
Alexander J. Dallas
Former United States Secretary of the Treasury
Education
- law -
Overview
Alexander James Dallas was an American statesman who served as the 6th United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1814 to 1816 under President James Madison.
U.S. Attorney and Secretary of the Treasury :
In 1801, he was named United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and served in that capacity until 1814. His friend Albert Gallatin was Treasury Secretary when the War of 1812 began and Dallas helped Gallatin obtain funds to fight Britain. The war nearly bankrupted the federal government by the time Dallas replaced Gallatin as Treasury Secretary. Dallas reorganized the Treasury Department, brought the government budget back into surplus, championed the creation of the Second Bank of the United States, and put the nation back on the specie system based on gold and silver.
Early Life
Dallas was born June 21, 1759 in Kingston, Jamaica, to Dr. Robert Charles Dallas and Sarah Elizabeth (Cormack) Hewitt. His brother was Robert Charles Dallas, who wrote a history of the Jamaican Maroons. Dr Dallas bought the Boar Castle estate on the Cane River, Jamaica in 1758, changing its name to Dallas Castle. This property included 900 acres and 91 slaves. Dr Dallas left the island in 1764, having mortgaged the estate and put it in a trust.
When Alexander was five, his family moved to Edinburgh and then to London. There he studied under James Elphinston, a Scottish educator and linguist. He planned to study law, but was unable to afford it. In 1780, Alexander married Arabella Maria Smith (1761–1837) of Pennsylvania. Arabella came from a family lineage with prominent connections to the British military as the daughter of Maj. George Smith of the British Army and Arabella Barlow, and a great-granddaughter of Sir Nicholas Trevanion, by way of Rev. William Barlow and Arabella Trevanion. In 1781, the newlyweds moved to Jamaica. There, Alexander was admitted to the bar through his father's connections. However, Maria's health suffered in Jamaica, and they subsequently moved to Philadelphia in 1783, where he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1785. To supplement his budding law practice, he also took side jobs editing the Pennsylvania Herald from 1787 to 1788 and the Columbian Magazine from 1787 to 1789.
Career
- United States - Former Secretary of the Treasury