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Alexander J. Dallas
United States Secretary of War
Acting
In office March 2, 1815 – August 1, 1815
President	James Madison
Preceded by	James Monroe
Succeeded by	William H. Crawford
United States Secretary of State Acting[1]
In office 1815
President	James Madison
6thUnited States Secretary of the Treasury
In office October 6, 1814 – October 21, 1816
President	James Madison
Preceded by	George W. Campbell
Succeeded by	William H. Crawford
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
In office 1801–1814
1stReporter of Decisions of the United States Supreme Court
In office 1790–1800
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	William Cranch
Personal details
Born	Alexander James Dallas (1759-06-21)June 21, 1759 Kingston, Colony of Jamaica
Died	January 16, 1817(1817-01-16) (aged 57) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Political party	Democratic-Republican
Spouse	Arabella Smith ​ (m. 1780)​
Children	George M. Dallas
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Signature

Alexander James Dallas (June 21, 1759 – January 16, 1817) was an American statesman who served as the 6thUnited States Secretary of the Treasury from 1814 to 1816 underPresidentJames Madison.^[2]

Dallas was born inKingston, Jamaica, to Robert Charles Dallas, Sr. and Sarah Elizabeth (Cormack) Hewitt. His brother wasRobert Charles Dallas, who wrote a history of theJamaican 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. Dallas left the island in 1764, having mortgaged the estate and put it in a trust.^[3]

When Alexander was five, his family moved toEdinburgh and then to London. There he studied underJames 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 Major George Smith of the British Army and Arabella Barlow, and a great-granddaughter of Sir Nicholas Trevanion, by way of Reverend William Barlow and Arabella Trevanion. In 1781, they moved to Jamaica. There, Alexander wasadmitted to the bar through his father's connections. However, Maria's health suffered in Jamaica, and they subsequently moved toPhiladelphia in 1783, where he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1785. To supplement his budding law practice, he also took side jobs editing thePennsylvania Herald from 1787 to 1788 and theColumbian Magazine from 1787 to 1789.

Dallas published the second set of state court reports (Ephraim Kirby was first withConnecticut Reports) entitledReports of Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Courts of Pennsylvania Before and Since the Revolution in 1790 containing cases from 1754 to 1789. He then published three succeeding volumes under the title,Reports of Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Several Courts of the United States, and of Pennsylvania, Held at the Seat of the Federal Government (1797, 1799, 1806). As the first reporter for Pennsylvania and United States Supreme Courtreporter of decisions, these volumes began the series of both state and federal reports. These early reports are considered unofficial because Dallas carried out his work publishing the officialUnited States Reports volumes from his own funds. The first Supreme Court case reported wasWest v. Barnes, 2 U.S. (Dall.) 401 (1791), and it was shortened so that it did not include the full seriatim opinions of the justices. The volumes of reports, of which he produced only four, were faulted for being incomplete, inaccurate, and extremely tardy. The landmark ruling inChisholm v. Georgia (1793) which prompted theEleventh Amendment, was not reported by Dallas until five years later, well after the Amendment had been ratified. Later, he wrote: "I have found such miserable encouragement for my reports that I have determined to call them all in, and devote them to the rats in the State-House."^[4] But his publications still serve as an important legal milestone in American legal publishing. He was a founder of theDemocratic-Republican Societies in 1793.

GovernorThomas Mifflin named Dallas Secretary of the Commonwealth, a post he held from 1791 to 1801. Because Mifflin was an alcoholic,^{[citation needed]} Dallas functioned as de facto governor for much of the late 1790s. Dallas helped found theDemocratic-Republican party in Pennsylvania and advocated a strict construction of the newConstitution.^{[citation needed]}

In 1798, Dallas representedPatrick Lyon, who was falsely accused in the1798 Bank of Pennsylvania heist.^[5]

Bureau of Engraving and Printing portrait of Dallas as Secretary of the Treasury

In 1801, he was namedUnited States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and served in that capacity until 1814. His friendAlbert Gallatin wasTreasury Secretary when theWar 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 theSecond Bank of the United States, and put the nation back on the specie system based on gold and silver.^[6]

From March 2, 1815, to August 1, 1815, he was actingUnited States Secretary of War and for a time that year was also actingUnited States Secretary of State. He returned to Philadelphia, but lived only a year.

He was a member of theAmerican Philosophical Society from 1791 and a trustee of theUniversity of Pennsylvania.

Dallas County, Alabama, andDallas Township, Pennsylvania, are named for him. Six U.S. Coast Guard Cutters have been namedDallas, the most recent wasUSCGCDallas (WHEC-716).Fort Dallas inFlorida and the U.S. Navy shipUSSDallas (DD-199) were named after his son,Alexander J. Dallas, who died during his Navy service.^{[citation needed]}

His other sonGeorge Mifflin Dallas wasVice President underJames K. Polk and one possible namesake forDallas, Texas; his father and brother are other possible namesakes of theTexas city.^{[citation needed]}

His daughter, Sophia Burrell Dallas, married on April 4, 1805Richard Bache, Jr., the son ofRichard Bache, Sr. andSarah Franklin Bache. Her husband's father was a marine insurance underwriter and importer in Philadelphia who served asUnited States Postmaster General from 1776 to 1782. Her husband's mother, known as Sally, was the only daughter ofBenjamin Franklin, one of theFounding Fathers of the United States, and his common-law wife,Deborah Read.^{[citation needed]}

Dallas was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1791.^[7]

• Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States

Wikisource has the text of a1911Encyclopædia Britannica article aboutAlexander J. Dallas (statesman).

• Alexander J. Dallas (1815–1815): Secretary of War
• Biography and portrait at the University of Pennsylvania
• Alexander J. Dallas atFind a Grave

• 1759 births
• 1817 deaths
• 18th-century Jamaican politicians
• 19th-century American politicians
• Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
• Burials at St. Peter's churchyard, Philadelphia
• Emigrants from the British West Indies to the United States
• Fathers of vice presidents of the United States
• Madison administration cabinet members
• Pennsylvania lawyers
• Politicians from Kingston, Jamaica
• Reporters of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States
• United States attorneys for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• United States secretaries of the treasury
• University of Pennsylvania people
• Members of the American Philosophical Society

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