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246 interpreters of the constitution and of what was right and proper to do under it, their action becomes of vital importance in the consideration of our subject.

Our present government went into effect March 4, 1789, and the second law passed under the constitution was approved July 4, 1789, with the following preamble:

, it is necessary for the support of the government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and for the encouragement and protection of manufactures, that duties be laid on goods, wares and merchandise imported:

, etc.

It was easy to adopt this preamble and the sections of the act which followed it, but how should the principles enunciated in the preamble be carried out? If it was necessary for the encouragement and protection of manufactures that certain things should be done, how should these things be done? Congress found itself absolutely without information, and to secure it an order was passed in the House of Representatives on the 15th of January 1790, directing the Secretary of the Treasury to apply his attention, at as early a period as his other duties would permit, to the subject of manufactures, and particularly to the means of promoting such as would tend to render the United States independent of foreign nations, for military and other essential supplies, and under this order Alexander Hamilton made his celebrated report on the subject of the manufactures of the United States, this report being sent to the House December 5, 1791. Congress sought this information for the purposes of intelligent legislation, but in making his report Mr. Hamilton led the way for the vast contributions to social science which have constantly been made since that time. His report on manufactures, taking the conditions and the means of collecting the facts relating to them into consideration, is a masterpiece of official investigation. Its value was of vast importance at the time it was made, but its value is a continuing one. Every student of economic relations, or of the condition of labor, or of the progress of manufactures, or of the development of industrial