On September 30, 1831, a convention of the advocates of free trade, without distinction of party, met at the Musical Fund Hall in Philadelphia. Two hundred and twelve delegates appeared. Among them were Theodore Sedgwick, George Peabody, and John L. Gardner from Massachusetts; Preserved Fish, John Constable, John A. Stevens, Jonathan Goodhue, James Boorman, Jacob Lorillard, and Albert Gallatin from New York; C. C. Biddle, George Emlen, Isaac W. Norris from Pennsylvania; Langdon Cheves, Henry Middleton, Joseph W. Allston, and William C. Preston from South Carolina; and men of equal distinction, bankers, merchants, statesmen, and political economists from other States. Of this convention Mr. Gallatin was the soul. He opened its business by stating the objects of the meeting, and nominated the Hon. Philip P. Barbour of Virginia for president. A general committee of two from each State was appointed, which recommended an address to the people of the United States and a memorial to Congress. The address to the people closed with a declaration that the near extinguishment of the national debt, which would be discharged by the available funds of the government on January 1, 1833, suggested that the moment was propitious for the establishment of the principles of free trade. Thus the people of the United States, who had successfully asserted the doctrines of free government, might add to its claims upon the gratitude of the world by being the first also to proclaim the theory of a free and unrestricted commerce, the genuine "American system." Mr. Gallatin was the chairman of the committee of fourteen, one from each State represented in the convention, to prepare the memorial which was presented in their behalf to Congress, the conclusions of which, presented with his consummate ability, demonstrated with mathematical precision that a duty of twenty-five per cent. was sufficient for all the legitimate purposes of government. Here he found himself in direct opposition to Mr. Clay, whose political existence was staked upon the opposite theory. Mr. Clay answered in a great speech in the Senate in February, 1832, and forgot himself in personal denunciation of Mr. Gallatin as a foreigner with European interests at heart, and of utopian ideas; for this he expressed his regret to Mr. Gallatin in an interview arranged by mutual friends at a much later period. Mr. Gallatin's views were accepted as the policy of the country, and after some shifting of parties, in which friends and foes changed ground in subordination to other political exigencies, they prevailed in the tariff of 1846, the best arranged and most reasonable which the United States has yet seen.