LS as Secretary of the Treasury, signed “A. Hamilton,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 9.75, September 23, 1790. Important Treasury Department "Circular" letter, requesting regular quarterly returns from the Customs House for legislative purposes. In part: "Some very important objects in the business of the next sessions of the Legislature will render the early transmission of the several quarterly returns and accounts that will be due the 30th instant indispensably necessary. The early receit of these papers is not only requisite for some extraordinary purposes of this Department, but information drawn from them will be particularly desired by several members of the Legislature. From the omission of returns from some of the Custom Houses, when no imports or exports have taken place, and no import on tonnage have accrued; I find it necessary to request, that all the returns may be regularly made at the periods fixed for them respectively…Without regular receit of these papers; periodically made up, no reliance can be placed on statements of this Office relating to the business of the Custom House...For the convenience of filing separately, I request that the copies of endorsements of Registers and the Returns of Seizures be made in future on pieces of paper separate from your letters and unconnected with any other matter." Matted and framed with glass on both sides to an overall size of 20 x 13.5. In fine condition, with light overall wrinkling. Provenance: Lot 52, Christie's, October 21, 1977.
As the nation's first Treasury Secretary, Hamilton enacted economic reforms aimed at promoting American industry. A key plank of his platform was an elaborate system of duties, tariffs, and excise taxes on goods from abroad, designed to make imports more expensive than domestic products.
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