To James Madison from Albert Gallatin, 30 November 1810
From Albert Gallatin
Nover. 30th 1810
Dear Sir
I enclose the substance of a financial paragraph, also a statement of the receipts & expenditures of the year ending 30th Septer. last and an estimate of those of this quarter. These will supply you with all the facts on which the paragraph is founded.1
In the paragraph for military schools, I would place in the most conspicuous point of view (when speaking of revision of existing law) the necessity of placing them on a respectable footing. It is now worse than none. I believe that no teacher but a drawing master is allowed out of the corps & I know that Hasler2 as professor of mathematics was discharged as not authorized by law. Respectfully Your obt. Servant
Albert Gallatin
[First Enclosure]
The receipts into the treasury during the year ending on the 30th of Septer. last (and amounting to more than eight millions and a half of dollars) have exceeded the current expenses of government including therein the interest on the public debt. For the purpose of reimbursing at the end of this year 3,750,000 dollars of the principal, a loan to that same amount had been negotiated, which has subsequently, on the application of the Secretary of the Treasury, been reduced to 2,750,000 dollars. For the probable receipts of next year and other details I refer you to the statements which will be transmitted from the Treasury and which will enable you to judge what further provision may be necessary for the service of the ensuing years.3
[Second Enclosure]
RC and second enclosure (DLC); first enclosure (DLC: Rives Collection, Madison Papers). RC and second enclosure docketed by JM.
1. Gallatin was continuing his comments on JM’s annual message, which he had begun circa 28 Nov. 1810.
2. Ferdinand R. Hassler (d. 1843), an emigrant from Switzerland, had served as an acting professor of mathematics at the U.S. Military Academy between February 1807 and December 1809 (Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, 1:78).
3. JM incorporated this paragraph as the penultimate section of his annual message on 5 Dec. 1810.