was

farm-from hovel to hovel? Why not any ex- | he exhibited, that the word "migration " ertion of the power of locomotion? I protest introduced into this clause at the instance of I do not see, if this arbitrary limitation of the some of the Southern States, who wished by natural sense of the term migration be warrant- its instrumentality to guard against a prohibiable, that a person to whom it applies may not tion by Congress of the passage into those be compelled to remain immovable all the days States of slaves from other States. He has of his life (which could not well be many) in given us no authority for this supposition, and the very spot, literally speaking, in which it it is, therefore, a gratuitous one. How improbwas his good or his bad fortune to be born. able it is, a moment's reflection will convince him. The African slave-trade being open during the whole of the time to which the entire clause in question referred, such a purpose could scarcely be entertained; but if it had been entertained, and there was believed to be a necessity for securing it, by a restriction upon the power of Congress to interfere with it, is it possible that they who deemed it important would have contented themselves with a vague restraint, which was calculated to operate in almost any other manner than that which they desired? If fear and jealousy, such as the honorable gentleman has described, had dictated this provision, a better term than that of "migration," simple and unqualified, and joined too with the word "importation," would have been found to tranquillize those fears and satisfy that jealousy. Fear and jealousy are watchful, and are rarely seen to accept a security short of their object, and less rarely to shape that security, of their own accord, in such a way as to make it no security at all. They always seek an explicit guaranty; and that this is not such a guaranty this debate has proved, if it has proved nothing else.

Whatever may be the latitude in which the word "persons" is capable of being received, it is not denied that the word "importation indicates a bringing in from a jurisdiction foreign to the United States. The two "termini" of the importation, here spoken of, are a foreign country and the American Union-the first the "terminus a quo," the second the "terminus ad quem." The word migration stands in simple connexion with it, and of course is left to the full influence of that connexion. The natural conclusion is, that the same "termini" belong to each, or in other words, that if the importation must be abroad, so also must be the migration-no other "termini" being assigned to the one which are not manifestly characteristic of the other. This conclusion is so obvious, that to repel it, the word migration requires, as an appendage, explanatory phraseology, giving to it a different beginning from that of importation. To justify the conclusion that it was intended to mean a removal from State to State, each within the sphere of the constitution in which it is used, the addition of the words from one to another State in this Union, were indispensable. By the omission of these words, the word "migration" is compelled to take every sense of which it is fairly susceptible from its immediate neighbor "importation." In this view it means a coming, as "importation" means a bringing, from a foregin jurisdiction into the United States. That it is susceptible of this meaning, nobody doubts. I go further. It can have no other meaning in the place in which it is found. It is found in the constitution of this Union-which, when it speaks of migration as of a general concern, must be supposed to have in view a migration into the domain which itself embraces as a general government.

Migration, then, even if it comprehends slaves, does not mean the removal of them from State to State, but means the coming of slaves from places beyond their limits and their power. And if this be so, the gentlemen gain nothing for their argument by showing that slaves were the objects of this term.

An honorable gentleman from Rhode Island,* whose speech was distinguished for its ability, and for an admirable force of reasoning, as well as by the moderation and mildness of its spirit, informed us, with less discretion than in general

Mr. Burrill.

Sir, I shall not be understood by what I have said to admit that the word migration refers to slaves. I have contended only that if it does refer to slaves it is in this clause synonymous with importation; and that it cannot mean the mere passage of slaves, with or without their masters, from one State in the Union to another.

But I now deny that it refers to slaves at all. I am not for any man's opinions or his histories upon this subject. I am not accustomed "jurare in verba magistri." I shall take the clause as I find it, and do my best to interpret it.

After going through with that part of his argument relating to this clause of the constitution, Mr. Pinkney concluded his speech by expressing a hope that (what he deemed) the perilous principles urged by those in favor of the restriction upon the new State would be disavowed or explained, or that at all events the application of them to the subject under discussion would not be pressed, but that it might be disposed of in a manner satisfactory to all by a proscriptive prohibition of slavery in the territory to the north and west of Missouri.

VOL. II.-9

ALBERT GALLATIN.

THE parents of Albert Gallatin were residents of Geneva, in Switzerland, where he was born on the twenty-ninth of January, 1761.* During infancy he was left an orphan, and was educated under the guidance of an estimable and highly accomplished woman, a distant relative and intimate friend of his mother. He pursued his more advanced studies, with diligence and earnestness, in the educational institutions of his native place, and in the year 1779, graduated at the Geneva University with honor; giving great promise of future eminence. In speaking of his school days, in the latter years of his life, "he often alluded to such of his companions as had subsequently distinguished themselves. He felt peculiar pride in the many great men to whom his native country had given birth, or who had flourished there, such as Sismondi, the historian, Decandolle, the botanist, Agassiz, the naturalist, now among us, and De Lolme and Dumont, the writers on legislation. Müller, the historian, was his instructor in history. De Lolme, he said, was in the class above him, and possessed a great faculty for languages, which enabled him to write his book on the English Constitution, after a residence of only a year in England. Dumont, the disciple and translator of Bentham, and friend of Mirabeau, was in the class below him. Dumont, he said, was not remarkable at school for any thing but the elegance of his French compositions and his facility in verse-making. He had no original genius, but at the same time had an exact estimate of his own powers; and the task of licking Bentham's lucubrations into shape was one that he was admirably fitted to perform."+

Resolved to emigrate to America, Mr. Gallatin, at the age of nineteen, embarked for Boston. The motive for this step can best be understood by the following letter from the Duke de la Rochefoucauld D'Enville to Doctor Franklin, published in the works of the latter, edited by Jared Sparks, L.LD. :

"La Rocheguyon, 22d May, 1780.

"SIR,―The residence of your grandson at Geneva, makes me hope that the citizens of that town may have some claim to your kind attention. It is with this hope that I ask it for two young men, whom the love of glory and of liberty draws to America. One of them is named Gallatin; he is nineteen years of age, well informed for his age, of an excellent character thus far, with much natural talent. The name of the other, Serre. They have concealed their project from their relatives, and therefore we cannot tell where they will land. It is supposed, however, that they are going to Philadelphia, or to the continental army. One of my friends gives me this information, with the request that I will urge you to favor them with a recommendation. I shall share in his gratitude, and I beg you, sir, to be assured of the sentiments with which I have the honor to be, &c.,

"LA ROCHEFOUCAULD D'ENVILLE."

* Mr. Gallatin derived his name of Albert from his maternal grandfather, Albert Rolaz Seigneur du Rosez, of the Pays de Vaud. He was, on the part of both his parents, allied to some of the most distinguished families of Geneva and Switzerland; and, among others, to M. Necker and his celebrated daughter, Madame de Staël. His ancestor John Gallatin, Secretary to the Duke of Savoy, emigrated to Geneva in the early part of the sixteenth contury, embraced the Reformation, and was one of the magistrates of the city, when, by the expulsion of its Prince Bishop, Geneva became an independent republic. His descendants have ever since been uninterruptedly connected with the magistracy of that republic. + Bartlett's Reminiscences of Albert Gallatin: New York Hist. Soc. Collections,

Off the coast of New England the vessel in which Mr. Gallatin was a passenger was delayed by adverse weather, and finally obliged to stop at Cape Ann. Here the young traveller was glad to set foot on shore, and determined to continue the rest of his journey by land. On the fourteenth of July, 1780, he arrived at the town of Boston, where he became acquainted with a family from his native country, and, in a few days after, accompanied them to Machias, in the district of Maine. There learning that Captain John Allen, the commandant of the fort at that place, was enlisting a company of volunteers for the defence of the Passamaquoddy, he joined the troops and accompanied them to the frontier. On this expedition, money being wanted to supply the garrison, Mr. Gallatin made advances to the government, taking an order on the same from which be ultimately realized about one-third its value. "The sum I advanced," said he, in after life, "though small, was to me a very large one, as it was nearly all the money I had; but the case was an urgent one, and I felt happy in having it in my power to do this." In 1781, Mr. Gallatin left the vicinity of Machias and went to Boston. Early in the spring of the next year, he was chosen a teacher of the French language in Harvard College. He remained in this station until the close of the war in 1783; when he removed to Virginia. Here while engaged in prosecuting an extensive claim of a foreign house against the State, he attracted the attention and secured the friendship of many of the most prominent men of the time, among whom was Patrick Henry, "from whom he received several marks of personal friendship, and who predicted that Mr. Gallatin would rise to distinction as a statesman, and strongly advised him to settle in the west,-which in those days did not imply a more remote residence than the neighborhood of the Ohio." This advice seems to have been received with favor, for we find him, in 1785, purchasing with his moderate patrimony from Europe, extensive tracts of land in western Virginia, with the intention of forming a large settlement there. He was, however, prevented from perfecting this project by a renewal of Indian hostilities.

It is probable that it was during the examination of those lands that the following interview* occurred between General Washington and the subject of the present sketch: "Mr. Gallatin said he first met General Washington at the office of a Land Agent, near the Kenawha river, in north-western Virginia, where he (Mr. G.) had been engaged in surveying. The office consisted of a log-house, 14 feet square, in which was but one room. In one corner of this was a bed for the use of the agent. General Washington, who owned large tracts of land in this region, was then visiting them in company with his nephew, and at the same time examining the country with a view of opening a road across the Alleghanies. Many of the settlers and hunters familiar with the country had been invited to meet the General at this place, for the purpose of giving him such information as would enable him to select the most eligible pass for the contemplated road. Mr. Gallatin felt a desire to meet this great man, and determined to await his arrival.

"On his arrival General Washington took his seat at a pine table in the log-cabin, or rather Land Agent's office, surrounded by the men who had come to meet him. They all stood up, as there was no room for seats. Some of the more fortunate, however, secured quarters on the bed. They then underwent an examination by the General, who wrote down all the particulars stated by them. He was very inquisitive, questioning one after the other, and noting down all they said. Mr. Gallatin stood among the others in the crowd, though quite near the table, and listened attentively to the numerous queries put by the General, and very soon discovered from the various relations which was the only practicable pass through which the road could be made. He felt uneasy at the indecision of the General, when the point was so evident to him, and without reflecting on the impropriety of it, suddenly interrupted him, saying, 'Oh, it is plain enough, such a place (a spot just mentioned by one of the settlers) is the most practicable.' The good people stared at the young surveyor (for they only knew him as such) with surprise, wondering at his boldness in thrusting his opinion unasked upon the General. The interruption put a sudden stop to General Washington's inquiries. He laid down his pen, raised his eyes

* Related by Mr. John Russell Bartlett, in his remarks before the New York Historical Society, on the death of Mr. Gallatin.-Proceedings of the N. Y. Hist. Soc.

from his paper, and cast a stern look at Mr. Gallatin, evidently offended at the intrusion of his opinion, but said not a word. Resuming his former attitude, he continued his interrogations for a few minutes longer, when, suddenly stopping, he threw down his pen, turned to Mr. Gallatin, and said, 'You are right, sir.'

"It was so on all occasions with General Washington," remarked Mr. Gallatin to me. was slow in forming an opinion, and never decided until he knew he was right."

"He

"To continue the narrative: the General stayed here all night, occupying the bed alluded to, while his nephew, the land agent, and Mr. Gallatin, rolled themselves in blankets and buffalo skins, and lay upon the bare floor. After the examination mentioned, and when the party went out, General Washington inquired who the young man was who had interrupted him, made his acquaintance, and learned all the particulars of his history. They occasionally met afterwards, and the General urged Mr. Gallatin to become his land agent; but as Mr. Gallatin was then, or intended soon to become, the owner of a large tract of land, he was compelled to decline the favorable offer made him by General Washington."

In 1786, Mr. Gallatin purchased a farm on the banks of the Monongahela, in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and there established his residence. Three years after he was elected by the people of his adopted county to the Pennsylvania convention for the amendment of the State Constitution; and at that time commenced his political career as a member of the Democratic party.* In 1790 he was chosen a member of the State Legislature, and continued in that office until his attendance at Congress, in 1793. In Congress he remained but two months. His citizenship being questioned, his seat was contested, and after a warm and violent controversy, it was decided that he was ineligible.

In May, 1794, he returned to his home in Pennsylvania. Shortly after, the western insurrection against the excise broke out, in the suppression of which he exercised a most important part. On the fourteenth of the following October, he was again elected to the legislature from his own county, and the same day, "on the sole ground of his early and bold efforts to arrest the insurrection, having himself no notice of the fact until after his election," he was chosen a member of Congress for the district of Washington and Alleghany Counties. During the excitement consequent upon this event, the Legislature of Pennsylvania set aside the elections for that body. This had no other effect than the immediate re-election of the ejected members, and to give to Mr. Gallatin the opportunity to make a public statement of all the facts connected with the insurrection. This was done in an elaborate and able speech, delivered in January, 1795, and subsequently published.

In December, 1795, Mr. Gallatin took his seat in Congress, and continued there by re-election, from the same district, during three terms. He was chosen for a fourth term, but was prevented from continuing his congressional duties; being called upon by President Jefferson to take the chair of the United States Treasury. His course in Congress, as well as his services in the financial affairs of the country, are too well known to require particular notice here. He was opposed to the increase of the national debt,-advocated internal improvements, was the originator of the National Road, and to a great degree the author of the public lands system. On the offer of the Russian mediation in 1813, he retired from the cabinet, in which he had served with great honor and usefulness during the presidential terms of Jefferson and Madison, to take part in the negotiations with Great Britain. In 1816 he was appointed minister to the Court of France, and continued in that capacity until 1823, during the same time being twice deputed on extraordinary missions in 1817 to the Netherlands, where he was associated with Doctor Eustis, and in 1818 to England with Mr. Rush. In 1826 he was appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Great Britain, where his services were of the utmost importance to the country he represented. "With respect to the estimation in which he was held throughout his diplomatic career," says his biographer, "it may be safely said that no American abroad in that capacity ever maintained a higher position, in every point of view. He was usually looked to as the head of the diplomatic

* Biographical sketch of Albert Gallatin, by William Beach Lawrence, Esq., in the Democratic Review for June, 1843, to which the editor is indebted for much of the material of this sketch.

corps, in which he had for colleagues, at the two great capitals of Europe, not a few of the most distinguished men of the times. His spotlessness of private character, eminent talents, extent and minuteness of general information, and fine conversational powers, could not fail everywhere to attach to his person the most distinguished social consideration; while on the part of the governments to which he was accredited, the manly uprightness and good faith characterizing all his official conduct, in the full spirit of the American diplomacy, secured him the highest respect and confidence. A peculiar elegance of courtesy and tact, maintained without compromise of the high-toned republicanism of his political sentiments, also served in no small degree to conciliate the good will and good feeling of all parties, as well to the country as to its representative of which he had, on more than one occasion, striking and gratifying proofs."

Mr. Gallatin returned to the United States in the winter of 1827, and established his residence at the city of New York. From this time he took no part in the management of public affairs, with the exception of the preparation of the argument, in behalf of the United States, to be laid before the King of the Netherlands, on the subject of the North-Eastern Boundary. In 1831 he published Considerations on the Currency and Banking System of the United States, in which he advocated the suppression of small notes, and the advantages of a regulated Bank of the United States. In 1838 he rendered valuable and important public service, in effecting the resumption of specie payments by the banks of New York, after the financial crisis of 1836.

The latter years of Mr. Gallatin's life were devoted chiefly to the study of the natural features, productions and aboriginal languages of America. In 1836 be published a Synopsis of the Indian Tribes in the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains, in :he British and Russian Possessions. In 1842 he was elected the first President of the Ethnological Society, in the founding of which institution he was mainly instrumental, and the next year he was chosen to the Presidency of the New York Historical Society, both of which offices he continued to fill until his death. During the excitement attending the north-western boundary question, in 1846, which seemed to threaten a rupture between England and the United States, he published a pamphlet on the subject, in which he advocated a moderate course, which would prevent "the scandalous spectacle, perhaps not unwelcome to some of the beholders, of an unnatural and unnecessary war." This production accomplished beneficial results. His later pamphlets, War with Mexico and Peace with Mexico, are written in the same spirit of moderation, impartiality and benevolence. On the twelfth of August, 1849, Mr. Gallatin died at the village of Astoria, near New York.

THE BRITISH TREATY.

A Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation between the United States and Great Britain, was concluded on the nineteenth of November, 1794. Subsequently it was ratified by the President. On the second of March, 1796, the President proclaimed it the law of the land, and the same day communicated it to the House of Representatives in order that the necessary appropriations might be made to carry it into effect. On the twenty-sixth of April following, in Committee of the Whole on the subjoined resolution: "Resolved, as the opinion of this Committee, that it is expedient to pass the laws necessary for carrying into effect the Treaty with Great Britain; " Mr. Gallatin spoke thus:*

upon

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will not follow some of the gentlemen who have preceded me, by dwelling which has already been the subject of our dethe discretion of the legislature; a question liberations, and been decided by a solemn vote. Gentlemen who were in the minority on that question may give any construction they please to the declaratory resolution of the House; they may again repeat that to refuse to carry the treaty into effect is a breach of the public faith which they conceive as being pledged by the President and Senate. This has been the ground since the beginning of the discussion. It is beon which a difference of opinion has existed cause the House thinks that the faith of the nation cannot, on those subjects submitted to the power of Congress, be pledged by any con

and Mr. Madison's remarks on the same subject, at page 144 in the first volume of this work; also Mr. Giles' speech in

*See Mr. Ames' speech on the British Treaty at page 104, the following pages of this volume.