U.S. 4715.21.50 am 15.
By Belange

ENTERED, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1834, by CAREY, LEA & BLANCHARD, in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

GRIGGS & CO., PRINTERS.

PREFACE.

THE object of this work, is to present a classification of the legislative measures of the first term of General Washington's administration. The multitudinous subjects which, in the Journals of the two houses, are scattered over the surface of thirteen hundred pages, requiring vast labour and a close scrutiny to discover and to disentangle them from the heterogeneous mass of which they form a part, are herein collected and arranged in system, so as to present at once the entire legislation on every topic of public interest and private concernment.

Connected with this order, an arrangement more general in its character presents the measures before the first and second Congresses, under distinct classes, divided into, and designated, Chapters, for the purpose of a more easy reference, and the more ready comprehension of the course of legislation. It will be perceived that the work embraces only such details as belong to the actual legislation of Congress. To have included the particulars of every individual application to the two houses, would have been to swell the volume to a cumbrous and unwieldy magnitude, without giving to it a corresponding increase of value. Equally impracticable would have been any effort to compress within convenient limits the important public papers communicated by the executive to the legislative branch. Some of these are eminently interesting in themselves, and others appear necessary to elucidate the causes and progress of legislation. Should the public decision as to the usefulness of the present

volume be such as to justify a continuance of the work, the whole of the public documents connected with the parliamentary history of the two terms of General Washington's administration, may be conveniently presented, condensed and arranged in a separate volume, after the completion of the legislative proceedings of that period.

No claim to literary merit can be founded on a publication which is the sole result of reference and research. It was regarded by judicious individuals, conversant with the business of Congress, and well acquainted with the difficulty of tracing the course of legislation in cases to which it may frequently be necessary to advert, as the preferable mode, to exclude from this work every thing which might have the slightest tendency to cloud succinctness, or invest accuracy with doubt. Such would probably have been the effect of adventuring into any latitude of remark, beyond the prescription of necessity. Copiousness, to as great an extent as the limited plan of the work would admit, was deemed of essential importance, in order, as far as possible, to obviate the indispensableness of recurring to the Journals themselves; and it will be apparent that the appropriation of any space to mere editorial observation must be a departure from that rule. It can be scarcely necessary to say more on the subject of the accuracy of the work than that the pari passu references to the Journals, while they present the strongest guarantees for fidelity of purpose, afford every facility for the correction of inadvertent errors; although, in some cases, the daily records of proceedings printed under the authority and inspection of Congress, have been found inaccurate or defective.