The Biographical Dictionary of America/Balch, Thomas

BALCH, Thomas, author, was born at Leesburg, Loudon county, Va., July 23, 1821. He studied at Columbia college, read law in the office of Stephen Cambreleng, New York, and was admitted to the bar in 1850. In 1852 he removed to Philadelphia, served in the city councils and presided over some of its most important committees. At the request of the Historical society of Pennsylvania, he edited "The Shippen Papers," "Letters and Papers relating to the Provincial history of Pennsylvania," the "Maryland Papers," and "The Examination of Joseph Galloway for the Seventy-sixth Society." In 1859 he went to Europe, and remained upwards of ten years, making Paris his headquarters, collecting material for his work, entitled "Les Français en Amerique pendant la Guerre de L'Independence des Etats Unis, 1773-1783." In 1865 he proposed in a letter to Horace Greeley, published in the New York Tribune, a court of international arbitration as a measure of averting war, which is believed to have been the first step in this direction. In it was laid down the code of rules observed by the Geneva tribunal. Returning to the United States he devoted himself to literary labor. In September, 1876, he read before the Social science association at Saratoga, a paper in favor of a double standard in coinage, and a paper before a similar association in Philadelphia on "Free Coinage and a Self-adjusting Ratio." An account of many of his writings may be found in an obituary, by John Austin Stevens, in the Magazine of American History for June, 1877. He died in Philadelphia, March 29, 1876.