to the unfinished business of
the former session. On the report of a joint committee, a rule was
established that everything might be taken up where it had been left off
at the adjournment, except bills which after having passed one house had
stopped in the other. These were to be considered as lost, and were not
to be revived except in the form of new matter. The third question was
as to the official intercourse of the heads of departments with
Congress. The question grew out of an intimation from Mr. Hamilton, the
secretary of the treasury, that he was ready to make a report on the
national debt and the support of the public credit, according to the
requirements of a resolution passed at the last session. The question
was, Shall the report be made orally or in writing? The decision was
that it should be in writing; and ever since, the heads of departments
have held intercourse with Congress only in writing, the secretary of
the treasury reporting directly to Congress, the other secretaries
through the president.

Hamilton's financial scheme was the most important subject that
occupied the attention of Congress during that session. It was submitted
to the house on the fifteenth of January. It was a most masterly
performance, and commanded the profound attention and respect of the
whole country. It boldly enunciated principles based upon the broad
foundation of common honesty, by which, in the opinion of the secretary,
the United States ought to be governed in relation to the public debt.
The report opened with an able and comprehensive argument in elucidation
and support of these principles the fundamental ground of the whole
argument being the justice and policy of making adequate provision for
the final payment of the federal and state debts.

These debts amounted in the aggregate to a large sum. Hamilton estimated
the foreign debt due to the account of France, to private creditors in
Holland, and a small sum in Spain, at about eleven and three quarter
millions of dollars. This sum included the arrears of interest (more
than a million and a half of dollars) which had accumulated on the
French and Spanish loans since 1786, and installments of the French loan
overdue. The domestic debt, including interest to the end of 1790, and
an allowance for unliquidated claims of two millions of dollars
(principally unredeemed continental money), he estimated at about
forty-two and a half millions, nearly a third part of which wa