Essay • 1790

First Report on Public Credit

Alexander Hamilton

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Submitted to Congress in January 1790, Hamilton's First Report on Public Credit proposed that the federal government assume the states' war debts and fund the whole at par. The bargain that passed it — assumption for the new capital on the Potomac — set the fiscal foundation of the Republic.

While the observance of that good faith, which is the basis of public credit, is recommended by the strongest inducements of political expediency, it is enforced by considerations of still greater authority. There are arguments for it, which rest on the immutable principles of moral obligation.

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