ORIGIN OF THE TITLE SUPERINTENDENT OF

FINANCE

ON Wednesday, February 7, 1781, the Continental Congress agreed to the organization of a department of finance; and they gave to the chief officer of that department the title "superintendant of finance". It is well known that a few days later (February 20) Robert Morris of Philadelphia was named by unanimous consent to take charge of the department under the new title. Accepting the place with some hesitation on May 14, he took the oath of office late in the following June, thus making his position formally complete. The position he held until November 1, 1784—for a period of more than three years. No such officer succeeded him, for the finances of the Confederation were soon after managed by a board.1

The title Superintendent of Finance as borne by Morris remained unique in American history. No one has thus far given special attention to its origin. Surmises on the subject have, it is true, been made." Probably the most remarkable statement regarding the title stands in a single paragraph at the very opening of Professor W. G. Sumner's well-known work on Morris, a paragraph that by its vigor and decision challenges attention. "The only man in the history of the world", remarks Professor Sumner, "who ever bore the title . . . was Robert Morris . . . the office which he filled has never had a parallel." Apparently then the title and the office were a happy inspiration of the Congress of 1780 or 1781. The point of view will serve to direct a brief inquiry into the probable source of the title of 1781.

No fact in American history is more easily authenticated than that of the wide-spread enthusiasm for France which took possession of this country as soon as the alliance of February, 1778, was known to have been established. The slightest familiarity with the newspapers from 1778 to 1783 makes this clear. This en

1Journals of Congress, VII, 29, 30, 38, 79, 87, 96, IX, 169, 179, X, 7, 216, XIII, 106-107; Ellis P. Oberholtzer, Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier, 76; Francis Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, IV, 297-299, 330333, 379-380, 412-414, 470-471, 505-506.

2 Albert S. Bolles, The Financial History of the United States, I, 110; J. C. Guggenheimer, "The Development of the Executive Departments, 1775-1789 ", in Essays in the Constitutional History of the United States (edited by J. F. Jameson), 147, 154, note 3, 155. Both writers suggest that the title may be French in origin.

3 William G. Sumner, The Financier and the Finances of the Revolution, I, 1.

thusiasm for France asserted itself in America at a time when the chief and almost overpowering problem was that of establishing a new form of government, a government that should be strong in structure and capable above all things of being successfully administered. This was indeed the one great practical problem of the Revolutionary as well as of the following epoch. Whatever form the government should ultimately assume, it was clear to a few constructive and liberal minds-to such men as Hamilton, Franklin, Jay, Robert Morris, and, let us add to the list, Pelatiah Webster of Philadelphia-that a sound government must rest on a well-administered national system of finance.

The various committees and boards that had attempted to direct financial matters since June 3, 1775, had proved inadequate. The committees sometimes lacked ability. Moreover the committee and board system was bound to lack real vigor, a fact that Robert Morris appreciated as early as 1776 when he wrote to the Committee of Secret Correspondence that "if the Congress mean to succeed in this contest, they must pay good executive men to do their business as it ought to be, and not lavish millions away by their own mismanagement ". That Congress was soon ready to consider foreign methods of administering the finances, if it could by so doing bring order into the government and strengthen the credit, is clear enough. The very year of the French alliance they made a direct appeal to Dr. Richard Price, the well-known English writer on finance and a warm friend to the Revolutionary cause, to come to America and help reorganize the continental finances. Early in the following year Congress resolved to urge its European agents to inquire into any methods known abroad of administering departments of war, treasury, naval, and other offices. But nothing came of these efforts. When by the spring of 1780 Congress was considering the project of placing Morris at the head of a department of finance, they were doubtless moved by a conviction that was wide-spread-in brief that the only hope for the continental finances, and so for the progress of the war and the ultimate establishment of a strong government, lay in the appointment of trustworthy, capable "heads" of administration, men outside of Congress and responsible to it.

Perhaps the most famous expression of this conviction is Alexander Hamilton's. In the autumn of 1780 he declared to James Duane that Congress should instantly appoint" a secretary of foreign affairs, a president of war, a president of marine, a financier,

1 Peter Force, American Archives, fifth series, III, 1241 (December 16, 1776). Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, II, 474, 756.

2

Secret Journals of Congress, II, 130 (January 25, 1779).

and a president of trade. That Hamilton had his eye upon French administration is clear from his remark that "these officers should have nearly the same powers and functions as those in France analogous to them". But neither Hamilton's writings nor the arid pages of the Journals of Congress give more than very vague suggestions of foreign influence, French influence in particular, working on American minds.

The principle of one-man rule in the executive offices had won its way to results when in January and February, 1781, Congress resolved to appoint three secretaries-for foreign affairs, war, and marine and a "superintendant of finance". The organization of the department of finance was outlined, it will be remembered, on February 7; and that day marked the adoption of the title.2

Close scrutiny of American newspapers and pamphlets between 1778 and 1781 leads to the conclusion that the title Superintendent of Finance was first employed with a sense of its applicability to an American officer by Pelatiah Webster of Philadelphia. In February, 1780-exactly a year before Congress placed on its records the title Superintendent of Finance-Webster declared in print "that a suitable person for the great office of Financier-General, or Superintendent of Finance, should be looked up, and appointed as soon as may be." In order to bring Webster's usage of the title into fuller significance a word should be given to Webster's career.

A Yale graduate in 1746, Pelatiah Webster began work as a clergyman. After about ten years, however, he turned his energies to mercantile business, settled in Philadelphia, and there accumulated a fortune. What leisure he could get he devoted to reading and study, especially in the field of finance and trade. His patriotic zeal carried him far along in his favorite studies. As early as 1776 he began to write for the purpose of helping to solve some of the intricate financial and trade problems already confronting Congress and the country. His collected writings, a volume of well-known essays published four years before his death, are a sure record of his ability, his knowledge of national finance, and his insight into various problems of governmental administration. One may reasonably say that Webster was the maturest American writer on the subject of trade and finance in the epoch of the Revolution. Madison recognized his ability in 1781 and paid a tribute to it later. And

'The Works of Alexander Hamilton, edited by Henry Cabot Lodge (Federal edition, 1904), I, 225, 226.

2 Journals of Congress, VII, 11-12, 16, 23-25, 29.

3 Political Essays (Philadelphia, 1791), 90-91. The original statement appeared February 10, 1780.

it is well known that Webster was consulted from time to time by members of the Continental Congress.1

Like many loyal Americans, Webster was deeply interested in the French alliance. The next year (August, 1779), considering the subject of trade and finance, he wrote: "A good financier is as rare as a phœnix, there is but here and there one appears in an age, yet in our present circumstances, a good financier is as necessary as a general, for the one cannot be supported without the other "." He touched upon the same theme in January, 1780. "In the appointment of an officer of the revenue, or expenditures of the public monies. . . it is necessary ", he remarked, “most essentially necessary, that he should be a man of known industry, economy, and thriftiness in his own private affairs." And he went on to "propose, that a financier or comptroller of finances, be appointed, whose sole object and business should be to superintend the finances. . . . If a man adequate to this business could be found, I conceive his appointment would be of the highest utility . . . as we may easily conceive only by imagining the benefits which might have resulted from such an appointment, had such an one been made five years ago."3 Financial management must be "the work of one mind "such was Webster's repeated advice. The following month he employed for the first time in print the title Superintendent of Finance. And throughout the year 1780 Webster's pen was busy on matters pertaining to trade and finance.

Within the fortnight preceding the organization of a department of finance there appeared in consecutive numbers of the Pennsylvania Gazette, January 24 and 31, 1781, two essays by Webster. In the second essay the author once more tried among other things to enforce the need of placing "men of genius, abilities, integrity and industry" over executive departments. The first essay bore the significant title, "A DISSERTATION on the Nature, Authority and Uses of the Office of a FINANCIER-GENERAL, or SUPERINTENDANT OF THE FINANCES." In it Webster remarked that the office of a Financier-General or "Superintendant" had for some time been contemplated. While the subject was comparatively a new one in America, he had, he added, thought much about it. Then he pro

1 The chief facts in Webster's life are given in Professor Franklin B. Dexter's Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, II, 97-102, including a list of all of Webster's known essays and pamphlets. Madison's tribute will be found in The Madison Papers (ed. Gilpin), II, 706-707. See also Webster's Political Essays, 116, note, 189.

2 Ibid., 49.

3 Ibid., 69, 72-73, 88-89.

Ibid., 72, 170-171, 268.

5 Ibid., 152-161, 162-171.

ceeded to define the duties of such an office very much as they were defined a fortnight later by Congress. He concluded a part of his essay by saying: "this office does not interfere with any other offices of the revenue or expenditures; such as the office of Treasurer or Treasury Board, Auditor of Accounts, &c. &c. This office begins where they end." In brief, Webster's conception of the office was that of a great minister of finance, a veritable Superintendent of the Finances, for in the same essay he wrote: "A good Financier is much the rarest character to be found of any in the great departments of state. France has had but three in four hundred years, viz. the Duke of Sully, under Henry IV. Colbert, under Louis XIV. and Mr. Neckar. England has not had one since Queen Elizabeth's time." Recalling the titles of Colbert and Necker as contrôleurgénéral and directeur-général respectively, one is led by a process of elimination straight to the conclusion that Webster's "Superintendwas probably suggested by Sully's title of superintendant des

finances.

Both essays, one might readily conjecture, were written to help forward a plodding and limping Congress, for very soon after their appearance the leading suggestions in these essays were put into force. Webster was, so far as I am aware, the single writer who during 1780-1781 used the title with a view to its applicability to an American officer. Whether or not he suggested the title to Congress and there is no express evidence regarding the matter— there can be no reasonable doubt that the title was associated by Webster and his contemporaries with the Duke of Sully.

Why under the circumstances of 1780 should not Americans— at least American students of finance and well-read statesmen— catch at the name of Sully and to some extent inform themselves of the man whose name had become a byword indicative of capacity in reëstablishing his country's finances at a critical stage? A hundred and twenty years before Robert Morris was named American Superintendent of Finance, Louis XIV, in September, 1661, dismissed Nicolas Fouquet from the French office of superintendant or surintendant des finances. And at that time the French title was suppressed. The title had come to designate the chief financial minister of the administration. It had been the official title of numerous figures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but among these no man had been abler or more conspicuous in his generation by his ability and afterward through his Mémoires than Maximilien de Béthune, Baron de Rosny and Duc de Sully. For some twelve The form superintendant was the usual one until the seventeenth century. Then it was gradually superseded by the contracted surintendant.

1

AM. HIST. REV., VOL. X.-37.