66 INTRODUCTION. 
ficial encouragements with which foreign governments supported their own sub- 
jects, in divisions of industry in which they might be rivalled or surpassed. He 
also examined the hypothesis of the superior productiveness of agriculture, and 
maintained with elaborate reasoning that the general arguments brought to esta- 
blish it were not satisfactory. He discussed the relative advantages of foreign 
and domestic markets, and the circumstances peculiar to the condition of the 
country, which, in his judgment, rendered the interposition of the government for 
the protection of national industry expedient and necessary. On all these ques- 
tions the report covered the whole ground of controversy, and so full and forcible 
was its argument, that it is now referred to as authority, and as a text book by 
those who maintain the necessity of protecting American industry. 
General Hamilton’s report on the establishment of a mint discussed, 1st, What 
ought to be the money unit of the United States; 2d, The proper proportion 
between gold and silver; 3d, The composition and proportion of alloy in each 
metal; 4th, How the expense of coinage should be defrayed; 5th, The number, 
denomination, sizes, and devices of the coins; and 6th, Whether foreign coins 
should be permitted to be current, and at what weight. 
These reports of general Hamilton determined the fiscal policy of the United 
States. The federal government funded its own debt and those of the states. A 
bank was established, and throughout its career, rendered to the government and 
to the commerce of the country the services contemplated. A tariff for revenue, 
incorporated upon the principle of protecting domestic industry was established, 
and a mint was founded which furnished a sufficient supply of the precious metals 
for the proper coimage of the government. The credit of the union and of the 
states was speedily renewed and invigorated, and the public debt incurred in the 
revolutionary war, largely increased in the war of 1812, was finally paid off and 
discharged during the presidency of general Jackson; and the universal prosperity 
consequent upon the measures thus adopted, is now a subject of history. 
The legislature of New-York, as soon as the revolutionary conflict had ended, 
devoted itself to the duty of modifying the jurisprudence and civil polity of the 
