Alexander Hamilton Papers

Continental Congress Remarks on Appropriating the Impost Exclusively to the Army, [19 February 1783]

Continental Congress
Remarks on Appropriating
the Impost Exclusively to the Army

[Philadelphia, February 19, 1783]

Mr. Hamilton opposed the motion1 strenuously, declared that as a friend to the army as well as to the other Creditors & to the public at large he could never assent to such a partial dispensation of Justice; that the different States being differently attached to different branches of the public debt would never concur in establishg. a fund wch. was not extended to every branch; that it was impolitic to divide the interests of the civil & military Creditors, whose joint efforts in the States would be necessary to prevail on them to adopt a general revenue.

“Notes of Debates in the Continental Congress,” MS, James Madison Papers, Library of Congress.

1. John Rutledge had made a motion that the impost should be used exclusively for the Army. This was a renewal of a proposal which he had made in the committee of the whole on February 18.

Index Entries

    You Are Looking At

    Source Project
    Hamilton Papers
    Title
    Continental Congress Remarks on Appropriating the Impost Exclusively to the Army, [19 February 1783]
    Authors
    Hamilton, Alexander
    Continental Congress
    Date
    19 February 1783

    Reference

    Cite as
    “Continental Congress Remarks on Appropriating the Impost Exclusively to the Army, [19 February 1783],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0161. [Original source: The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, vol. 3, 1782–1786, ed. Harold C. Syrett. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962, p. 262.]