just verdict, he concluded, was acquittal. After Dallas had finished, Rodney and Ingersoll spoke at some length. Rodney was handicapped by his unfamiliarity with Pennsylvania law; Ingersoll contented himself for the most part with reiterating points Dallas had already made. It was Dallas who, by his able addresses and effective examination of witnesses, dominated the hearings. The trial ended January 28 when the Senate voted for conviction, thirteen to eleven. Since the constitution required that two-thirds of the senators present must vote for the conviction

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of judges, this meant they were acquitted. Considering that the trial was politically inspired, that the Democratic-Republicans had a large majority in the Senate, and that the Aurora had been using its columns and a representative on the grounds to try to influence the senators, this was indeed a great victory for Dallas and Ingersoll. Dallas' success enraged the Radicals. Writers in the Aurora hailed the verdict "as a defeat of the people, and the victory of their enemies," and declared that "the combined force of the whole bench and bar [is] an interest too visibly more powerful than the people or the constitution." The trial had barely ended when Dallas was again torn between loyalty to his party and his profession. This time the seat of his dilemma was Washington, where the more radical of Jefferson's congressional followers were continuing their campaign against the bench. Having succeeded in removing an insane district judge, they now tried to rid the Supreme Court of its Federalists. As the first object of their attack, they picked the haranguing Samuel Chase. The House of Representatives drew up an indictment in March 1804; and after delaying until the Pennsylvania judges' trial was finished, the Senate began hearing Chase's case on February 4, 1805. Of the eight articles of impeachment, the first concerned the justice's actions while presiding at the Fries trial in 1800. Dallas, William Lewis, and William Rawle, as counsels for the prosecution and the defense in that case, were requested to come down to Washington to give an account of Chase's conduct. What Dallas thought of the impeachment of the Justice, he never made clear; but like the Federalists, Lewis and Rawle, he responded readily to the invitation. The testimony Dallas gave in the crowded, crimson-bedecked Senate chamber on the afternoon of February 9 was so judiciously weighed and so devoid of partisan rancor that even a N e w Hampshire Federalist congressman who was present considered it "marked with great propriety" and showing "nothing like undue partiality." Dallas recited his own participation in the case,

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especially the second trial. H e insisted that he and Lewis had withdrawn solely because they believed it the best way to save their client's life, "not because we wished, as has been insinuated, t o bring the court into disgrace or odium." Although Dallas was a bit vague on dates and precise details—natural enough after an interval of five years—his account agreed substantially with that of Lewis and Rawle. T a k e n together, their testimony suggested that Chase's conduct during the trial had been arbitrary and injudicious, but not necessarily criminal. It was necessary for the Senate to adjudge Chase's conduct criminal in order to convict him. On the first article, upon which the Radicals had placed their highest hopes, a majority of the Senate voted against conviction. After that, Chase's acquittal followed inevitably. Thus, by his temperate, carefully considered testimony against Chase, Dallas helped block the Jeffersonian assault on the federal judiciary, just as his defense of the state justices had helped thwart the designs of the Pennsylvania Radicals. Thus, too, he completed his break with the dominant wing of the party that he had helped to organize.

XIII

A CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRATICREPUBLICAN the conservatism of Dallas—manifested in his choice of friends, his attitude toward patronage, and his solicitude for the judiciary—became apparent as early as 1801, his break with the Pennsylvania Radicals took place gradually over a period of several years. One reason for this was that the Radicals found his talents and prestige as a lawyer and campaign organizer so valuable that they were reluctant to alienate him. For example, during the year 1801 Dallas used his position as federal Attorney to have quashed several indictments, outgrowths of the Sedition Law, which still hung over the head of William Duane; served as Duane's counsel in a successful suit against seven Federalists who raided the Aurora office and assaulted the editor; and defended Dr. James Reynolds in a suit brought by Timothy Pickering. When Governor McKean came up for re-election in 1802, the Radicals anxiously prevailed upon Dallas to serve once again on the state committee of correspondence and to run for the Philadelphia Common Council. (This was the second time in his life Dallas had been a candidate for an elective office. In 1800 he had also run for the Common Council but was defeated by a slight margin.) His participation in the 1802 campaign helped quiet an incipient revolt against the growing influence of Duane and Leib in Philadelphia political life. The following November he presided at a banquet to celebrate Governor McKean's, and his own, easy election. A year later, when the followers of Duane and Leib realized that the Governor intended to block their Radical legislative program, they used Dallas in an attempt to remove McKean from the state political arena through the time-honored device of kicking a refractory office-holder upstairs. In October 1803, at the request of "several of our friends," Dallas wrote McKean 133 ALTHOUGH

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suggesting that he offer himself as a candidate for the vicepresidency of the United States in 1804. Appreciating the motive behind the Radical's proposal, Dallas made his urging halfhearted. McKean declined the suggestion, expressing fear that men with "wanton passions" would get control of Pennsylvania if he left Lancaster. Another reason for the belatedness of Dallas' break with the Radicals was his belief that he ought to "cease thinking" of party politics and concentrate on his legal work. He told friends of this decision as early as December 1801, and developments within the state Democratic-Republican ranks made him hold fast to it for the next three years. He was disgusted with the machinations of a group within the party known as the "Rising Sun faction," which was noisily challenging the Radicals. Particularly obnoxious to him was the faction's leader, Tench Coxe, the renegade Federalist. He was angered when Senator George Logan of Pennsylvania went from desk to desk in the United States Senate exhibiting a paper which "proved" that Dallas had "swindled" the state of $6,598 while acting as paymaster-general of the militia. He found Peter Muhlenberg still cool to him because he had blocked Muhlenberg's nomination for Governor in 1799. But it was the followers of Duane and Leib who most irritated Dallas. Although they were now receiving some federal appointments, the more offices they obtained, the greedier they became. Duane, in his Aurora, sniped at state and national leaders who appeared to be blocking their desires. The editor, it seemed to Dallas, was "determined to destroy the usefulness of every man who does not bend to his will." Dallas himself was attacked as the author of a political address he had not seen until it appeared in the press; Gallatin and Madison received similar doses of the Aurora's spleen. Dallas feared that ultimately Duane would turn upon Jefferson himself. During January 1805, he despondently tried to "allay the ferment" raging within the party. He wrote McKean that he considered the conduct of some of his old friends in the legisla-

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ture "extravagant and unexpected," and hinted that he would do anything he could to bring the Radicals and the Governor together. Tactfully he suggested that his old chief should not permit the conduct of the Radicals to provoke him into an outburst of temper. A t the same time Dallas besought the national administration to reconcile the warring factions. Some of the blame for Duane's growing strength and the widening breach in the party, he believed, rested upon President Jefferson f o r his "hands-off" policy toward state politics. Duane constantly asserted that he enjoyed Jefferson's confidence; and recent letters in the President's handwriting, which the Radicals exhibited ostentatiously, served to corroborate the claim. Dallas urged Gallatin to induce Jefferson to rebuke Duane and "to take decisive measures to discountenance the factious spirit." As long as Duane has influence, he warned, "the State, the United States, will never enjoy quiet." Gallatin passed the advice of Dallas on to the President. But, practical politician that he was, Jefferson realized that Duane now controlled the popular vote of Pennsylvania, and, with a kind of resignation to the inevitability of party schism, remained studiously neutral. It was early in 1805, just after the acquittal of the Pennsylvania justices, that Dallas became convinced that he must abandon his semi-retirement from politics and openly break with the Radicals. T h e manner in which their press had railed at him for his part in the trial exasperated him. As he complained to Gallatin, he and all men in public life had become the slaves of individuals "whose passions are the origin, and whose interests are the object, of all their actions." He detested the Radicals, moreover, because they were promoting the notion that lawyers, "men of talents and education, men of fortune and manners" ought not to participate in the administration of a democratic government. Such a conception reminded him of the "first convulsive throes of France, which have subsided in the lethargy of despotism." For several months Dallas pondered ways in which he might

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save his party from the "tyranny" of the Radicals. At the outset his notions were hazy. "Men of character and talents," he thought, "must be drawn from professional and private pursuits into the legislative bodies of our governments, federal and State." This might be accomplished by organizing a movement which would rally genuine Democratic-Republicans "round the standard of reason, law and order." Coalition with the Federalists must be avoided so as to preserve the dignity and authority of the Jefferson administration. The concrete issue upon which to organize his movement was given Dallas by the Radicals themselves. After the acquittal of the judges, the followers of Duane and Leib demanded that a convention be called to revise the state constitution so as to "sweep away what yet remains of the dregs of British laws and lawyers," and enable citizens to procure justice "without sale, denial or delay." Other Radical objectives, enumerated in petitions pouring into the House of Representatives, included annual instead of quadrennial election of state senators and limitation of the patronage of the Governor. Putting aside his personal differences with Dr. George Logan and Peter Muhlenberg, Dallas induced them and eleven other conservative Democratic-Republicans to join him in forming a society to oppose the Radical program. It seems likely that he first publicly broached his project at a banquet of Philadelphia "Constitutional Republicans" held on March 4, 1805 to celebrate Jefferson's second inauguration. At any rate, we know that ten days later Dallas and his allies drew up a prospectus for a "Society of Constitutional Republicans" which was widely circulated in the anti-Radical press. The Society got off to an excellent start at a public meeting held at the White Horse Tavern in Philadelphia on March 21. Dallas read a memorial he had written which maintained that a state constitutional convention was unnecessary because no "new or formidable evils have arisen to require deliberation or change." Some inconveniences might exist, he admitted, but they could be corrected by the legislature under the present

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constitution. The paper was approved by the meeting, and a large committee named to gather signatures so that it might be presented to the legislature. In the next few weeks Dallas and two others appointed by the meeting dispatched copies of the memorial to persons in all sections of Pennsylvania, with the request that they organize allied societies to work with the Philadelphia group. Dallas was the dominant spirit of the Society; but, as in the days when he was organizing the Democratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania, he preferred to let others hold the offices. Peter Muhlenberg was chosen president, but resigned soon afterward because, it was said, Leib promised him that the Radicals would run him for Governor. George Logan became president in his stead. Ever anxious to keep his movement strictly within the ranks of the national Democratic-Republican party, Dallas wrote friends in the President's cabinet seeking approval. Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith responded wholeheartedly. Secretary Gallatin assured Dallas that he considered the Pennsylvania constitution satisfactory as it now stood, although he regretted that it contained no provision for amendment. About the time the Society of Constitutional Republicans was organized, the long-strained relations between Governor McKean and the Radicals finally snapped. On March 21 three Radical assemblymen called on the Governor seeking patronage. McKean not only refused their requests, but lost his temper. In his outburst—so the Aurora reported—he referred to the people as "clodpoles and ignoramuses." Anxious to spike this mischievous story about his friend, Dallas asked the Governor if the Aurora had quoted him correctly. McKean replied that it had not, that he had used the unflattering words to describe a type of person, not "the people." His break with the Radicals became complete early in April when the Democratic-Republicans held their caucus at Lancaster. For the gubernatorial nomination the Radicals supported Simon Snyder of Northumberland County, whose considerable native ability, "republican plainness," and popularity among the German-speaking population had carried

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him from a back-country store to the speakership of the state House of Representatives. Snyder easily won the nomination, receiving forty-two votes to seven for McKean and one for Samuel Maclay. A few weeks later Dallas and the Constitutional Republicans announced that, besides opposing the revision of the constitution, they would work to re-elect Governor McKean the next October. To this end they allied themselves informally with the "Rising Sun faction" of the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists. The "Rising Sun faction" had long been bitter enemies of the Radicals. The Federalists had no love for McKean but mortally feared Snyder, the Radicals, and anticonstitutionalism. The widely assorted supporters of McKean good-naturedly accepted the name bestowed upon them by their opponents—the "Quids." This word, so the Constitutional Republicans said, came from tertium quid, an element thrown into a pharmaceutical composition to correct the qualities of its two other ingredients, thereby changing a poison into a medicine. Other names applied to the coalition were the "Constitutionalists," the "New Lights," and the "Union of all Honest Men." Although loosely allied with the Federalists, Dallas' group concentrated on an ambitious program to arouse the DemocraticRepublicans of the state. This centered about the circulation of a lengthy address which the Society had "unanimously approved" at its meeting of June 9. Signed by the seven members of the correspondence committee but actually the work of Dallas, this paper was a forceful indictment of the character of the Radicals, their activities in the past, and their program for the future. At the moment, Dallas warned, Pennsylvania democracy "seems eager to become the speedy instrument of its own destruction." Blame for this he placed upon a small band of "malcontents" who, after the triumph of 1800, showed themselves interested not in the principles of the party but only in patronage. To advance their own interests they had resorted to

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conspiracy and intrigue in party conferences, in public meetings, and in the activities of the state militia groups. T h e y had strained the liberty of the press in an effort to discredit the "patriotic" founders of the party by branding them "Quids," Federalists, traitors, and Tories. T h e chief and most dangerous objective of these "malcontents," according to Dallas, was the subversion of the state constitution and judiciary system. He conceded that the constitution was not perfect; but, patterned as it was after the federal Constitution, it possessed great merits. Its defects could be remedied by methods less drastic than the calling of a convention. T h e features which were under particular attack—the appointive, the veto, and other powers of the Governor—certainly ought not to be altered. The people of the state had an opportunity to check on the chief executive's use of these powers oncc every three years, at election time. Besides, more faith could be placed in the integrity of the Governor on such matters than in the integrity of the legislature. T h e "malcontents," Dallas continued, had made Governor McKean the especial object of their attack because he blocked their selfish program. He defended McKean against the charges they were leveling against him and called for his re-election on the basis of the six "peaceful and prosperous" years the state had enjoyed under his administration. Dallas closed his address with an incisive statement of the purposes of the Constitutional Republicans. Their interest, he said, was in principles rather than in party, "to preserve institutions and men we know and approve, against projects which we cannot comprehend, proposed by men we cannot trust, whose object cannot be good, since the means that they employ are evidently bad. . . . It is time to evince to the world that a Democratic Republic can enjoy energy without tyranny, and Liberty without anarchy." When these objectives are gained, the Society will "cheerfully cease to exist." During the campaign Dallas' committee distributed twentyfive thousand copies of the address in English and German ver-

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sions. The response was gratifying. Constitutional societies were formed and public meetings held in many counties. More signatures were collected against a constitutional convention than the Radicals could muster in its favor. The skirmishes fought in the press were especially bitter. Such moderate Philadelphia newspapers as McCorkle's Freeman's Journal and Paulson's American Daily Advertiser and such Federalist journals as Relfs Gazette took up their cudgels for the Constitutionalist cause. On the other side, the Aurora and its Radical satellites almost completely forgot McKean, the constitution, and the other campaign issues so as to concentrate their attack on Dallas personally. Day after day Duane plumbed new depths of scurrility, branding Dallas a "plausible, elastic, extraordinary man," an individual whose only rule of conduct was self-interest, a "puppet-worker" who had ruled Pennsylvania for fifteen years by "manipulating" Governors Mifflin and McKean. He revived the old charges that Dallas had embezzled $6,598 from the state; he insinuated that he had been "concerned" in the scandal arising from the sale of the Yazoo lands in Georgia—a baseless assertion doubtless inspired by Dallas' effort, along with Jared Ingersoll and Albert Gallatin, to purchase some Georgia land a decade earlier. Disheartening to Dallas and his group was the attitude that President Jefferson assumed toward the intraparty struggle. They felt that if they could induce the President to declare for their side, the Radicals and all they represented could be discredited at the October elections. But Jefferson, though he viewed "with infinite pain the bloody schism" in Pennsylvania, held to his belief in "the propriety of the general government's taking no sides in state quarrels." Dallas must have found consolation for the hostility of Duane and the aloofness of Jefferson in the outcome of the elections. McKean was re-elected by a majority of almost five thousand. The Constitutionalists gained a slight majority in both houses of the legislature. The Radicals had to drop their plans for a constitutional convention and again see the state offices passed

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out to what the Aurora called "Dallas' hungry circle of expectants." Dallas himself was given his choice of two political plums by Governor McKean. One was the chief-justiceship of Pennsylvania, which Edward Shippen had just resigned on account of ill health. Attractive as this offer was, Dallas declined it. The bitterness of the recent campaign, the emptiness of party friendships, and "the influence of desperate and violent men" in Pennsylvania politics had so soured him that he did not want to hold state office again. He feared that if he resigned his federal office, the Aurora would assert that he had lost Jefferson's confidence and had been dismissed. Moreover, he was apprehensive lest appointment to state office would give the Radicals fresh material for attacks on McKean. The Governor later proposed that Dallas become Attorney General of the state. This office was more tempting, for Dallas considered it "more lucrative, less troublesome, and infinitely less responsible" than either the federal attorneyship or the chief-justiceship. But his objections to the chief-justiceship were even more applicable to this office. He sought counsel of his two friends in the cabinet, Gallatin and Smith. T h e y advised him against taking the attorney-generalship, and he cheerfully followed their advice. After the Constitutional Republicans had celebrated their victory, they found their ranks rent by cross-purposes. Some members favored a closer, permanent alliance with the Federalists; others, including Dallas, felt apologetic about having cooperated even temporarily with their old enemies. A t the November 25 meeting of the Society, Dallas offered a statement which acknowledged that the Constitutionalists had received aid from the Federalists, but insisted that it had been given "gratuitously," without any formal agreement. In spite of their intraparty warfare, the Democratic-Republican stock remained sound and vigorous. Dallas' statement was approved by the meeting. Like the majority of the Constitutionalists, Dallas felt that

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the Society should live up to the promise made during the campaign—that as soon as its objectives had been attained, it would "cheerfully cease to exist." Indeed, at a meeting in December, the group adopted a resolution formally dissolving the organization. Dallas' attitude led the Aurora to declare that he and Joseph B. McKean were exploring the possibility of reunion with the Radicals—an assertion the Constitutionalist Freeman's Journal subsequently denied. The third inauguration of Governor McKean, in December 1805, brought no cessation of hostilities between him and the Radicals. When he resisted their continued demands for patronage, they set afoot a movement to impeach him. Rallying to his support, the Constitutionalists resumed meetings in all parts of the state. In 1806 and again in 1807 they renewed their alliance with the Federalists, offering assembly tickets composed half of Constitutionalists, half of Federalists. In both years the coalition succeeded in electing enough of its candidates to block the Radicals' program a while longer. Probably because the Constitutionalists' alliance with the Federalists was too closely drawn to suit his thoroughgoing Democratic-Republican conscience, Dallas took only a passive interest in the campaigns of these latter years. He served on no committees and kept repeating to friends that he had retired from politics. But even in retirement he continued to be the chief target of the Radical press. The Aurora pointed to his old friendships with Jonathan Dayton and Aaron Burr—who were then being charged with treason against the United States—as proof that Dallas was an enemy of Jefferson. It gave the "Quids" a new name—"Quadroons"—"on account of their Creole founder." Remarkable for the scurrilous abandon of its attack on Dallas was the Quid Mirror, a pamphlet surreptitiously circulated during the campaign of 1806. Printed in New York, and unsigned, the Mirror was the work of William Dickson, editor of the Radical Lancaster Intelligencer. The pamphlet contained sketches of fifteen Constitutionalist leaders, including Thomas

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McKean, George Logan, and Joseph B. McKean. As the "highpriest of the Quid sect" and a "heartless self-seeker," Dallas was given lengthy treatment. For its malicious combination of halftruths and innuendo, the piece was reminiscent of Cobbett's attacks in Porcupine's Gazette years before. It recited in insinuating fashion all the old stories about Dallas' domestic extravagance, his influence on Governors Mifflin and McKean, his "embezzlement" as pay-master general, his friendship with Burr. The men attacked in the Mirror were said to have offered $1,000 for the names of the authors and the vendors. Dallas, however, received these vilifications with the same resignation he had shown during earlier attacks. "Surprise at the inventive hardihood of the calumniator was generally the only apparent reception it obtained from him," his son George recalled, "yet sometimes scornful defiance shaded his countenance." It was the abiding loyalty of Dallas to the national DemocraticRepublican party which brought the Constitutionalist movement to an end. In 1806 he began to fear that the opposition being offered the Jefferson administration by John Randolph of Roanoke and the dissensions within the cabinet portended the fall of the party. By the middle of 1808 he found himself rejoicing that Jefferson's second term was almost over because, he felt, "one more year of writing, speaking and appointing would render Mr. Jefferson a more odious President, even to the Democrats, than John Adams." He was anxious that his old friend, James Madison, should succeed to the Presidency, and he hoped that the growing unrest among "reputable" Democratic-Republicans would not seriously injure the prospects for his election. T o assure Madison of Pennsylvania's electoral vote, Dallas and the Constitutionalists during the summer of 1808 sought reconciliation with the Radicals. They found them in a receptive mood. The followers of Duane and Leib had been attempting, without success, to stir up opposition to Madison; they were even more anxious that Simon Snyder should succeed Governor McKean. An agreement was reached whereby Madison received

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the support of all Pennsylvania Democratic-Republicans for President, while Snyder became the party's nominee for Governor. Although he served on the vigilance committee of his ward at election time, Dallas took little part in the campaign. Nevertheless, he was greatly pleased when Madison carried the state and rejoiced at Snyder's easy victory over the Federalist James Ross. During the next four years Dallas' interest in politics again ebbed. What he saw going on at Lancaster and Washington hardly tempted him to return to the political arena. In Pennsylvania the Democratic-Republican party was rent by new factions. When Governor Snyder, soon after his inauguration, refused to make Leib his confidant and Secretary of the Commonwealth, the power-greedy physician and his associate, Duane, turned against him. Using the patronage of the Philadelphia Customs House, in which their followers were intrenched, the pair organized the "Old School Democrats," dedicated to preventing Snyder's re-election in 1811. The bulk of the party, led by another Irish-born journalistic firebrand, John Binns of the Philadelphia Democratic Press, rallied around the Governor and easily won him a second term. T o Dallas it seemed that this dissension could be traced to "the intolerance, denunciation, and proscription" of Duane and Binns, both of whom desired to be the party dictator. " A free Press is an excellent thing," Dallas told Gallatin, as the two editors railed at each other in 1811, "but a Newspaper Government is the most execrable of all things." The fundamental cause of the situation, he reflected bitterly, had been Jefferson's refusal to intervene in behalf of the Constitutionalists in 1805. This was the reason "why no man of real character and ability, in the [Democratic-]Republican party of Pennsylvania has the power to render any political services to the Administration." Occasionally Dallas suggested to the administration the names of men whose appointment to national office he felt would strengthen the party in Pennsylvania. He wrote President Madison on behalf of Thomas Cooper for a position as a tax collector,

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but without result. Upon Secretaries Monroe and Gallatin he urged the appointment of Jared Ingersoll to the Supreme Court vacancy created by Judge Chase's death in 1811. Pennsylvania, he told Gallatin, was not getting its proper share of federal offices. "Except for yourself, who has been distinguished by Federal favour?" he asked rhetorically. The name of Ingersoll met some approval among Pennsylvanians, but Madison gave the appointment to an obscure Marylander, Gabriel Duval. Dallas was an ardent admirer of President Madison, Secretaries Monroe, Gallatin, and Smith; he approved in general of the moves they were making to avoid war with either Great Britain or France; nevertheless, the rumors of discord in the cabinet, especially between Gallatin and Smith, aggrieved him. On receiving a baseless report that Gallatin was resigning, Dallas observed that if it were true, as far as the public welfare was concerned, it was a pity; but, as far as the Secretary of the Treasury personally was concerned, hardly reprehensible. It was to Gallatin that Dallas confided most of the regrets he felt about the administration. The Secretary sympathized with most of the things Dallas said. But Gallatin, too, was occupying an unpleasantly isolated position in politics. He no longer enjoyed popular support in Pennsylvania, and Madison rarely consulted him on questions involving his own state. Yet loyalty to his chief kept him from confiding in even an old friend like Dallas. When Dallas complained to him, he usually made no answer. Dallas misunderstood this attitude. In July 1811, for example, he wrote Gallatin irritably: "I am cordially attached to the whole Administration. Of you, personally, I only think and speak of as a brother. But, really, knowing that no confidence has ever been placed upon me, upon political subjects; and not knowing, where your confidence is now placed; I do not understand your measures, nor am I acquainted with your friends. . . . Let your friends know that you act right in order that they may think so.'' And then, as if to underscore his vexation, he added: "This letter, I have a strong inclination to address to Mrs. Gallatin;

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for, as men have ceased to keep secrets, I hope it will cease to be a wonder that a Lady should keep them." The misunderstanding between Dallas and Gallatin was shortlived. Their friendship withstood such outbursts, which represented only a transitory and quite minor aspect of the personality of Dallas. During these same years, as we shall now see, he was serving the federal government with great distinction through the practice of his beloved legal profession.

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UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR EASTERN PENNSYLVANIA the interest of Dallas in politics waxed and waned with the fortunes of the Democratic-Republican party; but his devotion to the law remained constant through the years. By 1814 this zealous application had earned him recognition as one of the ablest barristers in the United States and a private practice correspondingly lucrative. He was greatly helped by the circumstance that the three public offices he held during this period were all related to the law. The recordership of Philadelphia, which he occupied during 1801 and 1802, required him to serve as a judge in certain cases in the Mayor's Court. His duties as federal Commissioner of Bankrupts, to which he was appointed in 1802, included distribution of the assets of insolvent persons in eastern Pennsylvania; this position he gave up after a year because he thought it took more of his time than the remuneration warranted. A f t e r 1801

Most important of his offices was the United States attorneyship for eastern Pennsylvania, to which he was appointed by President Jefferson immediately after his inauguration. He served in this position during the two terms of Jefferson, 1801 to 1809, and under President Madison, 1809 to 1814. During these fourteen years Dallas participated in a number of cases important in American legal history and performed the routine duties of his office in such a fashion as to be praised by Jefferson as "a good lawyer" whose opinions were "sound" and to be complimented by Madison for his "prompt and correct proceedings." As soon as he received Jefferson's offer of the federal attorneyship, Dallas accepted it, eager to forsake provincial Lancaster and the secretaryship of the Commonwealth for the metropolitan attractions of his beloved Philadelphia. He frankly expected that the new office would give him more time for his «47

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own law practice, that its prestige would bring him remunerative private commissions. In this period, before the Attorney General of the United States had been placed in charge of the federal attorneys, these officials were responsible directly to the President and worked closely with members of his cabinet, especially the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and War, and the Attorney General. The federal Attorney for eastern Pennsylvania had more frequent contact with the national administration than had any other district attorney in the country. Such able Federalists as William Lewis, William Rawle, and John W . Kittera had been happy to hold the office under Presidents Washington and Adams. It was late in April 1801 that Dallas began service as federal Attorney, charged with the duty of prosecuting "all delinquents for crimes cognizable under the authority of the United States, and all civil actions or suits in which the United States shall be concerned" arising in Pennsylvania east of the Susquehanna River, with the exception of suits in the United States Supreme Court. Dallas soon found the fulfillment of this duty an exacting and burdensome task. For a remuneration, paid on a fee basis, that fluctuated between $500 and $1,000 a year, he had to vie with the ablest lawyers in behalf of the government at the bar of the state Supreme Court and the federal Circuit Court. During a typical term of the Circuit Court, April 1808, he had 142 cases on the trial list. He found that an inordinate amount of his time at his office was consumed in giving opinions on federal and international law to business men and government officials. He came to feel that he was being excluded from his rightful share of the lucrative business then being divided by Philadelphia barristers. Political considerations, too, lessened Dallas' enthusiasm for the federal attorneyship. While Jefferson praised his work and on occasion sought his opinion on thorny legal problems transcending the limits of the eastern Pennsylvania district, the President's refusal to curb Duane and Leib made Dallas feel

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that he no longer enjoyed the confidence of the prophet of Democratic-Republicanism. Twice during Jefferson's administration, in September 1801 and December 1808, Dallas seriously considered resigning the office. On the latter occasion he actually wrote out a resignation, but did not mail it. Jefferson might rebuff him, but deep within him he felt a strong loyalty to the party he had helped to organize. It worried him that, should he resign, some incompetent Radical might be appointed in his stead. Moreover, as Mrs. Dallas with feminine practicality pointed out, their three sons were looking forward to careers in governmental service, and they would be helped enormously if he retained his connection with the administration. After Madison became President, Dallas' work brought him greater satisfaction, and he gave up all thoughts of resigning. He approved generally of Madison's policies, and the administration reciprocated his sentiments. On one occasion Secretary Monroe gave him carte blanche in an important case, telling him to act as he thought best "for the character and interest of the U. S." Another time, Secretary Robert Smith and President Madison congratulated him on the satisfactory manner in which he was performing his duties. Admiralty and prize-law cases, arising from the maritime war then being fought between Great Britain and France, frequently engaged Dallas' attention as federal Attorney. The war created opportunities for great profits for shrewd American shipowners. But for federal officials, intent on keeping the United States out of war and yet maintaining the rights of American citizens, the situation was a perpetual source of worry. For United States Attorney Dallas, championing the government's interests in court, this was particularly true. During the first years of the period many of these maritime cases concerned the ownership of cargo of vessels seized by belligerent nations and the duties owed the government on cargoes landed in the port of Philadelphia. In 1807, when the United States set up an embargo as an answer to the blockades

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of Europe imposed by France and Great Britain, Dallas' cases became more numerous and more vexing. He did his utmost to prosecute violations of the measure, but local sentiment was so strong against it that he found it exceedingly difficult to win convictions. Nor did the American declaration of war against Great Britain in 1812 bring any abatement of his difficulties. The interests of France and her satellite, Spain, created special problems for the federal Attorney. Since it was the settled policy of the Madison administration to seek cordial relations with these nations, whenever cases involving their maritime affairs came before the Pennsylvania courts Dallas was as solicitous for their side as he could be without sacrificing American interests. His position as a sort of informal Philadelphia representative of the State Department led him to act most frequently in behalf of the Spanish, whose extensive trade and colonial possessions in the Western Hemisphere brought them into constant contact with citizens of the United States. When Philadelphia mobs demonstrated against the Spanish in 1802 and 1807, when agents of Aaron Burr, the British government, and a Dr. John H. Robinson organized plots to seize Spanish colonial territory in 1807, 1 8 1 1 , and 1813 respectively, Dallas kept the administration informed of the developments in his district and, when possible, prosecuted the offenders in court. Dallas' defense of federal interests brought him into conflict with the Pennsylvania government on three memorable occasions. It is significant that these all occurred following his break with the Radicals, for in the course of them he revealed how completely he had abandoned his Jeffersonian constitutional principles. The first encounter took place in the United States Supreme Court during February 18oj, scarcely a month after Dallas had defended the Pennsylvania justices by hailing the common law as our "birth-right and inheritance." In the course of United States v. Fisher, as this appeal from the Pennsylvania courts was called, the opposing counsel argued that the law of 1797, under which the federal government was claiming prior rights over a

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state to payment from the effects of an insolvent debtor, was unconstitutional inasmuch as Congress did not possess the power to give the United States priority in the cases of all persons who in any way became indebted to it. In reply, Dallas offered an argument that stemmed from an exceedingly broad interpretation of the constitution. If an act is to be called unconstitutional, he maintained, it must be shown that "the act and the constitution are in plain conflict with each other. If the question be doubtful the court will presume that the legislature [Congress] has not exceeded its powers." Congress has the right to claim priority because it must provide for the repayment of money that the Constitution empowers it to borrow. Such words were music to the ears of Chief Justice John Marshall. He heartily concurred in handing down his decision. When Dallas attempted to obtain recognition of this principle from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, he ran into unexpected difficulties. In ruling on the case of United States v. Nichols—in which both state and federal governments had entered claims against one William Nichols—Judge Jasper Yeates brushed aside Dallas' contention that the precedent set in United States v. Fisher made it clear that the federal government's claims should be settled first. The Judge asserted in the opinion he rendered on September 13, 1805, that the federal law of 1797 did not apply in such a case as Nichols'. Citing the Federalist Papers as his authority, he held that the national government "cannot detract from the uncontrolable power of the individual States to raise their own revenue, nor infringe on, or delegate from the sovereignty of any independent State." Dallas waited until December 1808 before carrying the case to the United States Supreme Court. In considering the action, the federal court took a remarkable step. It notified the Governor and Attorney-General of Pennsylvania that, although the state was not a party to the suit, they might, if they desired, have Pennsylvania enter the case and argue for the retention of its lien on Nichols' property. This act thoroughly aroused the Radical-dominated Pennsyl-

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vania legislature. In resolutions passed February 1, 1809, it declared that "the individual states have the uncontrolled power to raise their own revenue upon subjects not exclusively given to the United States, and we ought not to permit that right to be interfered with, or questioned, as it would directly tend to defeat, impair, or annihilate an important part of our sovereign power." T o Dallas, already aggrieved by the Radicals' attacks on the state judiciary, the legislature's entrance into the case seemed "very strange" and potentially "very mischievous," prostrating "the Constitutional barrier between the Judicial and Legislative Departments" of the government. Before the federal government made any further move, the state government added fresh defiance to the United States Supreme Court. This was evoked by new developments in a case which had been dragging through the courts since the Revolution. T h e action involved the rival claims of Gideon Olmstead, a Connecticut fisherman, and the state of Pennsylvania to the proceeds from the sale of a British prize sloop, the Active. Although the proceeds had been paid to David Rittenhouse, Treasurer of Pennsylvania, under orders from a state court, Olmstead subsequently obtained a ruling from a federal Circuit Court that the money rightly belonged to him. In February 1809 the United States Supreme Court ordered the issuance of a mandamus requiring the heirs of Rittenhouse to pay over the money to Olmstead. A few weeks later Governor Simon Snyder announced that he would order out the militia, if necessary, to prevent federal officials from enforcing the court's decree. By the end of March both houses of the legislature had adopted new resolutions denying that the federal courts possessed the power to adjudicate the rights of a state. Although they realized that the affair was developing into a dramatic conflict between state rights and the federal courts, Dallas and the other federal officials met the issue with dogged courage. Judge Richard Peters, obeying the mandate of the federal Supreme Court, issued a process against Mrs. Elizabeth Sergeant and Mrs. Esther Waters, executrixes of Rittenhouse's

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estate. Before John Smith, the federal Marshal, had an opportunity to serve it, John Binns, editor of the Philadelphia Democratic Press, called on him to urge that in the interests of "a peaceable result" the Marshal let the process be executed by some person "approved by the Governor's friends." Smith hurried to Dallas for advice. The federal Attorney told him flatly that "he must not, in any way, consent to commit or derogate from, the authority under which he acted." In an episode such as this, it seemed to Dallas, all federal officers should "assert the power and dignity of the Union without impairing the attachment of the State, to our Government and its Administration." Following Dallas' counsel, on March 25 Smith proceeded to the Rittenhouse home at thfe corner of Seventh and Arch streets in Philadelphia to serve the process himself. Here at "Fort Rittenhouse," as the mansion was soon generally known, he found his entrance barred by militiamen, under the command of General Michael Bright, on authority of Governor Snyder. He was so impressed by the bayonets leveled at him that he withdrew without executing his commission. While Philadelphia seethed with excitement at the prospect of pitched battle between state and federal officers, Dallas applied to Washington for instructions. President Madison, who had been in office only a few weeks, ordered him to prosecute "every person whatever, who is obstructing the execution of the process." Dallas thereupon authorized Smith to obtain a posse of two thousand men to help deliver the process. Meanwhile, the state government was trying to reach an understanding with the national administration over the affair. On April 3 the legislature put at Governor Snyder's disposal a sum sufficient to pay the federal government's claim. Three days later, in sending President Madison a copy of the legislature's statement of its state-rights stand, the Governor temporizingly expressed the hope that the President would see the difference between opposition to the federal Constitution and resistance to "the decree of a Judge founded, as it is conceived, on a

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usurpation of power." T o this, Madison bluntly replied on April 13 that it was the President's duty to carry out decrees of the federal courts. In the face of this federal determination, the "rebellion" of the state government collapsed. The Marshal, employing a ruse, entered the Rittenhouse mansion by the back door, served his warrant on Mrs. Sergeant, and left her in the custody of a deputy. On April 17 the militiamen were withdrawn. T w o days later Chief Justice William Tilghman of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld Dallas' plea that Mrs. Sergeant's petition for a habeas corpus be denied and affirmed the federal right to hold her for trial. On April 26 Governor Snyder paid the sum the federal government claimed from the proceeds of the sale of the Active, whereupon Mrs. Sergeant and Mrs. Waters were freed. Dallas was not satisfied with this substantial confession of defeat by the state. The superior rights of the federal government, he thought, must be clearly established in the federal courts before the case could be considered closed. General Bright and his guard, even though they had acted on Governor Snyder's orders, must be convicted of having illegally interferred with the functions of the federal government. Then, as Dallas planned it, the Governor might request President Madison to grant them a pardon, to which the President would graciously agree. This procedure Dallas promptly carried out with the administration's approval. A friendly federal grand jury granted his request for indictments of Bright and several members of his guard. Indeed, some of the jurymen even suggested that the Governor be included in the action. The case was rushed to trial before the federal Circuit Court at Philadelphia on April 28, 1809. Dallas was pleased for the sake of the peace of the state that his friend, Jared Ingersoll, was engaged to assist Walter Franklin, the Pennsylvania Attorney General, in the defense. At the start of the trial Dallas impressed the significance of the case upon the jury in the flamboyant style that characterized

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many of his courtroom addresses. The issue, he asserted, was not simply a question of state sovereignty but of "whether a free government, established and administered by the people themselves, can possess sufficient energy for its own preservation." General Bright's crime was peculiarly menacing to the American form of government because it provided an excuse for the display of military force, in itself always a threat to republicanism. In a sense, it was even more pernicious than treason. The levying of war to subvert the government can always be readily detected and defeated by a vigilant administration, but resistance to the laws, as administered by the courts, may go unnoticed until the people have become used to it. The defense made no effort to controvert the abundant evidence which Dallas presented on the Olmstead and Bright affairs. Its argument was simply that the federal court had no authority to hear the case of Bright's guard, and that the defendants had acted as they did only because they were obeying Governor Snyder's orders. The latter point had a strong effect upon the public, which had been encouraged by newspaper aiticles to believe that persons who acted under the authority of a state in opposing the judgment of a federal court violated no law. This dogma Dallas sharply disputed in his two principal addresses of the trial. In so doing, he came to grips with the constitutional issue underlying the case—the conflict between the sovereignties of the state and federal governments. Here again he showed how far he had swung from his old state-rights Jeffersonianism, for he advanced the doctrine of divided sovereignty, which he had first heard enunciated in the United States Supreme Court by the Federalist Judges John Jay and James Wilson during the 1793 case of Chisholm v. Georgia. Dallas' argument rested on the notion that the sovereignty of all branches of both state and federal governments "resides essentially and everlastingly in the people." In 1787, he declared, the people of Pennsylvania, acting as a portion of the sovereign people of the United States and acting in concert with the rest

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of them, had ordained the federal Constitution. By this they gave to their federal government all the national attributes of judicial as well as executive and legislative power. In 1790, acting for themselves alone, they had ordained the state constitution for their territorial government. Through this they gave to the state government the exercise of every other power necessary for the public welfare, with the exception of those stated in the Declaration of Rights of the state constitution. Since the people had created both state and federal governments, Dallas reasoned, the rights of the federal government were clearly superior. The people had so stated in the national Constitution when they required all state officers to swear to support the federal instrument. Through the Constitution they had also provided that the laws and treaties made under its terms were to be "the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby." This proved "that in every collision between the constitution and laws of the United States and the constitution and laws of an individual state, the latter shall yield, the former shall prevail" and that every state officer shall support the federal Constitution. Moreover, Dallas pointed out, the people of Pennsylvania had explicitly stated in the federal Constitution that the federal courts should have exclusive original cognizance of all civil maritime cases. The Olmstead case, of which the Bright affair was an outgrowth, was such a case. Therefore, he concluded, the state government had had no right to enter it. The evidence and the argument Dallas offered impressed the jury; but so did the plea of the defense that Bright's guard had resisted the federal authority only because it had been ordered to do so by Governor Snyder. For three days and nights the jurymen debated without reaching a decision. T o break the deadlock, Judge Bushrod Washington ordered that each of the counsels draft what he considered a fair verdict so that the jury might make a choice between them. Cagily, Dallas framed a statement which he believed would produce a conviction and at the same time let the jurymen show their sympathy for the

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defendants. T h e militia, it read, had resisted the federal Marshal, but the court should determine whether this act was against the law. This proposal the jury adopted. Thereupon J u d g e Washington declared the case w o n b y the federal government and the defendants all guilty. In a speech requesting J u d g e Washington to impose a moderate yet decided sentence upon the convicted men, Dallas undertook to soften the bitterness that the case had excited throughout the state. T o w a r d the defendants, he declared, he felt "unaffected good will," toward Pennsylvania a "great debt of gratitude and reverence." Nevertheless, he added, he was disappointed that none of the defendants had ever acknowledged that they had committed an error or regretted having committed one. J u d g e Washington responded to Dallas' plea in passing sentence on the prisoners on March 2. Bright was given a three-months' prison term and a fine of $200; his f o u r guards were each to be imprisoned f o r a month and fined $50. Shortly after the trial, Dallas forwarded to President Madison a phrase from J u d g e Washington's address to the prisoners—"it is obvious that y o u have mistaken a supposed d u t y " — a n d suggested that the Chief Executive intervene. On M a y 6, 1809, the President issued a pardon to Bright and his guardsman, and the long-mooted litigation was brought to a peaceful end. T h e temperate determination that Dallas and the federal authorities displayed effectively silenced the Pennsylvania Radicals' challenge to the federal courts and ended, in the national government's favor, one of the first of the long series of struggles w a g e d to determine whether the federal or state government possessed superior power. Satisfaction with Dallas' handling of such cases led the Madison administration to press upon him a commission outside the province of his district attorneyship—the preparation of the W a r Department's case in the court-martial of Brigadier G e n eral William Hull. A Revolutionary W a r general with an excellent record, Hull had been persuaded against his better judgment into commanding an attack on U p p e r Canada during

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the War of 1812. After a brief invasion of Canada, he retreated to Detroit, his starting point, and surrendered his army and fortifications to the British. The defeat so annoyed President Madison that he ordered Hull court-martialed. Dallas was drawn into the affair in January 1813, when Madison and Secretary Monroe were looking about for an able lawyer to act as judge advocate at the trial, which was scheduled to begin at Philadelphia late the next month. It is a case "which involves in a high degree the character of our Country, and it will be safe in your hands," Monroe told Dallas, in urging that he accept the task. "Your well known & established character will inspire confidence in the proceedings for ability & integrity. The public will be satisfied, that while you acquit yourself to the just claims of the nation, you will be equally regardful of what is due to the individual." Ever anxious to assist the Madison administration, Dallas could not resist a request phrased in terms so complimentary. But as he prepared for the trial, he grew less enthusiastic about the chore he had assumed. The War Department desired that three charges be made against Hull: cowardice; neglect of duty and conduct unfitting an officer; and treason. The evidence he assembled convinced Dallas that the last charge could not be sustained; furthermore, he felt that a court-martial had no right to try a case of treason. But the War Department was insistent, and he reluctantly included treason in his list of charges. The last-minute action of the Department in postponing the trial until January 1814 and ordering that it be held at Albany, instead of Philadelphia, also dispirited Dallas. He feared that attendance at a prolonged trial at Albany would interfere with his regular law practice; he was distressed that the wintertime stagecoach journey might affect his physical condition. Late in November Dallas begged the administration to relieve him of the task. Secretary Monroe urged him to reconsider, but he remained reluctant. Finally, Martin Van Buren was appointed as judge advocate in his stead. But although Dallas did not appear personally at the trial of Hull, the charges and specifica-

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tions he had drawn up were introduced at the start of the hearings. T h e trial ended as he had supposed it would—"an affair of mercy." Hull was declared guilty of cowardice and neglect of duty, but found not guilty of treason. On the basis of the first two counts, he was sentenced to be shot. President Madison approved the sentence, but stayed its execution because of Hull's honorable record in the Revolutionary W a r .

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LAWYER AND LOBBYIST might occasionally fret because his duties as United States Attorney excluded him from what he considered his share of the lucrative practice enjoyed b y the Philadelphia bar; but the truth was that during the period in which he held the federal post he prospered exceedingly. In 1801 his annual income was in the neighborhood of $10,000; b y 1814 it had risen to more than $20,000, derived largely from his private practice. This was remarkable f o r an age when an able-bodied farmhand received $75 a year. DALLAS

Dallas' income appears even more impressive when one considers how modest were his fees. For giving an opinion on an ordinary case he charged $ 1 6 ; where much investigation was necessary, and considerable responsibility rested upon him because the points at issue had never been settled by a Philadelphia court, his retainer might run as high as $100. For writing a remonstrance against the decision of a government official or f o r drawing up a petition for the favor of a legislative body, he would ask $200—and more if traveling was required f o r personal solicitation. For arguing an ordinary case in court, $50 was his usual fee, plus an additional $50 if he won. In cases where much was at stake, he received $500 or more. From the relative smallness of his fees and the largeness of his income, it is apparent that Dallas handled a great number and variety of cases, many of such importance that he had to plead them before the state and federal courts in Philadelphia and the United States Supreme Court at Washington. Moreover, it is clear that he spent much time in lobbying—urging on legislators and officers of the government, through correspondence and personal solicitation, the objectives of his clients. Probably no part of his work pleased Dallas more than his regular visits to Washington to plead before the federal Supreme Court. In February, and occasionally again in August, he 160

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would join Jared Ingersoll, Peter S. Du Ponceau, William Lewis, Edward Tilghman, and William Rawle in hiring a coach to make the journey down and back in easy stages. Travel to the February sessions was not easy, for usually the roads were worse for the rain, snow, and hail of winter. But the peripatetic lawyers did their best to forget such inconveniences. As soon as they were out of the city they began acting like schoolboys on a holiday, cracking jokes, bandying puns, and gibbering in hog Latin. As Du Ponceau put it, "We might have been taken for any thing but the grave counsellors of the celebrated bar of Philadelphia." Invariably the appearance of Dallas and his colleagues in the Supreme Court was triumphant. Once, as they strode into the chamber together, Justice Bushrod Washington was heard to exclaim: "This is my bar!" Their cases, according to Du Ponceau, had a preference over all others, in consideration of the distances we had to travel. The greatest liberality was shown to us, by the members of the profession, who usually attended that court. It was really a proud thing, at that time, to be a Philadelphia lawyer. At home in Philadelphia, the bulk of Dallas' routine work dealt with suits involving land titles, admiralty law, usury, and debts. Of his land-title cases, the affair of the Holland Land Company was clearly the most important, for it shaped the course of settlement of a large part of Pennsylvania, became a burning political issue in that state, and evoked a United States Supreme Court decision with far-reaching consequences. The Holland Company was composed of Dutch capitalists who had acquired from Judge James Wilson of the federal Supreme Court warrants to more than a million and a half acres in Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny River. Judge Wilson, in turn, had obtained his claims from the state under its land act of 1792. The muddied wording of this law—opening land to speculators and actual settlers on different terms—inevitably caused the company's claims to be disputed by squatters on its

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land. The conflict came to a head in 1799 when Tench Coxe, newly appointed head of the state board of property, not only refused to allow the company to complete the patenting of the land it claimed, but threatened to revoke the patents it already held and reassign them to squatters. In alarm, the Holland Company engaged Dallas, William Lewis, Jared Ingersoll, and Edward Tilghman to establish its rights through the courts. At the March 1800 term of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the quartette of barristers asked that a mandamus be issued requiring Coxe to issue the outstanding patents. In support, they produced elaborate evidence to show that Judge Wilson and the Company had spent nearly $400,000 for purchasing, improving, and settling the land. Answering Coxe's contention that the Company had not maintained settlements on the land as required by the act of 1792, they pointed to a section of the law which provided that if the holder of a warrant were prevented "by force of arms of the enemies of the United States" from making settlement and he "persisted" in his efforts, he should be entitled to the same rights "as if the actual settlement had been made." The ravages of the Indians— "enemies of the United States"—in western Pennsylvania between 1792 and 1795 had made settlement impossible, they maintained; since 1796 the Company had been "persisting" in an effort to settle its tracts. The Court declined to issue the mandamus but added that if the Company's patents should be forfeited, they must revert to the state; Coxe had no right to assign them to other claimants. Naturally this decision satisfied neither the Holland Company nor the squatters on its land. Soon the latter were joining with small-scale speculators and opportunist politicians to deluge the legislature with petitions for a new land law. In response, the assembly in April 1802 provided that the state Supreme Court should meet at Sunbury as an extraordinary tribunal to weigh the validity of all western land patents. The following June, Dallas and his co-counsels informed the Supreme Court that the Holland Company would have nothing

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to do with the Sunbury tribunal because the terms of the legislature's act would arbitrarily restrict the consideration of the corporation's claims. However, they added, they were willing to participate in any proceeding "by which the merits of the case could be fully and fairly investigated." The consequence was that when the Court met at Sunbury in November 1802, the Company was undefended and the ruling went against it. In his opinion, Judge Jasper Yeates declared that the corporation would have to defend each of its patents if the squatters contested them in court. N o w the Holland Company undertook to reach some sort of compromise agreement with the state government. T o Dallas fell the task of preparing and submitting to the legislature and to Governor McKean an appeal for such an understanding. "All I ask . . . ," he wrote in sending it to the Governor in March 1803, "is an attentive consideration. . . . The affairs of the western country are approaching to a very serious crisis; and it depends on the prudence of our present councils whether a territorial feud, infinitely more extensive than the Wyoming controversy, shall, or shall not, be entailed on our posterity." From the legislature, controlled by Radicals who despised the Holland Company as an instrument of rich foreigners bent upon victimizing the poor westerner, Dallas' appeal received a chilly response. Governor McKean was more sympathetic. Earlier he had been hostile to the Company; but now that his split with the Radicals was growing wider, he was in a mood to embrace almost anything they opposed. He began talking about an arrangement by which the Company could clear its titles through a money payment to the state. Meanwhile, Dallas and his colleagues were also taking their case into the federal courts, whose justices appeared more friendly to their cause than the state judges. As foreigners, the owners of the Holland Company were constitutionally entitled to have their law suits tried by the federal courts. The lawyers began a number of suits to eject squatters on land patented by the Company. In the first round, fought in the federal Circuit

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Court at Philadelphia in April 1804, they met almost complete defeat. Judges Washington and Peters avoided giving any decision on the basic issue, but they ruled against the Company in every one of its suits. Still undaunted, the Holland Company attorneys carried one of the cases, Huidekoper's Lessee v. Douglass, to the United States Supreme Court the following February. In his argument Dallas added an important new point to those he had made during previous hearings. Answering the squatters' stock argument that the Company was not entitled to its land because it had not "persisted" in making settlements until it succeeded, he held that the act of 1792 did not require that it must. Those who contend that it does, Dallas asserted, "make the legislature speak in this absurd language— Persist until the settlement is made, and you shall have the land in the same manner as if settlement had been made." Surely what the legislature meant, he insisted, was that it would consider a claimant's endeavor a success. After arbitrarily rewriting one provision of the Pennsylvania Land Act so that its phrases would not contradict one another, Chief Justice John Marshall agreed with Dallas that to "persist" was to succeed. Therefore, by its persistence the Company had become an "actual settler" and must be protected against squatters. But Marshall's decision carried the implications even further than Dallas and his colleagues had suggested. The Act of 1792, he declared, was a contract; and since the state is a party to this contract, in its dealings with the Holland Company it must obey the well-established principles which generally regulate contracts. Despite this complete confirmation of the Company's claims by the highest court, the Radicals continued to use the question to agitate Pennsylvania political life. It required the state's defeat in the Olmstead-Bright affair in 1809 to kill the Holland case as a public issue. The largest and most profitable part of Dallas' practice dealt with maritime cases. W e have already seen how the efforts of Philadelphia merchants and shippers to continue their far-flung

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trade despite the global struggle going on between Great Britain and France provided him with constant problems as federal Attorney. The stopping, seizure, and condemnation of vessels rising out of the warfare—most of it without precedent in the history of maritime commerce—provided a golden harvest for the Philadelphia bar, in which Dallas shared as a private practitioner. This type of case began to demand the attention of the lawyers early in the 1790's; but the real bonanza came when Napoleon Bonaparte began to strut across the European scene in the last years of the century. Indeed, as a young colleague of Dallas named Horace Binney observed, few persons owed more to Napoleon than the members of the Philadelphia bar. Bonaparte was a great buccaneer whose acts were imitated by the British with spirit and fidelity; but what distinguished him and the British from the pirates of earlier days was the felicitous manner in which they resolved every act of privacy into some principle of the law of nations. Had he stolen and called it a theft, not a single law suit would have resulted. But he stole from neutrals and called it lawful prize. He always gave a reason and kept the legal profession debating. As a consequence of these conditions, maritime, admiralty, and prize law was the first branch of American jurisprudence to be developed to any degree. T o this development Dallas, as a leading barrister, made notable contributions. The same desire—to help bring order and uniformity to legal practice— which had caused him to publish his Reports led him to sponsor the publication of an important judicial opinion on admiralty law. His friend, Thomas Cooper, while sitting as a member of the Pennsylvania High Court of Errors and Appeals in 1808, had delivered a dissenting opinion in the case of Dempsey v. The Insurance Company of Pennsylvania with which Dallas cordially agreed. Disturbed by Great Britain's and France's violation of our commercial rights, Cooper denied that the interpretation given the law of nations by a foreign court had any binding force in American jurisprudence. Such a position was highly acceptable to the Madison administration and to Ameri-

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can shippers. It seemed to Dallas that Cooper's opinion presented this point of view "so comprehensively, analytically and clearly" that it should be made available to courts, legislative bodies, and lawyers throughout the country. T o this end he obtained Judge Cooper's permission and published it in book form in 1810. In the courtroom, too, Dallas played his part in the development of American admiralty law. Governments engaged him to contend for their rights as belligerents or neutrals. Shipowners trading under licenses and privateering under letters of marque retained him to defend their interests. Insurance companies engaged him to represent them in suits arising under marine insurance policies. A dozen of the cases that Dallas pleaded for these clients before the high Pennsylvania courts found place in the standard law reports of the period; of the score he argued in the United States Supreme Court, at least five are regarded as significant milestones in the work of that tribunal. The earliest of the federal Supreme Court cases was that of United States v. Richard Peters, heard during the August 1795 term. The question involved was one of perennial interest— whether a vessel owned by a foreign government might be seized under the orders of a federal court. Representing the United States, Dallas urged issuance of a writ to prohibit Peters, a federal district judge, from entertaining a libel against an armed French vessel, the Cassius. He contended that the Cassius should not be treated as a privateer, as Peters proposed to do, because she was owned by the French Republic. Even if she had been illegally fitted out in the United States, said Dallas, she could not be libeled in the American courts, for the property of a sovereign and independent nation is sacred from judicial seizure. This position was upheld by the Court over the arguments of Edward Tilghman and William Lewis. At the same session Dallas discussed what disposition should be made of a vessel captured by a French privateer illegally fitted out in an American port. In Talbot v. Jansen, as this case was called, he joined Ingersoll and Du Ponceau in representing Cap-

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tain William Talbot, a native of Virginia who had captured a Dutch vessel and brought it into Charleston, South Carolina, as a prize. Dallas maintained that the federal government should not take the vessel away from Talbot, even though he had illegally fitted out his own ship in an American port, because he was a naturalized citizen of France and was operating as a French privateer. Furthermore, he added, American courts had no jurisdiction over the case because the capture had been made under the authority of the French government. Dallas argued valiantly, but the evidence he offered was weak. In ruling against Talbot, the Court ignored the question of jurisdiction, indicated its doubt about the validity of the sea captain's French citizenship, and called the capture a violation of the law of nations because it had been accomplished by vessels that were actually American. Of interest, because it typifies the tangled problems of ownership arising as the maritime warfare quickened, was the case of Talbot v. Ship Amelia which Dallas pleaded before the Supreme Court at its August terms of 1800 and 1801. On September 6, 1799, the Hamburg vessel Amelia had been captured by the French, only to be recaptured nine days later by the American warship Constitution. When Captain Silas Talbot of the American navy brought the Amelia into N e w York as a prize, the Amelia's original owners disputed his right to her on the ground that the city of Hamburg was not at war with the United States. When the case reached the highest court in 1800, through a series of appeals, Dallas was engaged, along with Moses Levy and J. T . Mason, to represent the owners of the Amelia. Because of vacancies on the bench, no decision was given until 1801. Dallas and his associates emphasized that at the time of the Amelia's capture and recapture, the United States was at peace with the world. The act of July 1798, it was true, authorized our navy to capture armed French vessels but not those of any other nation. Therefore, American vessels might recapture from French ships only goods belonging to citizens or residents of the United States. France had violated the law of nations by

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capturing the Amelia; but that was no excuse for the United States also to violate it by approving the vessel's recapture by an American warship. This intricately reasoned argument was only partially successful. John Marshall, in his first opinion as Chief Justice, handed down an order that was in essence a compromise. The Amelia, he directed, should be sold, and the costs of the trial paid from the proceeds. One-sixth of the money left after this had been done was to go to Talbot and the crew of the Constitution, the rest to the Hamburg owners of the Amelia. The desire of the Madison administration to retain the good will of France during the period in which the United States was sliding into war with Great Britain was the consideration underlying another of Dallas' important cases, Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon. In 1810 the French government captured an American schooner, the Exchange, and converted it into a vessel in its own service. Subsequently the original owners of the Exchange obtained a libel in an American court over the opposition of Napoleon Bonaparte, who denied that our courts had any jurisdiction over ships owned by his government. When the case reached the Supreme Court on February 24, 1812, Dallas joined Attorney General William Pinkney in supporting, on behalf of the United States, the position of the French government. Dallas denied that the case was one for admiralty jurisdiction and asserted that as a "public national vessel of France," the Exchange was not liable to the ordinary judicial processes of the United States. He made it clear that he and Pinkney "did not justify" the seizure of the schooner, but maintained that the matter would have to be settled by diplomatic negotiations, reprisals, or war. Counsel for the original owners of the Exchange, on the other hand, urged the court to weigh Napoleon Bonaparte's infractions of our neutral rights. In brushing aside this appeal and granting the American government's prayer, Chief Justice Marshall declared that wrongs arising from breaches of neutral rights "were rather questions of

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policy than law" and "are for diplomatic rather than legal discussion"—a virtual echo of Dallas' argument. The rights of a neutral shipping goods in the vessel of a nation with which the United States was at war was the issue involved in another memorable case of Dallas'. An American privateer, the Governor Tompkins, in December 1813 captured an armed British vessel, the Nereide, bearing a valuable cargo belonging to a Spanish merchant named Pinto. As a neutral, Pinto sued in the American courts to recover his goods. When the case of the Nereide reached the Supreme Court on March 6, 1815, Dallas appeared with Pinkney to plead the captor's case. Dallas' participation in the case is of particular interest, for it marks one of his rare courtroom appearances while he was Secretary of the Treasury. In an impressive address, Dallas questioned Pinto's right to be considered a neutral by casting serious doubts on his Spanish citizenship. Moreover, he declared, our treaty with Spain implies that "hostile ships make hostile goods." Thus, even if Pinto were a neutral, it was illegal for him to hire an armed vessel which belongs to our enemy and which in the course of its trade engages in battle with American ships. Dallas took pains to thrust upon the shoulders of Pinto responsibility for the belligerent status of the Nereide. In his opinion Chief Justice Marshall paid tribute to the eloquence of Dallas. "With a pen dipped in the most vivid colours," he said, "and guided by the hand of a master, a splendid portrait has been drawn exhibiting this vessel and her freighter [Pinto] as forming a single figure, composed of the most discordant materials of peace and war. So exquisite was the skill of the artist, so dazzling the garb in which the figure was presented, that it required the exercise of that cold investigating faculty which ought always to belong to those who sit on the bench, to discover its only imperfection; its want of resemblance." His "cold investigating faculty," Marshall added, had led him to prefer the appeal of Pinto's counsel, Thomas Addis Emmet. The right

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of a neutral to ship goods in an armed merchantman belonging to a belligerent was a "part of the original law of nations." Further tribute to Dallas was offered by Judge Joseph Story. Speaking for himself and a colleague, the brilliant young member of the highest court expressed complete agreement with the doctrine that Pinto had so inextricably bound up his interests with those of a belligerent that his goods must be considered as hostile. Nonetheless, the majority of the Court followed Marshall's lead and ruled against Dallas and Pinkney. From the perplexities of admiralty law there sprang one of the great professional and personal friendships of Dallas' life— that with the eccentric mariner-merchant, Stephen Girard. With dogged singleness of purpose, Girard was amassing one of the two largest fortunes in the United States. Regularly his fleet of ships brought the produce of Amsterdam and Canton, of Buenos Aires and Riga, to the American market. Like other Philadelphia shippers, he found that the trade regulations of the Jefferson administration made it necessary for him frequently to seek the counsel of the federal Attorney. The friendship between the tall, courtly Dallas and the short, almost psychopathically shy Girard ripened as the United States slid into war with Great Britain. In March 1812 the merchant came to Dallas seeking counsel on a vexing problem. Late the year before, he explained, expecting that the Nonintercourse Act would soon be raised, he had ordered his ship, the Good Friends, to sail from London for the United States bearing a cargo worth more than /65,00ο. Before the vessel reached its destination, however, he learned that the act was to continue in force. Immediately he ordered that it put in at the Spanish port of Amelia Island, off the northeast coast of Florida. Now he was hearing rumors that the island was a smugglers' nest, a dangerous haven for a valuable cargo. In co-operation with Jared Ingersoll, Dallas undertook to get Girard out of his difficulties. In the merchant's name they drafted a memorial begging Congress to permit the Good Friends to enter Philadelphia in exception to the Nonintercourse Act, with

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the understanding that its cargo would then be re-exported. Copies of this they sent to Senator Michael Leib and Congressman Adam Seybert, with the request that they present them to their respective houses. Dallas also wrote letters to Secretaries Monroe and Gallatin urging that they intercede in Girard's behalf. The case involved broad public principles, he declared; since we were on the verge of war, all our shipping ought to be brought home immediately. Before these appeals met any response, the Good Friends situation changed radically. Following a revolution in East Florida, American officials took possession of Amelia Island. The Good Friends was directed to proceed to Philadelphia, there to await orders from the Treasury Department. Late in April, while sailing up the Delaware River, the vessel was seized by the Collector of the Port of Wilmington, Delaware. Girard hastened to Wilmington to obtain its release. In this he succeeded, thanks in part to the advice Dallas forwarded by post and even more to the sum he paid the government as a forfeiture. Early in June, Dallas had to pass on another unpleasant bit of news to Girard—the Comptroller of the Treasury had ordered him, as federal Attorney, to institute a suit for treble the value of the Good Friends cargo as a penalty for violating the Nonintercourse Act. But so convinced was Dallas that the merchant had been the victim of circumstances beyond his own control that he notified him the following October that, as federal Attorney, he could not support the action and was discontinuing it. This displeased the Treasury Department and the claim against Girard was subsequently renewed. While the Good Friends question remained unsolved, Girard returned to Dallas for help on the case of another of his vessels. In March 1813, his Montesquieu, bound for Philadelphia from Canton, had been captured by the British squadron blockading Delaware Bay. Girard wanted to know if he might ransom the vessel. Dallas told him that this was not forbidden by law but advised him to get in touch with the administration before negotiating with the enemy. On Girard's behalf he sent a statement

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of the case to Secretary Monroe; early in April the Secretary wrote back that President Madison approved the ransoming and authorized an American army commander to send a flag with Girard's negotiator. Accordingly, Girard paid $80,000 to the British and the Montesquieu was allowed to proceed to Philadelphia. About this time Girard received word that the Good Friends, which had gone to sea soon after being released at Wilmington, had also fallen into British hands. The loss made him all the more anxious that the government discontinue its claims against him for violation of the Nonintercourse Act. Again he sought the assistance of Dallas. The lawyer felt he could obtain more satisfactory results by presenting the case in person at the capital. Armed with a new memorial to Congress, he journeyed to Washington in June 1813. Dallas spent nearly a month pressing the case upon governmental leaders. Acting Secretary of the Treasury William Jones and Congressman John W . Eppes, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, conceded that Girard's request was just, but declined to do anything about it on account of the Treasury's depleted condition. Dallas met a more cordial response from Senator Samuel Smith of Maryland, chairman of the Senate committee to which Girard's memorial was referred. Smith's group sponsored in the upper house a bill drafted by Dallas which provided that if Girard paid a double duty on the Good Friends cargo, the penalties already paid would be remitted. Thanks largely to Dallas' lobbying, the bill he wrote sailed through both houses and became law in July 1813. Even so, it took months of vigilance on his part to settle the matter definitely. Under the terms of the act, Girard had to petition a federal court for remission of the penalties. In support of Girard's application, Dallas gathered a vast amount of data which he forwarded to the court at Wilmington. N o t until 1814 did the Treasury Department complete the remission. Another venture of Girard—into private banking—also provided Dallas with frequent employment during the war years.

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Girard's enterprise aroused the jealousy of the Pennsylvania government, which held large blocks of the stock of the incorporated banks of the state. In January 1 8 1 4 , about t w o years after Girard's bank was opened, the lower house of the legislature passed a bill forbidding the practice of private banking. Alarmed, the merchant once again turned to Dallas and Jared Ingersoll. T h e lawyers f o l l o w e d a n o w familiar line of campaign. In Girard's name they drafted and sent to the legislature a memorial protesting that the bill confounded "things l a w f u l with things u n l a w f u l , " placed "the civil rights of an individual, derived f r o m the Constitution, upon the same footing with the artificial rights of a Corporation created by legislative grant," and was, in effect, an ex post facto law. Dallas also sent personal letters to friends in the assembly, including the Speakers of the House and Senate, telling them that the bill was "unjust, impolitic, and unconstitutional." Girard had paid him to write the memorial, he added, but he sincerely believed every w o r d of it. Despite these efforts of Dallas, the legislature passed the bill over G o v e r n o r Snyder's veto, and it became law in March 1814. Reluctant to interfere with the state's banking structure during wartime, the Pennsylvania government never enforced the measure and Girard continued his prosperous career as a private banker. Girard found Dallas' services as l a w y e r and lobbyist exceedingly useful when he sought consideration f o r his bank f r o m the federal government. T o help meet costs of the war, Congress in 1813 imposed a stamp duty on the notes of banks and corporations. In place of this, banks were permitted to pay 1 Y2 per cent of their annual dividend to stockholders. A s a private banker Girard could not make use of the alternative, a circumstance which put him at a disadvantage in competing with incorporated banks. In the banker's behalf, Dallas and several other lawyers early in 1814 urged Congress to allow private bankers to pay their stamp duty in one annual lump sum. A bill f o r this purpose passed

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the House in March, but Congress adjourned before the Senate had acted upon it. Later the same year, soon after he had become Secretary of the Treasury, Dallas wrote Girard suggesting that he renew his petition to Congress. Girard followed his advice. Then, with the help of Senator Jonathan Roberts and Congressman Charles Jared Ingersoll, Dallas pushed through Congress a bill for the relief of private bankers which became law in December 1814.

XVI

THE CALL TO NATIONAL SERVICE the year 1 8 1 2 opened, Dallas had, to all intents and purposes, permanently retired from politics. He was persona non grata with all factions of the Democratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania; he held little influence with the national administration; he was engrossed in his profitable law practice and what he termed "the superlative enjoyments" of family life. By the end of 1814 all that was changed. He was again a power in the state party and the subject of complimentary notices in John Binns' influential Philadelphia Democratic Press; the politically waning William Duane was complaining that he "regulated" everything that concerned Pennsylvania in Washington; he had become an intimate financial adviser to the Madison administration and ultimately its Secretary of the Treasury. WHEN

Dallas was moved to forsake his professional practice and domestic felicity by his patriotism, stirred by the United States' second war with Great Britain. He heartily approved when Congress responded to President Madison's call for a declaration of war in June 1812. His nearly three decades of life and work in Pennsylvania had made him so thoroughly American that there was in his heart and mind no trace of divided loyalty between the flag of his birth and the flag of his adopted land. He felt that British acts since 1803 had forced upon the United States the choice of either national degradation or resistance. As the conflict progressed, he saw it as a "holy war" which was advancing the nation "a century . . . in power and character." His desire that the war be vigorously prosecuted led Dallas to resume a measure of political activity during the autumn of 1812. President Madison was running for re-election on a platform of uncompromising belligerency. Opposing him, as the candidate of the "Friends of Peace, Union and Commerce" was De Witt Clinton, a New York Democratic-Republican who had been endorsed by a Federalist convention. Dallas' good friend, 175

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Jared Ingersoll, allowed his name to be run as the coalition's vice-presidential candidate. In Pennsylvania, Joseph B. McKean and other pacifist Democratic-Republicans declared f o r Clinton and Ingersoll. In September, when the state Democratic-Republican committee met to organize in behalf of Madison, Dallas could not resist the impulse to help with its work. His veteran hand drew up campaign plans and an address to the voters. These he sent to the meeting; but reluctant openly to re-enter politics, he did not attend himself. His plans were adopted by the committee; the address was published in the Democratic-Republican newspapers and circulated as a broadside throughout the state b y "three active and intelligent special Agents." T w o ambitious young men of whom Dallas was fond were members of the committee for Philadelphia; and it is likely that through them he gave advice on the conduct of the campaign in the city. One was Richard Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, who had married Dallas' daughter, Sophia, in 1805. T h e other was Charles Jared Ingersoll, able son of Jared Ingersoll, whose devotion to literature, the law, and politics made him a kindred spirit of Dallas. Young Ingersoll had broken a w a y from the tradition of his Loyalist grandfather and Federalist father, and was running for Congress on the DemocraticRepublican ticket. Both Bache and Ingersoll were members of the now dominant Binns-Snyder faction of the Pennsylvania Democratic-Republican party. On the whole, the results of the elections gratified Dallas. In Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, sentiment was strong f o r war. T h e Democratic-Republicans carried the state for Madison by a comfortable margin. Young Ingersoll was elected to Congress. But Dallas was disquieted that one wealthy and populous section of the country—New England—was resolutely opposed to the President and his war program. All through 1813, while the nation's armed forces foundered, Dallas' faith in the American cause remained undiminished. But as the army piled up a disheartening series of reverses, he could

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not suppress a sigh about John Armstrong, Madison's unhappy choice for Secretary of W a r : " H e was the Devil from the beginning, is now, and ever will be!" Dallas felt pride in the navy which, although unsuccessful in diminishing the overwhelming superiority of the British fleet, was triumphant in a number of dramatic engagements. W h e n Philadelphians feted the nation's new naval heroes—Captain Isaac Hull, Commodore Stephen Decatur, and Commodore William Bainbridge—he served as a member of the committees in charge. He succinctly expressed his feelings in a toast at a banquet to Bainbridge. "Gentlemen, to the campaign!" he cried. "It has not gratified hope, but it should not create despair." The United States was fighting a desperate battle along another front—the fiscal front; here Dallas was able to render his country very real and important service. T h e government had entered the war unprepared financially because of the pinchpenny economy of Secretary Gallatin in administering the Treasury Department. W h e n Gallatin finally appreciated the danger and recommended revenue-raising measures, an obtuse Congress refused to co-operate. Dallas' opportunity to help arose through his friendship with Secretary Gallatin and his social and professional associations with the moneyed men of Philadelphia. Gallatin had long found Dallas a valuable unofficial intermediary in dealing with these men. For example, back in the spring of 1808, the Secretary, anxious that the charter of the Bank of the United States be renewed well in advance of its expiration in 1811, had told Dallas just how the bank should submit its petition for an extension to Congress. This word Dallas duly passed on to his friend David Lenox, president of the bank. T h e bank officials had accordingly transmitted a memorial to the Senate in April 1808. But although Gallatin gave the memorial all the support he could, Congress had stubbornly resisted renewal of the charter. As the outbreak of war approached, and financial conditions became correspondingly severe, Gallatin came more and more to make Dallas his confidant. W h e n Dallas visited Washington

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for the Supreme Court sessions in February 1812, the two men discussed at length the measures Congress was debating—increased customs duties, internal taxes, a levy of $3,000,000 to be apportioned among the states. Returning to Philadelphia by way of Lancaster, Dallas discussed with Governor Snyder the attitude of Pennsylvania toward such proposals. Snyder told him that "some of the taxes proposed are unpalatable, but will be swallowed." The state, he promised, would give every possible aid to the federal government. As soon as Dallas reached home, he forwarded this news to Gallatin and, thinking of the problems with which his friend was struggling, concluded his letter with a heartfelt " G o d bless you!" Gallatin had sore need of Dallas' good wishes. Members of Congress, fearful as to how their constituents would react to the proposed taxes, shied away from revenue-raising legislation. T o provide the government with temporary assistance, in March 1812 they authorized an $11,000,000 loan bearing 6 per cent interest. When the subscription books were opened in May, the response was discouraging. The South and wealthy N e w England took comparatively little; even the Middle States gave grudging support. During the following summer Dallas anxiously canvassed his banker acquaintances in behalf of the Treasury. Benjamin R. Morgan warned him that nothing could be expected from the Bank of North America. Thomas W . Francis assured him that his Philadelphia Bank would lend the government $400,000. Stephen Girard told him he would do everything he could to help the government, adding that profit was not his object. This news Dallas promptly forwarded to Gallatin. The Philadelphia Bank made good its promise; but Girard, resentful because the Treasury Department would not put his bank on an equal footing with other Philadelphia institutions, in the end declined to take any of the loan. The position Dallas now held in Secretary Gallatin's councils led the Philadelphia bankers to seek him out when they had ideas that they wished to reach the ear of the Secretary. Thomas

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Francis visited Dallas on such a mission in March 1812. He explained that his firm, Willing and Francis, was acting as agent of the foreign stockholders of the Bank of the United States, then being liquidated. He was reluctant, he said, to see the more than $7,000,000 of capital represented by the foreign-owned stock return to Europe at a time when the United States was nearing such dangerous financial shoals. T h e foreign stockholders were adamant against the use of their holdings in subscribing for the government's $11,000,000 loan. The w a y out, Francis felt, was for the government to renew the charter of the bank for at least four or five years. Dallas forwarded an account of this "hankering after a charter" to Secretary Gallatin without comment. Renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States was by this time a political impossibility, and Gallatin ignored the proposal of Francis. During the winter of 1 8 1 2 - 1 3 the financial outlook of the United States grew bleaker. By February 1813 the little more than $6,000,000 which the Treasury was able to realize from the loan of March 1812 had been spent. Congress, still reluctant to impose internal taxes, authorized Secretary Gallatin to borrow an additional $16,000,000. During March, Gallatin was able to place less than $6,000,000 of this at 6 per cent. He was at a loss where to turn. Then—thanks to Dallas—began a train of events that was to rescue the government from bankruptcy in the nick of time. Early in March 1813 Dallas happened to discuss the crisis with David Parish, a dashing international financial adventurer then living in Philadelphia. Parish was a member of a family influential in the banking circles of Europe and Great Britain, the owner of vast tracts in N e w York State along the Canadian border. His business interests had made him anxious that the war be brought to a speedy conclusion; fearing that the successful floating of the $16,000,000 issue would prolong the hostilities, he had declined a suggestion of Gallatin that he take some of the loan before it was offered to the general public. Dallas asked Parish whether he would not change his mind and try to

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induce American capitalists to join him in completing the subscription. Parish replied that he would, provided the government indicated that it would conclude the war as soon as that was possible "with Honor"; or, if that could not be accomplished shortly, Congress would make "the necessary appropriations" to conduct the war vigorously. If American capitalists refused to come in with him, Parish thought he could obtain funds from European sources. Dallas dispatched an account of this conversation to Gallatin. From the harassed Secretary came a speedy reply. He was coming to Philadelphia in a few weeks and would talk with Parish then. In the interval Dallas kept encouraging Parish to carry out his scheme. But of such encouragement there was little need. Parish had read Gallatin's circular of March 18, 1813—which may have been inspired by Parish's proposition—announcing that until April 5 the Treasury would receive proposals for as much of the loan as had not been subscribed before April 1. The circular provided that "any person collecting subscriptions for the purpose of incorporating them in one proposal . . . of one hundred thousand dollars or upward would be allowed a commission of one-quarter of one per cent." Seeing in this an opportunity for what he called "a Handsome Profit," Parish got in touch with two capitalists with whom he had previously done business—Stephen Girard of Philadelphia and John Jacob Astor of New York—and persuaded them to join him in taking the unsubscribed amount of the loan. He found other capitalists in Philadelphia, N e w York, and Baltimore ready to buy some of the stock for which he subscribed. So it was that on April 6, 1813, while Secretary Gallatin was a guest at Dallas' home, an agreement was reached whereby Parish and Girard jointly took $7,055,800 of the 6 per cent stock at 88, while Astor took $2,056,000 of it at the same figure. The $16,000,000 loan was thereby completed. Thus, by the efforts of the German-born Parish and Astor, the French-born Girard, the Swiss-born Gallatin and the British-born Dallas, the greatest

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financial transaction during the W a r of 1812 was concluded and the United States w a s saved f r o m b a n k r u p t c y . W h i l e Gallatin w a s at Philadelphia, he opened an unusual o p p o r t u n i t y to Dallas' second son, G e o r g e . T h e Secretary had just been named b y President Madison to g o to E u r o p e to join J o h n Q u i n c y A d a m s in peace negotiations w i t h G r e a t Britain. Gallatin offered to take G e o r g e along as his private secretary, the y o u t h ' s expenses to be paid b y his father. Dallas accepted enthusiastically, f o r he cherished high hopes f o r his son's future. G e o r g e was then t w e n t y - o n e years old. Since his graduation f r o m Princeton w i t h highest honors three years before, he had served as an apprentice in his father's law office and had just been admitted to the Philadelphia bar. "I deliver G e o r g e into y o u r care w i t h o u t any recommendation," Dallas w r o t e Gallatin as the A m e r i c a n mission sailed in M a y 1813, " f o r I k n o w that y o u will treat him as y o u r son. . . . F r o m y o u r care, the F a m ily expect the return of G e o r g e , improved in b o d y and mind." W h i l e Gallatin w a t c h e d over G e o r g e in Europe, the Dallases looked out f o r the e n v o y ' s family in the United States. For several months during the winter of 1813-14 Mrs. Gallatin lived at the Dallas home, and her small daughter attended a school just next door. Dallas, w i t h his customary graciousness, took pains to obtain f o r Mrs. Gallatin reports on the progress of her husband's mission. H e was bitterly distressed b y the refusal o f the Senate, after Gallatin had left f o r Europe, to approve his nomination as an e n v o y until he should resign as Secretary o f the T r e a s u r y . Meanwhile, the finances of the United States w e r e d r i f t i n g into deeper waters. Secretary of the N a v y W i l l i a m Jones, the amiable incompetent w h o had also become A c t i n g Secretary o f the T r e a s u r y w h e n Gallatin left, f o u n d the $16,000,000 loan o n l y a t e m p o r a r y barrier against the surging demands of w a r . T h e release of additional treasury notes, and the imposition o f internal revenue duties and a direct tax helped little more. In A u g u s t 1813 Congress authorized a n e w loan of $7,500,000 t o

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be sold at not less than 88. Again Dallas hunted up his friends among the financiers and urged them to subscribe. Secretary Jones was so impressed by Dallas' solicitude for the administration that when he learned, early in 1814, that the peace negotiations would keep Gallatin in Europe indefinitely, he persuaded President Madison that the federal Attorney would make a suitable permanent head of the Treasury. With the President's authorization, he wrote Dallas on February 1 offering him the position; as an alternative, he suggested the attorneygeneralship, from which William Pinkney had just resigned. T w o other Philadelphia friends, Comptroller of the Treasury Richard Rush and Congressman Ingersoll, wrote from Washington urging Dallas to accept the Treasury position. Gratifying as these offers were, Dallas declined them for pecuniary reasons. The office of Secretary of the Treasury carried a salary of $5,000 a year, and Dallas' mode of living in Philadelphia cost him more than four times that. The attorneygeneralship somewhat tempted him although it paid only $3,000, for he thought he could continue private practice while holding it. But when he learned that he would have to take up residence in Washington, at a considerable distance from his clientele, he ruled that out too. For reasons of political expediency, Madison acquiesced in Dallas' declination. When the President questioned the Pennsylvania senators, Michael Leib and Abner Lacock, as to whether they would support the nomination of Dallas to the Treasury, the two Radicals flatly announced that they would vote against a "mere Philadelphia lawyer." The presence of one erstwhile Pennsylvania Constitutionalist—Jones—in the cabinet was almost more than they could put up with. Realizing that if the Pennsylvania senators opposed Dallas' nomination, it would have small chance of getting through the Senate, Madison appointed Senator George W . Campbell of Tennessee as Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Campbell soon showed himself incapable of dealing with the burdens placed upon the treasury and the business

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community by the military reverses suffered by the United States during the spring and summer of 1814. During March and April he attempted to place a new $25,000,000 loan on a curious set of terms which encouraged subscribers to depress the stock so as to obtain rebates and which held out small prospect of profit to the capitalists. Dallas agreed with his friend Parish that Campbell's conditions were ill-advised; but he nevertheless encouraged the entrepreneur to undertake the formation of a syndicate to subscribe for some of the stock. Parish approached Astor, Girard, and others with such a proposal, but they shied away. Early in May, Parish again cornered Dallas for a "social conversation" about the loan. By this time it had become painfully apparent that Secretary Campbell was going to obtain only about $9,000,000 of the $25,000,000 he sought. Parish therefore thought that the Secretary would be receptive to a plan which he had devised with the aid of Astor and the approval of Girard. As he outlined it to Dallas, Parish was to go to Europe to seek a loan of ten or fifteen millions from the Dutch bankers; he believed that through his influence with powerful Amsterdam and London houses he might place the stock as high as 95. It was to be understood, Parish added, that he, Astor, and Girard were to be allowed a commission for handling the loan. Dallas, as he himself admitted, was "very anxious" for the Madison administration "personally and politically" and "sincerely wished he knew how to serve it." Therefore when Parish requested that he sponsor the bankers' scheme, he gladly obliged by forwarding an outline of it to Secretary Monroe. But the administration treated the proposal with the same fatal indecision that characterized so much of its war effort. President Madison and Secretary Campbell, to whom Monroe showed the plan, saw merit in it but delayed doing anything about it. Late in May, Campbell wrote Dallas that he would consider further suggestions from the Parish-Girard-Astor combination. Parish and Astor spent the summer negotiating with Campbell, but never succeeded in getting him to give a categorical reply to

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their proposal. Meanwhile, the Treasury limped along on the inadequate funds supplied by Jacob Barker, a New York banker. About the same time that Dallas was bringing Parish's proposals to the attention of the government, his concern for the financial stability of the nation was leading him to join a group of capitalists in a campaign for a new national bank. The movement had been on foot for several months when Dallas identified himself with it. In January 1814, citizens of New York and Pennsylvania had petitioned Congress to charter a national bank. The suggestion had been received with some favor by such leaders as John C. Calhoun of South Carolina; but the agitation had been effectively blocked in the House of Representatives by John W. Eppes of Virginia, who announced in January, through the Ways and Means Committee of which he was chairman, that a bank could not be justified by a strict construction of the Constitution. However, the need for such an institution was so deeply felt by the capitalists that they were not discouraged by Eppes' dictum. In the middle of March an article urging a bank, probably from the pen of Jacob Barker, appeared in the Washington National Intelligencer. During the new wave of enthusiasm which this article excited, Dallas had another "social conversation" with Parish. Parish revealed that he was now carrying on discussions about a national bank with Astor, Girard, and Thomas M. Willing, a Philadelphia banker. All of them agreed that a bank was most desirable because it could lend the government the money that it was having so much trouble in borrowing from capitalists and the statechartered banks. All desired to be named directors of the institution if it were formed. None of them, Parish reported to Dallas, was very sanguine about the prospect of Congress chartering a bank before adjournment that spring, but they did hope to prepare public sentiment for action at the next session. Astor, the leader of the movement, had drawn up an outline for such a bank and was circulating it discreetly among his fellow capitalists. Dallas readily volunteered his services to the cause as an au-

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thority on constitutional law. Late in March he sent Astor, then in Washington lobbying for the bank, a list of reasons why such an institution was completely within the scope of the constitution. He suggested that Astor have this published in the National Intelligencer but asked that his name not be used in connection with it. A few days later Parish came to Dallas seeking more open support. He had just learned that the administration, hard pressed for funds, had had one of its spokesmen, Congressman Felix Grundy of Tennessee, offer a motion in favor of a national bank. Therefore, it seemed to Parish, "we must expect to see this subject fully & publickly discussed all thro' the Country. . . . W e ought . . . to use all fair & proper means to make Proselytes and render the measures as popular as possible." Dallas was not optimistic about the immediate prospects, but he did everything he could to help. He dined with Parish frequently to discuss the situation from all angles. He wrote friends in Washington—Secretary Jones, Senator Roberts, Congressman Ingersoll, William Findley, and Nathaniel Macon—urging them to forward the cause. His misgivings proved justified, however. In early April the Treasury succeeded in placing part of the $25,000,000 loan; there was a renewal of rumors that Great Britain was willing to make peace. Believing that it could weather the crisis without a bank, the administration withdrew its support, and the movement in Congress collapsed. During the next four and a half months the military and financial situation of the United States grew steadily worse. In April, Great Britain tightened its control over the Atlantic seacoast by extending its blockade to N e w England. In August, British troops captured Washington and burned the Capitol and White House. N e w England Federalist leaders began to talk of forming a separate union composed of the eastern states. Secretary Campbell found he could borrow only about $11,500,000 of the $25,000,000 authorized by the act of March 1814. During August and early September specie payment was suspended by every incorporated bank in the country, except in N e w Eng-

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land. The Treasury was obliged to follow the same practice. In many parts of the nation, business was coming to a standstill; great commercial houses were closing their doors. Such was the condition of the nation when, on September 8, 1814, Dallas received an important letter from John Jacob Astor. For the past fortnight, the New York capitalist wrote, a number of moneyed men had been meeting at his home to discuss ways in which the financial crisis might be met. From these conferences had emerged a plan for a national bank whose capital was based not on specie, because specie was now scarce, but upon "the next best security," real estate. This proposal did not completely satisfy Astor, but it was the only one which the wealthy New York Federalists attending the meeting would accept. Astor requested Dallas to forward the plan to one of his friends in the administration. The same day that he received it, Dallas sat down and copied Astor's letter. He sent this and a draft of the bank plan to Secretary Monroe. The plan, he pointed out in an accompanying letter, "is a result of a deliberate concert among the Capitalists"; perhaps Secretary Campbell "may draw some useful hints" from it. Again he assured Monroe of his "cordial attachment" to the administration. A rumor was then seeping through the country that Campbell's ill health and difficulties with the finances would lead to his resignation as Secretary of the Treasury. Perhaps it was this which caused Dallas to add a broad hint that he was now more receptive to an offer of a cabinet position than he had been in February. Please tell President Madison, he requested Monroe, "that if I could be made serviceable to you, in any way, I should eagerly embrace the opportunity." He repeated the intimation in a letter to Secretary Jones about the same time. The opportunity Dallas looked forward to was not long in coming. In a report to Congress late in September, Secretary Campbell painted a gloomy financial picture. He prophesied that there would be a deficit of almost $14,000,000 by the end of 1814 and declared that legislation would have to be enacted to provide $5,000,000 more revenue if the war were to continue

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t h r o u g h 1815. H e made no recommendations as t o w h a t sources should be tapped. Shattered in health and spirit, Campbell resigned the secretaryship on September 26. Immediately President Madison debated r e n e w i n g his o f f e r of the T r e a s u r y post to Dallas. T h e r e w e r e a number o f reasons f o r such a move. Dallas had s h o w n a keen interest in the D e p a r t ment's affairs f o r m a n y years; he was one of the f e w lifelong Democratic-Republicans

on g o o d terms w i t h the capitalists

w h o s e support w a s so needed; above all, he was t h o r o u g h l y l o y a l t o the administration and anxious to serve it even at this time o f desperation. T h e principal objection to his appointment earlier in the y e a r — t h a t he was unacceptable to the Radical Pennsylvania D e m o c r a t i c - R e p u b l i c a n s — n o longer continued. W h e n the news g o t abroad that Madison was considering naming Dallas, Senator L a c o c k w e n t to call on the President's private secretary in a chastcned mood. " T e l l D o c t o r Madison," he is reported to have said, "that w e are n o w willing to submit t o his Philadelphia l a w y e r f o r the head of the treasury. T h e public patient is so v e r y sick that w e must s w a l l o w anything the d o c t o r prescribes h o w e v e r nauseous the bolus." Letters f r o m business leaders poured in on Dallas, u r g i n g him t o accept the secretaryship if it w e r e tendered. T h e s e came n o t alone f r o m the men w i t h w h o m he had had dealings on the loans and national bank questions—Girard, Parish, and A s t o r — b u t also included W i l l i a m G r a y of Massachusetts, R o b e r t O l i v e r o f Baltimore, Jacob Barker, Nathaniel Prime, and T h o m a s B u chanan of N e w Y o r k . A l l expressed confidence that he c o u l d rescue the nation's credit f r o m the morass into w h i c h it had sunk. Early in O c t o b e r , President Madison f o r m a l l y o f f e r e d the secretaryship t o Dallas, and he accepted it p r o m p t l y . T h e n o m ination was submitted to the Senate on O c t o b e r 5; the next d a y its members, s h o w i n g a spirit of nonpartisanship befitting the crisis, approved w i t h o u t opposition. L e a v i n g the w o r k o f the federal A t t o r n e y in other hands, Dallas departed f o r W a s h i n g ton on O c t o b e r 11.

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In undertaking the great responsibilities of the Secretary of the Treasury at this moment, Dallas was moved not by party or personal ambition but purely by sense of duty to his country. H e felt certain, he confided to Richard Rush, that that would be realized by "those who consider my present situation in the [legal] profession, and who know the superlative enjoyments of my domestic scene." He was conscious that in accepting the position he had taken a "very hazardous and perhaps indiscreet step," but he hoped that "with good intentions, and the cooperation of good men, I may, through toil and trouble, perform some service to the state."

XVII

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY October 1814-February 1815 THE appointment of Dallas as Secretary of the Treasury was greeted by the general public with mingled hope and doubt. As he had never held an office of national importance before, his capacities and tendencies became the subject of much conjecture. Many Democratic-Republican business men, as w e have seen, had testified to their confidence in him. But many other citizens inquired, not without justification, where the new "Blackstone financier" had acquired that knowledge of economics which the perilous times demanded. H o w , they asked, could a man who had difficulty balancing his personal budget save a nation on the verge of bankruptcy? T h e financial plight of the United States government on October 13, 1814, when Dallas arrived in Washington, was desperate enough to cause more experienced men to blanch. During the last month of Campbell's secretaryship, the routine of the Treasury Department had come almost to a standstill. Unexamined papers were piled high on the office desks. As Dallas summarized it later, when he became Secretary "the treasury was suffering under every kind of embarrassment." There were great and urgent demands upon it to pay dividends on a large funded debt, to back large issues of treasury notes, to meet huge legislative appropriations f o r the army, navy, and other governmental services. The means to satisfy these demands were comparatively small and difficult to obtain. T h e y consisted, first, of the authority to borrow money when f e w persons were willing to lend, and to issue treasury notes which only creditors and contractors in distress seemed willing to accept; second, of bank credits, chiefly in the South and West, to a large part rendered useless by the suspension of specie payment; and third, of the current receipt of taxes, also useless because they were paid chiefly in treasury notes.

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Even before Dallas assumed office, the House W a y s and Means Committee had undertaken to untangle the financial knot Campbell had tossed to it when he resigned. On October 10 the Committee reported a plan evolved by its chairman, John W . Eppes, and modified from a suggestion of his father-in-law, Thomas Jefferson. Looking over the possible sources of income, Eppes saw little hope in obtaining loans in view of Campbell's experience. He thought taxes should be doubled but admitted the return on them would be too slow to meet immediate needs. There was but one real chance of relief—the issuance of interest-bearing treasury notes "in sums sufficiently small for the ordinary purposes of society." Eppes believed the adoption of such a policy would help the Treasury in two ways: It would, nominally at least, increase the funds available to the government; and it would create a circulating medium, which the country had lacked since the general suspension of specie payments. T h e latter was most important, since until a new circulating medium was established increases in taxation would merely increase the deposits in banks unavailable to either the government or business. T o maintain the small treasury notes as a circulating medium, Eppes believed it would be sufficient to provide that they were receivable at any time for 8 per cent United States stock or for public lands or taxes, to pledge the internal revenue for the interest on the government's debt, and to double the existing taxes. On October 14, the day after Dallas arrived in Washington, Eppes courteously told him that the House committee would hold action in abeyance until the new Secretary had an opportunity to study the situation and offer suggestions of his own. Just three days later Dallas responded with a full, bold program for resuscitating the national finances that was almost completely at variance with Eppes' plan. On one point only was there concurrence: Taxes should be doubled or more than doubled through the imposition of additional levies on such things as carriages, liquor, auction sales, postage, and certain American manufactures. As to the issuance of more treasury notes, Dallas

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conceded that they might afford relief "under favorable circumstances and to a limited extent," but he insisted they were "an expensive and precarious substitute either for coin or for bank notes, charged as they are with a growing interest, productive of no countervailing profit or emolument, and exposed to every breath of popular prejudice or alarm." Although Eppes said nothing about it, the exponents of his plan, in order to make it operate successfully, proposed to enact a measure that had long been a favorite of theirs—a legal-tender law. Dallas dragged this unexpressed objective out into the open and denounced it. "The acceptance of payments and receipts must forever be optional with the citizens," he maintained. "The extremity of that day cannot be anticipated when any honest and enlightened statesman will again venture upon the desperate expedient of a tender law." Instead of small treasury notes, Dallas proposed to assist the Treasury through a medium that was anathema to strict constructionists such as Eppes—a new national bank. "The establishment of a national institution, operating upon credit combined with capital, and regulated by prudence and good faith," he declared, "is, after all, the only efficient remedy for the disordered condition of our circulating medium." Moreover, after the present crisis was passed, such a bank would be useful as "a safe depository for the public treasure and a constant auxiliary to the public credit." The detailed scheme for a national bank which Dallas submitted to Eppes' committee was the product of a fortnight of conferences with his acquaintances in the business community. Apparently he had started working on it about the time that he received the renewed offer of the Treasury portfolio from President Madison. On the morning of October 2 he discussed the subject with Stephen Girard. By a coincidence, later the same day David Parish called on him to say that he was about to leave for N e w York to attend a meeting of capitalists who were planning a new campaign for a bank. Parish declared that, like John Jacob Astor, he had little use for the proposal, evolved

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at Astor's home a month earlier, f o r a bank based upon real estate. Both he and Astor felt a bank drawn on substantially the same lines as the first national bank w o u l d receive the most ready acceptance f r o m Congress. Dallas thereupon confided to Parish what he and Girard had been discussing that morning. Out of these conversations Dallas had developed a plan f o r a bank to be chartered f o r thirty years. Its headquarters—to the satisfaction of Girard and Parish—were to be at Philadelphia; but it could open offices in other cities. Its capital was to be $50,000,000, of which $20,000,000 was to be subscribed b y the government, the balance b y corporations and individuals. Of the $30,000,000 subscribed b y the public, at least one-tenth must be paid f o r in specie, the rest in government stock and treasury notes issued during the war. T h e government was to appoint five of the bank's fifteen directors, including the president; the stockholders were to choose the others. T h e institution was to make "reasonable loans to the United States, if required b y an A c t of Congress." Although it was not so specifically stated, presumably like most other banks, it might suspend specie p a y ments at any time. Before making his plan public, Dallas had sought the counsel of capitalists and political leaders. In Philadelphia, he conferred repeatedly with Parish. H e obtained a list of "observations" on the subject f r o m Girard. A f t e r he reached Washington, he consulted with Dennis A . Smith, the Baltimore banker, and J a c o b Barker, the N e w Y o r k financier. Presumably he also brought his ideas before President Madison and members of his cabinet. These conferences caused Dallas to m o d i f y his original sketch in three important respects: T h e bank was to be chartered f o r twenty years rather than thirty—a change doubtless made f o r political reasons. T h e amount of specie required f o r the bank's capital was raised f r o m $3,000,000 to $6,000,000—an alteration designed to please the more conservative legislators and financiers. It was definitely stated that the President of the United States could suspend specie payments at any time—a recognition of the financial realities of the moment.

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As finally presented to the House committee, Dallas' plan bore a strong resemblance to the first national bank founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1791. There were, however, three significant differences: Dallas urged that the government participate in the management of the bank through the appointment of directors and the president; that the President of the United States be empowered to suspend specie payments at any time; and that the bank be allowed to make large loans to the government. In these provisions the new Secretary showed that he desired a national bank not to restore specie payments immediately, but to enable the Treasury to obtain funds necessary to continue the war. In a letter to Eppes, Dallas admitted that a national bank would be opposed by many sincere persons on constitutional grounds. Outweighing these objections were advantages which he described in phrases that sounded like those of Hamilton. "In these times," he declared, "the establishment of a national bank will not only be useful in promoting the general welfare, but . . . is necessary and proper for carrying into execution some of the important powers constitutionally vested in the government." Dallas was not content to promote his bank scheme through written reports alone. Believing it the duty of cabinet members to guide the work of Congress through personal contact if necessary, he sought and obtained a conference with Eppes' committee and there urged his program with persuasive eloquence. A few days later he appeared before a Senate committee charged with considering the question of a national bank. This plan of Dallas and the energy with which he promoted it won considerable popular favor. As Senator Jonathan Roberts of Pennsylvania wrote to his brother: "Dallas has seized the reins with a bold hand & the promise is that he will be respected." Binns' Democratic Press, long an opponent of a national bank on constitutional grounds, conceded that it would have to "make sacrifices of opinions which under other circumstances it might be a duty to maintain." Parish, Astor, and other capitalists, re-

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sponding to an invitation from Dallas, hurried to Washington to lend him their support. The Secretary's efforts bore fruit, for Eppes' committee on November 7 reported a bank bill to the House along substantially the same lines Dallas had proposed. In several test votes the House, by large margins, expressed its belief in the expediency of a national bank. Nevertheless, as time passed, opposition to the details of the Dallas plan appeared in the House and out. The small band of strict constructionists insisted that interest-bearing government paper issued in small denominations would serve satisfactorily as a circulating medium, making a bank unnecessary. Many Federalists, while not opposed to a national bank on principle, disliked Dallas' scheme because of two of its provisions. They feared that if only stock issued during the war—of which they held little—could be subscribed to the bank, and if the government participated in the direction of the institution, followers of the Democratic-Republican party would enjoy an enormous advantage over themselves. Moreover, the state banks, which had tripled in number since 1 8 1 1 , were apprehensive that a national bank might encroach upon their business and force them to abandon their reckless issuance of bank notes. The most effective congressional opposition came from a group within Dallas' own party that included Congressmen John C. Calhoun, William J . Lowndes, and Langdon Cheves. These men seized upon a debatable provision in the Secretary's scheme and harped upon it unrelentingly in the legislative debates during November. Dallas had suggested that as soon as the bank was founded, it should lend the government $30,000,000 in its notes. This done, the Calhoun-Lowndes-Cheves group declared, the bank would inevitably have to suspend specie payments at once. Therefore it would be a bank "founded in insolvency." The opposition of Calhoun particularly irritated Dallas, for he had hoped that the South Carolinian would sponsor his bill. The Secretary's chagrin became all the greater when Calhoun produced as an alternative an ingenious scheme designed to avoid the objections of the Federalists and the Eppes strict construc-

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tionists, as well as his own group. Offered as an amendment to Dallas' bill, this plan called f o r the creation of a bank with a capital of $50,000,000, one-tenth in specie, the remainder in treasury notes to be issued later. T o appeal to the Federalists, the government was not to participate in the direction of the bank, and there were no provisions offering advantages to holders of stock issued during the war. T h e proposal that new treasu r y notes be issued was designed, of course, to gain the support of the Eppes group. T o satisfy the Calhoun-Lowndes-Cheves group, the bank was to be obliged to pay specie at all times and would not be required to lend any money to the government. Stating it simply, the House now had a choice between a nonspecie, and perhaps insolvent, bank designed primarily to help the government out of its present financial straits, and a speciepaying bank that might or might not be of immediate assistance to the government. In opposing the latter type of bank Dallas received the aid of Congressman Samuel D. Ingham of Pennsylvania. On the floor of the House Ingham inquired what would be the fate of such a bank if, as he considered probable, conditions made it impossible to pay specie. "Failing to fulfil the purposes designed, its operations are stopped, and its charter violated," he said, "and if this should take place before y o u r Treasury notes are sold, the government will scarce obtain a moment's relief." T o those w h o professed to fear the nonspecie provision of Dallas' plan, he offered a persuasive rebuttal. In the case of a governmentcontrolled bank, it did not matter if specie payments were suspended. T h e Bank of England at present could not pay specie and had not attempted to do so for nearly twenty years. In spite of Ingham, Calhoun's amendment received a majority of about sixty votes f r o m the House in committee. Alarmed and belligerent, Dallas personally re-entered the battle on N o v e m b e r 27, when he wrote a letter to Lowndes of the House bank committee branding Calhoun's amendment impracticable and dangerous. A bank in whose direction the government played no part, he maintained, would be unable to circu-

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late new treasury notes effectively. Moreover, it would be unjust to the present creditors of the government to place them on an equal or inferior footing with a new group of creditors, as would be the case if the Calhoun plan were put into effect. The state of the government's finances was now so alarming, Dallas continued, that it would be unsafe to delay establishing a bank any longer. Less than three weeks before, he had been obliged to emphasize the insolvency of the government in a letter notifying security holders in Boston that even in New England the Treasury could no longer meet its obligations in gold and silver. "The hope of preventing further injury and reproach in transacting business with the Treasury," he told Lowndes, "is too visionary to afford a moment's consolation." The House showed its respect for Dallas by refusing a third reading to Calhoun's amendment after Lowndes read the Secretary's letter to it. Within a week Dallas had an opportunity, in replying to an inquiry from Eppes, to point out once again the desperate condition of the Treasury. By January 1, $5,526,000 in treasury notes and dividends were due, he reported; to meet these demands, the Treasury would have at most $3,772,000, including unavailable bank credits. The frank firmness of Dallas' letters made a profound impression upon the public. Hezekiah Niles of Baltimore, in his Niles' Register, the weekly bible of the business world, expressed the hope that they might "turn the attention of the congress from eternal spouting to acting—from dilly dally expedients and temporary contrivances, to decisive and permanent measures. . . . There is a rumor that Mr. Dallas will resign. W e hope not. He seems just such a man as the people want." It was the Senate which responded first with constructive measures. On December 2, Ruf us King reported a national bank bill substantially along the lines advocated by Dallas. This was passed by the Senate after a week's consideration. Dallas was elated by this turn, though still fearful as to House action. T o Stephen Girard he wrote asking whether the banker was willing

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to lend $2,500 in specie to a senator anxious to subscribe f o r bank stock. " T h e r e is no legal obstacle," he added, "but my o w n sense of propriety will prevent my taking any shares." Dallas' misgivings about the House of Representatives were well-founded. T h e motley opposition shelved the Senate's bill and hauled out its o w n pigeonholed substitute. This time Daniel Webster, the N e w England Federalist, led the attack on Dallas' nonspecie bank plan, denouncing it as "a system of rank speculation and enormous mischief," one that would found a bank on the insolvency of the government and create a "paper money department of the government." In its place he offered a proposal w h i c h he thought might provide the government relief from its present troubles but, more importantly, would be useful to the economic life of the nation after the war was over. A s subsequently modified b y Calhoun and Lowndes, Webster's bill provided for a bank with a capital of $30,000,000, composed one-sixth of specie, one-third of war stock, one-half of treasury notes. A l t h o u g h the government might still at any time increase the amount of the capital b y subscribing $5,000,000 in stock, direction of the bank was to remain in the hands of its stockholders. T h e institution could not suspend specie payments, nor could it lend more than $500,000 to the government. T h e disparate groups opposed to the Secretary's plan joined hands to pass this measure, on January 7, 1815, b y a vote of 120 to 38. A fortnight later it was accepted b y the Senate. Dallas received the news with despondent exasperation. " T h e majority of Congress . . . ," he told Secretary Monroe, "is [not] awake to the state of the nation. . . . T h e measures w h i c h I proposed neither come in time, or in the form, to make me at all responsible f o r their success. I begin to doubt the efficacy of any plan to retrieve the public credit under the repeated shocks to w h i c h it has lately been exposed." W r y l y he recalled that Judge Richard Peters had told him that he was mad to accept a position in Washington. "If I was not mad w h e n I came," he said, "it is not impossible that I shall become mad before I g o away."

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Of the Webster-Calhoun-Lowndes bill itself Dallas complained, " W e asked f o r bread, and . . . [Congress] gave us a stone." H e advised President Madison to veto the measure, and this the Chief Executive promptly did. Dallas' point of view was clearly set forth in the reasons the President gave in returning the bill on January 30. T h e amount of stock that the bill empowered the government to subscribe was not enough to raise the price of that stock in the market. T h e amount of treasury notes which the government could subscribe was not enough to benefit the public credit. T h e amount of money which the bank could lend the government was not enough to furnish the Treasury any real aid. Under the conditions prescribed f o r its operation, the bank would be unable to provide the nation with a circulating medium until the w a r was over. In short, the objection of President Madison and Secretary Dallas was that the Webster-Calhoun-Lowndes bank would do little to help in the present financial crisis, and that the government would have to strain its resources to keep the institution alive until the war ended. T h e veto of the bank bill raised anew the report that Dallas was on the verge of resigning. In such times as this, when his earnest hopes were thwarted, he might burst into tears even when in public. Friends ascribed this manifestation of his high-strung nature to his tropical birthplace. Certain N e w England Federalists interpreted his "great dudgeon" as sure proof that he had an ulterior motive in wishing the incorporation of the bank after his o w n ideas. Dallas had good reason f o r losing his temper. During the three months Congress had been haggling over the details of bank bills, the resourcefulness of the Secretary had been taxed to keep the Treasury Department operating. T h e recommendation he had made on October 17—that the government's income f r o m direct taxes be doubled—was enacted into law during January. Congress authorized treasury notes to the amount of $10,500,000 on December 26. But these expedients w e r e not of much help in the long run. Returns f r o m the increased in-

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ternal duties came in slowly and were insufficient to meet the T r e a s u r y ' s needs; the issuance of new interest-bearing treasury notes merely added to the burdens of the government. Indeed, Dallas was having a difficult time paying the interest on the notes already issued. During November some of his close friends among the Philadelphia bankers told him that, because of the suspension of specie payments, they could not give him temporary assistance in meeting the obligations due in their city and in Boston. In December three N e w Y o r k City banks agreed to lend him $600,000; but this furnished only partial relief. B y February 1, 1 8 1 5 , nearly $20,000,000 in demands on the government had been left unsatisfied. T h e Treasury possessed a cash balance of barely $6,000,000, chiefly in bank credits. T h e r e was prospect of a further deficit of $40,000,000 by the end of 1 8 1 5 . T h e plight of the government was mirrored in the ranking of its paper in the financial marts. United States 6 per cent stock was quoted at Boston at between 50 cents and 60 cents on the dollar. Treasury notes, since they could be used to pay taxes, were somewhat higher—75 cents on the dollar. A n d every day the condition of the Treasury's finances was growing worse. T o save the government without a bank, Dallas could suggest only more s t o p g a p legislation. In a report to the House W a y s and Means Committee on January 17, he proposed that $5,000,000 more in direct taxes be levied, that $ 15,000,000 more of treasury notes be issued, and that $25,000,000 be borrowed on any terms possible. In making these recommendations, Dallas told Eppes with magnificent understatement, " I feel, sir, that I have performed m y duty to the Legislature and to the country; but . . . I am not without sensations of extreme solicitude." This striking revelation of the nation's bankruptcy filled the Democratic-Republicans with dismay when Eppes read the report to the House on January 21, 1 8 1 5 . Many Federalists considered it a virtual acknowledgment that the administration could continue no longer without resorting to "violent, desperate measures." A thoroughly frightened Congress hastened to enact the expedients Dallas recommended. But as these passed

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through the legislative mill during February, they were altered in certain details. Six millions more of direct taxes were levied; $25,000,000 of treasury notes were authorized; action on a loan was deferred. Almost miraculous aid for the valiant efforts of Dallas came with the belated arrival of a bit of news from Europe on the evening of February 13. Along with Secretary of the Navy Crowninshield, Congressmen Clay and Calhoun, and President of the Senate Gaillard, Dallas was a dinner guest of J . M. P. Serurier, the French minister. They were at table, the meal half eaten, when a servant arrived bearing a note to one of the guests. Peace with Great Britain had been declared, the note said, and the White House was illuminated in celebration. Dallas and the other guests left the dinner to exult over the welcome news. Later advices confirmed the report—a peace treaty with Great Britain had been signed at Ghent late the preceding December. Buoyed by the public relief that peace had been achieved without any losses, the administration took a new lease on life.

XVIII

SECRETARY OF T H E TREASURY February 1815-October 1816 by the tidings from Ghent that reached Washington on February 13, 1815, Secretary Dallas set to work on a plan to carry the government's finances through the first year of peace. Within a week he had it ready for the congressional Ways and Means Committee. The revenue for 1815, he estimated, would be $18,200,000 in state bank notes, little more than enough to meet civil needs. T o make up the almost $17,000,000 required in addition for the support of the army and navy while they were being changed from a wartime to a peacetime basis, the high war taxes must be continued and a further issue of treasury notes or the negotiation of a loan must be speeded. The outstanding treasury notes, amounting to $18,637,000, should be funded into 7 per cent stock. The Secretary did not conceal the fact that the state of the currency continued to be critical. HEARTENED

These recommendations are as interesting for what they omitted as for what they included. Some financiers, including Albert Gallatin, believed, now that the war was over, the government ought to resume the payment of specie as soon as possible, even before the establishment of a national bank. This could be done very quickly, they held, if the government would reject the notes of banks which were off the specie standard and if it retired the treasury notes issued during the war. Secretary Dallas, however, was not convinced that gold and silver were indispensable for a national currency. He declared this by implication in his report of December 6, 1815, when he wrote: It has sometimes been questioned whether it would be politic again to employ gold and silver for the purposes of a national currency. It was long and universally supposed that to maintain a paper medium without depreciation, the certainty of being able to convert it into coin was indispensable, nor can the ex-

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periment w h i c h has given rise to a contrary doctrine be deemed complete or conclusive. It is significant that he w r o t e this after adopting resumption of specie payments as a goal toward which the Treasury must w o r k . Dallas was content f o r the time being merely to mitigate the disadvantages the T r e a s u r y and the business community suffered because of the lack of a circulating medium and a national bank. Instead of suing banks which failed to pay specie on their obligations to the government, Secretary Dallas proposed that they and the specie-paying banks join in forming an association which would help the T r e a s u r y Department conduct its fiscal operations. A l l banks belonging to the association were expected to accommodate the T r e a s u r y in paying the dividend on the public debt and in negotiating loans; they were to open accounts with each other f o r the accommodation of the Treasury. In return, they were to be the official depositories f o r the government. Dallas elaborated this scheme in a circular letter he sent to twenty-one banks along the eastern seaboard, f r o m Boston to Savannah, on March 13, 1 8 1 5 . But between the N e w England banks with their specie-backed notes and the banks of the Southern and Middle Atlantic States with their fluctuating currency was a chasm too great f o r this device to bridge. B y late April he found that the bankers w o u l d not respond, and he gave it up. Meanwhile Secretary Dallas experimented with another expedient which might have hastened the establishment of the national currency on a coin basis—the retirement of the treasury notes issued during wartime. H e mentioned this objective b y implication in a letter about the public debt which he sent to the House W a y s and Means Committee late in February. T h e committee grasped this suggestion and made it an integral feature of a loan bill which became law on March 3. Under the terms of this act, the T r e a s u r y was authorized to issue $18,452,000 of 6 per cent stock. Since but $18,452,000 of treasury notes was then outstanding, and the act provided that treasury notes w e r e to be accepted in payment of subscriptions f o r the stock,

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it was clearly the intention of Congress to w i t h d r a w in this fashion part or all of the treasury notes f r o m circulation. T h o u g h Dallas himself had proposed this objective, he made little effort to realize it after it had been authorized. Indeed, the p o l i c y he pursued in floating the loan was capricious—one of t h e most debatable features of his administration. O n March 10 h e announced that the Treasury w o u l d receive bids on $12,000,000 of 6 per cent stock issued under the act of M a r c h 3. " T h e terms of the proposals," he said, "should bear some relation to the actual fair price of stock in the markets of Philadelphia." T h i s statement suggested that he was willing to accept whatever the stock would bring on the open money market of the nation. A c t u a l l y this was not the case. A t the moment g o v ernment 6 per cent stock was fluctuating between 87 per cent and 89 per cent of face value in the N e w Y o r k and Boston markets. Certainly this was about all he was justified in expecting f r o m the n e w issue. H o w e v e r , treasury notes, e n j o y i n g a momentary upsurge as a result of the news of peace, were then selling at about 94 cents on the dollar. T h i s rise convinced Dallas that he could exchange the new stock f o r treasury notes virtually on a dollar-for-dollar basis. H e came to expect bids of 95 per cent f o r the new stock. Inevitably he was disappointed. During March and early A p r i l he journeyed to Philadelphia and N e w Y o r k to bargain w i t h the bankers. T h e highest offer he received in Philadelphia was 89 per cent, in N e w Y o r k 87 per cent, f r o m Boston 85 per cent. Some bids even fell b e l o w 75 per cent. Dallas felt that "neither the justice due to the equal rights of the public creditor, nor a fair estimate of the value of public property, nor an honorable regard f o r the public credit" permitted him to consider such offers, and he accordingly declined them all. In so doing he abandoned the purpose he had suggested and Congress had approved—the use of the loan f o r the withdrawal f r o m circulation of the wartime treasury notes. N o w Secretary Dallas undertook to carry on the operations of the T r e a s u r y through a system of local currency. F o r this

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purpose he employed the receipts of the loan to acquire a supply of state bank notes f o r use in the districts where those notes circulated. H e told the banks that they could o f f e r their o w n depreciated notes in payment f o r the stock if their bids were 95 per cent or higher. Somewhat over $9,000,000 w o r t h of the issue was subscribed f o r under these terms, the bids in every case being between 95 per cent and 100 per cent. In districts where the T r e a s u r y accumulated as many bank notes as it was likely to need, the subscription lists were closed. T h i s operation Dallas considered a complete success. " M y determination not to sacrifice the public stock has produced some clamour among the Bankers and Brokers," he told President Madison in the middle of M a y , "but it has appreciated the value in the market." In most districts it provided paper f o r the local operations of the Treasury. T h e Secretary was able to announce, on J u n e 15, that funds were available to retire in the near future certain of the wartime treasury notes at Philadelphia, Savannah, Washington, and Baltimore. F o r the Washington National Intelligencer he wrote a short unsigned article on the national finances which that administration mouthpiece featured in its issue of J u l y 4, 1 8 1 5 . T h e present condition of the Treasury, compared with that at the end of the last session of Congress, Dallas wrote, was "delightful to every patriotic mind of every party: but n o [ t ] so to the jaundiced and malignant demon of faction." T h e great success of the recent loan, he declared, "will answer the gross imputations cast upon the T r e a s u r y D e partment." A s a matter of fact, his deep satisfaction was not entirely w a r ranted. T h e Treasury still had insufficient funds f o r operations at N e w Y o r k and Boston. It had become loaded with $6,000,000 worth of the bank paper of Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, worth about 60 cents on a specie dollar. O n l y about $3,000,000 of the treasury notes had been retired f r o m circulation. In the case of one section, Secretary Dallas departed f r o m his policy of conducting Treasury operations through a system of

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local currency based on state-bank notes. This section was N e w England, whose banks continued to back their notes with specie. By the autumn of 1816 the market value of treasury notes had fallen considerably below that of N e w England's bank notes. Nevertheless, in paying creditors at Boston, the Treasury insisted on settling claims in whatever medium it had available— treasury notes or the notes of distant banks even more greatly depreciated. This naturally aroused resentment among N e w England bankers, who felt they were being penalized for holding to the specie standard. That this policy was "severe" to the section, Dallas admitted in his report of September 20, 1816. He excused it on the ground that if he were just to N e w England, he would be harsh on the rest of the country. After all, if he had paid the government's creditors at Boston in local currency as he did elsewhere, creditors in other sections would have demanded that they too be paid in specie. During the spring of 1815 Secretary Dallas changed his mind about the desirability of the early resumption of specie payments. He first gave warning that this had become the goal of his Department on June 15, when he announced that on and after August 1 revenue collectors would refuse to accept bank notes not redeemable in gold or silver. T o make certain that such a policy would be practicable, on June 24 he transmitted a circular letter to the state banks inquiring whether they would receive and issue treasury notes on a specie basis. T h e response was encouraging. Of the many banks not on the specie standard, only four flatly declined to co-operate with the Treasury plan; only thirteen failed to reply and were presumed to have declined. Most of the demurring institutions were in N e w York State. But for the successful operation of such a scheme, the assent of every important bank in the country was necessary. In the hope that the reluctant banks could be won over, Dallas on August 15 postponed the starting date to October 1; but b y autumn it had become clear that this plan too had small chance of success.

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Immediately Dallas tried another. In a circular letter to bank presidents, dated October 12, he outlined a scheme which would prod banks into resuming specie payments by penalizing those which did not. Under this arrangement, banks were to agree that, if they should refuse to pay specie on their own notes or on money deposited with them, they would pay 6 per cent interest a year on the sum in question, commencing on the day of refusal. This project met the same fate as the Secretary's earlier proposals. By the end of the year, Dallas had to confess that his three efforts "to curtail the issue of bank notes, to fix the public confidence in the administration of the affairs of the banks, and to give each bank a legitimate share in the circulation," had not received "the general sanction of the banks. . . . The truth is," he felt, "that the charter restrictions of some of the banks . . . and the duty which the directors conceive they owe their constituents upon points of security or emolument, interpose an insuperable obstacle for the establishment of a national medium through the agency of the State banks." Nevertheless, the economic shoals of wartime had been cleared sufficiently by the close of 1815 for Dallas to be philosophical when he wrote his annual report as Secretary. Its many fascinating pages surveyed the American financial policy of the past and directed attention toward the expanding, bountiful future into which the nation was sailing. In many ways the paper echoed the economic nationalism of Alexander Hamilton. Secretary Dallas maintained that to make the most of this great future, the government must promptly modify its financial policy in three important respects: First, it must almost triple its income. Before the war $10,000,000 a year in revenue had been sufficient; now only more than $27,000,000 would suffice. Since it was desirable that the annoying wartime direct taxes be reduced soon, some other source for these augmented expenses must be found. Dallas believed the answer lay in a protective tariff. Secondly, a national bank must be created. Such an institution would provide the only means by which the government

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could recover its control over the currency and place it on a uniform national basis. The state banks had tried to do this but, because their interests were primarily local, they had signally failed. The re-establishment of uniform currency implied also the third desideratum, the resumption of specie payments by the government and the banks. President Madison, in his 1815 message, faintly endorsed a national bank but evinced more faith in treasury notes as an alternative than did his Secretary. T o satisfy the keen interest with which Dallas' report had been awaited, many journals published it in serial form. As was to be expected, the organs of the New England Federalists were critical. "Many enconiums have been bestowed upon this monstrous work," the Boston Daily Advertiser carped editorially. More information "might have been expected in smaller compass." In the same journal a writer styling himself "Old Times" used the report as an excuse to attack Dallas for the manner in which his policies had worked against the interests of New England. But such critics were a small minority. Even Boston newspapers lauded the report. The Fatriot of that city declared it "would do honor to the pen of the greatest financier in Europe. . . . [It is] a frank and clear exposition and history." The Boston Chronicle described it as "lucid," and said "Mr. Dallas has been uncommonly assiduous in his department. . . . If a man is entitled to our gratitude, it is" he. Democratic-Republican journals in other sections of the country echoed the same refrain. Niles' Weekly Register of Baltimore called the report "one of the richest feats of financial knowledge that ever was, probably, impressed upon a sheet of paper." For two months after issuing the report, Secretary Dallas did not press upon Congress the first plank of his financial platform —a protective tariff. When he did take up the issue, he luckily rode on the crest of a popular wave. Promptly after the restoration of peace, British merchants had moved to recapture the American markets lost during the war years. Spokesmen for the many American industries which had been stimulated by the

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absence of foreign competition raised the cry that the British were dumping their products in the United States; they demanded a tariff high enough to "protect" their young enterprises. In a forceful report, issued February 12, 1816, Dallas outlined a tariff program strongly reminiscent of the doctrines of Alexander Hamilton. Confidently he assumed that such a policy must be permanently adopted by the country because the government had tacitly pledged itself to such a course through its wartime legislation in behalf of native industries; he cited the experience of all wealthy nations as proof of its wisdom. Duties on importations, he declared, should fall into three classes. First, goods already produced in America in quantities sufficient to satisfy home demands should be protected by high rates. Secondly, manufactures not yet produced abundantly enough to meet domestic requirements should be assisted by such duties "as will enable the manufacturer to meet the importer on equal terms of profit and loss." Finally, articles not produced at all in the United States should be subjected to rates designed to produce revenue only. In some detail Secretary Dallas recommended specific duties and ad valorem rates for articles in each of the three categories. The schedule he proposed was the fruit of a systematic canvass of the business community. On August 13, 1815, he had issued a circular letter soliciting suggestions about tariff rates. The Treasury Department had sent printed copies of this, in bundles, to the custom collectors, with the request that they distribute them to the principal merchants of their district. In addition, Dallas had personally sent the questionnaire to his own acquaintances who were in commerce. These requests brought to the Secretary's desk an enormous number of letters from collectors and business men, most of them answering in elaborate detail. Even Thomas Jefferson wrote to suggest an alteration in the imposts on wine. The scale of duties Dallas proposed doubled the rates of the last tariff preceding the war; but they did not afford the same protection given by the emergency war duties.

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The general principles of protection advocated by Secretary Dallas received the approval of three-quarters of the House of Representatives in the tariff debate during March and April of 1816. Lip service to them was accorded by all the DemocraticRepublican leaders with the exception of John Randolph of Roanoke. Only the little band of New England Federalists provided organized opposition. But when specific rates were considered, a wide diversity of opinion emerged. Each section had articles it sought to protect at the expense of articles favored by other sections. In consequence, as the bill passed through Congress, almost all the rates that Dallas had suggested were reduced. The Secretary had recommended that articles in the first group, such as paper and leather, should in general be protected by a 35 per cent ad valorem duty; Congress lowered this to 30 per cent. In the second group, Dallas had proposed a 22 per cent duty on such articles as manufactures from iron, pewter, tin, and brass; as passed, the rate was 20 per cent. In the third group, a duty of 20 per cent on articles such as linen was recommended, with an exception made in the case of cotton and woolen manufactures—products of new industries—which should be 33V3 per cent and 28 per cent; these were made 20 per cent, 25 per cent, and 25 per cent respectively. The suggestion that unenumerated noncompetitive articles be charged 15 per cent was in general approved. Thus Secretary Dallas succeeded in getting Congress to commit itself for the first time in American history to the principle of protection. The duties enacted, however, while somewhat higher than prewar rates, were considerably less protective than the emergency levies they replaced. For this reason the Dallas tariff of 1816 has often been described as protective in intent, a levy for revenue only in actuality. Dallas had greater success in pushing his national bank plan unscathed through the legislative halls. After President Madison vetoed the Webster-Calhoun-Lowndes bank bill in January 1815, the question of a bank had received scant consideration

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from Congress. T h e Senate had passed a new bank bill substantially along the lines proposed b y Dallas early in Februar)' 1 8 1 5 , but this had been tabled b y the House on the arrival of news of peace later that month. Dallas returned to the congressional wars in behalf of the bank in December 1 8 1 5 . T h i s time his prospects were considerably brighter, f o r he had just won as an ally a powerful figure w h o had once sidetracked his scheme in the House of Representatives. T h i s happy alliance had grown out of circumstances smacking of drama. One night soon after the opening of the congressional session, Senator Jonathan Roberts came hurrying to Dallas' lodgings with surprisingly agreeable news. T h e Pennsylvania Senator had just come f r o m a dinner party in G e o r g e t o w n . T h e r e the redoubtable John C. Calhoun, chairman of the House Committee on Currency, had confided to Roberts his thought that a national bank should be established at once. Out of what Roberts considered "a mistaken sense of dignity," the South Carolina Congressman had preferred to use the Senator as an intermediary instead of telling the Secretary himself of his new opinion. "Dallas," it seemed to Roberts, "had good right to be dissatisfied with Calhoun's past conduct"; yet seeing that "a great public end was to be gain'd," without a moment's hesitation he called a hack and went to see Calhoun. Dallas and Calhoun found that the end of the w a r had wiped out their differences of opinion in regard to a national bank. Calhoun was pleased that Dallas was now urging a bank as a means to hasten the resumption of specie payments instead of merely as a w a y of procuring loans f o r the government. T o put their entente on a formal basis, Calhoun wrote Dallas requesting an elaboration of the Secretary's views on the subject. Dallas replied on December 24. T h e bank, he said, should be chartered f o r twenty years, with a capital of $35,000,000 which could later be raised to $50,000,000. T h e government should subscribe f o r one-fifth of the stock, the public f o r the balance. Subscriptions by the public should be paid f o r one(juarter in cash, three-quarters in government stock. Of the

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bank's twenty-five directors, five should be appointed by the government; the president was to be elected by all the directors from among the government's appointees. T h e bank did not have to lend money to the government, and it could not suspend specie payments unless Congress authorized it to do so. T h e significant differences between this proposal and Dallas' plan of a year earlier arose from a desire to increase public participation in the financing and direction of the institution and to augment the supply of specie. Calhoun promptly wrote a bill substantially based on Dallas' suggestions, and reported it in the House of Representatives on January 8, 1816. He also utilized the Secretary's ideas in urging the measure on Congress. A national bank paying specie itself, he declared, "would have a tendency to make specie payments general, as well b y its influence as by its example. . . . T h e restoration of specie payments would remove the embarrassments on the industry of the country, and the stains from its public and private faith." Other Democratic-Republicans, led by Henry Clay, hastened to recant the bitter opposition to a bank that they had voiced in 1 8 1 1 . In their reversed stand, they received the hearty support of a fair-sized section of the business community. Many merchants and financiers liked the promise the bank gave of a more settled currency. Others saw in it opportunities f o r speculation, f o r lucrative offices, and for more liberal discounts on loans. But the bill also aroused determined opposition. T h e Virginia and Pennsylvania delegations in the House—Democratic-Republican though they were—divided sharply. T h e Virginians disapproved the measure largely because it violated their strictconstruction principles; the Pennsylvanians, because a national bank would exert a restraining influence on their state-chartered institutions. Some N e w York and N e w England Federalists feared the bill would give the party in office too much power through the election of the bank's officers and the direction of its affairs; some disliked the provision that the institution's head-

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quarters were to be at Philadelphia; some frowned on the liberal terms prescribed for the government to pay for its share of the stock. Their foremost leader, Daniel Webster, expressed misgivings that the bank would not operate on a completely specie basis. In the end, Secretary Dallas' bill slid through the House with only minor modifications by a vote of eighty to seventy-one, passed the Senate by a wide margin, and became law April 10, 1816. Around Washington rumors began circulating that Dallas would soon resign the secretaryship to become the first president of the bank. Dallas, however, had no ambitions to become a banker. For one thing, an important section of his program for restoring American finances to an even keel—the resumption of specie payments by the government and banks—still remained unaccomplished. During April a number of Philadelphia, N e w York, and Baltimore bankers pressed him to recommend that Congress prohibit the exportation of specie for a year, declaring that such a policy would help him attain his goal more quickly. But Dallas found so much opposition in Congress to a prohibitory law that he decided not to push the idea. However, he did work along another line to make gold and silver the national currency. On March 19 he suggested to the House Committee on Currency that the Secretary of the Treasury be authorized to require that all revenue be paid in specie or its equivalent after December 31, 1816. Congress granted this request through a joint resolution on April 29, though it postponed the starting date to February 20, 1817. The task of Secretary Dallas in enforcing this policy was made considerably easier by the favorable balance of trade that set in after the restoration of peace. By the summer of 1816 considerable quantities of specie were flowing into this country from Canada and Europe. Simultaneously the position of United States stock and treasury notes improved enormously on the exchanges of the principal American financial centers. T o take advantage of this happy circumstance, Dallas, on July 22, 1816,

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notified the state banks that the government intended to e n f o r c e t h e congressional resolution at all costs. Indeed, he added, inasm u c h as the resolution of A p r i l 29 "directs and requires the secr e t a r y of the treasury to make some attempt to facilitate the collection of the revenue in the l a w f u l c u r r e n c y , even b e f o r e t h e 20th of F e b r u a r y 1817," the banks o u g h t to do e v e r y t h i n g in their p o w e r to resume specie payments b y O c t o b e r 1, 1816. H e chose this earlier date because it was the day on w h i c h he h o p e d to retire f r o m the secretaryship. T h e N e w England banks, w h i c h had never left the specie standard, naturally offered no objections to this appeal. T h e banks in the South and in the territory west of Maryland seemed " r e a d y and w i l l i n g " to co-operate. B u t the p o w e r f u l bankers of N e w Y o r k , Philadelphia, and Baltimore p u t u p a resistance that threatened t o bring the effort t o the same fatal end suffered b y Secretary Dallas' three earlier endeavors to mitigate the evils arising f r o m the lack of a circulating medium. A t a convention held at Philadelphia on A u g u s t 6, the middle states bankers unanimously declared that the complicated financial situation w o u l d make it impossible f o r them to resume specie payments b y the F e b r u a r y 1817 deadline. Some of the obstacles t o this goal w o u l d be r e m o v e d if the national bank w e r e in operation, they admitted; but it did not seem likely that the bank w o u l d be f u n c t i o n ing in time to a f f o r d assistance. T h e first M o n d a y of July 1817, t h e y insisted, w a s the earliest practicable date f o r resumption. T h e f o l l o w i n g d a y , A u g u s t 7, they reported the sense of the meeting to Dallas, w h o was then at home in Philadelphia. Dallas received this news w i t h indignation. H e "remonstrated against so distant a d a y " f o r resumption and insisted that the date set b y Congress must be lived up to. H e was all the more adamant because an inspection of the accounts of the principal banks doing business w i t h the T r e a s u r y had convinced him that, although the N e w Y o r k banks had made some e f f o r t t o p u t their affairs in shape to hasten resumption, those in Philadelphia "amidst a profusion of professions," had done little, and those in Baltimore had been "perniciously retrograde." T h e bankers left,

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as one of them wrote a friend, "astonished" at the Secretary's "Ignorance" of the financial situation. As Dallas expected, the bankers persisted in their attempts to make him and Congress agree to a delay. During September a committee of New York City bankers announced that it was absolutely impossible for them to modify their position; during the same month conventions of Ohio and Pennsylvania bankers passed resolutions stating that they could not resume specie payments until the large banks on the Atlantic seaboard did likewise. None of these declarations caused Secretary Dallas to waver one whit in his determination. His efforts were menaced for a time, however, by the temporizing attitude of President Madison. Early in July, the President, fearing the power of the banks, suggested to Dallas that the federal government deal gently with the recalcitrant institutions, leaving it to the states to force them into line. Six weeks later he proposed another scheme—that the Treasury institute legal proceedings against the banks for payment of specie on the notes due it and issue interest-bearing treasury notes to carry over the government until the suits were adjudicated. T h e first suggestion Dallas politely ignored; the second he rejected flatly, prophesying that it would "produce an explosion," depreciating the value of bank notes, with dire consequences to the Treasury and the public. T h e government, he repeated to his chief, should continue to insist upon the resumption of specie payments by February 1817. President Madison eventually came around to Dallas' way of thinking. T h e Secretary's attitude toward the banks was "conciliatory," he told Governor Wilson C. Nicholas of Virginia in October. "Many of the Banks, instead of co-operating with him . . . announced purposes at variance with the positive injunctions of the law." If the banks had co-operated more wholeheartedly, the President added, the resumption of specie payments would have been easier to accomplish and the condition of the currency considerably improved. It seemed to Dallas, as he prepared to leave the Treasury De-

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partment late in September 1816, that all his attempts to restore the currency to a specie basis had been a failure. "There was," he w r y l y observed in the course of his last report as Secretary, "no magic in a mere Treasury instruction to the collectors of the revenue, which could by its own virtue, charm gold and silver again into circulation." T h e banks, out of timidity or selfinterest, had declined every overture he made to them. As it turned out, Dallas confessed failure too soon. Specie payments were resumed by every bank in the land on the day Congress had set—February 20, 1817. Most of the credit for this belongs to the Secretary for his work during the spring and summer of 1816 in disarming the bankers by meeting their most valid objection to the February 1817 date. T h e bankers had conceded that resumption would be possible soon after the second Bank of the United States started functioning. Therefore Dallas did everything he could to have the new bank open on January i, 1817, well in advance of the deadline. T o this end he encouraged Stephen Girard to take a block of $3,000,000 of stock, thereby closing the subscription list in August. The same month he gave orders that supplies be bought and quarters engaged for its offices. He watched approvingly while the stockholders chose the board of directors in October. Dallas declined to subscribe for any of the bank stock himself, believing it improper for the Secretary of the Treasury to do so. During the war years, however, he had patriotically invested in government stock. One of Dallas' principal reasons for interest in the organization of the bank was his hope that the bank would return to the government its constitutional powers over the national currency which the state banks had usurped in 1 8 1 1 . Therefore, he thought, the president of the institution must be a man sympathetic with the purposes of a national bank and willing to work closely with the Treasury Department. This meant, of course, a pro-bank Democratic-Republican who was also an able financier. T o the selection of such a man, Secretary Dallas and President Madison gave long consideration. Unfortunately, as it

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turned out, they gave their benediction to their old colleague, William Jones. So it was that, although Dallas left the Treasury in October 1816, his solicitude for the organization of the bank and the pressure he exerted on the bankers to hasten the resumption of specie payments bore fruit shortly afterwards. Jones became president of the bank in November, heading an administration seemingly sympathetic with Dallas' financial and political ideals. The bank itself began operations, as he had planned, the following January. The state bankers reached an agreement with the national bank, and specie payments were resumed throughout the United States on February 20. In retiring, Dallas left with President Madison a report that showed the finances of the government to be in excellent condition. For the year ending September 30, 1816, the receipts amounted to $47,670,000. From the customs $36,000,000 had been realized—$15,000,000 more than Dallas had been counting on. A surplus of $20,000,000 seemed likely by the end of the year. Subsequent calculations by the Treasury Department revealed the picture as even brighter. But the great ability Dallas showed in his two years' stewardship of the Treasury is more fully realized by a comparison of the financial condition of the government and the business life of the nation when he took office and when he left it. He found the government actually, if not admittedly, bankrupt, with a funded and floating debt of about $125,000,000; he left it with a surplus of $20,000,000 for the year, and a public debt of about $ 110,000,000. He found specie payment refused by all banks except those in New England; shortly after he left Washington it was again the rule. He found the nation suffering from financial chaos aggravated by the lack of a national bank; he helped found an institution that was to give the United States orderly banking for the next twenty years. His efforts to encourage the industries stimulated during the war years were not fully successful, but his advocacy of the principles of protection helped lay the foundation for real benefits later on.

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In achieving this distinguished record, Dallas was assisted immeasurably by the timely return of peace in 1815. But the vigorous and tireless fashion in which he pushed his far-reaching program on a shilly-shallying Congress, a recalcitrant banking community, and a vacillating Chief Executive makes most of the credit his. He ranks as one of the ablest of the early secretaries of the Treasury.

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IN THE NATION'S SERVICE IN a cabinet cluttered with incompetents and mediocrities, as was President Madison's, the ability of Dallas shone all the more brilliantly. Appreciating this, during the years 1814 to 1816 the Chief Executive repeatedly called upon him for advice and assistance. Dallas performed a number of miscellaneous administrative tasks with versatility, energy, and competence. For a short time he did triple cabinet service, overseeing the work of the W a r Department and the State Department in addition to his duties as Secretary of the Treasury. He wrote and published an important essay in defense of the war policy of the Madison administration. T h e first of Dallas' miscellaneous activities dealt with the construction of the Cumberland Road. The earliest fruit of Thomas Jefferson's dream of a national system of internal improvements, this highway had been planned to connect the eastern seaboard with the country west of the Appalachians. Construction of the road had been begun in 1811 and was proceeding slowly over the mountains westward from Cumberland, Maryland. Throughout the period of his service in the cabinet, Dallas supervised the work of Daniel Shriver, superintendent of the road, outlining the manner in which the construction work was to be divided among contractors and checking the engineering methods being employed. A second miscellaneous activity of Dallas' related to the personal library of former President Jefferson. Here Dallas seized the opportunity to serve his patron saint, then in financial difficulties. Congress had authorized the purchase by the government of Jefferson's great collection of books; and during the spring of 1815 Dallas attended to the details of the transfer ot their ownership. This marked the real beginning of the preseniday Library of Congress. The never-failing tact and courtesy of Dallas were most usezi8

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ful in smoothing over a clash that arose early in 1815 between the Massachusetts and federal authorities. President Madison, remembering the opposition of New England to his war policy, refused audience to Harrison Gray Otis and two other emissaries from the Governor of Massachusetts who came to Washington seeking federal aid for the defense of their state. Dallas not only received them graciously, but helped to forestall possible irritation between the federal government and Massachusetts by promising that certain publicans in the Bay State who had refused to pay excise duties during the war would not be prosecuted. One of the most notable extradepartmental services of Dallas' was rendered while he was still mastering the details of the Treasury's confused affairs. On January 9, 1813, the Prince Regent of Great Britain had issued a declaration charging that the United States, in declaring war on Great Britain, had proved itself completely subservient to Napoleon and had "unworthily deserted the cause of neutral nations." T o offset the influence this declaration might have upon his countrymen, Dallas decided to prepare a full statement of the war policy of the Madison administration. Throughout November and December 1814 he worked late into the night at his lodgings writing a paper of thirty thousand words, which was later entitled An Exposition of the Causes and Character of the Late War with Great Britain. This is so important a paper as to call for a summary here. Dallas indignantly denied that the United States had been servile to France. Our government, he wrote, had maintained relations with Napoleon simply because we remained faithful to the principle of public law which recognizes all de facto governments. W e had shown our independence by protesting all French actions which imperiled our interests. That Napoleon's maritime struggle with Great Britain had frequently brought the United States into collision with France, Dallas did not deny. Such French measures as the Berlin and Milan decrees, closing the Continent to American shipping, were, he granted, "indeed as obnoxious in their formation and

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design" as the counter-blockade established by the British ordersin-council. But since the French navy was so weak that it could not cause much damage to our shipping, her crime was the less. As Dallas saw it, France had greatly mitigated her offense when, in August 1810, she promised to revoke the obnoxious decrees. The promise had been "delivered by the official organ of the government of France," in the presence of Napoleon himself, and was therefore "of the highest authority according to all the rules of diplomatic intercourse." He minimized the fact that in practice the French Emperor had not kept his promise and the Continent had not been opened to American vessels. With Great Britain, on the other hand, Dallas found much fault. In careful detail he set forth the relations between the United States and Great Britain to support the thesis President Madison had advanced in June 1812 that British violations of our maritime rights had offered us no honorable course other than war. The greatest of these violations stemmed from Britain's policy of stopping and searching American ships in order to impress any British subjects found aboard. In his declaration of 1813, the Prince Regent had unequivocally maintained this to be his nation's right. Bluntly disputing this, Dallas traced the British impressment policy back to its origins in 1756, and told how the American government had patiently but persistently urged the English to abandon it. It was worth remembering, he added, that the French had never claimed any right of impressment. Dallas denied the charge made by many Britons, and even by some Americans, that the United States had acted from motives of conquest and aggression. The United States declared war on Great Britain only "as the result of long suffering and necessary self-defence"; the war, Dallas insisted, was clearly not one of aggression. Nor was it a war for conquest. Ignoring the fact that much of the belligerency of the war-hawks in Congress had been motivated by the frontiersmen's desire to add Canada to the United States, Dallas maintained that the United States army had attempted to occupy Canada simply because that was "in-

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dispensable to the safety of that frontier in the earliest movements of the war." The proclamations issued by American commanders as they entered Canada, which the British cited as proof of our lust for conquest, "were not only unauthorised and disapproved, but were infractions of the positive instructions" of our government. Greatly to the discredit of the British, according to Dallas, was the manner in which they were conducting their military campaigns. They had transgressed the laws of society, humanity, and civil warfare, to make it a conflict "of the tomahawk, the scalping-knife and the torch." In vivid detail he enumerated horrible acts of violence, pillage, and conflagration for which our enemies were responsible. The United States government, Dallas made clear in closing, had always desired peace with Great Britain on terms mutually beneficial and advantageous. W e were anxious to see the British nation "great, prosperous, and happy"; but at the same time we desired "that the councils of Great Britain should be guided by justice and a respect for the equal rights of other nations." Because Dallas' Exposition so persuasively expounded his own position, President Madison proposed that it be adopted by the cabinet and circulated as an official act of the government,—an idea that Thomas Jefferson seconded heartily. But while it was on the printing press, news of the Treaty of Ghent reached Washington, and Madison prudently withheld official endorsement. However, the work did gain wide circulation. A number of newspapers printed it in whole or in part. During 1815 seven printers from Middlebury, Vermont, to Petersburgh, Virginia, issued the entire essay in pamphlet form. It was published "by authority of the American government" at London the same year, and in a French version at Paris during 1816. Subsequently it was printed in the appendix of the Annals of Congress. When examined today, the Exposition is seen to be a piece of special pleading. It ignores much of the pusillanimity and inconsistency of Madison's policy before the outbreak of war. It overlooks the jingoistic expansionism of the western war-

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hawks. Its recital of atrocities committed by the enemy has the shrill tone of wartime propaganda. Despite these blemishes, the essay possesses conspicuous merits. Every assertion is documented with the care of a modern scholar. The style is clear and forceful and carries the tone of conviction. This work of Dallas' stands today as a historic document of importance—the fullest and most impressive apologia of the Madison administration as to the causes and conduct of the War of 1812. It was intermittently during the first months of 1815—about the time the Exposition was going through the press—that Dallas also served President Madison as a sort of unofficial Secretary of State. He stepped into the breach when Secretary Monroe, whose health had been broken by his wartime labors, took frequent trips to the country. This particular service of Dallas' proved all the more valuable because the President too was spending much time away from the capital. The foreign relations of the United States following the Treaty of Ghent were passing through placid waters, so that Dallas had to write only occasional notes to Madison and Monroe about affairs of state. He maintained a keen interest in foreign affairs during the whole period which he served in the cabinet. His counsel to Madison and Monroe was always that the United States should take a "high and decided tone" in upholding its rights as a sovereign power while remaining at peace with the world. Far more onerous and far more important were the burdens Dallas assumed in the W a r Department. Late in February 1815, President Madison nominated Monroe as Secretary of State and General Henry Dearborn to succeed him as Secretary of War. The General's record in the recent war had been so inglorious that the Senate summarily rejected his name. Finally, former Senator William H. Crawford of Georgia was agreed upon as a compromise. Crawford was on the high seas at the time, homeward bound from Europe where he had been minister to France. Not until the following August did he formally accept the appointment; not until the following December did he begin regularly to perform the duties of the office. As a result, from March

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2 to December 1, 1815, the War Department was without a permanent head. At President Madison's request, Dallas on March 14 became Acting Secretary of War, remaining Secretary of the Treasury as well. Although he gave over official responsibility for the War Department to the chief clerk after Crawford accepted appointment on August 8, Dallas on occasion reassumed its duties until Crawford actually took up service. In recognition of his temporary tenure, Dallas always phrased his letters and documents so that his acts were performed in the name of President Madison. Among the vexing tasks Dallas faced during his more than five months as Acting Secretary was that of paying the large army which had fought in the recent war. The straitened condition of governmental finances and the inept administration of the War Department under Secretaries Armstrong and Monroe had created an arrearage that exceeded $1,800,000 by the close of 1814. Many officers had not been paid since October 1814. Troops which had enlisted for the duration of the war in many cases were being discharged without being paid what was owed them. Murmurs of discontent began to surge through the armed forces. Dallas was determined that this discontent should not develop into violence. He hoped, moreover, to put departmental finances into good order before Crawford assumed charge. T o these ends he taxed his ingenuity to find funds and prodded the paymasters into remitting promptly to the troops the sums he was able to unearth. His task was lightened somewhat by news which reached him a few days after he became Acting Secretary: Pennsylvania had agreed to lend the federal government $300,000 to pay Pennsylvanians who had been serving as militiamen; N e w York had similarly agreed to lend $350,000 to pay N e w York militiamen. Thanks to his headship of both the Treasury and War departments, Dallas was able to pay troops from N e w England and other states from the surplus of funds appropriated for non-military purposes. In spite of the loan made by N e w York, the payment of N e w

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York troops provided Dallas with a most irritating problem. During the summer of 1815 several state banks and the Corporation of New York City exerted strong pressure upon the Treasury's assets in New York State, making it extremely difficult for Dallas to pay the soldiers. In desperation, he appealed to Governor Daniel Tompkins of New York to intervene with the banks and the city in order to thaw out the government's frozen resources. Dallas did not quite fulfill his hope of handing the War Department over to Crawford with its finances in perfect order. In December 1815 certain arrearages remained, but these were not serious. For one thing, the efficient administration Dallas had given the Department greatly reduced the pressure upon its finances. For another, now that the nation was at peace, it had become possible to discharge all militiamen and volunteers and two-thirds of the regular armed forces, thus bringing to an end the heaviest demand upon the departmental accounts. Dallas' handling of the reduction of the regular army from a wartime to a peacetime basis was a real achievement,—probably the peak of his services performed as Acting Secretary of War. Congress, on March 3, 1815, had directed the President to disband the wartime army and to organize a standing army of ten thousand men. Steps to accomplish the first objective—the discharge of militia and volunteers—had been taken a few weeks before Dallas assumed direction of the Department. But the further reduction of the army to the size prescribed for a standing force, the selection of officers, the organization of military units, and the location of forts were some of the problems left for the Acting Secretary to solve. T o help him in the task of reorganization, Dallas on March 27 requested six generals—Jacob Brown, Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott, Edmund Pendleton Gaines, Alexander Macomb, and Eleazar Ripley—to come to Washington and constitute an advisory board. By April 8, Generals Scott, Macomb, and Ripley had reported; Brown arrived on April 25, but neither Gaines nor Jackson showed up at all.

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When the board began deliberations in the W a r Department offices on April 8, Dallas made clear his intention to supervise its work carefully. Suspecting that jealousy existed among the officers, he was ready to intervene as an impartial party whenever that seemed advisable. He would, he told them, attend the meetings as often as his other duties permitted. He was determined to announce the new organization without delay because "Washington was fast filling with solicitous officers." Dallas submitted certain observations to guide the board in drawing up its proposals. The recent act of Congress, he pointed out, stated simply that the army must be reduced to ten thousand men; the administration had decided that this meant exclusive of officers. Even with this liberal interpretation, twothirds of the men in the regular army would have to be discharged. It followed that the number of officers must be reduced proportionately, that only 39 of 216 field officers and 450 of 2,055 regimental officers could be retained. Therefore, the board should recommend for retention only those officers "who are at this time competent to engage an enemy in the field of battle." If an officer could pursue a civil career or was not dependent upon the army for a livelihood, these facts should be taken into consideration. For the most difficult cases a lottery might be resorted to. Dallas also suggested that the United States be divided into two military districts, one for the North, the other for the South. During the conferences he made additional suggestions about details. T h e comprehensive plan which the board completed about the first of May incorporated most of Dallas' recommendations, and he approved it heartily. T h e selection of officers struck him as being "impartial, and highly meritorious." "Local claims," he pointed out in forwarding it to President Madison, "have not been disregarded in the search for distinguished military merit." B y the middle of May he had received the President's approval and hastened to put the plan into effect through the issuance of four general orders. In the division north of the Ohio River five departments were set up; in the southern division.

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four. General Brown was placed in charge of the northern district, with Ripley and Macomb as brigadiers. Jackson became commander of the southern district, with Scott and Gaines as brigadiers. Inasmuch as Jackson had been unable to attend the conferences, Dallas granted the hero of New Orleans permission to alter the apportionment and distribution of troops in his district. T o soften the disappointment of the more than twenty-six thousand men whose services were being dispensed with, Dallas issued a shrewdly phrased statement on May 17, 1815. The American army of the war of 1812 [he wrote], has hitherto successfully emulated the patriotism and the valor of the army of 1776. The closing scene of the example alone remains to be performed. Having established the independence of their country, the Revolutionary warriors cheerfully returned to the walks of civil life; many of them became the benefactors and ornaments of society in the prosecution of various arts and irofessions; and all of them . . . have been the objects of grateul recollection and of constant reward. It is for the American army now dissolved to pursue the same honorable course, in order to enjoy the same inestimable reward.

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Dallas was immeasurably relieved when the reorganization was completed because, as he sighed, it "cost me much of feeling, as well as labour." His satisfaction was the greater because his chief manifestly appreciated the skill he had shown. The task, President Madison observed, was "distinguished by the delicate questions involved . . . touching the comparative pretensions of meritorious individuals. That there will be a unanimous approbation of what has been done is not to be expected." But he felt certain that "the candid and reasonable part of the public . . . will be more than merely satisfied with the execution of the law." Although there were far fewer complaints than Madison and Dallas expected, enough popped up to keep the President and the Acting Secretary watching anxiously for several months.

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A t the barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, disbanded officers of that section met secretly in May to protest the "shabby" manner in which they had been treated. Conventions of disgruntled officers were scheduled for late August and early September at sixteen large cities. The most annoying of individual critics was General James Wilkinson, who had been stirring up trouble ever since he was relieved of his command during the War of 1812. On May 28 Dallas had to report to Secretary Monroe that Wilkinson "has broken through all decorum; and indulges the most malignant rage in every conversation. He will leave Washington next week, for active mischief elsewhere. His vehicle is to be the Aurora." Dallas thought it would be a good idea to send the General abroad. He had heard that the consulship at Bordeaux might become vacant and proposed the appointment of Wilkinson. But nearly all the discharged officers and most of the men of the disbanded army soon found places in peacetime pursuits. As a result, nothing came of the projected conventions for protest. By the time Wilkinson had a chance to air his grievances in his Memoirs, published two years later, public interest in the matter had ebbed. Though in conversations and correspondence he kept insisting that Dallas was a "scoundrel" and Monroe a "liar," Wilkinson's one-man campaign against the administration found no popular support. As soon as the military reorganization was completed, Dallas turned his attention to a condition that had led many congressmen to vote for a standing army of ten thousand men—the menace of the British and the Indians to our western frontiers. The British commanders kept postponing the surrender and exchange of forts along the Great Lakes as called for in the Treaty of Ghent, causing many Americans to remember uneasily the years the British had delayed delivering up the frontier posts after the Revolutionary War. The Indian tribes remained sullen and continued to make sporadic attacks on the widely scattered

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settlements, especially in Ohio and Michigan Territory. Dallas suspected that they were incited to these depredations by either the Canadian government or the British trading companies. T o reduce the threat from the British, Dallas did everything within his power to reach an understanding with their military and diplomatic officials. In M a y 1815 he ordered the American commanders to obtain British co-operation in the exchange of Fort Maiden for Fort Mackinac and the reoccupation of Fort Niagara. He pressed Secretary Monroe to present "strong and decisive expostulations" to the British government against the traders' excitement of the Indians, and even discussed the question himself with attaches of that nation's legation in Washington. In J u l y , he advised President Madison to issue a proclamation, ostensibly addressed to the Indians but actually to the British and their trading companies, declaring that we had a right to exclude the British from the Indian markets. These efforts were at least partially successful. American forces took possession of Fort Niagara on May 22 and Fort Mackinac on J u l y 18. The British trading companies, after providing for the autumn trade of 1815, curtailed their activity in the Northwest. Meanwhile, Dallas was also attempting to conciliate the Indians. He dispatched two groups of commissioners to meet with the leaders of the tribes along the northwestern and southwestern frontiers. These emissaries were to explain the terms of the Treaty of Ghent and make clear that our government sought no new cessions of land, but wished merely to "cultivate peace and good-will." Through a set of treaties the commissioners made with the savages during the following autumn, a temporary peace was achieved along both borders. T o make assurance of peace doubly sure, Dallas simultaneously put into motion a plan Secretary Monroe had proposed some time earlier for the construction of a cordon of military and commercial posts along the western frontier. A string of garrisons in strategic positions in the Northwest from Green B a y to Chicago, Dallas believed, would "preserve the Indians in peace and submission, and . . . restrain the British traders

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within our bounds." Another series of posts from Chicago along the Illinois River to St. Louis would "cultivate" and "civilize" the southwestern-border area, and supplement the northern chain. Under the direction of General Brown, nine garrisons in the Northwest were opened or strengthened during the spring of 1815 and troops were moved from the N e w York frontier to fill them. Responsibility for establishing the southern chain was delegated to General Jackson. This policy of fortifying the government's military position along the western frontier was continued by Dallas' successors in the W a r Department. T h e conduct of General Jackson in the defense of N e w Orleans kept plaguing Dallas during the time he served as Acting Secretary of War. Residents of N e w Orleans had protested to the government about Jackson's maintenance of martial law in the city for several months following his victory over the British in January 1815. Like President Madison, Dallas had a warm spot in his heart for the country's new hero. Besides, as he dryly observed, it would be "impolitic" to treat him with severity; there were rumors abroad that he was considering running for the governorship of Tennessee. Nevertheless, Dallas, in the line of duty, wrote Jackson on April 12 expressing "surprize and solicitude" as to his conduct and requesting a full account of his actions. T o soften the reprimand, he added that "there will be no disposition in any part of the nation to review with severity the efforts of a commander, acting in a crises [lie] of unparalleled difficulty, upon the impulse of the purest patriotism." Mild though this communication was, it stung the sensitive General. He replied to Dallas that "if the peculiar circumstances under which I am compelled to act do not justify the measures which I pursued, I neither deserve confidence, nor am ambitious to retain it." T h e problem of answering this retort caused Dallas considerable concern. " T h e nature of the subject, and the character of the man," he confided to President Madison, "have made it difficult to address him." He made several starts at writing a reply,

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and finally, on July ι, sent Jackson a temperately phrased dissertation on constitutional law, distinguishing the law of necessity from the law of the land. Occasions arise, he conceded, when constitutional forms must be suspended so that constitutional rights may be preserved. However, it is a moot question as to how long such a crisis can be interpreted as lasting. A military commander possesses the power "to enforce the discipline and to ensure the safety of his garrison or of his camp," but he must always exercise it so as to be "compatible with the rights of the citizens, and the independence of judicial authority." If a commander suspends civil rights, "he may be justified by the law of necessity, but he cannot resort to the law of the land for the means of his vindication." Again Dallas assured Jackson of the administration's esteem and confidence. This exposition did not soothe Jackson. The following N o vember, while visiting Washington to defend his reputation against critics in Congress, the General paid Dallas a visit. The erstwhile Acting Secretary received him cordially, and told him that he could not understand why he was incensed inasmuch as he considered his communications had made it clear that the General's policies were fully approved by the administration. Jackson indignantly produced one of the letters and pointed to an expression he considered unwarranted criticism of his conduct. At this Dallas flushed and promised to discuss the matter at once with President Madison. At an interview the next day, according to Jackson, Dallas presented him with a "chart blanck approving my whole proceedings" at New Orleans. This explanation seems to have mollified the testy General. Perhaps Dallas had a further opportunity to convince him of his good will when their families met socially during the Jacksons' stay in Washington. At any rate, the following February, after he had returned to Nashville, Jackson wrote Dallas a respectful letter, adding that "Mrs. J[ackson] joins me in a tender of respects to your Lady & family."

XX

THE RETURN TO PRIVATE LIFE INTERMITTENTLY during his two years in President Madison's cabinet, Dallas considered withdrawing from public life at Washington so that he might resume his profitable law practice in Philadelphia. At least twice during his initial four months as Secretary of the Treasury—while Congress resisted his efforts to charter a national bank—he almost gave in to the impulse; and from time to time afterwards he wrote old friends of the Philadelphia bench and bar that he was anxious to be released from the "sacrifice and slavery" of Washington. Several factors induced him to remain. He was intent upon accomplishing what he had set out to do when he joined the cabinet: place the governmental finances on a firm footing. Although progress toward that goal was slower than he desired, still he was gratified by the degree of success he was achieving. Moreover, it was pleasant, when his duties took him to Philadelphia or N e w York, to attend civic banquets as a guest of honor and be toasted as a public servant "whose talents are of the first order, whose integrity is above reproach," as the man "who completely redeemed the finances and most ably vindicated the cause and character of the country." Besides, he deeply enjoyed the intimacy with such men as Madison and Monroe which his position in the cabinet made possible. Still another compensation was the social life of the capital, in which the Dallas family reveled. During his first year in Washington, Dallas had lodgings at the boardinghouse of a Mrs. Wilson, where Mrs. Dallas joined him for extended periods. During the second winter the Dallases engaged a house and brought George, Matilda, and Trevanion down to live with them. A frequent visitor to the Dallas menage was Senator Jonathan Roberts of Pennsylvania. Roberts was a Quaker whose conscience twinged when he tasted luxurious living, but he could »3»

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not resist describing his experiences in detail when he wrote home to his wife. The house which Secretary and Mrs. Dallas had engaged for the winter, he reported, had been done up "in elegant style, 8c they have it well furnished. T h e ball room is converted into wards for their servants." T h e Senator noted half with satisfaction, half with disapproval, that "all the fashionable people" of Washington congregated at the Dallas' of an evening. Indeed, he declared, "Dallas's scene beats the drawing room of Mrs. Madison greatly." After "a pretty plentiful 8c palatable meal," he and the Dallas' other guests would sit "all evening cracking conundrums 8c in free and animated conversation." Usually "there was no cards nor no dancing only a little to the piano." T h e Dallas home attracted more than its share of the forty husband-hunting belles who had flocked to Washington to add lustre to a season that made up for the dreariness of those during the war. Among the young women who graced the Dallas drawing room was Ellen Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's grand-daughter, whom Senator Roberts ungallantly described as "homelv." ν Dallas' heavy cabinet responsibilities did not prevent him from returning to Philadelphia to spend most of each summer with his family and old professional friends. But even when he was living in the house on Fourth Street or at Devon, he had to devote most of his time to official work. His three fine homes provided pleasures and diversions, but they likewise formed a heavy drain upon his personal finances. T h e cost of supporting his family in the style to which it had become accustomed far exceeded the $5,000 a year he received as Secretary of the Treasury. Thus it was that during February 1816 he began to look forward to returning to his private practice. By April, when the chartering of the second Bank of the United States was assured, when the nation was beginning to enjoy the prosperity that peace had brought, he felt that his major objectives for the Treasury had been accomplished and he could honorably retire. So, in spite of the urgings of such friends as Du Ponceau,

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233

Rush, and the younger Ingersoll—Rush and Ingersoll told him that he excelled at the bar but was made for public life—Dallas submitted his resignation to President Madison on April 8. He offered to remain in charge of the Treasury until the bank was set in motion, provided that could be accomplished by October i. T h e President accepted the resignation, to become effective in October, but added that his recollection of Dallas' "distinguished ability and unwearied zeal" made him hope the Secretary would change his mind in the meantime. Dallas, however, was adamant about retiring. He suggested to President Madison that he appoint Secretary of W a r Crawford as his successor, and urged his colleague from Georgia to accept the Treasury post if it were tendered. In early May he and his family departed from Washington with cordial goodbyes to their friends but with definite declarations that the family would not be returning. His determination to leave governmental service led Dallas to stifle two incipient political booms in his behalf. Several Kentucky congressmen asked permission to advance his name as a candidate to succeed Madison in the presidency. He declined, saying that, although the constitutional provision that any man not born in the United States was ineligible for the presidency did not apply to him since he had been a citizen when the Constitution was adopted, he felt that the spirit of the document should be respected in all instances. He added that, like President Madison, he strongly favored the election of Secretary Monroe as next President in preference to Crawford or Governor Daniel Tompkins of N e w York whose names were being widely proposed. In September a group of Philadelphia Democratic-Republicans started a movement to nominate Dallas for Congress. This proposal, too, he promptly vetoed. T h e truth was, as his close friends realized, that Dallas had not the slightest chance of winning any elective office. He had won high honor as a statesman during the past two years, but the tide of party politics had swept away his political following, even in his home city.

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DALLAS

The pressure of his duties continued unabated until the moment Dallas left the secretaryship. Although he was able to spend the summer with his family on the Schuylkill, he returned to Washington in September and there drew up a detailed final statement on the condition of the Treasury. When October ι came, he had his affairs in complete order; but as President Madison had not yet settled upon a successor, he volunteered to continue in office a few weeks longer. He left Washington for good in the middle of September, and on October 20 was formally succeeded as Secretary of the Treasury by William H. Crawford. Even when Dallas had reassumed his favorite role of a Philadelphia lawyer, he continued to lend aid to President Madison. At the request of the President, he prepared three paragraphs on the governmental receipts and expenditures for 1816 which Madison utilized almost verbatim in his annual message to Congress in December. He also revised his statement of the government's financial condition as of September 30, 1816, so that the President could release an extract from it at the time he delivered his message. Throughout the autumn Dallas had the satisfaction of reading laudatory notices of his work in the press of the nation. The Charleston, South Carolina, Southern Patriot declared that "his talents, his perseverence, and his integrity, have acquired him the esteem of impartial citizens." Niles' Weekly Register of Baltimore and the Washington National Intelligencer published articles reviewing his administration of the Treasury at length and with approval. Lavish in its praise was a thirty-fivehundred-word article, covering every aspect of his two years in the nation's service, which was published in the Philadelphia Democratic Press and the Washington National Intelligencer. Signed by "John Dickinson," this was probably written by Dallas' friend, Thomas Sergeant. Most gratifying of all was the acknowledgment which President Madison made of Dallas' work in his annual message of December 1816. "Congress will perceive [in the extract from

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235

the report of Dallas published in the message] . . . ," he wrote, "ample proofs of the solid foundation on which the financial prosperity of the nation rests; and will do justice to the distinguished ability and successful exertions with which the duties of that office were executed during a period remarkable for its difficulties and its peculiar perplexities." These words warmed the heart of Dallas and made him feel that his labor in Washington had been adequately appreciated. " T o be praised by such a man! upon such an occasion!" he observed ecstatically to Richard Rush. "I am content. M y family are content." It did not take Dallas long to slip back into the pleasant routine of his Philadelphia life. By the late autumn of 1816 he was again a private citizen, with a lucrative place at the Philadelphia bar and a fine mansion on Fourth Street. The Dallas home was not as crowded as in the old days, for nearly all the children were grown, and some of them had families of their own. Sophia was thirty years old now, the mother of three children. Her husband, Richard Bache—thanks to Dallas' political influence—had been appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia early in 1815. Maria, nearly twenty-three, had been married for three years to Alexander Campbell, a native of Norfolk, Virginia, who resided in Philadelphia. Alexander James Dallas, Jr., at twenty-five had already achieved a notable record in the United States Navy, serving under Commodore John Rodgers on the President in the Atlantic Ocean, and under Commodore Isaac Chauncey on Lake Ontario during the War of 1812. In later life he accompanied Commodore David Porter on his expedition against the pirates in the West Indies and became commander of the Pacific squadron. George Mifflin Dallas, now twenty-four, had married Sophia Chew Nicklin, a member of a proud Philadelphia family, in Mav 1816. Soon after his return from Europe as Gallatin's secretarv in October 1814, he had begun to argue important cases in the federal courts at Philadelphia. Along with his brother-inlaw, Richard Bache, and a relative by marriage, Thomas Ser-

236

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geant, he was forming the political clique known as the "Family Party" which was to be a powerful force in Pennsylvania life for decades. George's ability and political astuteness were to carry him to the United States Senate, to the courts of Russia and Great Britain as American minister, and to the vice-presidency of the United States during Polk's administration. It was in recognition of George's campaign for the annexation of Texas that the city of Dallas was named. T w o of the Dallas children were still living at home. Matilda was about eighteen, an attractive young woman who two years later was to marry William Wilkins, the Pittsburgh lawyer w h o became Secretary of W a r in the cabinet of President Polk. Trevanion Barlow Dallas, the youngest child, was almost sixteen; years later he became a prominent lawyer and judge at Pittsburgh. Dallas' other great love besides his family—the law—extended him a cordial welcome back to Philadelphia. Upon returning, he had felt some misgivings. T h e t w o years he had been away from his practice, he believed, had produced great changes in the profession, and it seemed as if he were "beginning the world again." These doubts passed quickly. Soon he was, as he happily told Richard Rush, again "the drudge of the bar," engaged in important cases in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the federal courts at Philadelphia. Notable among these was a case involving the eligibility of eight men to serve as vestrymen of the Philadelphia German Lutheran Church, heard by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court during November and December 1816. Through an able discussion of the legal status of aliens in Pennsylvania, Dallas won the case for the eight defendants. For more than a decade Dallas had suffered intermittently from a mysterious complaint—excruciating pains which came without warning when he was under great physical and emotional strain. During the summer of 1815 he had suffered t w o such attacks, and another during the summer following. His physicians had different diagnoses. Dr. Caspar Wistar traced

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237

the malady back to an episode of his boyhood, when he had barely escaped drowning while swimming in the Thames River. Dr. Nathaniel Chapman suggested that the attacks were caused by some unusual form of gout. Dallas again felt the stab of the familiar pain early in January 1817. He was in Trenton at the time, arguing the case of Sinickson's will before Mahlon Dickerson, Governor and Chancellor of New Jersey. For six nights he could not sleep, tortured by pain and worry over the outcome of the trial. Gamely he attended the court each day until the argument had been finished. Then he could go on no longer. On a bitterly cold day he took the stagecoach from Trenton for Philadelphia. En route another paroxysm of the complaint seized him. He got off at Frankford and sent for his own carriage to take him the rest of the way home. He reached Fourth Street between one and two o'clock in the afternoon of January 15, and went immediately to bed. B y midnight Drs. Wistar and Chapman were convinced that he was doing well and left him under the watchful eyes of George and Trevanion Dallas. Presently one of the sons, thinking that his father's sleep was remarkably long and sound, observed him more closely. About two o'clock of the morning of January 16, 1817, Alexander James Dallas had peacefully died. "The death of Mr. Dallas," the Washington National Intelligencer reported, "has clothed Philadelphia in the garb of mourning. His old antagonists mingle their tears with [those of] his dearest friends." His professional colleagues and political associates felt Dallas' death acutely. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court and Court of Oyer and Terminer, the federal Circuit Court and Court of Common Pleas adjourned in his memory. "As a mark of respect for the illustrious talents of the deceased," the members of the United States Supreme Court resolved to wear crepe on their left arms during the February term. "I shall always cherish an affectionate recollection of the

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very excellent qualities & real merit of Mr. Dallas," Presidentelect Monroe declared upon receiving the news. The hardbitten Stephen Girard regretfully informed his correspondents of Dallas' death: "That man of talents 8c most useful citizen has rendered many essential services to his country which should never be forgot by the people 8c Government of the U. S." Senator Jonathan Roberts expressed the feeling of those who had known Dallas in the capital: " N o man has fallen lately more generally or more sincerely regretted. . . . Tho we resign him with regret there is something consolatory in the belief that he parted in the splendour of an illustrious reputation." An impressive tribute to Dallas' memory was tendered by the host of men and women who attended his funeral on January 18. Although the mercury was hovering around 17 degrees that afternoon, the crowd, observers estimated, was the largest in Philadelphia since the death of Dr. Benjamin Rush four years before. At the service in the Dallas home were present members of the bar, members of the American Philosophical Society, the Provost, Vice-Provost, teachers, and trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. Bishop William White read from the Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer. Then a procession, led by six clergymen, proceeded down Fourth Street through the gathering dusk to St. Peter's Church. The casket was carried by Judge Richard Peters, Chief Justice William Tilghman, Jared Ingersoll, Peter S. Du Ponceau, Moses Levy, Judge Thomas Cooper, Joseph B. McKean, and Horace Binney. In the burial grounds of the church, just within the Fourth Street gates, the remains of Alexander James Dallas were laid to rest. The crowd which braved the cold, it seemed to the National Intelligencer, "served to shew . . . the sincere grief of the people on losing so good, so able, so useful a man." In his relatively short lifetime he had secured "by his ability, independence, and indefatigable zeal in the public service, a conspicuous place among the departed great."

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IT IS difficult to thank adequately all who have lent the author assistance during the years of research and writing which this book represents. Among those to whom gratitude is chiefly due are four members of the faculty of Columbia University: Professor John Allen Krout, who gave counsel and aid from the inception to the completion of the work; Professor Joseph Dorfman, who made suggestions relating to the sections on finance; and Professors Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins, who read the book in manuscript and proposed improvements as to style and treatment. T o Evarts B. Greene, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, who first introduced him to the pleasures of scholarly study of the early Republican period, the author owes special thanks. But his greatest debt is to his father and mother for their support and encouragement over the long period he was engaged on this work. SOURCES Of the three-score manuscript collections and several hundred rare printed items utilized in the writing of this book, only the most important are indicated in these notes. For the convenience of historians, typewritten copies of the work containing full documentation and an extensive bibliography have been deposited in the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; the Columbia University Library, New York; and the Library of Congress, Washington. MANUSCRIPTS

This book is based largely on manuscript sources. Although many of the papers left by Dallas at his death have apparently been destroyed, numerous manuscripts remain. These unpublished manuscripts are rather widely scattered. The largest number, covering the whole span of Dallas' adult life, are in the Gallatin Papers of the New York Historical Society, New York City. A smaller collection, also bearing upon all phases of Dallas' career, was shown to the author by a person who prefers not to be named here. Besides the New York Historical Society, the principal repositories for manuscripts dealing with Dallas are the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; the Penn»39

24Ο

ALEXANDER

JAMES

DALLAS

sylvania State Archives, Harrisburg; the Library of Congress, Washington; the library of Girard College, Philadelphia; the National Archives, Washington; and the library of the Harvard Business School, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Less important repositories are mentioned later in the notes. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND GENEALOGICAL

T h e only published biography of Dallas is that written b y his son, George Mifflin Dallas, Life and Writings of A. J. Dallas (Philadelphia, 1871). It is little more than an appreciative sketch. However, Dallas' correspondence with President Madison, P. S. Du Ponceau and others, which comprises the sizable appendix, is invaluable because it is unavailable elsewhere. A short article crammed with information is the "Life of A . J. Dallas" written by his friend and admirer, Thomas Sergeant, which appeared in the Philadelphia Port Folio, March 1817. T h e standard genealogy of the Dallas family is James Dallas, History of the Family of Dallas (Edinburgh, 1921). Invaluable for its frank account of Dallas' courtship and stay in Jamaica is the essay by his wife, Arabella Maria Dallas, Autobiographical Memoir for Her Children (no publication place or date). POLITICIAN

Clearly the most important manuscript collection bearing on Dallas' political career is the N e w York Historical Society's Gallatin Papers. Many collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania contain significant items; among these are the McKean, Irvine, Gratz, Society, Dreer, Nead, and Roberts Papers and the minutes of the Philadelphia Democratic Society. T h e Pennsylvania State Archives contain the voluminous records of Dallas' work under the Mifflin and McKean administration. Other collections of consequence are the Emmet, Madison, Monroe, and Pennsylvania Secretary Papers in the N e w York Public Library; the N e w York Historical Society's Miscellaneous Collection; the Jefferson, Madison, Genet, and Rodney Papers in the Library of Congress; and the Pickering Papers of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston. Important printed source collections are Pennsylvania Archives, 2nd Ser., I V ; 4th Ser., III, I V ; 6th Ser., III, I V ; 9th Ser., I, II, III; Pennsylvania House and Senate Journals; Works of

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

24I

Alexander Hamilton (J. C. Hamilton, editor); Works of Alexander Hamilton (H. C. Lodge, editor); Writings of Thomas Jefferson (P. L. Ford, editor); Writings of Thomas Jefferson (H. A. Washington, editor); "Jefferson Papers," Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 7th Ser., I; Writings of James Madison (Gaillard Hunt, editor); Life and Correspondence of Ruf us King (C. R. King, editor); Writings of George Washington (W. C. Ford, editor); Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams (George Gibbs, editor); and "William Duane Letters," Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 2nd Ser., X X . There is some significant material in Charles Biddle's Autobiography (Philadelphia, 1883). As far as newspapers are concerned, the Philadelphia AuroraGeneral Advertiser is easily the most important; its files contain innumerable references to Dallas during the whole course of his political career. For particular periods certain other journals are equally useful. The American Daily Advertiser, the Philadelphia Gazette and the Gazette of the United States, all published in Philadelphia, should be consulted from 1791 to 1801. Most of the significant material in the Philadelphia Porcupine's Gazette has been reprinted in William Cobbett s Porcupine's Works (London, 1801). The Philadelphia Freeman's Journal, Democratic Press, and Relfs Gazette published a number of articles about Dallas from 1805 to 1 8 1 1 . The following biographies treat aspects of Dallas' political career: Henry Adams, Life of Albert Gallatin (Philadelphia, 1879); Bernard Fay, The Two Franklins (Boston, 1933); James H. Peeling, "Public Life of Thomas McKean" (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1929); and Dumas Malone, Public Life of Thomas Cooper (New Haven, 1926). For Fauchet's dispatches and Dallas' denial of their implications, see "Fauchet Correspondence," Am. Hist. Assn. Report for 1903, II; and New York Argus, Dec. 23, 1795. The chronicles of St. Mary's churchyard and Fries case are based on Francis Wharton, State Trials of the United States (Philadelphia, 1849). The account of the Addison case is based on Thomas Lloyd, Trial of Alexander Addison (Lancaster, 1803); that of the trial of the Pennsylvania justices on William Hamilton, Report of the Trial and Acquittal of Edward Shippen (Lancaster, 1805). For Dallas' testimony in the Chase trial, see Annals of Congress, 8th Cong., 2nd Sess., 165-93.

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JAMES

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LAWYER

Besides the Gallatin papers, manuscript collections which throw considerable light on Dallas' legal work include the Gratz, Society, McKean, Wallace, Shippen, and Dreer collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Cushing Papers in the Massachusetts Historical Society; the Rodney, Jefferson, and Monroe Papers in the Library of Congress; the Monroe Papers in the N e w York Public Library; the State Department Miscellaneous Letters, State Department Domestic Letter Books, the Military Books, and Brig. Gen. William Hull Court Martial Papers in the National Archives; and the Girard Papers and Letter Books at Girard College. Accounts of the major non-political court trials in which Dallas participated will be found in the standard Reports of the period—those edited by Dallas, Cranch, Yeates, Wharton, Sergeant, and Rawle, as well as Federal Cases. For certain cases, however, other sources must be consulted. United States v. Bache is reported in the Aurora, June 27 and 30, 1798. The Blount case is recorded in the Annals of Congress, ist, 2nd, and 3rd Sess. T h e Olmstead and Bright cases are reported in Richard Peters, Jr., Proceedings of the Case of Olmstead (Philadelphia, 1809) and Thomas Lloyd, Report of the Whole Trial of General Michael Bright (Philadelphia, 1809). For the Holland Company case, see Paul D. Evans, Holland Land Company (Buffalo, 1924). For Dallas' lobbying work for Girard, consult John B. McMaster, Life and Times of Stephen Girard (Philadelphia, 1918), and Kenneth L. Brown, "Stephen Girard: Financier" (unpublished D. Ed. dissertation, Temple University, Philadelphia, 1941). FINANCIER AND CABINET MEMBER

Manuscript collections are particularly valuable in connection with Dallas' work as a financier and cabinet member. Among the most notable are the Gallatin Papers, Parish Letter Books, and McLane Papers in the N e w York Historical Society; the Society, Roberts, Peters, Gratz, Sergeant, Coryell, and Parker Papers in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Dallas, Monroe, U. S. Treasury Papers, and Emmet Collection in the N e w Y o r k Public Library; the A . J. Dallas, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, Jared Ingersoll, J. Henley Smith, and Biddle Papers and Jacob Brown Letter Books in the Library of Congress; the Girard Papers and Letter Books at Girard College; the Astor Let-

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243

ter Books in the library of Harvard School of Business; the Military Books in the National Archives; and the Treasury Department's Miscellaneous Letter Book, 1789-1832, in the annex of the Treasury Department Building, Washington. Among the collections of printed source material the following are important: American State Papers: Finance; American State Papers: Indian Affairs; Annals of Congress; Writings of Albert Gallatin (Henry Adams, editor); Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (National Edition); Works of John C. Calhoun ( R . K . Cralle, editor); Writings of Madison; Correspondence of Andrew Jackson (J. S. Bassett, editor); Writings of James Monroe (S. M. Hamilton, editor). Several important letters are printed in William M. Meigs, Charles Jared Inger soli (Philadelphia, 1897). Certain autobiographies and reminiscences possess the value of source material. These include Jonathan Roberts, "Memoirs of a Senator from Pennsylvania," Penna. Mag. of Hist, and Biog., L X I I ; Charles Jared Ingersoll, Historical Sketch of the Second War between the United States and Great Britain (Philadelphia, 1845-49); and [Jacob Barker], Incidents in the Life of Jacob Barker (Washington, 1855). T h e files of the following newspapers and magazines contain important material on Dallas' work for the national administration: the Freeman's Journal, Aurora, and Democratic Press, all of Philadelphia; the Washington National Intelligencer; Baltimore Ν ties' Register, and Boston Daily Advertiser. Important monographs treating aspects of Dallas' work include J . T . Holdsworth, First Bank of the United States (Washington, 1910); R . C. H . Catterall, Second Bank of the United States (Chicago, 1903); and Edgar B. Wesley, Guarding the Frontier (Minneapolis, 1935).

INDEX Active,

IJ2,154

Adams, John, 21,41,42,74ff.,80,81, 83, 84, 95,103,108,129,143,148

, John Quincy, 181 Addison, Alexander, 35, 55, 126 if. "Address of the Constitutional Republicans," 138 ff. Advertiser, 49 Alien and Sedition Laws, 76ff.,90, 91. 133 Amelia, 167, 168 American Daily Advertiser, 40, 44, 49, 66, 140

American Museum, 22 American Philosophical Society, 33, 116, 238

Biddle, Charles, 45

B i n g h a m , W i l l i a m , 1 3 , 1 4 , 71, 113

Binney, Horace, I6J, 238

Binns, J o h n , 144,153,175,176,193

Bloomfield, Joseph, 114 Blount, William, 108 ff. Boileau, Nathaniel, 129 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 1, 165, 168, 219, 220

Brackenbridge, Hugh Henry, 53,91, 126, 129

Bradford, Thomas, 19 William, 17, 23, 54, 55, 108 Brailsford, , 105, 106 Bright, Michael, 153 ff., 164 Brodhead, Daniel, 91 Brown, David P., 104 , Jacob, 224, 226 Bryan, George, 33 Buchanan, Thomas, 187 Burd, Edward, 23 Burr, Aaron, 41, 74, 75, 91, 97, 98,

"Americanus," pen name used by Dallas, 68 Ames, Fisher, 92 Annals of Congress, 221 Argus, 72, 74 Armstrong, John, 177, 223 114, 125, 142, 150 Astor, John Jacob, 180, 1830., Burrall, Jonathan, IJ 191 ff. Aurora, 66, 68, 73, 74, 77, 86, 93, 96, Byrd, William, 21 120, 126, 131, 133, 134, 137, 140 ff., Byron, George Anson, 10, 11 , Charlotte Dallas, 7 ff. 227; see also Bache, Benjamin Franklin, and Duane, William Calhoun, John C., 184, 194ff.,200, 209 ff. Bache, Benjamin Franklin, 40, 45, Campbell, Alexander, 235 jo, 51, 66, 73, 74, 77, 108 , G e o r g e W . , 182, 183, 185®., , Margaret H., 77 189, 190 , Richard, 176, 235 , Maria Dallas, 112, 115, 235 , Sophia Dallas, 112, 176, 235 Carey, James, 108 Bainbridge, William, 177 , Mathew, 20, 22, 69 Baker, Hilary, 38 Carlisle, Earl of, 12 Bank of England, 195 of United States (first), 177 ff., Carlyle, Dr. Alexander, 7 Cassius, τ 66 '93 Chapman, Dr. Nathaniel, 237 ( s e c o n d ) , 184FR., 191 ff., 206, Chase, Samuel, 77, 82, 83, 107, no, 207, 209ff.,215, 216 131, 132, 145 Barclay, John, 38, 84 Chauncey, Isaac, 235 Barker, Jacob, 184, 187, 192 Chesapeake, U.S.S., 100 , John, 70 Cheves, Langdon, 194, 195 Barlow, Miss and Mrs., 9 ff. Chew family, 113 Bayard, James Α., 109, 110 Chisbolm v. Georgia, IOJ, 1J5 Beckley, John, 73, 74, 76 Chronicle, 207 Belknap, Jeremy, 21 Clay, Henry, 200, 211 Berlin-Milan decrees, 219 5

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Clinton, De Witt, 175, 176 , George, 41 Clymer family, 113 Coats, William, 70 Cobbett, William, 63, 8j, 86, 90, 116 Coke, Lord, 23 Columbian Magazine, 3, 20 ff. Common law, 6, 105 ff., 110, 124, 130, i j o f f . Conewago Canal Co., 27 Constitution, U.S.S., 167, 168 Cooper, Dr. Thomas, 93 ff., 118, 144, 165, 166, 238 Cormack, Col. T., 6 Cornwallis, Lord, 14 Coxe, Tench, 120, 134, 162 Cranch, William, 103 Crawford, William H., 222 ff., 233, Crowninshield, Benjamin W., 200 Cumberland Road, 218 Daily Advertiser, 207 Dallas, Alexander James, birth, 6; education, 7 ff.; work as clerk and accountant, 8, 9, 15; romance and marriage, 9ff.; admission to Jamaican bar, 1 1 ; moves to the United States, 1 2 , 1 3 ; prepares petition in behalf of the theatre, 15, 16; newspaper and magazine editor, 18 ff.; reports on Pennsylvania convention for ratification of the federal Constitution, 18 ff.; legal reporter, 21 ff., see also Reports of Cases, etc.; as a lawyer, j , 6, 15 ff., 100 ff., 160 ff.; as a lobbyist, 163 ff., 170 ff.; appearance and manners, 14, 15, 103, 104, i n ; social activities and hobbies, 15 ff., iiy, 116, 231, 232, 235, 236; Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 2j ff.; as a politician, 3 ff.; organizes the Pennsylvania anti-Federalists, 32 ff.; and reception of Genet, 43 ff.; attitude toward France, 44, 87, 135; and Philadelphia Democratic Society, 44 ff.; and Little Democrat affair, 47 ff.; and Whiskey Rebellion, j 2 f f . , 71, 72, 86, 87; and protest against the Jay treaty, 66 ff.; and

DALLAS

election of 1796, 74,75; defense of B. F. Bache, 77, 108; and St. Mary's churchyard case, 78, 79; and the Fries case, 79 ff.; press attacks on, 84 ff.; and elections of 1799 and 1800, 89 ff.; contribution to the Pennsylvania Jeffersonian party, 99; offices held, 1801-14, 122, 123, 133, 147; estrangement with the Pennsylvania Radicals, 120 ff., 133 ff.; prosecution of Alexander Addison, 126 ff.; defense of the three Pennsylvania justices, 128 ff.; and Samuel Chase impeachment, 131, 132; organizes the Constitutional Republicans, 136 ff.; apathy to politics after i8oj, 142 ff.; as United States Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, 147 ff.; and court-martial of William Hull, 157 ff.; and the first Bank of the United States, 177 ff.; and War of 1812 loans, 178 ff.; declines a cabinet position, 182; and the second Bank of the United States, 184 ff., 191 ff., 206 ff., 21 j , 216; Secretary of the Treasury, 2, 187 ff., 201 ff.; and specie payments, 201, 202, 205 ff., 212 ff.; policy toward N e w England, 204, 205; and the tariff, 206 ff.; and Jefferson's library, 218; and the Cumberland Road, 218; writes defense of Madison's war policy, 219 ff.; Secretary of State pro tern., 222; Acting Secretary of War, 3, 222 ff.; retires to private life, 231 ff., 236; public comment on cabinet service of, 234, 235; periodic illnesses of, 236, 237; death of, 237; press comment on career of, 237, 238 Dallas, Alexander James (son), 112, 235 - — , Arabella Maria Smith (wife), 9ff., 15, 26, h i ff., 149, 231, 232 , Barbara Cockburn (grandmother), 6 , Charles Stuart (brother), 7, 11 , Elizabeth (sister), 7, 8, 12 , George, of St. Martin's, 6

INDEX Dallas, George Mifflin (son), 112, 113, 116, 143, 181, 231, 235 ff.

, Henrietta Charlotte (sister), see Byron, Charlotte Dallas , James, of St. Martin's (grandfather), 6 , Maria (daughter), see Campbell, Maria Dallas , Matilda (daughter), see Willems, Matilda Dallas , Dr. Robert (father), 6, 7 , Robert Charles (brother), 7 , Sarah Cormack (mother), see Sutherland, Sarah Cormack Dallas , Sophia Burrell (daughter), see Bache, Sophia Dallas , Sophia Chew Nicklin, 235 , Stuart George (brother), 7, 11 , Trevanion Barlow (son), 112, 231, 236,

237

Dayton, Jonathan, 114, 142 Dearborn, Henry, 222 Decatur, Stephen, 177 Delaware and Schuylkill Canal Co., 27 Democratic Press, 144, 153, 175, 193 Democratic societies, 45 ff., 50, 51, 53, J4, 62 ff., 71

Dempsey v. Insurance Co. of Pennsylvania, 16 j, 166 "Devon," 112, 113, 232 Diary, 49 Dickerson, Mahlon, 237 Dickson, William, 142 Duane, William, 77, 78, 89, 93 ff., 120 ff., 133 fr., 140, 143, 148, 17 j; character of, 120 Dunlap, John, 40 Du Ponceau, Peter S., 45, jo, j 1 , 1 1 3 , 161, 166, 232,

238

Duval, Gabriel, 145 Eddy, Thomas, 85 Election, national, of 1792,

35 ff.;

1796, 74. 75; 1800, 91 ff.; 1808, 144; 1812, 176; 1816, 233

, Pennsylvania, of

1793,

143,

46;

1796, 74, 75; 1799, 88 ff.; 1802, 133; 1805, 138 ff.; 1808, 143, 144; 1811, 144

Elphinston, James, 7, 8

247

Emmet, Thomas Addis, 169 Eppes, John W., 172, 184, 190, 191, 193 ff·. '99

"Erie Triangle," 28 Exchange, 168 "Exposition of the Causes and Character of the Late War with Great Britain," 2, 2i9ff. Fallen Timbers, Battle of, 28 Fauchet, Joseph, 71, 72 "Features of Mr. Jay's Treaty," 66 ff., 73

Fenno, John, 86, 87 Findley, James, 35 ——, William, 34, 35, 53, 62, 185 Fitzsimons, Thomas, 32, 63 Fleeson, Plunket, 13 Fort Mackinac, 228 Maiden, 228 Niagara, 228 Fox, Edward, 25 Francis, Thomas W., 178, 179 Franklin, Dr. Benjamin, 8, 14, 33, 77, 102,

176

, Temple, 8 , Walter, 154 Freeman's Journal, 140, 142 French Republic, 43 ff., 87 Freneau, Philip, 40 Fries, John, 79 ff., 93 Gaillard, John, 200 Gaines, Edmund Pendleton,

224,

226

Gallagher, James, Jr., 78, 79 Gallatin, Albert, 1, 35, 48, 50, 53, 61 ff., 74, 84, 92, 98, 99, 114, 117, 119, 121, 122, 134, 135, 140, 144 ff., 171, 177 ff., 181, 201, 235

IIJ, 137, 182,

, Hannah Nicholson, 114,

115,

145,

181

, James, n y Garrick, David, 15 Gazette of the United States, 86, 87 General Advertiser, 40, 44; see also Aurora Genet, Edmond Charles, 43 ff., 69, 88, 120

Genevan Republic, 87

248

ALEXANDER J A M E S

George, Prince Regent of Great Britain, 219, 220 Georgia v. Brailtford, IOJ, 106 German Lutheran Church of Philadelphia, 236 Republican Society of Philadelphia, 4j, j ι Ghent, Treaty of, 1, 200, 201, 221, 222, 227, 228 Girard, Stephen, 170 ff_, 178, 180, 183, 184, 187, 191, 192, 196, 215, 238 Good Friends, 170 ff. Governor Tompkins, 169 Gray and Jackson, 8, 1 j , Mrs, 8 , William, 187 Grundy, Felix, 185 Hall and Nancrede, 69 Hallam, Lewis, Jr., 12, 15, 16, 21, 116 Hamilton, Alexander, 2, 26, 32, 35, 40, 49, 52 ff., 59, 61 ff., 68, 71, 72, 76, 92, 99, 114, 120, 193, 206, 208 Hammond, George, 71, 72 Harper, Robert Goodhue, 109 Hewitt, John, 7 Hibernian Society of Philadelphia, 116 Holland Land Company, 161 ff. Hopkinson, Francis, 20 , Joseph, 79, 101 Huidekoper's Lessee v. Douglass, 164 Hull, Isaac, 177 , William, 157 ff. Hutchinson, Dr. James, 33 ff., 41, 43 ff·, 48 Impeachment of United States senators, 108 ff. Independent Gazetteer, 18 ff. Indian troubles in Pennsylvania, 28 Ingersoll, Charles Jared, 113, 174, 176, 182, 18$, 233 , Jared, 16, 17, 38, 54, 80, 101, 105, io8ff., 113, 117, 118, i29ff., 140, 154, 161, 162, 166, 170, 173, 176, 238 Ingham, Samuel D., 195 Inner Temple, 8 Intelligencer, 142

DALLAS

Iredell, James, 81, 82 Irvine, William, 57, 74, 90 Jackson, Andrew, 224, 226 Jacobin Club of Paris, 4J Jamaica, B . W . I , 6, 7, 11 Jay, John, 49, jo, 67, 68, 155 Treaty, 65 ff., 72, 73, 75, 88 Jefferson, Thomas, 4ff., 21, 30, 40, 41,43,48,49, 73 ff., 84,91 ff., 97 ff., I O J , 106, I 19 FF-, 124, 125, 130, 131, 134 fr., 140, 142, 143, 147 ff., 155, 190, 208, 218, 221, 232 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 7, 8, 18 Jones, William, 121, 172, 181, 182, 185, 186, 216 King, Rufus, 49, 69, 196 Kittera, John W., 148 Knox, Henry, 54 Lacock, Abner, 182, 187 Lancaster turnpike, 27 Land-title cases, 161 ff. La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, 14, 29, 30, 101 "The Law Budget," 22 "Lecture on Heads," 16 Lee, Charles, 84 , Henry, 61 Leib, Dr. Michael, 51, 74, 89, 120 ff., 133, 134, 136, 137, 143, 144, 148, 171, 182; character of, 120, 121 Leiper, Thomas, 96 Lenox, David, 177 Leopard, H.M.S., 100 LeRoy, Herman, jo Levy, Moses, 129, 167, 238 Lewis, William, 17, 37, 80, 83, 84, 101, 131, 132, 148, 161, 162, 166 Library of Congress, 218 Linnaeus, 21 Little Democrat, 47 ff. Livingston family, 41 Lloyd, Thomas, 19, 20 Loans of W a r of 1812,178 ff., 202 ff. Logan, Dr. George, jo, 119, 120, 134, 136, 137, 143 London, 7, 8 Louis X V I of France, 43 Lowndes, William J., 194 ff., 209 Lucas, John B. CM 126

INDEX McClenachan, Blair, 33, 45, 70 McCorkie, William, 140 McKean, Joseph B., 101, 124, 127, 129, 142, 143, 176, 238 , Thomas, 4, 17, 20, 23, 24, 27, 3°. 3'. 37. 38, 54» 57. 69, 7°. 74. 84, ®5< 9'> 92> 9J> 97> " 3 . " 9 , ' 2 2 . I 2 3. 126, 129, 133 ff., 137 ff., 163; character of, 88, 89 McNair, Dunning, 118 Maclay, Samuel, 138 Macomb, Alexander, 224, 226 Macon, Nathaniel, 185 Madison, Dolly, 232 , James, 1, 2, 21, 49, jo, 69, 73, 134, 143 S i '47. '49, '5°. '53, '54, 157 ff., 165, 172, 175 ff., 181 ff., 186, 187, 191, 192, 198, 204, 207, 209, 214, 2i6ff^ 228, 231, 233 ff. Mansfield, Lord, 24 Maritime cases, 149 ff., 152 ff., 164 ff. Marshall, John, 151, 164, 168, 169 Mason, J. T., 167 Mifflin, Thomas, 4, 25 ff., 32, 35, 44, 46ff·, 5 2 · 54ff·, 6 l > 7', 72> 74, 8o> 84ff., 112, 114, 128, 140, 143; character of, 26, 27 Militia of Pennsylvania, 27, 28 Minerva, 84; see also Webster, Noah Mingo Creek (Pa.) Democratic Society, 53 Monroe, James, 84, 145, 149, 158, 171, 172, 183, 186, 197, 222, 223, 227, 228, 231, 233, 238 Montesquieu, 171, 172 Montgomery, Mr., 61 Morgan, Benjamin R., 178 Morris, Robert, 13, 14, 32, 38 Muhlenberg, Frederick Α., 46 , Peter, 89, 120, 134, 136, 137 Napoleon, see Bonaparte, Napoleon National Assembly of France, 50 National Gazette, 40, 44 Intelligencer, 184, 185, 204, 234, »37. »38 Nereide, 169, 170 New Orleans. Battle of, 1, 229, 230 Nicholas, Wilson Cary, 125, 214 Nichols, William, i j i Nicholson, Hannah, see Gallatin, Hannah Nicholson

249

Nicholson, James, 41, 11$ Nicklin, Sophia Chew, see Dallas, Sophia Nicklin Niles, Hezekiah, see Niles' Weekly Register Niles' Weekly Register, 196, 207, 2 34 Norfolk-Portsmouth (Va.) Republican Society, 45 "Oliver Puzzle-Cause," pen name used by Dallas, 22 Oliver, Robert, 187 Olmstead, Gideon, 152 ff., 164 Otis, Harrison Gray, 219 Paine, Thomas, 40 Parish, David, 179, 180, 183 ff., 187, 191 ff. Passmore, Thomas, 128, 129 Patriot, 207 Pellew, Sir Edward, 10 Penn, William, 130 Pennsylvania Evening Herald, 3, 18 ff. Pennsylvania Improvement Co., "7 Pennsylvania Laws, 29, 30, 55, 102 Packet, 18 Pennsylvania, politics of, 32 ff., 84 fr., 119 ff., 151 ff., 162 ff., 176, 233, 235, 236 Society of the Cincinnati, 47 Peters, Richard, 60, 77, 81 ff., 107, 152, 164, 166, 197, 238 Philadelphia, 14, 101 Bank, 178 , bar of, 16, 17, 101, 160, 161 —— Democratic Society, 45, 46, 50 ff., J4, 55, 62ff.,71 Philadelphia Gazette, 68, 94, 96 Pickering, Timothy, 84, 87, 133 Pinckney, Thomas, 74, 75, 97 Pinkney, William, 168 ff., 182 Pinto, , 169 Polk, James, 236 Porcupine's Gazette, 63, 85, 90, :i6; see also Cobbett, William Porter, David, 235 Powel, Samuel, 37 President, U.S.S., 235 Prime, Nathaniel, 187

250

ALEXANDER

JAMES

Prince Regent of Great Britain, see George, Prince Regent Proserpine, 10 Quid Mirror, 142, 143 Ramsay, David, 11 Randolph, Edmund, 56, 71, 72, 105 , Eitlen, 232 , John, of Roanoke, 143, 209 Rawle, William, 23, 80, 83, 101, 112, 131, 132, 148, 161 Reed, Joseph, 23, 33 Relfs Gazette, 140 Religious Society of Friends, 16 Reports of Cases Rtded and Adjudged in the Courts of Pennsylvania Before and Since the Revolution, j, 24, 29, 100, 102, 103, 165 Reynolds, Dr. James, 78, 79, 133 Ripley, Eleazar, 224, 226 Rittenhouse, David, 14, 45, 74, 152 ff. Roberts, Jonathan, 174,185,193, 210, 231, 232, 238 Robinson, Dr. John H., i j o Rodgers, John, 235 Rodney, Caesar Α., 129, 130 Ross, James, 89, 90, 92, 93, 124, 144 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 14, 19 ff., 112, 120, 238 , Richard, 182, 188, 235, 236 St. Clair, Arthur, 35, 36 St. George's Society of Philadelphia, 116 St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church of Philadelphia, 78 ff. St. Peter's Church of Philadelphia, 238 Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon, 168, 169 Scott, Winfield, 224, 226 Sergeant, Elizabeth, 152, 154 , Jonathan D., 17, 33, 45, 46 , Thomas, 103, 234 ff. Serurier, J. M. P., 200 Seybert, Adam, 171 Shakespeare, William, 15, 18 Shipper», Edward, 17, 23, 112, 128, 141 , Thomas Lee, 70

DALLAS

Shriver, Daniel, 218 Sinickson's Will, case of, 23T Sitgreaves, Samuel, 8: Smilie, John, 34, 35, 40, 53, 62 Smith, Arabella Maria, see Dallas, Arabella Maria Smith , Dennis Α., 192 , George, 9 ff. , John, 153, 154 , Robert, 137, 145, 149 , Samuel, 172 , Thomas, 112, 128 Snyder, Simon, 137, 138, 143, 144, 152 ff., 173, 176, 178 Society of Constitutional Republicans, 136 ff. South Carolina Co., 117 Southern Patriot, 234 Specie payments, 201, 202, 205 ff., 212 ff. Spotswood, William, 18, 20 State rights, 105 ff., iyi ff. Stock, Dr., 116 Story, Joseph, 104, 170 Strath Dallas, 6 Strict construction of the federal Constitution, iojff., 109, 1,10, I2

5

Stuart, Gilbert, 21, 111, 112, 114 Sutherland, Sarah Cormack Dalllas, 6 ff., 11, 12 Swanwick, John, 63, 70, 76 Tabathy Riggle v. Isaac Squab, 21 Talbot, Silas, 167, 168 Talbot v. Jansen, 166, 167 v. Ship Amelia, 167, 168 Talbot, William, 167 Tariff, 2, 206 ff. Tilghman, Edward, 1 7 , 1 0 1 , 1 2 9 , 1 1 6 1 , 162, 166 , William, 101, 129, 154, 238 Tompkins, Daniel, 224, 233 Tracy, Uriah, 92 United States v. Fisher, 150, 1 j i v. Nichols, ι j i, 151 v. Richard Peters, 166 v. Worrall, 77, 106, 107, iico University of Pennsylvania, 33, 1 u 6 , 238

INDEX "Valerius," alleged pen name Dallas, 74 Van Buren, Martin, 158 View of the Commerce of the United States, 68, 69 W a r of 1812, ι ff., 175 ff. Washington, Bushrod, 156, 157, 161, 164 (Pa.) Democratic Society, 53, 54 , George, 28, 32, 41, 43, 46, 47, 49, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61 ff., 66, 69 fr., 73. 74. 148 Waters, Esther, 152, 154 Wayne, Anthony, 28 Webster, Daniel, 197, 209, 212 , Noah, 84, 8j "Wedding in Wales," 116 Wereat, John, 117

25 I

Whiskey Rebellion, 28, 52 ff., 71 White, William, 238 Wilkins, Matilda Dallas, 112, 231, 236 , William, 236 Wilkinson, James, 118, 227 William of Ripley, Baron, 6 Willing and Francis, 179 , Thomas, 14, 184 Wilson, Mrs., 231 , James, 17 ff., 32, 37, 38, 57, IJJ, 161, 162 "Window tax," 90 ff. Wistar, Dr. Casper, 236, 237 Wolcott, Oliver, 26, 34, 70 ff., 84 Worrall, Robert, 106, 107 Yazoo land fraud, 140 Yeates, Jasper, 128, 163 Yellow fever in Philadelphia, 28, 29, 46. 77