Elias Boudinot’s Copy of Acts of Second Session of First Federal Congress, Including Hamilton’s Assumption Plan, Jefferson’s Quid-Pro-Quo Moving the Capital South, and Ratifications of Bill of Rights

This compilation of the Acts of Congress was owned and signed by Elias Boudinot, a Congressman from New Jersey who previously served as president of the Articles of Confederation Congress (signing the Treaty of Paris ending the Revolutionary War) and later was appointed by George Washington as the third director of the U.S. Mint.

This volume includes laws regarding the first census; naturalization; the creation of the seat of government in Washington, D.C.; the Funding Act that assumed state debts from the Revolutionary War (a key part of Alexander Hamilton’s fiscal plan for the new federal government); copyright; commerce with Native Americans; and a tariff, among other topics.

★ ELIAS BOUDINOT Signed Book. [CONGRESS.] Acts Passed at the Second Session of the Congress of the United States of America, Begun and Held at the City of New York, on Monday, the Fourth of January in the Year M,DCC,XC. First Ed. (New York: Francis Childs & John Swaine, 1790) #26593