OTES:

[Footnote 4: Lord Sheffield to Mr. Abbott, November 6, 1812.
_Correspondence of Lord Colchester_, ii. 409.]

[Footnote 5: Gallatin later described Jackson as he first saw him in his
seat in the House: "A tall, lank, uncouth looking individual, with long
locks of hair hanging over his brows and face, while a queue hung down
his back tied in an eelskin. The dress of this individual was singular,
his manners and deportment that of a backwoodsman." Bartlett's
_Reminiscences of Gallatin_.]

[Footnote 6: The phrase "stop the wheels of government" originated with
"Peter Porcupine" (William Cobbett) and was on every tongue.]

[Footnote 7: Charles C. Pinckney, when ambassador to France, 1796.]

[Footnote 8: Jefferson to William Duane, March 28, 1811. Jefferson's
_Works_, vol. v. p. 574.]

[Footnote 9: Jefferson was born in 1743, Madison in 1751, Gallatin in
1761.]

CHAPTER VI

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

_Funding_

The material comfort of every people depends more immediately upon the
correct management of its finances than upon any other branch of
government. _Haute finance_, to use a French expression for which there
is no English equivalent, demands in its application the faculties of
organization and administration in their highest degree. The relations
of money to currency and credit, and their relations to industry and
agriculture, or in modern phrase of capital to labor, fall within its
scope. The history of France, the nation which has best understood and
applied true principles of finance, supplies striking examples of the
benefits a finance minister of the first order renders to his country,
and the dangers of false theories. The marvelous restoration of its
prosperity by the genius of Colbert, the ruin caused by the malign
sciolism of Law, are familiar to all students of political economy. Nor
has the United States been less favored. The names of Morris, Hamilton,
Gallatin, and Chase shine with equal lustre.

Morris, the Financier of the Revolution, was called to the
administration of the money department of the United States government
when there was no money to administer. Before his appointment as
"Financier" the expenses of the government, military and civil, had been
met by expedients; by foreign loans, lotteries, and loan office
certificates; finally by continental money, or, more properly speaking,
bills of credit emitted by authority of Congress and made legal tender
by joint actio