Jefferson's Treasure: How Albert Gallatin Saved the New Nation from Debt

by Gregory May

Overview

George Washington had Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Jefferson had Albert Gallatin.

From internationally known tax expert and former Supreme Court law clerk Gregory May comes this long overdue biography of the remarkable immigrant who launched the fiscal policies that shaped the early Republic and the future of American politics. Not Alexander Hamilton---Albert Gallatin. To this day, the fight over fiscal policy lies at the center of American politics. Jefferson's champion in that fight was Albert Gallatin---a Swiss immigrant who served as Treasury Secretary for twelve years because he was the only man in Jefferson's party who understood finance well enough to reform Alexander Hamilton's system. A look at Gallatin's work---repealing internal taxes, restraining government spending, and repaying public debt---puts our current federal fiscal problems in perspective. The Jefferson Administration's enduring achievement was to contain the federal government by restraining its fiscal power. This was Gallatin's work. It set the pattern for federal finance until the Civil War, and it created a culture of fiscal responsibility that survived well into the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621577645
Publisher:	Regnery History
Publication date:	08/07/2018
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Gregory May is an internationally-known tax expert who brings a fresh and vigorous perspective to American financial history. Decades of work on historic preservation have given him a lively sense of the past as a tangible world, and long familiarity with finance has helped him to decode the evidence about America’s financial founding.

Table of Contents

Illustrations xiii

Introduction xv

Chapter 1 Becoming Republican 1

Chapter 2 Political Promise 23

Chapter 3 Gallatin's Insurrection 41

Chapter 4 Opposition Leader 61

Chapter 5 Republican Triumph 87

Chapter 6 Debt and Democracy 99

Chapter 7 Frugality's Price 141

Chapter 8 Republicans at War 179

Chapter 9 Redemption 221

Chapter 10 Republican Rebirth 259

Acknowledgments 309

Endnote Abbreviations 313

Notes 317

Index 505

Editorial Reviews

Gregory May’s masterful new biography restores Albert Gallatin to his rightful place in the history of the new republic.”

PETER S. ONUF

A worthy rival to Alexander Hamilton, Gallatin is now overdue for his own Broadway musical.”

ALAN TAYLOR

Jefferson's Treasure provides a masterful portrait of one of America’s least likely founding players, Swiss-born Albert Gallatin, America’s longest-serving Treasury Secretary who balanced the Jeffersonian crusade for debt reduction and small budgets with the needs of the emerging American nation. Gregory May's compelling account employs Gallatin’s financial wizardry, statesmanship, and deep humanity as a powerful lens for viewing the nation’s formative decades.

David O. Stewart

"'A real Treasure,' wrote James Madison to his friend Jefferson early in his acquaintance with the proud Genevan, then an even-tempered congressman, who would go on to manage the national economy during their two presidencies. As treasury secretary, Albert Gallatin pointed the modest young republic to a debt-free condition, and founding era history remains incomplete without him. His admiring biographer Henry Adams knew that in 1879. But until Gregory May’s expansive new life of Gallatin, no scholar had ever fully plumbed the depths of his mind and fleshed out his personality, nor conveyed his politics in such lively prose. At last, he emerges from the shadow of presidents.”

Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg

Jefferson’s Treasure is the fascinating story of Albert Gallatin and his struggle to unwind the protectionist and debt-dependent central banking scheme with which Alexander Hamilton had financed the new government of the United States. Greg May serves up a solid contribution to the history of the early Republic and a wealth of wisdom for our times.”

—GEORGE GILDER, author of Wealth and Poverty

“ Gregory May’s masterful new biography restores Albert Gallatin to his rightful place in the history of the new republic.”

–– PETER S. ONUF, University of Virginia, coauthor (with Annette Gordon-Reed) of “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination

“Until Gregory May’s expansive new life of Gallatin, no scholar had ever fully plumbed the depths of his mind and fleshed out his personality, nor conveyed his politics in such lively prose. At last, he emerges from the shadow of presidents.”

–– ANDREW BURSTEIN AND NANCY ISENBERG, coauthors of Madison and Jefferson

“A worthy rival to Alexander Hamilton, Gallatin is now overdue for his own Broadway musical.”

— ALAN TAYLOR, author of American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

From the Publisher