the first session of their organization.

We see, in both houses, men distinguished among the framers, friends,
and advocates of the Constitution. We see in both, those who had drawn,
discussed, and matured the instrument in the Convention, explained and
defended it before the people, and were now elected members of Congress,
to put the new government into motion, and to carry the powers of the
Constitution into beneficial execution. At the head of the government
was WASHINGTON himself, who had been President of the Convention; and in
his cabinet were others most thoroughly acquainted with the history of
the Constitution, and distinguished for the part taken in its
discussion. If these persons were not acquainted with the meaning of the
Constitution, if they did not understand the work of their own hands,
who can understand it, or who shall now interpret it to us?

Sir, the volume which records the proceedings and debates of the first
session of the House of Representatives lies before me. I open it, and I
find that, having provided for the administration of the necessary
oaths, the very first measure proposed for consideration is, the laying
of imposts; and in the very first committee of the whole into which the
House of Representatives ever resolved itself, on this its earliest
subject, and in this its very first debate, the duty of so laying the
imposts as to encourage manufactures was advanced and enlarged upon by
almost every speaker, and doubted or denied by none. The first gentleman
who suggests this as the clear duty of Congress, and as an object
necessary to be attended to, is Mr. Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania; the
second, Mr. White, of VIRGINIA; the third, Mr. Tucker, of SOUTH
CAROLINA.

But the great leader, Sir, on this occasion, was Mr. Madison. Was _he_
likely to know the intentions of the Convention and the people? Was _he_
likely to understand the Constitution? At the second sitting of the
committee, Mr. Madison explained his own opinions of the duty of
Congress, fully and explicitly. I must not detain you, Sir, with more
than a few short extracts from these opinions, but they are such as are
clear, intelligible, and decisive. "The States," says he, "that are most
advanced in population, and ripe for manufactures, ought to have their
particular interest attended to, in some degree. While these States
retained the power of making regulations of trade, they had the power to
cherish such institutions. By a