perspicuous and comprehensive; but I am
confident that its true merit, and that which gained me the general
confidence, was its being founded in strict justice, without the
slightest regard to party feelings or popular prejudices. The
principles assumed, and which were carried into effect, were the
immediate reimbursement and extinction of the state paper-money,
the immediate payment in specie of all the current expenses, or
warrants on the treasury (the postponement and uncertainty of which
had given rise to shameful and corrupt speculations), and provision
for discharging without defalcation every debt and engagement
previously recognized by the State. In conformity with this, the
State paid to its creditors the difference between the nominal
amount of the state debt assumed by the United States and the rate
at which it was funded by the act of Congress.

"The proceeds of the public lands, together with the arrears, were
the fund which not only discharged all the public debts, but left a
large surplus. The apprehension that this would be squandered by
the legislature was the principal inducement for chartering the
Bank of Pennsylvania, with a capital of two millions of dollars, of
which the State subscribed one half. This, and similar subsequent
investments, enabled Pennsylvania to defray, out of the dividends,
all the expenses of government without any direct tax during the
forty ensuing years, and till the adoption of the system of
internal improvement, which required new resources.

"It was my constant assiduity to business, and the assistance
derived from it by many members, which enabled the Republican party
in the legislature, then a minority on a joint ballot, to elect me,
and no other but me of that party, senator of the United States."

Among the reports enumerated by Mr. Gallatin, as those of which he was
the author, is one made by a committee on March 22, 1793, that they ...
are of opinion slavery is inconsistent with every principle of humanity,
justice, and right, and repugnant to the spirit and express letter of
the Constitution of the Commonwealth. Added to this was a resolution for
its abolition in the Commonwealth.

The seat of government was changed from New York to Philadelphia in
1790, and the first Congress assembled there in the early days of
December for its f