Also see the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

The Constitution gave Congress the right to determine the process by which foreign-born residents could obtain citizenship, and a 1790 Act of the First Congress laid out the process. This 1795 revision required all persons who wished to become naturalized citizens to go to a court to declare their intention at least three years prior to formal application. They would have to take an oath of allegiance, be a person of good moral character, agree to support the Constitution, and renounce any former sovereign and hereditary titles.

“any alien, being a free white person, may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States, or any of them, on the following conditions, and not otherwise....”

By limiting naturalization to “free white” persons, the early acts effectively prevented any people of color or indentured servants from gaining citizenship. Over the next century and a half, these restrictions were at first reinforced (for instance in the notorious Naturalization Act of 1798, part of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which extended the required residency period to fourteen years), but then eventually eliminated by subsequent revisions.

Also see the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

“The conduct of Count de Grasse so far as it hath come to my knowledge charms me; his drupping the British fleet sufficient to Convince teach them they might not & could to keep at due distance & not enter the Cheasapeake or again attempt to Interrupt the siege, & at the same time not suffering himself to be too far diverted from his first & main object…”

Also see the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

“Many Slaves …share in the dangers and glory of the efforts made by US, the freeborn members of the United States, to enjoy, undisturbed, the common rights of human nature; and THEY remain SLAVES!... The enlightened equity of a free people, cannot suffer them to be ungrateful.”

Including two March 3, 1791 Acts of Congress: Resolution to Establish U.S. Mint, and Act that President be requested to report to Congress on “the quantity and situation of lands not claimed by the Indians, nor granted to, nor claimed by any of the citizens of the Unties States within the territory ceded to the United States by the State of North-Carolina, and within the territory of the United States north-west of the river Ohio.” Also the March 30, 1791 Proclamation of Permanent Seat of Government, signed in type by Washington and Jefferson.

Financier of the Revolution forced into bankruptcy court: “Sixty days after date, I promise to pay unto Mr. Mathias Kurlin Junr or Order Thirteen Hundred & forty six Dolls & Sixty Seven Cents for value recd.”

Also see the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

“The establishment of a bank for the United States … upon the principles which afford adequate security for an upright and prudent administration.”

Currently offered only as part of the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

In contrast to the agrarian view of many Virginia founding fathers, New Yorker Alexander Hamilton saw an industrial future for the United States. After nearly two years of study and with the aid of Assistant Secretary Tench Coxe, Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton compiled his famed Report on Manufactures at the request of Congress. With the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, Coxe and Hamilton advocated creating the nation’s first public-private partnership to develop the area around the Great Falls of the Passaic River, using the cataract for power.

With this circular letter, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton requests financial information to respond to an order from the U.S. Senate. This copy went to Commissioner of Loans for Pennsylvania Thomas Smith. Hamilton submitted the report titled “List of Civil Officers of the United States, Except Judges, with Their Emoluments, for the Year Ending October 1, 1792” to the Senate on February 27, 1793.

“Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion....”

At the end of his second term, Washington sent an open letter emphasizing the importance of unity and warning Americans against entanglements with foreign powers. Though he had initially solicited James Madison’s assistance in crafting his remarks, Alexander Hamilton’s second draft is the basis of the final address. Delivered to Congress in writing, Washington’s Farewell Address warns against the dangers of sectionalism, and criticizes “the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” referring to the pro-French sentiments of Jefferson and the Republicans. Washington’s policy during the wars between Great Britain and France in the early 1790s had been one of strict neutrality, and in the closing paragraphs of his Address he argues for continued American isolationism. America heeded his advice against joining a permanent alliance for more than a century and a half.

“A message was received from the President of the United States, with the ratification of the Constitution of the United States by the State of Rhode Island.” (p1/c1)

This very rare broadside Supplement to the Connecticut Courant details congressional proceedings from June 16-25, 1790, including the announcement of the ratification of the Constitution by Rhode Island, debates surrounding the assumption of state war debts by the federal government, a bill regulating trade with Native American tribes, a committee report on books “necessary for the use of Congress,” a committee report on providing “the means of intercourse between the United States and foreign nations,” and other matters.

The First Federal Congress established the Treasury Department on September 2, 1789, only three months before this letter. Hamilton became Secretary of the Treasury – actually the very first member of George Washington’s cabinet – on September 11. Hamilton speedily created processes to organize and run the new nation’s financial system. He requires weekly returns of cash receipts and disbursements, and notes that while monthly returns on import duties will normally not be required, they are for the year about to end. He mentions the need for this information so he can make timely reports to Congress near the beginning of their sessions, with “the information relative to the Revenue which they will necessarily require.” In fact, responding to the request of Congress, Hamilton delivered his seminal Report on Public Credit on January 14, 1790. This letter, introducing his subordinate customs and tax collectors to the developing system, is an early and important part of the process.

Also offered as part of the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

This important newspaper includes an October 9, 1789 letter to George Washington, with his Address responding To the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in North America discussing his gratitude for their support, thanks for the nation weathering the revolution and peacefully establishing constitutional government, and ensuring religious freedom. (p. 1, col. 3).

As well as a printing of Benjamin Franklin’s “Address to the Public from the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage.”

Also see the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

Secretary of State Jefferson signs an Act making appropriations for the federal government in 1791. The figures cited—expenses of the “civil list” and the War Department—were taken directly from Treasury Secretary Hamilton’s Estimates for 1791 Report to the House of Representatives.

This is the only Jefferson-signed copy known in private hands. The only two known institutional copies are at the Library Company of Philadelphia and the New York Public Library.

Currently offered only as part of the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

While Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures is now acknowledged as one of the greatest of American economic papers, Congress promptly tabled it upon delivery in December 1791. Having won the hard-fought battle for his Assumption Plan, he did not push for its adoption. But in March 1792, Congress requested ideas to raise additional revenues needed to defend the nation’s Western frontiers from British Forces and their Indian allies. Hamilton was able to answer the call for funding with the present act’s import tariffs, which boosted American manufactures.

Currently offered as part of the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

Currently offered only as part of the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

“I do myself the honor to transmit to your Excellency the duplicates of two Acts – one for establishing the Treasury department – and one for registering and clearing vessels, regulating the coasting trade, and for other purposes.”

Currently offered only as part of the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.

“Mr Locke says the world has all sorts of men. All degrees of human wisdom are mixed with all degrees of human Folly. To me, and I believe, to you, this world would be a Region of Torment, if such a Recollection existed in our memories.”

Contrasting with the agrarian view of many Virginia founding fathers, New Yorker Alexander Hamilton saw an industrial future for the United States. After nearly two years of study and with the aid of Assistant Secretary Tench Coxe, Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton compiled his famed Report on Manufactures at the request of Congress. With the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, Coxe and Hamilton advocate creating the nation’s first public-private partnership to develop the area around the Great Falls of the Passaic River, using the cataract for power.

“Justice and the support of the public credit require, that provision should be made for fulfilling the engagements of the United States, in respect to their foreign debt, and for funding their domestic debt upon equitable and satisfactory terms.”

Alexander Hamilton understood the necessity of placing the new nation on firm financial ground.

On January 9, 1790, Hamilton delivered to Congress his First Report on Public Credit, a strategy for achieving seven key goals for America’s financial system. One of his primary recommendations was the federal assumption of all states’ war debts, amounting to approximately $22 million in addition to foreign powers who were owed nearly $11 million, and American citizens who had sold food, horses, and supplies to the Army, who held $43 million in debt. Hamilton’s ambitious debt plan aimed to draw both creditors and debtors closer to the federal government by honoring all the Revolutionary War debts in full, paying off the resulting national debt over time from excise taxes and land sales.

Many Southerners opposed Hamilton’s plan, believing it would create a dangerous centralization of power, unfairly penalize the southern states who had already paid off more of their debts, and give the North too much financial control. Ultimately, in a deal between Hamilton, James Madison and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, southern legislators agreed to support the Plan in return for locating the permanent national capital (then temporarily in NY) on the banks of the Potomac River.

The Gazette of the United States, the semi-official newspaper of the federal government, published the acts that codified Hamilton’s Assumption Plan in four parts: “An Act Making Provision for the Debt of the United States” (passed Aug. 4, in the Aug. 7 issue); “An Act to Provide more Effectually for the Settlement of the Accounts between the United States and the Individual States” (passed Aug. 5, in the Aug. 14 issue); “An Act Making Further Provision for the Payment of the Debts of the United States” (padded Aug. 10, in the Aug 21 issue); “An Act making Provision for the Reduction of the Public Debt” (passed Aug 12, in the Aug. 28 issue).