Home > Alexander J. Dallas

Dallas was born in Kingston, Jamaica to Robert and Sarah (Cormack) Dallas. When he was five his family moved to Edinburgh (his father was a Scotsman) and then to London. There he studied under James Elphinston . He planned to study law, but was unable to afford it. He married Arabella Maria Smith in 1780 and the next year they moved to Jamaica. There he was admitted to the bar through his father's connections. Maria's health suffered in Jamaica and they moved to Philadelphia in 1783. Dallas was admitted to the PennsylvaniaPennsylvania (the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is one of four states of the United States of America that is called a commonwealth. It has given its name to the Pennsylvanian time period in geology. Pennsylvania is called the Keystone State. Although Swed bar in 1785Events January 1st The first issue of the Daily Universal Register later known as The Times is published in London. January 7 Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon. His law practice was slow and on the side he edited the Pennsylvania Herald from 1787Events In Britain, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others. January 11 William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus. Februa to 1788Events January 1 First edition of The Times previously The Daily Universal Register was published. January 2 Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 4th U. January 9 Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes t and the Colubmian Magazine from 1787Events In Britain, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others. January 11 William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus. Februa to 1789Events January 7 First nationwide United States election January 21 The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth is printed in Boston, Massachusetts January 23 Georgetown College becomes the first Catholic coll.

When the United States Supreme Court came to Philadelphia in 1791Events January 25 The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791, splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada March 3 The United States Congress passes a resolution calling for the establishment of the United States Mint, he would become their first reporter of decisionsThe Reporter of Decisions of the United States Supreme Court is the official charged with editing and publishing the Court's decisions both when announced and in the bound volumes of the United States Reports''. The first two reporters acted in an unoffic. Because the post of reporter was an unofficial one, Dallas did his work from his own funds. The volumes, of which he produced only four, were faulted for being incomplete, inaccurate, and extremely tardy. For example, the landmark ruling in Chisholm v. Georgia ( 1793) which prompted the Eleventh Amendment, was not reported by Dallas until five years later, well after the Amendment had been ratified. When he abandoned reporting of decisions when the Court moved to the new capital, Washington, D.C., he declared "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."

Governor Thomas Mifflin named Dallas secretary of the commonwealth, a post he held from 1791 to 1801. Because Mifflin was a drunkard, Dallas functioned as de facto governor for much of the late 1790s. Dallas helped found the Democratic Republican party in Pennsylvania and advocated a strict contstruction of the new Constitution.

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 country 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. From March 14, 1815 to December 1815 he was acting Secretary of War and for a time that year was acting Secretary of State as well. He returned to Philadelphia, but lived only a year.

He was a member of the American Philosophical Society from 1791 and a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.

His son George Mifflin Dallas was vice president under James K. Polk and the namesake of the Texas city.