condary to the reserve power for general advantage.

In June, 1839, Mr. Gallatin resigned his post as president of the
National Bank of New York. In 1841 he published a financial essay, which
he entitled "Suggestions on the Banks and Currency of the United
States," a paper full of information, but from the nature of the subject
not to be compared in general interest with his earlier paper, which is
as fresh to-day as when it was written. Mr. Gallatin condemned paper
currency as an artificial stimulus, and the ultimate object of his
essays was to annihilate what he termed the "dangerous instrument." He
admitted its utility and convenience, when used with great sobriety, but
he deprecated its tendency to degenerate into a depreciated and
irredeemable currency. This tendency the present national banking law
arrests, but the law rather invites than prohibits the stimulus of
increased issues. The last word has not yet been said on national
currency, which, though the basis of all commercial transactions, has
necessarily no other relation to banks than that which it holds to any
individual in the community.

Economic questions have interested the highest order of mind on the two
continents. Sismondi published a paper on commercial wealth in 1803, and
in 1810 a memoir on paper money, which he prepared to show how it might
be suppressed in the Austrian dominions; Humboldt made a special study
of the sources and quantity of the precious metals in the world, in
which Mr. Gallatin aided him by investigation in America. Michel
Chevalier was interested in the same subjects; surviving his two masters
in the art and witnessing the marvelous effects of the additions made by
America to the store of precious metals, he continued the study in the
spirit of his predecessors, and favored the world with instructive
papers. Mr. Gallatin's contributions to this science are remarkable for
minute research and careful deductions.

In 1843 President Tyler tendered the Treasury portfolio to Mr. Gallatin.
The venerable financier looked upon the offer as an act of folly to
which a serious answer seemed hardly necessary. Yet as silence might be
misconstrued, he replied that he wanted no office, and to accept at his
age that of secretary of the treasury would "be an act of insanity." He
was then in his eighty-third year. The offer of the post was but an
ill-considered caprice of Mr. Tyler.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: Cents are omitted as confusing