US Attorney and Secretary of Treasury
In 1801, he was named United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and served until 1814. When his friend Albert Gallatin was treasury secretary when the War of 1812 began, he 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.
Read more about this topic: Alexander J. Dallas (statesman)
Famous quotes containing the words attorney, secretary and/or treasury:
“Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.”
—Truman Capote (1924–1984)
“... the wife of an executive would be a better wife had she been a secretary first. As a secretary, you learn to adjust to the boss’s moods. Many marriages would be happier if the wife would do that.”
—Anne Bogan, U.S. executive secretary. As quoted in Working, book 1, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“Listen to me, imbecile. If the Treasury is important, then human life is not. This is clear. All those who think like you ought to admit this reasoning and count their lives for nothing because they hold money for everything.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)