d to be present, the House gave its attention
to the pressing demand for money. They did not even wait for the
inauguration of President Washington, but began nearly a month
before that important event to prepare a revenue bill which might,
at the earliest moment, be ready for the Executive approval. Duties
on imports obviously afforded the readiest resource, and Congress
devoted itself with assiduous industry to the consideration of that
form of revenue. With the exception of an essential law directing
the form of oath to be taken by the Federal officers, the tariff
Act was the first passed by the new government. It was enacted
indeed two months in advance of the law creating a Treasury
Department, and providing for a Secretary thereof. The need of
money was indeed so urgent that provision was made for raising it
by duties on imports before the appointment of a single officer of
the Cabinet was authorized. Even a Secretary of State, whose first
duty it was to announce the organization of the government to
foreign nations, was not nominated for a full month after the Act
imposing duties had been passed.

THE TARIFF ENACTED BY FIRST CONGRESS.

All the issues involved in the new Act were elaborately and
intelligently debated. The first Congress contained a large
proportion of the men who had just before been engaged in framing
the Federal Constitution, and who were therefore fresh from the
councils which had carefully considered and accurately measured
the force of every provision of that great charter of government.
It is therefore a fact of lasting importance that the first tariff
law enacted under the Federal Government set forth its object in
the most succinct and explicit language. It opened, after the
excellent fashion of that day, with a stately preamble beginning
with the emphatic "whereas," and declaring that "it is necessary
for the support of government, for the discharge of the debts of
the United States, _and for the encouragement and protection of
manufactures_, that duties be laid on imported goods, wares, and
merchandise." Among the men who agreed to that declaration were
some of the most eminent in our history. James Madison, then young
enough to add junior to his name, was the most conspicuous; and
associated with him were Richard Henry Lee, Theodorick Bland,
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Rufus King, George Clymer, Oliver
Ellsworth, Elias Boudinot, Fish