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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory

JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN. - Albert Gallatin, The Writings of Albert Gallatin, vol. 1 [1879]

Edition used:

The Writings of Albert Gallatin, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1879). 3 vols.

Part of: The Writings of Albert Gallatin, 3 vols.

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JEFFERSON TO GALLATIN.

January, 1807.

Th. J. to Mr. Gallatin.

The sale of Dufour’s land appears to have been regular. The purchase, too, by Mr. Mansfield is valid in law and in the equity of the courts. It is true Mansfield was an officer of the United States, but his office was noways connected with the sale of the lands. Had Findlay purchased, it would have been different, because he would have been both seller and buyer; but Mansfield was as much a private citizen as to that sale as the marshal of Washington would have been, or as any private citizen. It might indeed be a very honorable delicacy in him to relinquish it, but I doubt if sound morality requires it.

The opinion on the back of one of the letters respecting the collections of the direct tax in South Carolina, signed D. L., seems to be a very sound one, and the application by William Smith to a court of equity the most extraordinary one I have ever known. The law carefully prescribing the precise procedure in everything respecting a tax, from the moment of the demand till it is in the Treasury, and all in that summary way necessary in tax-gathering, does in effect prescribe what procedure it shall not be subject to, and particularly that it shall not be subject to the dilatory process of the courts: a collector cannot bring an action in a court for a tax, because that is not the remedy the law has provided, and the courts would be filled with these actions, and the people loaded with heavy costs; and, e converso, the citizen cannot carry the case into a court. It is impossible that Judge Bee should sustain the injunction. If he does, the remedies are appeal and impeachment. It would be against usage to be amending the laws on every error of a single judge. Should Bee maintain the injunction, as we have no Attorney-General here, we should take the opinion of Dallas, Hay, or other good lawyers. Affectionate salutations.